Girl in Luv

by Jay Crownover

  “Oh? You pictured her dad in an apron, flipping burgers, while a few guests grabbed beers from a cooler?” Dad asked.

  “Something like that.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Dad shook his head with a wry grin. “But I guess anything can be called a barbecue as long as that’s what you’re serving, right?”

  “Darling!” Virginia called out from where she was holding court, Camille at her side.

  “And...I’ve been summoned. You two have a...good...or at least passable time. I’ll be...over there. Catch up later?” he asked.

  “Definitely,” I assured him.

  “I like him,” Iker said softly as Dad walked away.

  “You sound surprised.” I looked up at him, squinting against the sun.

  “I am. I expected him to be an uptight asshole.”

  I laughed again. Man, I had to watch it, or I was going to get way too used to the feeling. Then I’d miss it all the more when he left. “There’s only room for two of those in our family,” I answered, motioning toward Virginia and Camille.

  “And these?” he asked, his voice dropping as the bridal party came toward us.

  “These are much, much worse,” I answered before plastering a smile on my face. “Hi, guys.”

  “Langley!” Sophie Anders squealed, and wrapped me in a hug. “It’s been forever since we’ve seen you!”

  Because I had successfully avoided everyone in this group like the bubonic plague. They’d all known about Richard and Camille, and none of them—not one single, so-called friend—had told me the truth. They’d waited for me to stumble onto it myself.

  In my own bed.

  No doubt because Camille had needed to check off that box on her bucket list.

  “Where have you been hiding him?” Sophie asked as the group gathered around us. Five groomsmen. Five bridesmaids.

  All of us had gone to school together, known one another for at least a decade, and yet I felt closer to Iker in the few days I’d known him than I did any of them.

  The grueling task of introductions and small talk began, and Iker handled dozens of questions with the same upfront, no-nonsense tone I’d learned to expect from him.

  Once the subject turned to the perfection of the upcoming marriage, and my spine had stiffened enough to support the damned house we were outside of, Iker took my cue and declared he was hungry, and we excused ourselves.

  “Thank you,” I told him as we headed for the buffet.

  “No problem. I’m not really big on crowds anyway. There might not be a lot of people here, but they sure like to stand way too close.”

  A few minutes and full plates later, we removed ourselves from the crowd, sitting on the double swing at the far corner of the yard. I set my plate on the side table, kicked off my heels and tucked my feet under me, resting my head against the tall, wooden back of the swing.

  “I like you like this.” Iker broke the comfortable silence.

  “Like what?” I rolled my head along the back of the swing to look at him. “Barefoot and swinging?”

  “Yeah. Like...you.” He put his plate down on the stone table next to his side of the swing, then reached for my legs, pulling my feet into his lap. “Whoever that was over there with those people…” He shook his head. “I’m not a fan. I can’t even see the real you under those fake-ass smiles and phony laughs.”

  “Good. Then my impenetrable armor is working.”

  “More armor?”

  “I don’t have a tux, just a different type of arsenal at my disposal,” I teased, but stopped as I realized he wasn’t joking. “They can’t hurt me if they don’t really know me, ya know.”

  He didn’t respond, just studied me.

  I looked away. Sometimes that intensity he had about him was just too much to have completely focused on me. Except when he was kissing me, that was.

  “Did you fight for him? When you found out about them,” he clarified, like I even needed the explanation.

  I shook my head.

  “Why?” He rested the palm of his hand on my shin.

  A million different reasons went through my head.

  “When she first moved in, I wanted a truce. I tried so hard to be her sister, and when it was obvious that was never going to happen, I attempted to be friends.” I watched the movement of our little crowd, appreciating the twenty yards of grass that gave me enough separation from them to speak honestly. “She always dangled the possibility of some type of camaraderie in front of me, and it was usually right before she asked to borrow something.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “I always gave in, because I was a sucker for the dream family. The possibility of what I used to have with my own mom.”

  He squeezed my leg lightly.

  “One by one, she would hand the things she’d borrowed back, but they’d be broken. Curling irons, a favorite pair of boots, an empty tube of lip gloss…” I sighed. “The list is probably about a bajillion miles long.”

  I reached up and let my fingers trail down the lavender chain that suspended the matching lavender swing. “This swing was my mother’s.”

  His forehead wrinkled as his eyes narrowed, probably guessing where I was headed.

  “It was her favorite place to read, and she loved this color. She never really cared about what things were supposed to be like. Only what they actually felt like, and she said this color made her feel like Saturday morning.”

  “Saturday morning.” He spoke slowly, raising his eyebrows.

  “Like sleeping in, getting the break you needed from the rest of the week.”

  He nodded.

  “So, about a year after they moved in, Virginia started replacing everything my mother had decorated the house with, and Camille jumped right on board. I didn’t really say anything about it. She was making Dad happy, and I wanted that for him. But when Camille said the swing was ugly and it needed to go, I finally spoke up.”

  “And you won,” he assumed, glancing at the swing.

  “Eventually. We were going to school one morning, and as we pulled out of the driveway, I saw the trash had been pulled to the curb, which was normal. But the swing was next to the cans. It was broken along the arms.”

  He looked at the intact arms of the swing, and then back to me.

  “I hauled it to the garden shed, where they never went, and then I had it repaired and rehung, but I didn’t say a word. Neither did Camille. A month later, I found it splattered in the same orange paint she’d done an art project in.”

  “You repainted it,” he guessed.

  I nodded. “I realized something. Camille could only take—only break—what I let her. She only had—only has—the power I give.”

  “And you gave him?”

  “Would you stay with someone you knew would sleep with someone else? Who wouldn’t give you honesty? Fidelity? Loyalty?”

  His hand began stroking my leg in a lazy, comforting way. The brush of his thumb along the inside of my knee had my heart spinning in circles inside my chest.

  “Hell no. What’s mine is mine. I don’t share, and I don’t fucking forgive betrayal.” He smirked at me. “I can be incredibly stingy and possessive. When you grow up with nothing, you tend to hold onto the things you treasure with both hands.”

  I looked over to where Richard’s hand had strayed to the back of another one of my so-called friends. “Exactly. I didn’t fight because I didn’t want him after that, and honestly, he didn’t want to be fought for. I respect myself a little too much to chase someone who doesn’t want me. That relationship wasn’t reparable.”

  We sat there in the quiet for a few minutes, swaying on my mom’s lavender swing.

  “You fought for me,” he finally said, that gravelly tone sending shocks of awareness from his fingers caressing my leg all the way to my scalp. “In the hallway, when you kissed me. You fought for me.”

  I smiled and told myself to shrug it off. That kiss didn’t mean the same thing to him as it did to me. “Yea
h, I guess I did.”

  “Why?”

  The unspoken hung between us. Why him? Why would I fight for a man I’d only known a few days when I didn’t so much as scream at Richard?

  “Because I see you, too. And you’re not broken. Not like they all are.” I nodded toward the patio. “You’re…” I sighed, unable to come up with an adequate description.

  “I’m what? Different? Real? Working-class?” He shook his head with a self-deprecating smile. “I’m completely broken and jagged in ways you don’t know, and couldn’t understand even if you wanted to, Langley.”

  I swallowed and met his stare head-on.

  “Maybe,” I admitted. Then I sucked in a deep breath and went for it, because why the hell not? I had nothing to lose. “But you seem like someone who would fight for me—who did fight for me—and I haven’t really had that since my mother died. The least I could do was return the favor.”

  Because no matter how different we were, or the numerous financial trappings that separated us…he’d proven he was someone worth fighting for time and time again.

  Iker

  “Are you sure this is what you want to do with your only free day this week? I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.”

  Langley sounded doubtful. Just like she had when I called her and asked her if she wanted to do something fun to blow off steam after that train wreck of a barbeque. Today was the only day neither one of us were scheduled within an inch of our lives, so after I finished up a few things I had to take care of at the base, and talked to Gael for a little bit, I found myself at loose ends and restless. My brother was pissed I wasn’t spending this important week at home with him and our grandmother, and I couldn’t blame him. I also wasn’t ready to tell him the exact reason why I didn’t make it home. I simply reassured him that it involved making sure he had the money for college.

  There was no denying I wanted to see Langley outside of her prim and proper surroundings. I liked her best when she wasn’t hiding behind the plastic shell she wore around her family and friends. I understood she wore that fake smile and air of disinterest for protection, but I hated it. Hated that the sweet, charming girl she was when she was alone with me, was suffocated and stifled because she was surrounded by money and mind-numbing obligations while being alienated in that big house.

  Langley was clearly reluctant to accept my offer to bust free of the wedding madness for a few hours. I didn’t think it had anything to do with her not wanting to see me, but more with her not wanting to come across as an imposition. We’d practically been in each other’s pocket the last few days and I knew I’d seen pretty much every secret her wealthy family went out of their way to hide from the rest of the world. So, it took a little convincing and a promise that where we were going was guaranteed to alleviate some of her stress to get her to agree to spend the afternoon with me. At the end of the call, I swore I’d never had to work so hard for a date…real or fake. Usually, all I had to do was flash the dimple and let a little bit of my drawl loose and a date with whomever was a sure thing. Nothing about Langley was that easy. Which may have been why I couldn’t stop thinking about her…or that rushed kiss.

  “I took care of work stuff early this morning. If the rehearsal dinner is going to be anything like that barbeque, I think it will do us both a world of good to blow off some steam beforehand.” Plus, there was a clock counting down in the back of my head. Time was running out, quickly, on the opportunities I had for frivolous fun…and to enjoy having her in my life.

  Slowly, Langley nodded. I wasn’t prepared for the impact her blindingly white and bright smile was going to have on my insides when she turned it my way. My heart literally squeezed, and all the air in my lungs froze at her open and unguarded expression.

  “When you said we were going to shoot stuff, this isn’t what I pictured. Not at all.”

  I looked at the giant warehouse housing the laser tag course and grinned. “Real weapons are part of my everyday reality. I wanted to play today.” So was having to use them to protect my country. I had no desire to spend my free time at the shooting range when I was there for work all the time. But, I was pretty sure Langley had never had the opportunity to run around the course like a lunatic, dodging the electric shots and aiming for the sensors on the opponents’ vests. It would be fun to see how the sorority girl handled hunting, as well as being the hunted. Underneath her polished veneer, she had threads of steel running throughout. She had to be tough in order to put up with her stepmother and sister’s blatant machinations.

  I’d watched it play out all day yesterday. In front of Corbin Vaughn, Camille and Virginia played sweet as could be. They treated Langley like part of the family. They included her, even fawned over her to the point of absurdity, but as soon as the man’s back was turned or his attention was elsewhere, they came at Langley with claws drawn and teeth bared.

  I couldn’t understand how her father couldn’t see what was going on, and it annoyed me Langley went to just as many lengths to keep the reality of her relationship with her dad’s wife and new family hidden. I understood she wanted to shield him from what she was going through, but the man should be protecting his daughter, not the other way around. It irritated me even more when Camille and Virginia tag-teamed Langley. Two against one was bullshit, but my fake-girlfriend tolerated it with an even faker smile.

  I climbed out of the truck and made my way to the passenger side so I could get the door for my very pretty date. Since today had nothing to do with putting a wrench in her stepsister’s wedding, and I was the one who asked her out, I was treating it as a real date. Langley didn’t need to know that, though. The chances of someone like her really going out with someone like me were slim to none. I was going to take what I could get, and be thankful she felt like she owed me for the time being.

  I nearly swallowed my tongue when her long, bare legs swung out the door. She was definitely on the short side, but that didn’t stop her from having really nice legs. She was wearing a pair of tiny denim shorts with white lace along the hem and around the pockets, and a pair of white Adidas. She also had on a white tank top with little yellow flowers all over it. It was the most dressed down I’d ever seen her, and I liked it. Without the dresses and high heels, she seemed much more approachable and accessible.

  Her glossy ponytail bounced slightly when she landed on the ground in front of me. I reached out a hand to steady her, and told myself I could absolutely not pull her closer and hold her tight. Instead, I inhaled the slightly floral scent wafting from her hair and grabbed her hand.

  “Let’s go kick some laser tag butt.”

  “Have you done this before?” She sounded out of breath, so I slowed my pace to match her shorter stride.

  “A couple of times. I’ve taken Gael and a couple of his buddies, and I had a guy in my unit who decided laser tag would be a fun bachelor party idea.”

  I had no idea how someone as fun as Langley dealt with all those unspoken rules and proper standards all the time. It was like living under a particularly finicky microscope. I bumped her shoulder with mine and told her softly, “Sometimes dark places and sudden flashes of light aren’t the best for me. I’m a pretty well-adjusted dude, but you know”—I shrugged—“it’s hard to fight your own mind.”

  “Have you...always struggled with that?” Her eyes softened.

  “No, but a year in Afghanistan changed a few things. None of them really for the better.”

  She didn’t press, just waited patiently for me to continue, so I did.

  “I get jumpy with loud noises,” I admitted. “My head knows I’m stateside, but my body forgets sometimes. That whole fight-or-flight thing kicks in.”

  “You don’t seem like a flight kind of guy.”

  “Exactly.” A wry smile twisted my lips. “Which put me in a lot of those loud-noise situations while I was deployed.”

  I heard her suck in a breath, and a moment later, she used the hold I had on her hand to pull me to
a jerky stop. “Let’s go do something else.”

  See, she was so damn sweet. And considerate. She barely knew me and she was worried about me. Worried about how I might react to something that might make me uncomfortable. No one, aside from my small family, had cared about my comfort and mental well-being in a long time.

  “It’s fine. I wouldn’t have suggested this if I wasn’t up for it.” I watched as she considered me carefully for a full minute. Eventually, she must’ve decided I knew my own limits and slowly started walking toward the entrance again. I took the opportunity to follow behind her, enjoying the way her delicate and subtle curves filled out those short jean shorts.

  Once we got inside the building and signed in, the staff put us with a group of teenagers who were all obviously on dates. They were arguing about how to split up the teams, when one of the guys, obviously the leader of the bunch, suggested we split into boys versus girls. The teen girls looked horrified by the suggestion, but Langley pointed at me, blue eyes glittering with mirth and challenge, and muttered, “You’re going down, soldier boy.”

  I chuckled and arched an eyebrow. “Bring it on, baby.” Her brash confidence was sexy as hell. I only wished she felt free enough to show it when she was dealing with those witches in her house.

  We strapped on the gear and took our laser guns, entering the dark, glow-in-the-dark course, one at a time. A couple of the teenage boys looked at me, a couple of the others looked toward the mouthy leader. Since sending the girls off on their own was his idea, this could be his show. I’d been around enough assholes in the military who were exactly like him, so I knew to steer clear of this tool. He was obviously the type who didn’t take to losing well, and this game was supposed to be fun.

  “Let’s stay on the outside of the course and try and push all the girls toward the center. We can pick them off one by one.” He gave me a look and I just shrugged in response. I took orders for a living, but when I was off the clock, I tended to do whatever the hell I wanted. I’d never quite shaken my youthful rebellion. And there was no way this little punk was anyone I would ever willingly listen to.