KAI
Check your email. I sent you what you wanted.
Fucking Kai. A pain in the ass, but it looks like he came through for me today, so I’ll let it slide. I tell my mom I’ll talk to her later and put on a pair of black jeans and a flannel button-down. Then I open the file from Kai. I quickly scroll through, reading quickly what I can.
Layla June Monroe, age twenty-four. Christ, she’s eight years younger than me. Dropped out of a Georgia State program leading to a teaching degree after her parents’ deaths nearly two years ago. Now in a fast-track program with just over one semester left to becoming a registered massage therapist. I read through the rest of the info, the schedule of her classes, including some this summer, and I check out the clinic she has her placement at. I note her acceptance into a kinesiology program but that she hasn’t accepted the offer yet.
I wonder why.
She’s an honors student and seems to spend all her time at school and at her job at The Palm Club. Just as I suspected, she’sa good girl dying to be bad. One boyfriend a few years back, looks like he was part of her parents’ church. Some photos of her at a dedication on the church’s social media page. Her and another girl in their teens. Layla’s hair was more of a chestnut color then, and the other girl’s hair is black. They’re hugging and holding tambourines. I read through her parents’ file too, not making it past their tragic deaths. Kai has included the police file and I see it’s still an open case. I spend the next thirty minutes reading every single thing I can about her. I don’t need to make notes, I’ll remember it all. That’s just how my brain works; it’s like a sickness sometimes, but it’s helpful for things like this.
I read on, realizing I was right about her social status. Her father was a government accountant and her mother a homemaker who volunteered with their church quite frequently and taught Sunday school.
Kai is a master at finding everything there is to know about people, and Layla has been easy enough to figure out with just a few clicks of a mouse. It seems like she leads a charmed life, and there aren’t any skeletons in her closet.
I reopen her class schedule and memorize it, then I move to my home office.
My house sits at the end of a quiet street in a century-old neighborhood of Harmony. We all spend time at the clubhouse, but we all have homes. Some guys have families, and most have real jobs like I do.
I switch on my computer and my three monitors light up. My house is a Craftsman, modernized for the latest security features, and my office sits behind locked glass doors and is secure. I’m a retired active-duty Marine, but I still work for a branch of Veterans Affairs. For the most part, I don’t agree with any government policy, but I do have a deep respect and love for my country and every single person who serves it.
Pretty much the moment I was discharged, I learned thatyou can’t change anything for these soldiers and Vets unless you do it from the inside. So that’s what I spend my time doing, and the bonus is I get paid very well to do it. Not to mention my schedule works around me. I can check in at will and rarely have to put in more than a couple days of work a week.
I pride myself on being a Vet’s best advocate, and I help them in any way I can, and if that means pushing the government to give them more assistance, so be it. If it means fighting to give them better care, so be it. If it means keeping only a small portion of what I earn so I can financially assist with better programs for the soldiers I personally know, so be it. There’s no limit to what I would give to my brothers and sisters who fought alongside me, and those I don’t even know. We’re all family.
After printing the documents from my phone and deleting the digital files, I place the hard copies into a folder markedLaylain the drawer of my mahogany desk, pushing away the image in my head of her defiant face as she came last night. Refusing to call out my name. My cock twitches with just the thought of the complex puzzle she presents, but I force myself to pull out my notes for my video meeting with the deputy assistant director of Veterans Affairs. I get through almost my entire meeting before my mind is racing again with all the things I’ve just learned about Layla and how much more Iplanto learn. A plan that will start the moment I get off this call.
CHAPTER TEN
Layla
I rub my temples and will the headache forming behind my eyes to go away. I’ve had a full day of Pathology, which has been an info dump for our midterm next week, and I’ve barely slept because every time I close my eyes all I can see are the intense green eyes of the man who looked at me like I belonged to him.
I tossed and turned all night wondering if he will in fact show up at work tonight, and I’ve already planned out some possibilities of what I’ll say to hopefully get him to move on.
I don’t date.
I’m focusing on school.
I have a husband and four kids.
You scare the shit out of me.
My phone buzzes on my desk as my professor finishes up his lecture.
CHANTEL
Amber’s gonna be late. Can you come in at six?
Fuck.I check the time. It’s three now. All I want to do is go home for an hour and take a hot bath before I have to put heels on for the night. I’m not scheduled until seven. I breathe out a tired sigh.
Sure.
Only a few more nights of work until I actually get a day off. A day I will spend on my sofa in my PJs, eating ice cream while I work on my assignment.
“I’ll see you next week. If you have any questions, you can email Gloria,” my prof says, motioning to the TA in the front row.
I make it outside and immediately feel like I’ve been slapped in the face by the sun. It’s a damn scorcher again. Humid as hell, and the idea of getting on the sweltering bus makes me want to call an Uber, but I know that’s a luxury I can’t afford.
