“Marissa,” Layne murmured and she lifted a hand and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“You know anyone that wants a nearly new ‘vette, I’m sellin’,” she declared, turned and walked out, closing the door behind her.

One second elapsed, Layne muttered, “Fuck,” then he dropped his arms and followed her.

When he was standing on the landing outside the door, he called, “Marissa.”

She was mostly down the stairs but on hearing her name, hand on the banister, she turned and looked up at him.

“Don’t lose your way again,” he warned and her face, which had filled with expectation, closed off.

“Right,” she muttered and started to turn away but stopped when Layne spoke.

“You start thinkin’ of goin’ that way, I’m not goin’ anywhere for awhile. You find me, I’ll buy you a Mimi’s and talk you out of it.”

And that’s when Layne witnessed it. What Astley saw in her. What he wanted. It wasn’t the hair, the similar features. It was her mouth getting soft, in doing so it changed everything about her. She didn’t speak with her eyes like Rocky did but it was close to what Rocky could give with just one look and it was nice.

“Soft spot,” she whispered, turned and part walked, part skipped down the rest of the steps and out the front door.

The door didn’t close all the way before a hand was on it, pulling it open and Layne saw Vera move into the doorframe, her head turned to watch Marissa walk away.

Layne looked to the ceiling and implored on a mutter, “Kill me.”

“Hi honey!” Vera called.

Layne looked down at his mother. “What are you doin’ here?”

“I’m so glad I caught you in the office,” she stated, walking up the stairs, carrying a white cup with brown cardboard wrapped around it, she stopped, looked at her cup and then looked up at him. “Do you want a coffee? I just stopped in to get one and then decided to try your office and –”

“Ma, what are you doin’ here?”

She started walking again, muttering, “Yeesh. Someone’s in a bad mood even after having a meeting with a pretty girl.”

Jesus. That shit was going to hit Rocky next.

“She’s an ex-porn movie bit player who just fleeced Jarrod Astley for two hundred K. She’s pretty but she’s not my type,” Layne informed her, his mother stopped two stairs down from him and her mouth was hanging open.

Then she whispered, “Porn?”

“Ex-porn. She’s straight now. So, now that we got that sorted, I’ll repeat, what the fuck are you doin’ here?”

“You say the f-word too much, Tanner Layne,” Vera snapped.

“Ma,” Layne growled.

She looked at the door then to him. “Can we go in your office?”

“Will that make you tell me what you’re doin’ here?” Layne countered.

“Yes,” she answered.

Layne sighed. Then he walked into his office and his mother followed. He went straight to the reception desk and sat on it. She went straight to the couch and settled in like they were going to shoot the shit for the next hour.

“Ma,” Layne prompted.

“I’ve had the best idea,” Vera announced.

Layne suspected he wouldn’t think it was the best.

“You gonna share?” he asked when she said no more.

“I’m going to sell my condo in Florida, come home and be your receptionist!” she declared with a little bounce on the couch. “Isn’t that great? You won’t have to pay me much and I’ll get to –”

Layne interrupted her. “That’s not gonna happen.”

Her face grew confused. “What? Why?”

“How many reasons do you want?” Layne asked.

“All of them,” she shot back.

“Okay, first, the shit I do, see, photograph and investigate, you do not wanna know, you do not wanna see. If you can’t handle the f-word, you can’t handle my job. Second, I’m done with your shit in regards to Rocky. I told you when you came home that you didn’t learn to hide your attitude, which you haven’t, I’d show you the door. I’ve been patient and I’m letting you know, now, straight out, I’m not gonna be patient anymore. You pull one more stunt with Rocky, I’m done, you’re out.”

“Tanner,” she whispered.

“I’m bein’ straight with you, no joke, do not push me on that, you won’t like the consequences and if you do it when I’m not around, but Jas and Tripp are, I’m tellin’ you straight about that too, you won’t like the consequences of that either.”

“They’re my grandsons!” she protested. “She’s known them all of a month.”

“Yeah, and they’re my sons. I fell in love with her in three weeks, twice. You do the math.”

She snapped her mouth shut, looked away and sucked back some coffee.

Then she told the wall, “She’s going to hurt you again.”

“Yes, she is,” Layne agreed and Vera’s eyes shot to him.

“What?” she whispered.

“She’s got somethin’ in her, Ma. Somethin’ not right and I gotta help her get it out but I don’t know what the fuck it is. I don’t even think Roc knows what it is. It made her leave me eighteen years ago and I know in my bones it’s gonna happen again, unless I sort that shit out, and all three of us are gonna lose her. Now, you can play your games and piss me off, piss off my boys, and cause a rift in this family because you’re bein’ stubborn or you can fuckin’ help me, ‘cause, Ma, she makes me happy, I love her, I don’t want to lose her again and I need all the help I can get.”

He watched his mother’s eyes change and she looked the way she looked when he was eleven and took that huge header on his bike, walked home with blood running from his knees, his forearms and his temple and she cleaned it up with a hot, soapy towel then wiped it with alcohol, blowing in between each stroke.

And the way she looked at him, just months ago, when he was in the hospital after getting shot.

“She’s got something in her?” Vera asked quietly.

“She’s shit scared of the dark unless I’m there,” Layne shared.

“Is this new?”

“No, I don’t think so, but it’s new to me. She wasn’t that way before but she said it was because I was there. And she isn’t that way now when I’m there. But if I’m not there, and it’s night, the curtains are open and she cannot handle them closed and when I say that, she seriously cannot handle them closed.”

“Did you ask what scares her?”

“Yeah, but she didn’t answer. She just started shakin’ and then I felt something comin’ from her and I won’t go into details, Ma, but I been in some serious situations and been in the presence of some serious people, and I’ve never, not in my life, felt anything as nasty as that.”

She put her hand to her mouth and took a breath before dropping it and asking, “Why do you think she didn’t answer?”

“I don’t know, she just wouldn’t go there.”

“What do Dave and Merry say?” Vera asked.

“They don’t, they won’t talk about it.”

“What?”

“They won’t talk about it, Ma. At all. They say if they do, she’ll cut them out like she cut me out.”

“My God,” Vera whispered. “What on earth –?”

Layne cut her off. “I don’t know. I know two things. She’s scared of the dark, really scared and she won’t go there to understand why. And I suspect one thing, whatever this is ties up with why she left me.”

“Did she explain that?” Vera asked softly.

“Yes and no,” Layne answered honestly.

Vera’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“She explained it but she says even she doesn’t know why she did it. She just knows it hurt, she wanted that connection back, she fought against it and missed me for eighteen years. Me gettin’ shot broke through.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Vera observed.

“No shit?” Layne asked.

Vera’s back got straight. “Do you want me to talk to her?”

Oh Christ.

Layne shook his head and stated firmly, “Fuck no.”

“What?” Vera snapped. “Why not?”

“Ma, seriously?” And his mother had the grace to look as guilty as she was.

“Okay,” she said. “So I won’t meet her after school and invite her to manicures and confessions of the soul. I’ll um… win her back and then… um…”

“How about you work Dave, I’ll work Merry and one or the other of us maybe will figure out what the fuck is goin’ on and find a way to get passed it,” Layne suggested.

“Dave isn’t my best friend,” his mother reminded him.

“Yeah, you did that too. But you go over there, wavin’ the white flag while carryin’ one of your pistachio bunt cakes with that kickass icing that he always liked so much and maybe he won’t shoot you.”

Vera grinned then her grin wavered and her eyes got bright with wet.

“One big happy family,” she whispered.

“One big happy family,” Layne whispered back.

“Again,” she finished now trying to force her smile.

“You missed her,” Layne said softly.

“She made you happy,” Vera bullshitted.

“Bullshit,” Layne called her on it. “You missed her.”

She took in a deep breath then she spoke.

“You know, Tanner, I was once head over heels in love,” she told him. “Blind with it. Blind. Then he walked out on me just like she walked out on you.”

Fuck. Jesus. Fuck!

Layne hadn’t thought of it like that.

“Ma –”

“Then I had to watch it happen to you and feel it again because yes, I loved her and when she left, I missed her. But she wasn’t gone, like your father, and every time I saw her, it hurt even more.”

Layne stared at his mother.

Then he ordered, “Come here, Ma.”

She shook her head. “No. If I do, you’re gonna be my sweet boy and make me cry and I don’t have waterproof mascara on.”