Page 28

Drake

“ N o, no, no—” Lyla says when I try to hand her the phone. She bypasses my outstretched arm, throwing herself at the door—but it’s locked. She jiggles the handle, ramming her shoulder into the door.

“Are we—”

“Don’t say it,” Lyla says, whirling toward me, finger raised in warning. “Don’t you dare say it.”

I hold up my hands, trying not to laugh as I watch Lyla have a mini breakdown. She checks her phone—no service—and then demands to see mine, which is dead.

Pretty sure she just set a Guinness record for most consecutive no’s in three minutes.

To be fair, if I were her, I might be hyperventilating as well.

She thinks we’re stuck in this room. And she would be stuck in this room, if she didn’t have me in here with her.

But the door that’s locking us in could probably be forced open in about fifteen different ways.

There’s brute force—which I might opt for, simply for the spectacle of it, with Lyla present.

But I also know how to use a credit card to unlock simple locked doors.

What can I say? I’ve got a mischievous streak bigger than the great state of Texas. It’s part of my charm.

I stand up as she paces around in the three inches of free space in this closet. When I catch her hand in mine, she comes to an abrupt halt. I tug her close to me, putting my hands on her shoulders. “Lyla,” I say. “It’s going to be okay.”

“It’s going to be okay,” she repeats in a slightly less manic tone than her earlier “no” tirade. I take a deep breath. She mirrors me, her breath shuddering on the exhale. I should probably just open the door. But for once, I don’t want to rush out of a moment.

“What’s the worst-case scenario?” I ask her.

“We stay here all night.”

I can’t help the smirk that I know is taking up residence on my face when I say, “Now that sounds like a best-case scenario to me, personally.”

Her wide eyes jump to mine and I laugh at her bewildered expression.

She smacks me on the chest with both hands and I’m tempted to put my palms over her hands, to keep them there.

I don’t—I’m already pushing it a little too far by not immediately breaking down the door.

But I’ll admit, I’m not hating being stuck with Lyla.

Sue me.

“I have an idea,” I tell her. “Let’s work on a solution for five minutes and then we play the question game for five minutes. And we’ll alternate back and forth like that until we get out of here. Or until we fall asleep,” I say with a wink.

“Fine,” she says with a huff. “But no sleeping.”

“Even if we’re here all night?”

“Fine, we can sleep, but on our own sides of the room.”

I make a show of looking around this ‘room.’

“Fine,” she says, dragging out the word. “What’s your solution?”

Look, I’d like to think I’m a good guy—but I’m not. Improving? Yes. But you also gotta leave yourself room for improvement, right?

So I don’t immediately tell Lyla my actual solutions for getting out of the closet.

Lyla, of course, has reasonable solutions—though none of them involve me breaking down the door or using a credit card to open the door—but none of them work.

She puts her phone on airplane mode then reconnects it to see if it’ll get a signal back.

She tries to turn my phone on again, but it’s firmly dead.

I, of course, throw out nonsensical approaches: We could light a signal fire.

We could make a voodoo doll of Cathy and poke her until she shows up here.

We write an S.O.S. note on a piece of printer paper, attach it to a bunch of Popsicle sticks, and shove it under the door until it reaches someone.

With each solution I throw out, Lyla gets more and more relaxed.

She’s actually laughing now—and I think she might try the voodoo doll for Cathy.

After several minutes, she slumps down on the ground and I sit beside her.

We have just enough space in the room for us to sit side-by-side, shoulders touching, with our legs outstretched in front of us.

“Do you have siblings?” Lyla asks.

“What?” I’m thrown off by her random question, until I realize she’s playing the question game with me. “Oh, yeah. Two older sisters and two older brothers.”

“Ah, you’re the baby, then. That jives.”

“That’s right, I was the grand finale. Saved the best for last.” I hinge at the waist, bowing as much as I can in a seated position, which isn’t much, and mostly just looks like a crunch.

Lyla’s laughter that follows catches me off guard—it’s light, bright, and impossible not to chase. “What about you?”

“I’m an only.”

“That jives,” I say with a smirk.

“What’s that mean?” She pokes me in the ribs and before she can move away, I grab her finger. I don’t let go—and she doesn’t move to take her hand away.

“You’re just so responsible. Dutiful.”

“You mean boring ?”

I lean my head against the copy machine behind me, tilting it toward her so I’m facing her. “I didn’t say that.”

“Isn’t that a synonym for those words?” There’s an undercurrent of something—vulnerability? Hurt?—in her statement.

“I find you infinitely intriguing,” I tell her.

Her gaze moves down to her lap and she tugs her hand away from mine. “Thanks,” she mumbles.

“You don’t believe me?”

She shrugs. “I think you’re only saying that because you don’t know me. And I’ve been playing hard to get.”

Something tells me I could spend an eternity getting to know Lyla Smith and still not reach the end of her.

There would always be layers to uncover, quirks to catalogue, expressions to read, beauty to find.

I don’t tell her that—not yet—but I do say, “I’d like to get to know you.

” I try to say it casually, though this moment doesn’t feel casual in the least. “If you’d let me. ”

She presses her lips together, and for a minute I think she’s going to blow me off and shut down again. Then she nods, only slightly—but it’s a yes.

“Can I ask you something then?”

“Okay,” she says, hesitant.

“Why do you have such a hard time saying no to your boss?”

She frowns, an adorable wrinkle forming between her dark brown eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“Just from casual observance, you seem to be always doing so much—watching her nephew, getting Dan Marino’s number,” I pick up one of the name plates, “stuff like this.” I wave the name plate before setting it carefully down in the stack. “I see you, Blue.”

There’s a slight intake of breath at my last words.

I see you, Blue.

The words settle between us like something sacred.

She doesn’t say anything right away, but I can see the way they hit her.

Her eyes get a little glassy before she looks away.

She obviously needed to hear that—which isn’t surprising, because doesn’t everyone want to hear those words?

Isn’t that one of the deepest desires of every human being: to be noticed, acknowledged, for who we are and all that we do?

It was one of the things I realized about myself and my partying and antics while I was in rehab.

Being the youngest of five, I was always trying to be seen .

Fortunately, I had quite a bit of talent that led me to the NFL.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for my desperate ego and I needed to create trouble—hold the biggest parties, be the loudest one in the room, drink the most booze, get the most absurd tattoos.

At the end of the day, it didn’t work. Sure, the world had noticed me, but I was just as empty as before.

But this, right here? This moment of really seeing someone else—and acknowledging them—it fills me up in a way that all of the theatrics never did.

“I didn’t think anyone noticed,” Lyla finally says, breaking the long silence.

“Well, it wasn’t just anyone ,” I say with a dramatic wave at myself and a wink—because, well, I’m still me . A lifetime of rehab isn’t going to change my personality. And it’s something I’m coming to terms with. And I just hope Lyla will too.

“So,” I nudge her shoulder. “Why won’t you say no?”

She rolls her eyes at me, but there’s a small smile on her pretty lips.

“I guess it’s because of my upbringing.” She glances over at me and kind of scoffs.

“I’m sure that’s what every pushover says, but it’s true.

My parents were both military—officers in the Marine Corp.

They were often gone and I’d be with my aunt or my grandparents.

But even when they were stateside, they weren’t really present , if you know what I mean.

Like I always had to be really spectacular in order for them to notice me.

” She silently fidgets with the bottom button on her shirt—but I don’t say anything because it feels like she’s not done.

“Too bad for them—and for me—that the things I’m really good at weren’t that important to them.

I was never a great athlete,” she looks over at me with a grimace.

“You’d probably be embarrassed to watch me try to catch a football or even run around. I’m like a baby giraffe.”

I smile at her description. “I happen to really like baby giraffes.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “My parents were both collegiate athletes—my mom was a swimmer, nationally ranked, and my dad played D1 baseball. And somehow their combined genetics spawned this,” she waves a hand at herself and I raise my eyebrows because—wow—her parents are probably really hot.

For old people. “I couldn’t even play dodgeball in elementary school without getting seriously injured. Self-inflicted, of course.”

She shrugs, like she’s trying to shake it off. “I was really good in school at all the unimportant things—English, History, Art.”

“Oh, right, the bedrock of modern society,” I scoff playfully. “ So unimportant.”