“Maybe later.” He kissed the top of her head, and she snuggled closer to him with a little pout. “No, sweetheart. I can’t right now.”

“Tomorrow?”

He rolled his eyes at her but was still grinning. “Tomorrow.”

I emptied the rest of my beer and got up to throw it away. “I’m calling it a night.” I stopped behind Emmie to place a kiss on her cheek. “I finally get to sleep in tomorrow!”

“You get most of next week off, you big baby,” Nik grumbled. “So stop complaining.”

I shot him the finger. “Not my fault I’m so damn good at what I do that you get the drums down on the first go.” I winked down at Emmie. “Night, sweetheart.”

“Night, Jesse,” she called after me.

I tossed the beer bottle in the recycling can in the kitchen before heading up to my room. Instead of crashing on the bed I moved to the window. It didn’t overlook the beach but the guest house. It was dark except for the flashing light of a television in the living room. I imagined Layla laying there on that damned hide-a-bed and wished I was there with her right now…

Layla

I had the whole day to myself. It was something that never happens, but I wasn’t going to complain about it. I spent the morning just vegging out in front of the television, watching pure crap. It was stuff that would rot my mind, but I loved every second of it. After a small lunch of cereal and a bagel, I took a long soak in the bathtub and then washed my hair.

Emmie called me on my new cellphone and asked if I wanted to come over to swim, but I was enjoying some me time far too much to want to end it just yet. She seemed a little disappointed, but I promised her that I would spend the entire day with her by the pool the next day, and she cheered up. I loved spending time with Emmie.

Lana and Lucy got home from their day with Drake just after four. Lucy came running into the guest house full of excited energy. She was already telling me about her day while Lana stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. I glanced over at the front door to see Drake glaring after her, his arms loaded with bags of clothes and toys.

“Lucy, go watch some cartoons.” I pushed her toward the sofa. “You can tell me all about your day later, I promise.”

“Okay.” She sighed. “Don’t yell at Drake. It isn’t his fault that Lana is so rotten.”

I shot her a look that told her to keep quiet and moved over to the door where Drake dropped his load of bags on the floor. “How was your day?” I asked.

His jaw tensed and he finally turned his glare from the closed bedroom door to me. Those blue gray eyes of his were gorgeous, the way they were all glassy and full of stormy emotions, even when he was pissed off. “Your sister is so stubborn!” He informed me. As if I didn’t already know that! Ha!

I couldn’t help but grin. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

“She didn’t want me to buy her anything. Nothing! Not one little thing. Then when I bought them anyway, she stormed out of the store and left me there with poor little Lucy. She refused to speak to me the rest of the afternoon…” He ran a hand through his over long hair and pulled at the roots. “She makes me f…uh…freaking bonkers!”

I admired the way he caught himself from swearing. I had noticed the weekend before that he and the others tried not to swear when Lucy was around. “Give her a little while. She won’t stay mad forever. Lana’s the type of girl that doesn’t want material things. She learned the hard way that people trying to buy her affections didn’t exactly mean that they cared about her.” I saw his eyes darken as if my words had smacked him in the chest. “She would rather you pick her a flower beside the road than buy her one in a flower shop…”

“I wasn’t…I just wanted…” He raked his hands through his hair again, looking sick to his stomach. “I’ll call her later,” he muttered and turned to leave.

I stood in the doorway and watched him make his way back toward the big house. He looked almost defeated with his head bowed and his shoulders slightly slumped. I felt bad for him, but he and Lana had to figure it all out on their own. When he was out of sight, I closed the door and picked up the bags filled with expensive clothes.

My eyes got huge when I saw that they were from an exclusive boutique on Rodeo Drive. I could just imagine the money he had spent there. Leaving Lucy in the living room with a cartoon movie on, I took Lana’s new things into the bedroom. She was laying on the king sized bed glaring up at the ceiling.

“Drake said he will call you later,” I told her as I dropped the bags on the bed and started snooping through them.

I pulled out jeans with designer labels on them, tops made of silk instead of cotton, and two dresses that made me want to weep they were so beautiful. There were two shoe boxes: one with heels that were to die for in a passion red, and another with boots that just begged to be worn by me… Okay, maybe not by me, but if Lana thought I wasn’t going to borrow them, she could think again!

“I told him I didn’t want anything,” Lana muttered. “He said he just wanted me to try a few things on, and I didn’t have to get them if I didn’t want them. So I tried them on. It was fun. But then the sales girl started ringing everything up, and he kept adding more and more things to the pile. I didn’t want them. I don’t want them! But would he listen to me? No!” She punched the bed beside of her. “I don’t want his fucking money. I don’t want what he can buy me. I just want to spend time with him!”

“Don’t say fuck,” I gently admonished her.

“Oh, shut up Layla,” she grumbled. “You say it all the time.”

“Yeah, but you’re better than me. Don’t curse.”

“Don’t you go starting that again!” Lana sat up, glaring at me now instead of the ceiling. “I’m not better than you. No one is better than you, Layla. You are the best person in the world in my eyes. I don’t care about your past or what you had to do to survive when Mom kicked you out. I love you!”

I clenched my jaw, not wanting to think about the past. “So what happened after he bought you the clothes?” I asked, changing the subject back to her day with Drake.

“I walked away. He still bought the clothes. When he and Lucy came out of the store, he drove us to another one that was just for kids and bought Lucy just as many clothes and half a dozen stuffed animals.” She shook her head again. “And he got mad at me for being mad at him. Really? He’s such a child sometimes! Thirty one years old and he acts younger than Lucy! Pouting because I wouldn’t talk to him. Muttering to himself…”