Lucky Number Eleven

Chapter Seven

Layla

"Wakey, wakey!" Poppy's head pokes around the corner. "You up yet?"

"Does it look like it?" I groan, pulling the comforter over my head. The sunlight is streaming through the windows thanks to my mistake of not pulling the blinds last night. One of the many perils of red wine. "What time is it?"

"Almost noon. Get your ass up, my friend."

"I don't wanna."

The mattress sinks with her weight as she takes a seat on the edge. "Too much wine last night?"

"Not really. Just tired."

The blanket is jerked away and her perky face is peering down at me. "What did you do when I went to bed? Anything you want to tell me?" She presses my cheek with the tip of her finger. "You don't look like you got laid."

"Because I didn't," I laugh. "Get off me."

"I can see why with that mindset."

I swat at her until she stands, unable to control my laughter as I see her attire. Cut-off jean shorts, a strapless red tube top with a white bikini beneath that squeezes her boobs together into one huge cleavage show, and gold hoop earrings paint quite a picture, one I'm confident was created for my brother's benefit.

"What?" she says, fingering a hoop. "Are these too much?"

"You are too much," I laugh, scooting up against the padded headboard. "Why are you up already?"

"Because I went to bed too early. And because Finn and Branch have been up doing push-ups and wind-sprints across the front lawn for the last hour and I wasn't about to miss that. And because I wanted to make my super morning smoothie for Finn."

"You made my brother a smoothie?" I deadpan.

"And he slurped it all up," she says, wiggling her eyebrows. "Okay. Enough distraction. Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me why your cheeks just turned pink. What happened, Lay?" Her voice turns sassy as a hand falls on her hip. "Spit it out. Or did you swallow?"

"Stop it," I laugh. "Nothing happened. Branch brought Finn home pretty late and I happened to be up working on my blog. We sat on the porch and I had some wine and he had some lemonade and that was it."

"No touching?"

"No touching. I promise. I'd tell you." Closing my eyes, the lines of his chiseled torso greet me.

"Let's put on our bikinis and head to the lake. That should help your cause."

"First of all, it's not my cause. He's worse than Callum!"

"He's hotter than Callum."

"Second," I insist, shooting her a look, "weren't you just telling me yesterday to stay away from guys like him?"

"I said nothing about wide receivers. That's a whole different game." She looks at me like I'm crazy for not following along. "Think about it. Their job is to hold on to the ball at all costs. They'll take a hit, get pushed out of bounds, but what do they not do? They don't fumble. They score, and baby, when he scores, you better give me every little detail."

"Oh, my God," I groan, swinging my legs out of bed. "It's way, way too early for this."

"But," she sing-songs, "you're out of bed. That's a win."