Forever Layla: A Time Travel Romance

by Melissa Turner Lee

  Forever Layla

  © 2014 Melissa Turner Lee

  Cover Design Copyright © 2014 by Regina Wamba

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Synopsis: In 1994, high school senior David Foster was the lackey and soundboard geek for his best friend's grunge band. During spring break, the band lands a dream gig playing at a motel in Myrtle Beach, SC. David expected all the girls to ogle the guys on stage, but when a beautiful blond "Bond Girl" approaches him and calls him by name, he's shocked to find out she knows more about him than a stranger should. She even knows about his notebooks and his visions of time travel. What she thought was a quick time-travel-sightseeing trip takes a surprising turn when she meets the young adult version of the man she'd heard stories about as a child. His fairy-tale romance with the woman he'd loved, Layla, inspired her to accept nothing less than a love just as strong...but hopefully not as tragic. When she won't tell the younger version of him her name, he calls her Layla--and the world as she knows it changes forever.

  Chapter 1

  David

  April 1994

  “THIS IS THE ROAD TO our future, WOOOHOOO!” Michael shouted from the stage. He strummed hard across his electric guitar. I glanced up to see his long, sandy blond hair flying about with each head bang. He’d shouted it every few minutes on our road trip down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It wasn’t the beginning of my future. I was just the soundboard geek. If they hit it big, I’d be the first to go.

  Michael howled out the words of the Pearl Jam song he was covering when the bass guitar became overpowering. I leaned over the soundboard and adjusted Travis’s channel. I had to do that when he started feeling the music just a little too much. They were making a real name for themselves. The motel had called Michael and requested they come play at their patio bar every night of spring break. Free rooms and drinks plus a thousand bucks. For high school kids, that was almost like signing a record deal.

  A drunken giggle to my right alerted me in time to put my hands out to steady the brunette about to face plant into the soundboard. She giggled again and fell over onto the soundboard a second time. I held her upright, and she grabbed my tensed biceps before making eye contact with me. She squeezed my arms through my black t-shirt, gave me a once over, and got a look I couldn’t quite define. It was somewhere between the look of a cat about to pounce on a mouse and a kid staring at the selection of thirty-one flavors of ice cream. I’d been getting those looks ever since the guys and I started lifting weights. Half the girls in pre-cal were signed up for tutoring after school with me now and gave me that same look. It was weird.

  She leaned in and closed her eyes, but I held her back. She smelled like a rancid combo of beer, vomit, and armpit.

  “Back away from the board.” I spun her around and shooed her and her collection of inebriated revelers away.

  The yeasty smell of beer mixed with the sour stench of sweat filled the air. I’d just paid for the new soundboard, and it would not be damaged. I stood akimbo glaring at another group until they too backed away. I plopped back down and glanced toward the slightly raised platform the motel had for a stage. Girls in bikinis, tank tops, flannel shirts tied at the midriff, and daisy dukes pushed up front to get a closer view of the guys with guitars. Michael smirked at the girls and did some eye squinting thing as he pointed at one lucky lady. It was a look he practiced in front of the mirror quite often. It did its job, setting off a siren of girl squeals.

  I shook my head and turned away when I noticed a man, maybe in his fifties, standing on the balcony. I smirked thinking how the old guy must be pissed at picking this motel with a band playing every night. But when I focused on him, he wasn’t looking at the band or the crowd. He was looking straight at me and grinning. It turned into some kind of weird staring contest until I finally looked away and went back to hovering over the soundboard. A few more close calls and my mind was firmly back on keeping sand and beer off the expensive equipment. When a shadow loomed over the board, I didn’t even bother to look up. “Step away from the sound system.”

  “David?” A soft feminine voice spoke my name.

  I glanced up to see the biggest, brownest eyes framed by the longest, blackest lashes I’d ever seen. I glanced down to focus on the rest of her. The form-fitting black dress she wore hugged every curve down to her toned and tanned legs. My gaze trailed on down to her fancy black heels and then back up at her face. She was hot…like model hot. I couldn’t blink or think as I stared at her beautiful face framed by large amounts of blonde hair and a pair of large hoop earrings. She didn’t look like the other girls with her eye makeup, glossy pink lips, and the way her hair was puffed up and styled. She looked like she had just stepped out of one of the James Bond movies Dad and I watched on TV.

  I glanced around the crowd of stringy haired girls in cutoffs, t-shirts, and Keds. Her look wasn’t in style at the moment. Most girls were doing the grunge and hippie thing, but Bond girls never went out of style with guys. I tried to say something, but I think I just stared and possibly stuttered before a wheeze came out. She reached for the inhaler in my shirt pocket and handed it to me. I took a puff as she shook her head, smiling.

  “It is you.” A look of pure wonder and amazement lit her face. She blinked, making her thick and extremely long lashes flutter like butterfly wings. “I can’t believe it. You wear glasses now.”

  I pushed them back on my nose self-consciously as I put away my inhaler. “Yeah, like since the third grade.” I eyed her up and down once more and worked hard to remember to breathe. “Do I know you?”

  “Kind of…Well not really. I’m…” she shifted her eyes to the side without moving her head and bit her lips like she needed to remember something and stopped for a moment before she continued. “Ugh! I suck at this. You’ll never let me do this again if I mess this up.” She shook her head and then turned her attention back to me. “No, you don’t know me, but I know all about you. Let’s just put it that way.” Her grin said something was up.

  Had the guys arranged this? I turned my attention to Michael and the others on the stage. She glanced over to them and then screamed out, “Oh my word! That’s Michael!” She pointed and looked back at me. “He’s so scraggly with the beard and long hair…and the flannel shirt with the sleeves cut out. He looks like a lumberjack.” She giggled again. “You guys are so young and…dress funny.” Her forehead wrinkled as she looked back at Michael.

  Ouch! I glanced up at the stage. Mark was nudging Travis to look my way. “Did the guys put you up to this?” I said it as they all motioned at Michael and nodded for him to look my way.

  She glanced back at the stage. “No. Why?”

  “Then are you a Head Trauma fan?” I asked, trying to figure out how she knew about us. I really didn’t think we were at groupie status yet.

  The beautiful, blonde girl looked at me now like I was crazy. “What?”

  “Our band, Head Trauma.” I pointed to the stage.

  “Oh, right.” Suddenly she seemed to think in a different direction. “Yes, I’m a big fan of your band…Head…Trauma.” She glanced around. “I’d better go before I mess this up. I can’t believe I’m really here seeing you like this. This is amazing.” She looked straight at me. “You are amazi
ng, and you are going to do amazing things and create the most amazing future for the world. Just know that whatever happens, the pain and sorrow will be worth it in the long run.”

  I felt my face scrunch. “O…kay?”

  “It was really nice meeting you like this, but I need to find my ride. I can’t wait to tell him I met you. He’ll have fun telling Michael I said he looked like a lumberjack.” She bit her lip and smiled before turning to walk away, and then she was gone.

  A friend of Michael’s. Yeah, it was some kind of set up. I rolled my eyes at him and gave him a certain gesture with my hand to let him know I was on to it. He shook his head and shrugged back at me.

  Whatever.

  A couple of songs later I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Bond Girl again.

  Dark, butterfly lashes guarded eyes with a tinge of worry in them. “I can’t seem to find my ride. He told me to make sure I stayed with him all night, and everything would work out fine, but I can’t find him anywhere.” She looked back at me with those big doe eyes. “Do you mind if I sit with you until he shows up? I think he’ll know to check here.”

  “No, not at all.” I jumped up so fast I nearly knocked over my chair as I pulled the one with my notebook and pen closer and moved the book to the table by the soundboard.

  She looked at the notebook, then up at me, and smiled before she glanced around again. “I forgot how humid it gets here.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “California.” She glanced around toward the bar. “I’m so thirsty. I’ll be right back.” A few minutes later she was back beside me, sweat beading on her nose. “I forgot I don’t have my purse with me, but the bartender noticed me sitting over here, and I let him think I was with the band and got a free drink.” She smiled while handing me a red Solo cup. “I got you one too. They didn’t have Cheerwine so I had him add cherry to your Dr Pepper.”

  I sat completely still and glared at her and swallowed. “How did you know what I drink?”

  Her glossy pink lips curled up into the most devious grin. “I just know things.”

  I glanced away. “Right. Or did Michael’s friend tell you?”

  “Michael’s friend?” Her nose scrunched like she was confused.

  I shook my head and turned to the soundboard.

  The band finally took a break, and the guys got drinks and came over to where the Bond Girl and I were. Michael pulled me aside. “Who’s the chick?”

  “Like you don’t know.” I started to brush by him, but he stopped me.

  “I don’t.”

  “You didn’t send her my way?” I rolled my eyes at him. I wasn’t stupid.

  “When have I ever sent a hot chick your way? She looks like the woman from I Dream of Jeannie.” Michael smirked as he bumped my shoulder with his. “Did you find her in a bottle down on the beach? Finally found something different to rub for a change, and then she popped out?” He glanced around with a mocking look.

  I punched him in the arm. “Shut up, idiot.”

  “Make me, dork.” He shoved me before he gave her another once over. “Did you get her name?”

  I shook my head. “No, but she knows us somehow.”

  “A fan girl. Nice.”

  Michael was about to swagger over to her when I said, “She said you look like a lumberjack and dress funny.”

  Michael turned around and shoved me again. “Well that shows you something’s wrong with her. That and the fact she’s hanging out with you.” He glanced her way and eyed her up and down. I didn’t like the way he ogled her. “You gonna ask her to dance?”

  I stood still, realizing I’d not thought of that. “I would, but someone has to play CDs during the break.”

  “Joey can do that. If you don’t ask her, I will.”

  That decided it for me. Even if it was some kind of hoax, I wasn’t turning down the chance of putting my arms around her. I turned and saw her still searching out into the crowd for her ride. I really hoped he wasn’t some big jock as I stumbled back to where she sat. “You wanna dance?”

  She smiled and glanced around again before she turned her full attention to me. “I guess that would be okay.”

  She followed me to the dance floor and stepped closer and put her arms around my neck. I’d never danced much. My heart raced and my hands got sweaty as they found their way to her waist. “I don’t even know your name yet,” I said as we moved back and forth to Radiohead’s “Creep.”

  The huge doe eyes with the long black lashes looked away as she bit her lip, like she was considering. “I’m not allowed to say.”

  “Says who?” It was a prank.

  She shook her head. “Can’t say.”

  “What… are you like in the witness protection program or something?”

  She didn’t answer at first, as if to consider how to answer. “Yes, I am!” But her grin said she was teasing.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She only smiled with a quick tilt of the head.

  “Well how old are you? Are you allowed to tell me that?” I leaned down to speak into her ear because of the music and the noisy crowd, but when I did, I got a whiff of her. It was sweet but not perfume. Was that her own scent? I had to catch my breath and try to order my thoughts. If I wasn’t careful, I’d hyperventilate and need my inhaler again.

  “I’m twenty-four." She glanced up at me under those lashes. "And how old are you?”

  Should I lie?

  “I’m eighteen.” It would be true by the end of the week.

  She rolled her eyes and leaned against my chest and laughed. Another intoxicating whiff of her hair. “First I’m too young, and now you are.” Then she pulled back and gazed up at me. “But it’s just one dance. I’ve always wanted to do this. I guess I never got over my crush on you. I don’t think one dance will hurt anything.”

  Crush on me? The guys had her laying it on thick.

  Then she surprised me by pulling off my glasses, folding them, and sticking them in my shirt pocket with my inhaler. “I want to look into your eyes. They’re the first thing I noticed the day I met you. That and your black hair. I’ve always thought you were such a hottie.”

  Me a hottie? Now I knew it was a joke. “The day you met me? And when was that because I know I would remember you?” I would kick Michael’s everlasting butt for this later.

  She smirked. “Can’t say. But this is the perfect ending to a terrible day.”

  “Today was bad for you?” We swayed to the music.

  She sighed. “It started with some bad news. A friend of mine was missing. He’s going to be one of those people who changes the world. You know, end up in all the history books. If something happened to him, the world would be lost.”

  “Was that the friend you came with?”

  “No. Another, different, very important friend brought me here.” She grinned at me like she was hiding something in her words.

  “But your friend who was missing is okay?”

  “Yes.” She pulled back again and gazed up at me. “You’ve had enough go wrong in your life. I’m glad it worked out for you too. I wasn’t sure you could survive another loss.”

  I stared back at her, my brows furrowed as I tried to comprehend what she was saying. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. How much is Michael paying you to mess with me?”

  “Michael paying me? I don’t think Michael even notices I’m alive.”

  I stepped back. “Oh, he notices. So you’re one of his girlfriends?”

  She stopped moving, pulled back, and looked into my eyes with a piercing stare. “I’m sorry. I knew I would mess this up.”

  Confirmation.

  The song transitioned into the acoustic version of "Layla" by Eric Clapton. The mood was too somber for my first dance with this beautiful woman. The gig was up—I was onto Michael but I could still enjoy the moment. I pulled her back to me as we started swaying to the music again. I decided to lighten the mood and just play along. “You can’t t
ell me where we met. You can’t tell me your name. So what do I call you, ‘Hey you?’”

  She laughed. “If you want.”

  It worked. I liked her laugh. It wasn’t all giggly like teen girls. It was more throaty and deep. It was sexy and womanly and matched her.

  “How about Layla? Since you have me begging and all?” The words repeated in the song blasting from the speakers.

  She stepped back from me, and a look of horror came over her. “What?”

  “Like the song.” I pointed to the speakers. “Layla.”

  She glanced around and covered her mouth with her hand.

  “I was joking. The song just sort of matched what was going on. I can call you something else.”

  She backed away even farther, her eyes wider now. She bumped into the couple behind her, but seemed oblivious to it as she looked around again, frantically this time.

  “No, it can’t be. I can’t be.” And then she bolted toward the beach. She hit the sand, and her heels began to sink. She kicked off her shoes and grabbed them up to run. I ran to follow her. She kept going into the dunes and marsh grass, down away from the lights to the sandy darkness. The sound of ocean waves beating against the shore was followed by the next crash and then another. If it hadn’t been for the full moon and cloudless sky, I might not have found her. I grabbed her arm as I overtook her and she spun to face me.

  “What’s wrong? Did I do something?”

  She fell on her knees in the sand and clutched at her chest. “He left me here because he thought I was…” She looked up at me in wide-eyed panic.

  “What’s wrong? Who left you here? Did the guys put you up to this? Because it’s not funny.” I knelt down in front of her.

  “I am not Layla!” Then she looked right at me, her glare revealing pure fright. “I am not Layla.”

  Chapter 2

  THE GUYS HAD FOLLOWED ME and joined us on the beach. Michael came first and nodded for me to step to the side with him.

  “Dude, is she all right?”

  I shook my head, still watching as she cradled herself in the sand. “I don’t know. I called her Layla, and she flipped. I thought I got your joke at first, but now I’m not getting this. Just send her home and end this, okay?”