Layla
: Chapter 1

She’s a terrible dancer.

It’s the first thing I notice about her while I’m on the stage, playing to a dwindling crowd. Long arms she seems to have no idea how to control.

She’s barefoot, moving around in the grass, deliberately stomping her feet without any of the delicacy the song expects. She jerks her head wildly, and her unruly black curls sling back to front like she’s jamming out to a heavy metal song.

What makes it funny is that this is a modern country band. A modern bland country band. An entire set of songs that is excruciating to listen to and is even more painful to play.

It’s Garrett’s Band.

That’s literally what it’s called. Garrett’s Band. It’s the best Garrett could come up with.

I’m the unofficial fourth member—the last one to join the band. I play bass. Not the kind of stand-up bass people respect. I play electric bass. The underrated, invisible instrument that’s usually held by the invisible member of the band—the one that fades into the background of each song. I don’t mind fading into the background, though. Maybe that’s why I prefer electric bass over anything else.

After I studied music at Belmont, my goal was to be a singer-songwriter, but I don’t help Garrett write these songs. He doesn’t want the help. We don’t have the same appreciation for music, so I just write songs for myself and hoard them for a future day when I’ll be confident enough to release a solo album.

The band has gotten more popular over the last few years, and even though we’re in more demand, which results in better pay, my rate as the bass player hasn’t increased. I’ve thought about bringing it up to the rest of

the band, but I’m not sure it’s worth it, and they need the money more than I do. Not to mention, if I approach them, they might actually offer me an official spot in the band, and to be honest, I hate this music so much I’m embarrassed I’m even standing up here.

Every show eats away at my soul. A nibble here, a nibble there. I’m afraid if I keep doing this much longer, there won’t be anything left of me but a body.

I’m honestly not sure what keeps me here. I never intended for this to be a permanent thing when I joined, but for whatever reason, I can’t seem to get my ass in gear to step out on my own. My father died when I was eighteen, and as a result of his death, money has never been an issue. He left my mother and me a sizeable life insurance policy, along with an internet installation company that runs itself and employees who prefer I don’t step in and change up years of practices that have been successful.

Instead, my mother and I stay at a distance and live off the income.

It’s definitely something I’m grateful for, but it’s not something I’m proud of. If people knew how little was required of me in this life, I wouldn’t be respected. Maybe that’s why I’ve stayed with the band. It’s a lot of travel, a lot of work, a lot of late nights. But the self-torture makes me feel I at least deserve a portion of what sits in my bank account.

I stand in my designated spot on the stage and watch the girl as I play, wondering if she’s drunk or high, or if there’s a chance she’s out there dancing the way she is to poke fun at just how much this band sucks.

Whatever the reason for her flailing around like a dehydrated fish, I’m thankful for it. It’s the most entertaining thing to happen during a show in a while. I even catch myself smiling at one point—something I haven’t done in God knows how long. And to think I was dreading coming here.

Maybe it’s the atmosphere—the privacy of the venue mixed with the aftermath of a wedding. Maybe it’s the fact that no one is paying us any attention and 90 percent of the wedding party has left. Maybe it’s the grass in the girl’s hair and the green stains all over her dress from the three times she’s taken a tumble during this song. Or maybe it’s the six-month dry spell I’ve forced myself to endure since breaking up with my ex.

Maybe it’s a combination of all those things that is making this girl my entire focus tonight. It’s not surprising because even with makeup smeared down her cheeks and a couple of her curls matted to her forehead from sweat, she’s the prettiest girl out here. Which makes it even stranger that no

one is paying her any attention. The few remaining guests are gathered around the pool with the newly married couple while we play our last song for the night.

My terrible dancer is the only one still listening when we finally finish and then start packing up.

I hear the girl screaming encore as I walk to the back of the stage and put my guitar in the case. I close it in a hurry, hoping to hell I can replace her once we get all the instruments loaded into the van.

The four of us have booked two rooms here at the bed and breakfast for the night. It’s an eleven-hour drive back to Nashville, and none of us wanted to hit that at midnight.

The groom approaches Garrett as he’s closing the doors to the van and invites us all over for a drink. Normally, I’d decline, but I’m kind of hoping the bad dancer stuck around. She was entertaining. And I liked the fact that she never mouthed a single lyric. I don’t know that I could be attracted to a girl who actually likes Garrett’s music.

I replace her in the pool, floating on her back, still wearing the cream-colored bridesmaid dress with the grass stains all over it.

She’s the only one in the pool, so after I grab a beer, I walk over to the deep end, kick off my shoes, and stick my legs in the water, jeans and all.

The ripples from the disturbance at my end of the pool eventually reach her, but she doesn’t look up to see who has joined her in the water.

She just keeps staring up at the sky, as quiet and still as a log floating on top of the water. Such a contrast to the ridiculous display she put on earlier.

After a few minutes of me watching her, the water envelops her entire body, and she’s gone. When her hands push up and part the water and her head breaks through the surface, she’s looking right at me, as if she knew I was here all along.

She keeps herself afloat with small movements of her feet and waves of her arms on top of the water. She slowly closes the gap between us until she’s directly in front of my legs, staring up at me. The moon is behind me, her eyes reflecting its glow like two tiny light bulbs.

From the stage, I thought she was pretty. But from one foot in front of her, I see she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Puffy pink lips, a delicate jawline I’m hoping I might get to run my hand across at some point. Her eyes are as green as the grass that surrounds the pool. I want to

slide into the water with her, but my cell phone is in my pocket, and there’s a half-full can of beer in my hand.

“Do you ever watch those YouTube videos of people dying inside?”

she asks.

I have no idea why she asks that question, but anything could have come out of her mouth just now and it would have moved through me with the same strength those words just did. Her voice is wispy and light, like it floats effortlessly out of her throat.

“No,” I respond.

She’s a little out of breath as she works to keep herself afloat.

“They’re compilations of embarrassing things that happen to people. The camera always zooms in on people’s faces at the worst moment. Their expressions make it look like they’re dying inside.” She wipes water from her eyes with both hands. “That’s what you looked like up there tonight.

Like you were dying inside.”

I don’t even remember her looking up at the stage, much less eyeing me long enough to accurately assess how it feels every time I’m forced to play those shitty songs onstage.

“I’m already dead inside. Died the first night I started playing for the band.”

“I thought so. Did you like my dancing? I was trying to cheer you up.”

I nod and take a sip of the beer. “It worked.”

She grins and slinks underwater for a few seconds. When she comes back up again, she wipes all her hair out of her face and says, “You got a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Wife?”

I shake my head.

“Do you have friends, at least?”

“Not really,” I admit.

“Siblings?”

“Only child.”

“Shit. You’re lonely.”

Another accurate assessment. Although in my case, lonely is a choice.

“Who is the most important person in your life?” she asks. “Parents don’t count.”

“Right now?”

She nods. “Yes. Right now. Who is the most important person in your life?”

I reflect on her question for a moment and realize there’s no one I’d take a bullet for other than my mom. I’m indifferent toward the guys in the band. They’re more like coworkers I have nothing in common with. And since parents don’t count, this girl is literally the only person on my mind right now.

“I guess you,” I say.

She tilts her head, narrowing her eyes. “That’s kinda sad.” She lifts her feet and kicks the wall between my legs, pushing away from me. “I better make this a good night for you, then.” Her smile is flirtatious. An invite.

I accept her invite by placing my phone on the concrete next to the now-empty beer. I take off my shirt and watch her eye me as I slip the rest of the way into the pool.

We’re at the same level now, and dammit if she didn’t just get prettier somehow.

We swim around each other in a slow circle, careful not to touch, even though it’s obvious we both want to.

“Who are you?” she asks.

“The bass player.”

She laughs at that, and her laughter is the opposite of her wispy voice.

It’s deliberate and abrupt, and I might even like it more than her voice.

“What’s your name?” she clarifies.

“Leeds Gabriel.” We’re still swimming around each other in circles.

She tilts her head and gives my name some thought.

“Leeds Gabriel is a front man kind of name. Why are you playing in someone else’s band?” She keeps talking, apparently not really wanting an answer to that question. “Were you named after the town in England?”

“Yep. What’s your name?”

“Layla.” She whispers it like it’s a secret.

It’s the perfect name. The only name she could have said that would fit her—I’m convinced of that.

“Layla,” someone says from behind me. “Open up.” I look over my shoulder, and the bride is standing behind me, holding something out to

Layla. Layla swims over to her, sticks out her tongue, and the bride places a small white pill in the center of it. Layla swallows and I have no idea what that was, but it was sexy as fuck.

She can see I’m transfixed by her mouth. “Leeds wants one,” Layla says, reaching out her hand for another pill. The bride hands her another one and walks away. I don’t ask what it is. I don’t care. I want her so much I’ll be the Romeo to her Juliet and take whatever the hell kind of poison she wants to put on my tongue right now.

I open my mouth. Her fingers are wet, and some of it has dissolved before it even hits my tongue. It’s bitter and hard to get down without coating or water, but I manage it. I chew some of it.

“Who was the most important person in your life yesterday?” Layla asks. “Before I came along?”

“Myself.”

“I’ve bumped you out of the number one spot?”

“Seems that way.”

She moves fluidly and effortlessly onto her back, like she spends more time in a pool than on land. She stares up at the sky again, her arms stretched out wide, her chest rising with a huge intake of air.

I press my back against the side of the pool and stretch my arms out, gripping the concrete ledge. My heart is starting to pound. My blood feels thicker.

I don’t know what kind of drug she gave me, probably Molly or some other kind of upper, because it’s kicking in fast. I’m more aware of everything going on in my torso right now than any other part of my body.

My heart feels swollen, like there isn’t enough room for it.

Layla is still floating on her back, but her face is close to my chest.

She’s right in front of me. If I leaned forward a little, she wouldn’t be looking at the sky. She’d be looking up at me.

Fuck, this is good shit.

I feel good. I feel confident.

The water is so calm around us it looks like she’s floating on air. Her eyes are closed, but when the top of her head bumps against my chest, she looks up at me, her face upside down from mine, like she’s expecting me to do something.

So I do.

I lean in just enough so that my mouth rests gently against hers. We kiss upside down, her bottom lip between both of mine. Her lips are like a soft explosion, igniting hidden minefields under every inch of my skin. It’s weird and fascinating because she’s still on her back, floating on top of the water. I dip my tongue into her mouth, and for whatever reason, I don’t feel worthy enough to touch her, so I keep my arms where they are—gripping the pool on either side of me.

She keeps her arms outstretched, and the only thing she moves is her mouth. I’m thankful our first kiss is upside down because that leaves a hell of a lot of room to anticipate kissing her right side up for the first time. I’m never going to want to kiss a girl again without being high on whatever it is the bride gave us. It’s like my heart constricts to the size of a penny and then balloons to the size of a drum with every beat.

It isn’t beating like it’s supposed to. There’s no gentle bom bom, bom bom, bom bom anymore. It’s a plink and a BOOM.

Plink BOOM, plink BOOM, plink BOOM .

I can’t keep kissing her upside down like this. It’s making me crazy, like we don’t quite fit, and I want my mouth to fit perfectly against hers. I grab her waist and spin her on top of the water until she’s facing me, and then I pull her to me. Her legs go around my waist, and both of her hands come up out of the water and grip the back of my head, which causes her to sink a little because now I’m the only thing keeping her above water. But my own arms are too busy sliding down her back, so we start to sink and neither of us does anything about it. Our mouths lock together right before we’re submerged. Not a single drop of water passes between our lips.

We sink all the way to the bottom of the pool, still fused together. As soon as we hit bottom, we open our eyes at the same time and pull apart to look at each other. Her hair is floating above her now, and she looks like a sunken angel.

I wish I could take a picture.

Air bubbles cloud the space between us, so we both kick ourselves back to the top.

I break the surface two seconds before she does. We’re facing each other, ready to start the kiss over again. We link together, back into the same position we were in. Our mouths seek each other out, but as soon as I taste the chlorine on her lips, we’re interrupted by chants.

I can hear Garrett over several of the others, all cheering our kiss on from where they’re seated. Layla glances behind her and flips them off.

She separates herself from me and pushes to the side of the pool.

“Let’s go,” she says, pulling herself out of the water. She isn’t graceful about it. She pushes up out of the deep end, five feet from the ladder, and has to roll onto the concrete to make it out of the pool. It’s clumsy and perfect. I follow her, and a few seconds later, we’re both running around to the side of the house where it’s darker and more private. The grass is both cold and soft beneath my feet. Like ice . . . but melted.

I guess that would just make it water. But it doesn’t feel like water. It feels like melted ice. Drugs make things hard to explain.

Layla grabs my hand and falls onto the melted ice-grass, pulling me down with her, on top of her. I hold myself up with my elbows so she can breathe, and I stare at her for a moment. She’s got freckles. Not very many, and they’re spread out over the bridge of her nose. A few on her cheeks. I lift my hand and trace them. “Why are you so pretty?”

She laughs. Rightfully so. That was cheesy.

She flips me onto my back, and then she pulls her dress up her thighs so she can straddle me. Her thighs suction to my sides because we’re both sopping wet. I rest my hands on her hips and soak up the intensity of this high.

“Do you know why they call this place the Corazón del País?” she asks.

I don’t know, so I just shake my head and hope it’s a long story so I can hear her talk more than she has. I could listen to her voice all night. In fact, there’s a room inside the bed and breakfast they call the Grand Room, and it’s lined with hundreds of books on every wall. She could read to me all night.

“It translates to Heart of the Country,” she says. There’s excitement in her eyes and voice when she talks. “This location—this very piece of property you’re lying on—is the literal geographical center of the contiguous United States.”

Maybe it’s because I’m very aware of my heartbeat right now, but that doesn’t make sense. “Why would they call it that? The heart isn’t really the center of the body. The stomach is.”

She laughs her sharp, quick laugh again. “True. But Estomago del País doesn’t sound as pretty.”

Fuck. “You speak French?”

“Pretty sure that’s Spanish.”

“Either way, it was hot.”

“I only took one year in high school,” she says. “I have no hidden talents. What you see is what you get.”

“I doubt that.” I roll her off me and pin her wrists to the grass as I roll on top of her. “You’re a talented dancer.”

She laughs. I kiss her.

We kiss for the next several minutes.

We more than kiss. We touch. We move. We moan.

Everything is way too much—like I’m teetering on the edge of death.

My heart just might literally explode in my chest. I’m starting to wonder if we should keep doing this. Drugs coupled with making out with Layla is one thing too much. I can’t let her stay wrapped around me for another second, or I’ll pass the fuck out from everything I’m feeling. It’s like every nerve ending grew a nerve ending. I feel everything with double the magnitude.

“I have to stop,” I whisper, unwrapping her legs from around me.

“What the hell are we on? I can’t breathe.” I roll onto my back, gasping for air.

“You mean what did my sister give you?”

“The bride is your sister?”

“Yeah, her name is Aspen. She’s three years older than me.” Layla lifts herself up onto her elbow. “Why? Do you like it?”

I nod. “Yes. I love it.”

“It’s intense, right?”

“Fuck yes.”

“Aspen gives it to me every time I drink too much.” She leans in until her mouth is against my ear. “It’s called aspirin.” When she pulls back, the confusion on my face makes her grin. “Did you think you were high?”

Why else would I be feeling like this?

I sit up. “That wasn’t an aspirin.”

She falls onto her back in a fit of laughter, making a cross over her chest. “Swear to God. You took an aspirin.” She’s laughing so hard she has to fight to catch her breath. When she finally does, she sighs and it’s delightful, and did I just fucking say delightful?

She shakes her head, looking up at me with a soft smile. “It’s not drugs making you feel like this, Leeds.” She stands up and makes her way around to the front of the house. Again, I follow her, because if that really was an aspirin, then I’m fucked.

I am fucked.

I didn’t know another person could make me feel this good without some sort of substance running through my body.

Layla doesn’t go to a bedroom once we’re inside the house. She walks into the Grand Room, the one with all the books and the baby grand piano.

When we’re both inside, she closes the door and locks it. My jeans and her dress are leaving a trail of water behind us.

When I pause and turn to look at her, she’s staring at the water pooling beneath my feet.

“The floors are old,” she says. “We should respect them.” She pulls her soaking wet dress over her head, and now she’s standing in the dimly lit room five feet away from me in nothing but her bra and panties. They don’t match. She’s wearing a white bra and green-and-black-checkered panties, and I kind of love that she didn’t put much thought into what she wore under her dress. I observe her for a moment—admiring her curves and the way she doesn’t try to hide pieces of herself from me.

My last girlfriend had a body that could rival a supermodel’s, but she was never comfortable with herself. It became one of the things that irritated me about her because no matter how beautiful she was, her insecurity was the loudest thing about her.

Layla carries herself with a confidence that would be attractive no matter what she looked like.

I do as she requested and remove my jeans, leaving on my boxers.

Layla gathers our clothes and puts them on top of a rug that’s probably worth more than the floors, but whatever makes her feel good.

I look around the room, and there’s a brown distressed-leather couch against the wall next to the piano. I want to throw her on it and lose myself inside of her, but Layla has different plans.

She pulls the piano bench out and sits on it. “Can you sing?” she asks, poking at a few of the keys.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you sing onstage?”

“It’s Garrett’s band. He’s never asked me to.”

“Garrett? Is that the lead singer’s name?”

“That’s the one.”

“Is he as atrocious as his lyrics?”

That makes me laugh. I shake my head and join her on the bench.

“He’s pretty terrible, but he’s not as bad as his lyrics.”

She presses middle C on the piano. “Is he jealous of you?” she asks.

“Why would he be jealous of me? I’m just the bass player.”

“He’s not lead singer material. You are.”

“That’s a big statement. You’ve never even heard me sing.”

“Doesn’t matter. You could be terrible, but everyone else still fades into the background when you’re onstage.”

“Just like the rest of the crowd fades into the background when you’re dancing?”

“I was the only one dancing.”

“See? I didn’t even notice.”

She leans in after I say that, and I expect her to kiss me, but instead she whispers, “Play me something,” against my mouth. Then she moves to the couch and lies down. “Play something worthy of that piano,” she says.

She crosses her legs at her ankles and lets one of her arms dangle off the couch. She runs her finger against the hardwood floor while she waits for me to start playing, but I can’t stop staring at her. I’m not sure there’s another woman on this planet who could make me want to stare at her without blinking until my eyes dry up, but she’s looking at me expectantly.

“What if you don’t like my music?” I ask. “Will you still let me kiss you?”

She smiles gently. “Does the song mean something to you?”

“I wrote it using pieces of my soul.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about,” she says quietly.

I spin around on the bench and place my fingers on the keys. I hesitate for a moment before playing the song. I’ve never performed it for anyone before. The only person I’ve ever wanted to sing it for is my father, and he’s no longer alive. His death is the reason I wrote this in the first place.

I’ve never been nervous while playing Garrett’s songs onstage, but this feels different. This is personal, and despite the fact that there’s only one person in the audience right now, it feels like the most intense audience I’ve ever performed for.

I fill my lungs with air and slowly release it as I begin to play.

That night I stopped believing in heaven I can’t believe in a god that cruel

Can you?

That night I stopped praying on my knees

But I don’t pray standing either

Do you?

That night I closed the door and closed the window I’ve been sitting in the dark

Are you?

That night I learned happiness is a fairy tale

A thousand pages read aloud

By you

That night I stopped believing in God

You were ours, he didn’t care, he

Took you

So that night I stopped . . .

I stopped . . .

I just

Stopped.

That night I stopped.

I stopped.

I just stopped.

That night I stopped.

I . . .

When I’m finished playing the song, I fold my hands in my lap. I’m a little hesitant to turn around and look at her. The whole room got quiet after I played the last note. So quiet—it feels like all the sound was sucked out of the house. I can’t even hear her breathing.

I close the cover to the piano and then slowly spin around on the bench. She’s wiping her eyes, staring up at the ceiling. “Wow,” she whispers. “I wasn’t expecting that. I feel like you just stomped on my chest.”

That’s how I’ve felt since I first laid eyes on her tonight.

“I like how it ends,” she says. She sits up on the couch and tucks her legs beneath her. “You just stop in the middle of the sentence. It’s so perfect. So powerful.”

I wasn’t sure if she’d realize the intentional ending, but the fact that she does makes me all the more enamored of her.

“Where can I replace the song? Is it on Spotify?”

I shake my head. “I’ve never released any of my own stuff.”

She looks at me in mock horror, slapping the arm of the couch.

“What? Why the hell not?”

I shrug. “I don’t know.” I honestly don’t know. “Maybe because everyone in Nashville thinks they’re a somebody. I don’t want to be someone who thinks I’m a somebody.”

She stands up and walks over to where I’m sitting on the piano bench.

She pushes my shoulders until my back is leaning against the piano, and then she straddles me, both of her knees resting on the piano bench. I’m looking up at her now, and she’s holding my face in her hands, her eyes narrowed as she speaks. “You’re being selfish by keeping your songs to yourself. It’s better to be a selfless somebody than to be a selfish nobody.”

I think maybe I’m glad I met this girl.

Like really glad.

I grip the back of her head and bring her mouth to mine. I don’t know what’s happening here. It’s been a hell of a long time since I’ve liked a girl enough to wonder where she’s going to be the next day.

But . . . where will Layla be tomorrow?

Where was she yesterday?

Where does she call home?

Where did she grow up?

Who is her favorite person right now?

I want to know all the things. Everything.

Layla breaks our kiss. “Aspen warned me earlier tonight when she saw me staring at you. She said, ‘Promise me you’ll stay away from the musicians. They probably have chlamydia.’”

I laugh. “Did you promise her you’d stay away from me?”

“No. I said, ‘It’s fine if he has chlamydia. He probably has condoms too.’”

“I don’t have chlamydia. But I also don’t have a condom.”

She separates herself from me and stands up. “It’s okay. I have one in my room.” She turns and walks toward the door.

I grab our wet clothes and follow her out of the room and up the stairs.

She doesn’t exactly invite me to her room, but I can tell she’s expecting me

to follow her because she’s talking as she walks up the steps.

“It’s been a while since I’ve done this,” she says over her shoulder. “I only have condoms because they were party favors for the bachelorette party.” She spins around, pausing on one of the steps. “I didn’t realize how much harder it would be to get laid in the real world. You don’t even have to make an effort in college, but after college . . . ugh.” She turns and begins walking up the stairs again. She opens the door to her room, and I follow her inside. “The problem with sex after college is that I hate dating. It takes too much time. You dedicate an entire evening to a person you can tell in the first five minutes is a waste of your time.”

I agree with her. I much prefer the idea of going all in. I’ve always wanted someone I could instantly click with and then just fucking drown in.

I don’t know if Layla could be that person, but it sure felt like it when we reached the bottom of the pool. That was the most intense kiss I’ve ever experienced.

Layla takes our wet clothes out of my hands and walks them to her bathroom. She tosses them into the shower, and then on her way back into her bedroom, she says, “You should quit the band.”

She has to be the most unpredictable person I’ve ever met. Even the simplest sentences catch me off guard. “Why?”

“Because you’re miserable.”

She’s right, I am. We both make our way to the bed. “What do you do for a living?” I ask her.

“I don’t have a job. I got fired last week.”

She sits down and leans against the headboard. I lie on the pillow on my side, looking up at her. My face is near her hip, and it’s both odd and sexy being this close to her thigh. I press my lips against it. “Why’d you get fired?”

“They wouldn’t let me off for Aspen’s wedding, so I didn’t show up to work.” She scoots down the bed and mirrors my position. “Your boxers are still wet. We should probably take off the rest of our clothes.”

She’s forward, but I like it.

I grab her by the waist and pull her on top of me. I place her so perfectly against me she gasps. I’m taller than her, so her face doesn’t reach mine, but I want to kiss her. She must want to kiss me, too, because she crawls up my body until our mouths connect.

There aren’t many items of clothing to remove between us as it is, so it only seems like seconds before we’re naked under the covers and almost past the point of caring about a condom. But I don’t know this girl and she doesn’t know me, so I wait for her to fumble around the dark bedroom until she replaces her purse. Once she retrieves a condom and hands it to me, I reach under the covers and begin putting it on.

“I think you’re right,” I say.

“About what?”

I roll on top of her and she spreads her legs apart, fitting me between them. “I should quit the band.”

She nods in agreement. “You’d be happier playing your own music, even if you don’t make money from it.” She kisses me, but only briefly before pulling back. “Get a job you can tolerate. Release your music on the side. It’s better to be poor and fulfilled than . . . poor and empty. I was gonna say rich and empty, but I don’t think you’re rich, or you wouldn’t be playing for that band.”

I would tell her I’m not poor, but admitting that I play for the band willingly and not out of necessity is kind of embarrassing, so I’d rather not say anything at all.

“If you’re destined to be poor, it’s better to be the happy kind of poor,”

she adds.

She’s right. I kiss her neck, then her breast. Then my mouth is resting against hers again. “I think I’m glad I met you.”

She pulls back a little, then smiles up at me. “You think? Or you are?”

“I am. I am very glad I met you.”

She trails her fingers over my mouth. “I’m very glad I met you.”

We kiss some more, and it’s full of lazy anticipation, as if we know we have all night and there’s no rush. But I already put on the condom, and she’s already guiding me into her.

I still take my time with her. So much time.

Minutes feel like they matter more when they’re spent with her.

She’s on her stomach, and I’m trailing unworthy fingers up the smooth curve of her spine.

I reach the base of her neck and then sweep my fingers into her hair and begin caressing the back of her head.

“I’d kill for a taco right now,” she says.

I’ve never wanted inside a girl’s mind more than I want inside Layla’s.

Her mind doesn’t work like other minds work. There’s no filter between her brain and her mouth, and there’s no conscience telling her she should feel bad for whatever it is she might have said. She just says things unapologetically and without any remorse. Even when her words sting.

I didn’t know brutal honesty was sexy until tonight.

I told her a few minutes ago she was the best sex I ever had. I expected her to return the compliment, but she just smiled and said, “We always think that when we’re in it. But then someone new comes along, and we forget how good we thought it was before, and the cycle starts all over again.”

I laughed. I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t. And then I thought about what she had said, and she was right. I lost my virginity at fifteen. I thought it was the best thing I would ever experience. But then Victoria Jared came along when I was seventeen, and she was the best sex I’d ever had. And then Sarah Kisner, and the girl who snuck into my dorm freshman year, and two or three after that, and then Sable. Each time, the aftermath made me think that was as good as it would get. But maybe they were all equally as good as the one before.

None of them compare to Layla. I’m certain of that. As certain as I was all the times before Layla.

“Are you religious?” Layla asks.

Her thoughts are as sporadic and intense as her actions. I think that’s why I’m so intrigued by her. One minute she’s on her back screaming my name as she digs her nails into my shoulders. The next minute she’s on her stomach, telling me how badly she’s craving a taco. The next minute she forgets about the tacos and wants to know if I’m religious. I love it. Most people are predictable. Every word and action from Layla is like being handed a gift-wrapped surprise.

“I’m not religious. Are you?”

She shrugs. “I believe in life after death, but I’m not sure I’m religious.”

“I think existence is simply luck of the draw. We’re here for a while, and then we’re not.”

“That’s depressing,” she says.

“Not really. Imagine what heaven is like. The incessant positivity, the smiles, the lack of sin. The thought of living eternally in a place full of people who spent their lives spouting off inspirational quotes sounds way more depressing to me than if it all just ends with death.”

“I don’t know if I believe in that kind of afterlife,” Layla says. “I look at existence more as a series of realms. Maybe heaven is one of them.

Maybe it isn’t.”

“What kind of realms?”

She rolls onto her side, and when my eyes fall to her breasts, she doesn’t try to force me to make eye contact with her. Instead, she pulls my head against her chest as she rolls onto her back. I lay my head on her chest and cup one of her breasts as she casually fingers pieces of my hair and continues talking.

“Think of it like this,” she says. “The womb is one existence. As a fetus, we didn’t remember life before the womb, and we had no idea if there would be life after the womb. All we knew was the womb. But then we were born, and we left the womb and came into our current realm of existence. And now we can’t remember being in the womb before this life, and we have no idea what comes after this life. And when our current life ends, we’ll be in a different realm altogether, where we might not remember this realm of existence, just like we don’t recall being in the womb. It’s just different realms. One after the other after the other. Some we know for a fact exist. Some we only believe exist. There could be realms of existence we’ve never even entertained the idea of. They could be endless. I don’t think we ever really die.”

Her explanation makes sense, or maybe I’m just feeling agreeable because my mouth is on her breast. I grab another condom as I ponder her theory. It seems more probable to me than the idea of pearly gates or fire and brimstone ever has.

I’m still convinced that there is life and there is death and that is all there is.

“If you’re right, then I like this realm the best,” I say, covering her body with mine.

She parts her thighs for me and grins against my lips. “Only because you’re in it.”

I shake my head as I push into her. “No. I like it best because I’m in you.”