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The Jerk
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Asking for a Friend A Promise
LAYTON“Drop me?” His eyes widened, even as he shook his head from side to side. “They won’t drop me. I’ve always done great work for them. They love me.”Yeah, I was sure they did. But disagreements happened. It happened that sometimes your ‘great work’ still wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t here to give him career advice, though.I shrugged and changed the subject instead. “How are your folks?”“I don’t know,” he said lightly. “It’s not like I have time to catch up with them all the time.”Boy, he really was a douche. “You haven’t managed to carve out time to speak to them in so long you don’t even know how they are?”“You know how it goes,” he shot me a ‘you understand’ smirk. “Life gets busy. You lose touch with people. But hey, I heard about your dad passing away. I’m sorry.”“Thanks.”Brice’s gaze shifted from mine to out the window behind me. “He came to look for me once, you know.”“He did?” Yet another nugget of information that would have been handy to have known. My dad really
Asking for a Friend Cause a Scene
MARISSAAt the end of day two at the office with no sign of Layton, I was starting to wonder if he’d taken a permanent leave of absence simply for the purpose of avoiding me. There were many things I could say about him, but I never thought he was a coward. Well, not seriously. I was starting to wonder, though.I had no idea how much money he inherited from his dad or how much of his own he had, but it stood to reason that he had more than enough to never have to work again. It was within the realm of possibility that he caught a first class flight to a tropical island and was sipping cocktails on the beach with a busty local on each arm, laughing about the naive woman he’d left behind.Okay, so maybe the last bit was a little too much. He wouldn’t be laughing about me. He probably never even thought about me. Especially if he really did have scantily clad island girls on his arms.Just the thought of his touching someone else made my heart sink and ache, but I pushed it away. Whateve
Asking for a Friend Protecting Her
MARISSAPressing my lips together, I dropped my chin to my chest and took a deep breath. “Well, actually. Um, about that.”“You’ve spoken to him?” Lines formed on her forehead as her eyes shot wide open. “Why didn’t you tell me?”Shifting on my feet, I kicked out my heels and stared deeply into my wineglass. “I didn’t speak to him, exactly. I just heard what he had to say.”Denise buried her head in her hands, groaning. “Uh-oh, that’s a ’guilty Marissa’ face if I ever saw one. What did you do?”“I didn’t do—” seeing the way she was reacting, I knew she already knew I’d done something. Might as well tell her. “I listened to a message he left for me.”“Oh,” she visibly relaxed, lifting her head and taking her glass back into her hand. “That’s not bad. Why did you look so guilty for listening to one of your own messages?”“It wasn’t actually mine, well it really was, but—it was on the machine in his office,” I admitted, taking a big gulp of wine. It was crisp and cold, exactly what I nee
Asking for a Friend No Excuses
LAYTONDelayed flights were the bane of my existence. Especially when they’re delayed indefinitely, which was what happened with my flight from New York back to Boston. There was a storm somewhere and we had to wait for it to pass before our metal tube could take to the skies.I was more than anxious to get home, but no amount of pacing, knee bouncing or glaring at the sky got me there faster. And trust me, I gave all those things a very fair shot to work.As it was, I was now five days late for my date with Annie and Marissa. All the flights back to Boston were full on Monday after my talk with Brice. I got a flight on Tuesday morning, but then the storm rolled in and eventually, I only got in on Wednesday night.Making things right with Marissa was going to be a nightmare. She still hadn’t returned any of my calls, she didn’t read my messages and I had no way of knowing whether she’d listened to any of the voice messages I left.My intention for going to New York was good, but my ex
Asking for a Friend Telling Her the Truth
LAYTONHearing that I’d received another video made Marissa frown, but she was still not looking at me. “I wasn’t even going to watch it at first, but then I saw I had a few minutes to spare and popped it in to get the gist of it. Just so it didn’t bother me all day and distract me from you guys.”Her frown deepened. I could see the retort forming on her lips, but I jumped back in before she could say anything. “If the video were about business or me or my dad, I would have stuck to the plan. But it wasn’t about us. It was about you.”Confusion replaced some of the anger in her eyes, but she still refused to look directly at me. I saw the muscles in her legs unlock, though. I didn’t think she was poised to run anymore. She was actually listening. “You and I never talked about Annie’s father and that was okay. As it turns out, my dad knew who he was and sent me on a mission to talk to him.”“Talk to him?” Her eyes became the size of saucers. “Please tell me you didn’t.”“I can’t do tha
Asking for a Friend Making Up
MARISSALayton loved me? What?The shock of the moment was cut short when his lips came crashing down onto mine. My own lips parted without conscious command, like they were welcoming home their best friend and long lost lover all at once.His arms circled my waist, holding me tightly to him as he devoured me. I could feel the emotion he was pouring into the kiss, including the longing and the silent plea for me not to leave.My mind and my heart were at war, the one shrieking that we had to get out of here while the other was quietly convincing me to stay. Before I even knew what I was doing, my hands were in his hair and I was obeying the quiet command.What he did when he went to see Brice was the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for me. I didn’t care that he did it because his father told him to, he was still the one who had confronted my worst nightmare, and lived to tell the tale.I was still stunned to learn Brice and Layton had been friends, but I couldn’t bring myse
Asking for a Friend Changing the Routine
LAYTONOn that Thursday morning, I was at Marissa’s door an hour before she was due to arrive at work. There was no way I wanted to miss her, it would ruin my whole plan.After we made up the night before, I went home determined to come up with a plan to start making it up to her and Annie. I thought I had the beginning of one, but it all depended on how strict Marissa was about school attendance.I knew I shouldn’t encourage Annie to skip, or ask Marissa to let her, but I didn’t want to wait before I started making it up to them. I wanted to start immediately, but it just so happened to be Thursday.Still, I was serious about making it up to Marissa and Annie and I couldn’t think of a better way of driving that point home than to start as early as I could with the amends. Literally early, since it was only just past six in the morning now.I knocked on the door, my breath misting as I waited for them to answer. It was freezing out at this hour and the sun was barely rising, but hopef
Asking for a Friend Giving Him a Shot
LAYTON“We’re going to walk the Freedom Trail.” I told her, glancing at Marissa when we stopped at a red light. “I figured if we were pulling her out of school for the day, we’d better do something where she would still learn.”“We’re learning?” Annie groaned. “That’s not fun.”“It will be,” I assured her. “The Freedom Trail is like learning history in action. It passes by sixteen locations that are all significant to the history of the United States.”Annie wriggled her nose. “I don’t like history.”“I promise you will today, honey.” Marissa said, turning in her seat to face her daughter. “The guides dress up in historical clothes and you get to see so many things you’ll hear about in school. Think about how exciting that will be when you start learning about all the places we’re going to go to today.”She considered it and finally agreed, albeit reluctantly. “Yeah, I guess that will be cool.”Once we got to the start of our tour and Annie met our guide, dressed in a soft pink billow
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