v Ashley - Golden Trail

His hand was already in the air so he moved it slightly and curled his fingers around Jasper’s neck, giving him a firm squeeze. Jasper’s eyes moved to him, that golden hope shone on Layne in that moment and Layne didn’t want to lose it and he knew it would be lost when Jasper came back to himself. So Layne quickly gave him another squeeze then a gentle shove, released him and turned away.

Therefore, he missed the fact that the golden hope had changed, gone deeper as Jasper’s eyes stayed on his Dad’s back as his father walked away.

And since he was watching his feet hit the floor, he missed Rocky’s eyes go half-mast and her mouth staying soft as she watched him walk away from his son.

He felt her mouth touch his then slide to his jaw, up his jaw and to his ear.

Then Rocky whispered, “Wake up, baby.”

Layne heard those words in his head at the same time he heard dog tags in the room and his eyes opened.

He was at an angle on the couch, slouched, his feet on the coffee table. The TV was on but low, some sports talk show. There were lamps lit, not many of them.

He looked to the left to see Rocky, her sandals on the floor, curled barefoot in the armchair, knees up and lying on the armrest, head twisted and resting on the pillowed back of the reclined chair. She was asleep.

“Dad,” Jasper called quietly and Layne looked up to see his son standing beside him looking down. “Tripp’s already upstairs. You cool?”

“Yeah, Jas,” Layne replied, straightening in the couch. “You goin’ up?”

“Yeah.”

“Turn out the lights, yeah?”

Jasper looked across the room at Rocky then back at Layne. “All right, Dad.”

“’Night, Bud.”

“’Night.”

Jasper walked away, Blondie came forward and butted his knee with her nose so Layne bent to her, giving her head and neck a rubdown while the lights went out one by one. When they were in darkness outside of a light coming down the stairs, he pushed her off and she got the hint, jogging after Jasper up the stairs.

Layne put his elbows to his knees and turned his head to Rocky.

Pasta bake had been a hit. It was just hamburger meat, spaghetti sauce and penne mixed together, dumped into a dish, smothered in mozzarella and baked but it was still good. This was mainly because it was smothered in a ton of mozzarella about which Jasper had stated confidently, “Cheese makes everything awesome.”

 They’d eaten in front of the TV watching sitcoms which Rocky had laughed through, once so hard she had to curl her arms around her stomach and lean forward, tears streaming from her eyes. They’d graduated to a gritty cop drama during which Rocky fell asleep, probably having had as much sleep as he did last night. Both Tripp and Jasper had noticed and Layne had given them looks to ignore it and keep quiet.

Then Layne had fallen asleep.

He looked at the time on the DVD player, just after eleven o’clock.

Then he looked back at Rocky.

Then he made a decision.

He walked to her and slid an arm behind her knees, one at her waist and he lifted her up. He figured she’d wake but her head fell heavy on his shoulder then slid forward so her forehead was pressed to his neck and he remembered then that he should have known she wouldn’t wake. If she was out, as in out out, Rocky slept like the dead.

And she didn’t wake until he bent to put her in his bed.

“Layne?” Her voice was groggy, her head came up and she glanced around.

Then her body went alert.

“What –?” she started, her voice sounding not groggy anymore.

“Shh, Roc,” he murmured, setting her seated on the side of his bed.

Her head tipped back to look at him and her palms went into the bed to push herself up. He quickly twisted to turn on the bedside light and just as quickly moved back to her, planting a fist in the bed on both sides of her hips, taking his face close to hers so she reared back.

“You sleep in a bed tonight,” he whispered and watched her eyes get wide and her lips part.

Then she whispered back, “I don’t think –”

“Your car’s in my drive,” he told her.

“So?” she asked.

“Imagination is a powerful thing, baby,” he repeated her words of earlier that night then before she could protest, he pushed away, went to the dresser, grabbed one of his tees and a pair of pajama bottoms and he went back to her. He dropped his tee in her lap and her head tipped down to look at it as he reached beyond her to nab a pillow.

Then he turned and walked from the room, going to the linen closet in the boys’ bathroom, he snagged a blanket, turned off the upstairs light and went downstairs to the couch. He tossed down the pillow and blanket, changed to his pajamas and settled into the couch.

He waited for her to come down in order to sneak out and he did this awhile.

She didn’t come down.

Then he laid there thinking of Rocky wearing his tee and sleeping in his bed.

Then he muttered, “Christ,” turned to his side and, after awhile, found sleep.

Layne moved through his closet, pulling out a sweater to yank over his tee to wear to the game.

The last couple of weeks they’d had Indian Summer.

That morning, he’d discovered, Fall had hit and it had done it with a vengeance.

That morning, he’d also woken up to a note on the island from Rocky addressed to him and his boys thanking them for dinner with a postscript to Layne saying she’d see him that night. That was all she left, except the vague scent of her perfume in his bedroom and his tee folded on the bed she’d made, a tee which held a not-so-vague hint of her perfume.

He was not happy she’d left like that but he gave her that play. What they were doing wasn’t easy on him and he reckoned it was just as difficult for her.

Tripp came down first, as usual, and Layne had taken the opportunity with Jasper not around to give a few pointers to his younger son about being cool, for his sake but mostly for his brother’s. He explained that Keira Winters was not just one of Jas’s “babes” and that Tripp would be doing his brother a favor if he kept his mouth shut and just let his brother make his moves with silent support.

Tripp got it, promised he’d be cool and Layne knew he would. Jasper kept his thoughts and feelings to himself most of the time but Tripp wore his heart on his sleeve. He felt shit for pissing off his brother the night before and he wouldn’t do that again, innocently trying to help or not.

The boys went to school and Layne went into the office, checked his e-mail and voicemail, returned them, went through his post and wished he had a receptionist because he did not like to be in the office returning e-mails and voicemails.

He liked to be in the field. If he had to be in the office, he preferred to be doing computer investigations but even that wasn’t his favorite activity. Luckily, the post included a paid invoice, the check relatively substantial, for a job Layne completed prior to getting shot.

A receptionist had been on the cards six weeks ago. Now she was not. It would take a fair few more substantial invoices being paid before an ad in the newspaper was scratched on top of his to-do list.

He made an appointment with a potential client and took an appointment with a client who he’d called the day before to tell him that the job was done. The guy was not thrilled with the results of Layne’s investigation but then no man whose wedding was scheduled for three weeks away liked seeing video of his bride-to-be, high on E, taking it from behind while she sucked someone off at the front. Then again, his client was a spoiled rich kid who fell for an admittedly gorgeous party girl and thought she’d snap to when offered a life of champagne cocktails and charity receptions with vacations in the Swiss Alps. Clearly, at twenty-one, she wasn’t done partying in all the forms that could take.

Spoiled rich kid or not, Layne felt for him as he walked him to his front office door. He loved her, it was plain to see, and a future he thought was bright suddenly wasn’t so bright anymore and Layne knew exactly how that felt.

After the client left, he was shutting down the office and trying to decide if he should pay a visit to Stew at work or go into Indy and follow the husband of a woman who was convinced he was fucking around on her during his lunch hour (even though Layne had followed the guy to a variety of restaurants on a variety of occasions, not to mention doing extra time following him home, just in case, for the last week and for a month prior to him getting shot and the guy didn’t even look at his waitresses too long) when his cell went.

He nabbed it off his desk, flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“Layne.”

“Big man, gonna be at Mimi’s in five. Could you use a coffee?” Merry asked in his ear.

“See you there in five,” Layne replied.

Five minutes later, Layne had an Americano and Merry’s cappuccino and was sitting at the table in Mimi’s that had the words, “Feb’s spot, sit here and die” carved into it. Layne had learned from Mimi months ago that Colt’s wife, February, sat at that table a lot prior to hooking back up with Colt and Mimi’s kids thought her clientele should be aware of the fact that, if Feb was there, she had a reserved seat.

He’d also met Mimi’s kids in the meantime and found Mimi was lucky they only carved the words into the table rather than using a flamethrower to mark the entire wall around it.