Lucky Number Eleven

Chapter 12

Layla

Exposé Top Story: Branching out?

Branch Best and Finn Miller were spotted out and about this weekend at a grand opening for new hotspot Grandiose on Osborne. Owner Selma Puress looked quite cozy nestled between the two, but don't think we haven't zoomed in on the location of her right hand a time or sixteen million.

Thanks to songstress GiGi last summer (and her sneaky camera skills), we know Branch is seriously packing. Did he "pack" Selma on Saturday? If so, she's not telling. Yet. They always do, and we'll keep you posted when it happens.

*

Getting into "the flow," the state of being so engulfed in something you block out everything else, is easy when you have something to avoid. That "something" toys with my daydreams and heats up my nights. Knowing, for my own good, I can't focus on his cocky smirk, heated gaze, or those sweet, simple touches he did in an almost absentminded way—like it was natural—I've poured myself into work since arriving back home.

What's most bothersome about the whole thing is it's just as much the non-sexual moments that resurface as the sexy ones. If it was just the fucking that I couldn't forget, I could just grab a vibrator and get rid of that urge. But it's not.

I find myself thinking just as much about the joy in his face when he was playing catch with the kids at the fair. The levity in his laugh when he beat me at Skee Ball. The way his fingers pressed against the small of my back as we walked along the beach and the feel of his breath against my cheek when he told me I was beautiful under the moon.

It's those things that I fight to ignore, those little moments that make me wonder "what if?" It's Callum and his texts over the last three weeks since I've been home that remind me of what the other side of 'what if' looks like. The headlines Branch has been making help that vision be a little clearer too.

Seeing him with Selma Puress was a little harder than I thought. I've analyzed that image more times than I should've and ended up more confused than anything.

Is that smile real? It doesn't quite seem to be, yet his hand rests against her skinny waist like she's more than an old friend.

Rolling my desk chair back, I stand and stretch. The knot that started at the base of my neck has expanded down the middle of my back. It's a contributing factor to my extreme efficiency since I can't sleep. It hurts too bad.

The traffic below my apartment on Gilmore Avenue is bustling in the early afternoon. It usually doesn't get too bad until the lunch rush, but the horns from frustrated motorists drift up the twenty-six stories to my ears.

The colorful paintings bring splashes of life to the whitewashed walls that were here when I moved in a few months ago. I envision the living room a dove grey but haven't had time to do it, and I've always wanted a strawberry red wall in my kitchen but Callum thought it was ridiculous.

"Hey," Poppy's voice sings from the doorway, dangling a key in her hand. "You're going to be sorry you gave me this."

"Just be glad you aren't ten minutes later or I'd be naked."

"Hey, if I swung that way . . ."

"Shut up," I laugh, carrying my coffee cup to the sink. "What are you doing?"

"Not much. On lunch break now but I'm thinking of calling off the rest of the afternoon."

"Why?"

"Because . . ." she says, snarling. "It's work. There's nothing to do there. I mean, there's stuff to do," she corrects, "but nothing I want to do. What are you doing today?"