Fragile

“Lucas, I have to go!” Layla packed her bags and headed out onto the porch, Lucas following closely behind.

“What the hell is going on?” Lucas whirled her around so they were juxtaposed with each other. Liam and the others weren’t up yet, but he didn’t give a damn if they could see the two of them.

She moved away from him and tossed her bags in her car and sighed. “I’m just not feeling well. I’m really sorry, Lucas.”

Lucas stood in front of her door, his eyes darkening. “What did he do?”

“W-what?”

Lucas sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “When Liam gets tipsy, he gets overly flirtatious. I should have told you, and I’m so sorry.”

Layla winced. “I know your cousin from somewhere, and I don’t like him. There. I said it!”

Lucas grabbed her shoulders. “Layla, are you telling me he’s a part of what scares you at night?”

Layla shook her head. “I really don’t know. He came to my room—”

“Wait! He came to your room? Here?” Lucas growled.

He let her go and started walking back to the house. Layla ran after him, stepping in front of him and pressing against his chest as hard as she could.

“No, please!” Layla had no idea why she was so scared of Liam, but she couldn’t risk an innocent person getting hurt all because of her mind playing tricks on her.

“Just let me go. You said yourself that he gets too tipsy. That’s probably what it was. I’m a horrible sponsor right now, and I do apologize.”

Lucas had never seen her like that before—not even with the pipsqueak. He wanted so badly to take her into his arms and erase every awful memory away.

“Liam doesn’t fucking make mistakes, Layla,” he said sternly. “I knew if I brought you into my life that you’d get hurt somehow.”

Every tortuous thing Lucas could think about doing to Liam was running through his mind.

He looked down at his little hippie, who was pleading with him; her eyes were wild with fear and trepidation.

“But it’s not you who’s done anything to me, Lucas.”

“Layla…” He took her hands into his, still holding her close to him. “If Liam has hurt you in any way, I’ll fucking rip his dick off with my bare hands and feed it to him.”

The way he said something like that so calmly made Layla nervous. The look in Lucas’s eyes told her he wasn’t kidding. He’d kill for her.

“I really don’t know anything. I don’t know…” Layla kept shaking her head.

The sound of the front door startled her and she pushed herself deep into Lucas’s warmth, burying her head in his chest.

“Is everything okay?” Courtney called.

Lucas decided it was pointless to hide their relationship, so he held Layla while giving a thumbs-up to Courtney. “Yeah. Layla—”

“I have a family emergency.” Layla turned around and waved to Courtney, waiting for Liam to come barreling through the front door at any moment.

“Oh my!” Courtney frowned. “Well, I sure hope everything is fine. It was very nice to meet you.”

Layla nodded and smiled, pulling away from Lucas.

“Don’t let him know where I live,” Layla found herself saying to Lucas. “Please?!”

Lucas nodded, “Baby girl, I don’t even know what’s going on, but I’m sure as hell not going to put you in harm’s way.”

“Thank you.” She scurried away from him and hopped in the car right as Liam and the kids joined Courtney on the porch.

After he watched her drive off, Lucas headed straight to Liam, motioning for the kids and Courtney to get back inside.

Grabbing Liam by the shirt, he pushed him up against the side of the porch, pressing his whole body weight against his cousin.

“What the fuck did you do to her?”

Liam chuckled. “Oh, calm the fuck down. You know damn well I got too drunk last night.”

Lucas didn’t let him go. If anything, he started crushing the guy.

“Lucas.” Liam let out a croak. “What the hell?”

“I remember a lot of things, Liam. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the fucking rumors that you have denied repeatedly.”

Liam scoffed as Lucas let him go. “It was an accident. I apologized to her. I’m sorry if she was frightened.”

Lucas stepped toe to toe with Liam again. “Frightened? She’s fucking terrified.”

Liam shrugged. “Bitches overreact over—”

Lucas’s fist plowed right into Liam’s left jaw, sending Liam straight to the ground.

“Say one more goddamn thing like about her and I’ll fucking kill you. Courtney doesn’t even know, does she?”

“I never did shit!” Liam spit blood onto the porch. “You still got a fucking right hook.”

“I’ll end you, Liam, and I won’t lose sleep over it,” Lucas warned, turning on his heels and heading back inside.

There would have been a complete brawl had Liam’s family not been there. Of course, now Lucas was in agony because his little hippie was hurting.

The Foster house resumed its normalcy. Lucas and Liam were both hotheads who fought each other quite often, even when they were kids. Liam knew the damage Lucas could do, and Lucas was looking forward to it if need be.

He could have killed him, or easily paralyzed the man, but Lucas was beyond confused, and he certainly didn’t want to drag Courtney and the kids into it.

Before Lucas could even message Layla, she was calling him to apologize profusely.

“Baby girl, don’t you worry about it,” Lucas said, glaring at his cousin from across the house. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll come back if you need me, Lucas,” Layla offered. “I’m so sorry.”

The way she spoke told Lucas she was completely terrified. He knew her parents weren’t home that weekend, so Lucas excused himself from the house, claiming he had an incident to take care of.

Liam, who was tossing back a few brews, obviously didn’t mind. He was watching old movies while Courtney and the kids put a puzzle together, one that Layla had bought Lucas no less.

It was supposed to be a hobby to keep his mind off of drinking and beating the shit out of people, but he’d only been able to keep his mind happy when he was with Layla.

Pulling in, he noticed Layla had parked her car inside of the garage, covering it with a tarp.

Because of that, Lucas pulled his truck around back so in case Liam did follow him for some reason, he wouldn’t find him.

The curtains were closed, and he couldn’t hear anything.

Calling, texting, and knocking on the door wasn’t getting Layla to answer, and it made him nervous.

Lucas knew how to pick a lock, and that’s exactly what he did.

“Layla?!”

Dinah came running to the front door. “Hey, girl! Where’s Layla?”

Lucas could hear something thumping upstairs, and so he ascended the staircase slowly so he wouldn’t startle her.

“Layla? Darlin’?” Lucas called out.

He could hear the shower running in Layla’s bathroom, and although he didn’t want to, he opened the door, a draft of steam hitting him in the face.

“Layla?”

“Lucas?” Layla’s small voice sobbed behind the curtain.

“Layla, I’m worried about you,” Lucas said, taking another step into the room. “You need to let me in on what’s going on.”

“I can’t. Please, just leave me alone.”

“I’m not getting another sponsor, so it doesn’t matter if you tell me or not, but I want to know if I can help you.”

Lucas hated this for her. What was happening here?

He stepped closer and peeked into the shower. Layla was sitting on the tub floor, her knees pulled into her chest and her head resting on the wet wall.

“Don’t look at me!” Layla cried. “I need you to go. This isn’t how I can help you, Lucas. I’m so sorry.”

Lucas closed the curtain and sat down on the floor beside the shower.

“Layla, I said when we started this that you can use me as your outlet. I meant that,” Lucas told her. “I-I need you as my sponsor, baby girl, so whatever it is you need to tell me, you fucking tell me because we’ll work it out. I’m here.”

There was nothing but silence now behind the curtain, and Lucas was okay with that. He wanted her to open up to him, but he was still keeping so much from her.

“It’s all right, Little Hippie,” he assured her. “We’ll get through whatever’s going on.”

A sniffle and a splash, a tiny movement from behind the curtain made him think she was getting out, but that wasn’t the case.

“Thank you,” Layla said softly.

“I’m sorry about what happened. They’ll be gone tomorrow,” Lucas said.

“Lucas…”

“Yeah, darlin’?”

Another pause—longer this time.

“Something happened to me when I was a little girl.”