Page 180 of Broken Brothers

“Listen, I have another interview to go to right now,” she said as she slowly rose, putting on her clothes. “But don’t go anywhere right now, OK? Don’t leave here.”

“Uhh, OK,” I said, somewhat in a fog from the great sex and also wondering what the hell was going on. “Layla?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s… happening?”

She just smiled.

“Just stay here, OK? I’ll tell you how the job interview went.”

What the…

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I said immediately.

“Then stay here. It’ll be best for you.”

She left shortly after, but two things told me that she was not going to an actual job interview.

One, she didn’t bother to finish her breakfast. Layla never liked to leave on an empty stomach.

And two, she didn’t bother to put makeup on, something she had almost never done in a professional setting.

What the actual fuck was going on?

And why did I suddenly feel like I had a reason to feel somewhat hopeful about the whole situation?

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The whole day passed, and while I felt somewhat at peace with what had happened with Layla, there was still just enough confusion in my head that I couldn’t help but feel a little ridiculous with how everything was playing out right now.

That Layla had said about the exact same thing that Morgan had had could not have been a coincidence—nor was the fact that she had not actually left for a job interview. No matter how she phrased it, there was no way that she had actually gone out for a job interview. She was… well, as crazy as it sounded…

Was she going to see Morgan?

But for what?

Part of me said that it was, once again, to fuck me over. If she’d done it once, she could do it again.

But I’d seen her eyes. I’d seen how she looked at me during that last round of sex and how happy she looked and sounded when she left. She was manipulated; she was not a sociopath. She would not have pulled the same stunt on me twice.

So if so, did that mean that Morgan was… actually in my corner?

Just what in the actual fuck was going on these days?

No matter how much I played it out in my head, it made no sense. Something had to give, but I just had no clue what. Layla, with her pattern of behavior… short or long term? Or Morgan, with his sudden betrayal… except maybe he’d had a change of heart?

It made about as much sense as anything else that had happened over the last couple of months, which was to say very little.

An entire day passed by in which nothing of note happened. A bit too nervous to have something happen to me, I just remained in Layla’s apartment, contemplating everything and understanding very little. I watched the sun hit the high point in the sky, watched the tourists go by, and watched the sun then dip below the buildings—still providing the illumination of the night sky, but not quite announcing sunset.

And then the sun actually set, and Layla had not yet returned.

Well, it didn’t make much sense for her to abandon me in her own apartment. It was unlikely that she had just walked out, never to be seen again. And yet, how could I rule anything out? That possibility… her uncle was Craig Taylor, wealthy business owner; who was to say that they hadn’t sold or gotten rid of the place in secret, leaving me to be caught as a squatter?

Then I heard the elevator doors open outside the hallway and footsteps approach the door. They sounded like heels, which made me feel reassured that I wasn’t about to get ambushed by one of Edwin’s goons, but…