Frenemies

by Nicole Blanchard

  “Getting right to the good stuff.”

  She sipped her water. “You promised.”

  “I guess because I wanted to prove I could make it on my own. If I would have followed in the great Hampton footsteps right away, there would have been no way for me to distinguish myself from the name. I wanted to earn what I get on my own terms.”

  Layla didn’t comment, but there was no mistaking the smile on her lips. “If you could be anything in the world, what would it be?”

  I could have answered anything, could have made up something that wouldn’t have been so embarrassing, but I didn’t. I cleared my throat. “A father.” My voice didn’t tremble, but I could feel my throat flush.

  She choked on her water. “What? Really?”

  “Why the tone of surprise?” I asked.

  “I guess I never thought about it. Why a father?”

  I had her whole attention and I couldn’t deny having those wide curious eyes wholly devoted to me. I lifted a shoulder. “My grandparents may not be the warmest people in the world, but my parents are wonderful. I had a great childhood growing up. I want what they have. The partnership. The commitment. The family. They only had me, but I think I’d want to have two or three rugrats. What about you?”

  “Do I want a family?” She fiddled with the cap of her bottle, readjusted her legs. “I’m not sure, I guess I haven’t thought about it much. I’ve been so focused on school and graduating, there never seemed to be time for anything else.”

  “I would have thought you’d have it all planned out by now.”

  She laughed and it lit up her eyes. “Maybe that’s the next step after graduation and getting a job. One thing at a time.”

  “That all you wanted to know?”

  “Not even close, Hampton.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  LAYLA

  A FATHER.

  That had been the last answer I’d expected him to give. An entrepreneur, a rock star, an athlete. Those had been the answers I would have thought he’d give. Something with flash and prestige. A career that would put him in the limelight he so clearly deserved. A father had been nowhere on the list. He may as well have said an orangutan.

  Once the words came out of his mouth, though, I couldn’t stop picturing him toting around babies, joking with smart-mouthed preteens. Kissing a heavily pregnant wife. He’d be a great father. The image shouldn’t be so appealing, but it was. I guess that’s what people meant when they talked about ovaries exploding.

  Family had never equaled happiness to me, not really. It had meant obligation. Guilt. Disappointment. Family had always emphasized the things I lacked.

  My sister, Delia, had never experienced the same; she’d always been the Golden Child, She-Who-Could-Do-No-Wrong. She had my mother’s unflinching support and praise and didn’t seem to understand why I was always so downtrodden.

  “Get over it, Layla. Just do what she says, and she’ll leave you alone. If you’d stop arguing with her, she wouldn’t be so hard on you.”

  Delia had never gotten the verbal abuse I did. She either didn’t care or didn’t realize it was wrong because it had been the same all of our lives. Maybe she was just grateful she wasn’t on the receiving end of one of Mom’s tongue-lashings.

  Mom...I’d never felt like family to her. Or she to me. She’d been a dictator, a bully, a drill sergeant, but never what I thought a mother would be. I’d never known any different until I went to school and was exposed to how other mothers treated their daughters.

  Seeing other families together had only underscored the notion I was the reason we couldn’t have a normal relationship. She’d said as much to me often enough; it didn’t take long for me to believe her. After all, she was the authority figure, the adult, my parent. Who was I to know any different?

  Dash waved a hand in front of my face. “Did I lose you?”

  Before I could answer, the owner came out with two plates full of food. The scent of cheese and sauce made my mouth water. He sat our plates in front of us with a flourish. “Can I get ya’ll anything else?”

  Dash looked to me and I shook my head. “No thank you,” he said. “This looks great.”

  I took a bite of my sub sandwich and groaned. An explosion of fresh bread, thick sauce, and sharp cheese coated my tongue. “Oh my God,” I moaned.

  “Good?”

  “So good.” I took another bite, then a sip of my water. “So, a dad, huh? I can see that.” All too clearly. It made what had happened between us last night all the more…real.

  He looked up from his plate, “Oh, you could?”

  “I mean I don’t think you’d let them die or anything,” I quickly corrected.

  His laugh made his eyes light up. Seeing it made me want to make him laugh all the time. I liked it almost as much as seeing his expression go stormy with anger or irritation. Maybe there was something to the way he liked to provoke me. Did he feel the same way about me when we were arguing?

  “Well, thanks for the vote of confidence.” He paused to eat some of the side cucumber salad he’d ordered. “If you could do anything, what would you do?”

  I thought about my mom’s insistence about the finance job. About the flush of accomplishment and satisfaction I felt during my student teaching hours. There was no comparison. “I’d be a teacher.” My mouth moved without conscious thought, and I spoke without hesitation coloring my voice.

  “Why do you let your mom push you into the business thing, then, if that’s not what you really want?”

  Stuffing my face with spicy tomato sauce and well-seasoned meatballs seemed like the best response. He waited patiently, eating his own meal in the meantime. Patience was a quality I’d never considered Dash to possess, but he did in spades. In class, in his personal life, with me.

  I ate half my sub before I broke down and answered. “Sometimes it’s easier to buckle under and do what she wants, so she’ll get off my back. She's paying for my degrees, some of my bills. I don’t have much of a choice.”

  “Do you ever stand up to her?” he asked.

  Pointing my drink at him, I said, “I thought this was supposed to be my rodeo. I’ll be asking the questions.”

  He made a ‘go-ahead’ gesture with his brat, but I knew he wouldn’t be dropping the subject, simply filing it away for later.

  “Why me?”

  The question slipped out, again without thought. It was getting too easy for me to drop all my barriers around him. Too easy to let him see and possess parts of me without my permission.

  I shook my head at myself, my tongue tangling. “You don’t have to answer that. It was a stupid question.”

  Dash reached across the table, dwarfed my hand with his. “I’ll tell you as many times as you need to hear it. I’ll keep answering it until you believe me. It’s you because it’s always been you, even when I didn’t want it to be. It’s you because as much as you hate me, I know you like me just as much.” At my burning look, he laughed and corrected, “Okay, maybe you hate me a little more.”

  “What are we going to do about this? We both have a lot to lose.”

  He turned my hand over in his, twined our fingers together. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. I don’t have the answers here anymore than you do. I can tell you what I want.”

  I finished my sandwich one-handed, almost afraid of asking, but I did because I had to know. I burned for the answer almost as much as I ached for him the night before. “What do you want?” I was nearly breathless with anticipation.

  He had no hesitation and his unflinching gaze was on me. I wasn’t at all prepared for what he said. “I want to see where this is going to go. I want to get to know you more. I want to see you. And I’m willing to take that as fast or as slow as you want.”

  “And if I said I thought we should go back to a professional relationship, at least until the semester was over?”

  Dash took my plate and empty water bottle, threw it and his own away in the trash. He helped me up
from the table and tucked me into his side. “Then, I’d understand, and I’d be patient. You’re worth waiting for.”

  He seemed to realize I needed time to process, and we walked hand in hand back to his Jeep after finishing our meal. He closed the door behind me, and I buckled myself into the seat as I contemplated his words.

  Dashiell Hampton wasn’t only the bane of my existence. He was also a talented teacher, a focused student, an aspiring businessman, a loyal son and grandson, and maybe, possibly…the man I was beginning to love.

  HE WAS A WHIRLWIND. There was no other way to describe it. I’d coast along, thinking I had everything planned out, every eventuality carefully plotted and decided, and he’d scoop me up like a tornado and drop me miles away from my previous destination.

  Dash wasn’t anything like I’d planned. He was so much more.

  I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to handle it, until I saw his grandmother, her name was Elizabeth, I remembered, standing at my front door. Much like her grandson had been doing not so long ago.

  “Mrs. Hampton,” I greeted, as I walked across the hall from the elevator. I was all too aware of Dash’s taste still lingering on my lips, the ghost of his hands still branding my waist. “Please, come in.” Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. The look in her eye wasn’t congenial, but I motioned into my apartment after unlocking the door. When we were both inside, I asked, “Would you like something to drink? Water, coffee?”

  She clutched her purse and shook her head. “No, thank you, I won’t be here long.”

  Anxiety clutched my belly tight. “Well, what can I do for you, Mrs. Hampton?”

  “When I met my Edward, I wasn’t much different than you; a reasonably attractive woman, from an acceptable family, attending college for a lucrative degree. I was in law school when we met. Of course, I quit my dream school because I knew what it would take to be a Hampton wife.” She pinned me with a hard, unflinching gaze. “Edward’s mother, Clarissa, didn’t think I had what it took to be a good wife to her son, and if Dashiel’s parents weren’t so busy on the campaign they’d tell you the same thing. You are not the woman for him, you will never be the woman for him. He needs someone who understands his family, his future, and isn’t afraid to go after what she wants, to stand up for herself. You are none of those things.”

  My back stiffened. Heat painted the base of my neck. “Excuse m-me?” I stammered. “You don’t know anything about me.” The words barely made their way over my tongue, which had the taste and texture of a baked Nevada highway at noon. The fact she spoke aloud the fears, I didn’t even realize I had, made my stomach threaten to reject the delicious lunch Dash had treated me to.

  She shook her perfectly coiffed head and smiled knowingly. “I know everything about you, Layla Lucille Tate. I know you’re a Business-Art major, which tells me you can’t even make up your mind about what you want with your future, let alone give my grandson the attention and dedication he’ll need. Before this gets any more difficult, I’m here to advise you to do the right thing and let him go. Let him go before this affects both of your futures.”

  I was quite simply, without words. She reminded me so much of my mother, the same self-assured singlemindedness. It didn’t occur to her, maybe I was the right person for Dash, even if I wouldn’t admit it to myself. It didn’t occur to her, it wasn’t her place to meddle in our lives. Just like my mother, she thought she could dictate to and micromanage those around her without a protest or complaint.

  She started for the door, already certain I would comply with her demands. “I trust we have an understanding?” she said over her shoulder.

  Before I could so much as reply, she was out of the door and it swung shut with a smart click before I could even unclamp my jaws. I folded limply into a pile on my couch, still staring at the door where Elizabeth Hampton had disappeared, her expensive Chanel perfume still lingering in the air.

  I’d barely had time to process the night with Dash, the day, and now this? I couldn’t seem to get my head on straight before something crashed in and destroyed what little certainty I’d managed to scrape together. And I couldn’t talk to anyone about this.

  My friends still didn’t know we were together, and I couldn’t tell them. Especially not now. Admitting to anyone what had happened would put both of us at risk.

  I’d wanted more time to figure things out. To understand how I was feeling.

  Time I didn’t have.

  There wasn’t much I thought Dash and I had in common, until now. He’d been born into a sterling family name, the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. He wouldn’t have to fight for what he wanted—it was handed to him. A cushy career in politics, a vast family fortune. Status, wealth, prestige. It didn’t hurt that genetics had blessed him with a face fit for a prince. He never wanted for anything. Whereas I had to fight for everything. I’d only succeeded so far because I worked for it all. My mmmmother liked to put on a mask that we were upwardly mobile, that we had money and she certainly spent it like we did, but when my father abandoned us, he took his bank account with him. We had our name and little else.

  But the one thing Dash and I had in common was apparently the women in our lives, pushing, manipulating, orchestrating. Every moment planned, every step carefully mapped out. I had my mother—he had his grandmother. It made me wonder what other parts of his life had been controlled by his family like mine had.

  Needing to think, knowing I couldn’t let anyone else make the decision for me, I headed for my bathroom and pulled the shower curtain aside. I set the water to steaming hot and let the bath fill as I poured myself a glass of wine and lit candles. I pushed the dilemma to the back of my mind, as I poured cherry blossom bubble bath in the running water and stripped. It may have been my imagination, but I could still feel Dash’s hands on my bare skin.

  By the time I stepped into the water, steam was already curling the ends of my hair and I’d come to a decision.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DASH

  IF I THOUGHT it had been worse before, seeing her in class the following week was something akin to hell.

  This time, she didn’t spend the whole hour ignoring me, pretending I didn’t exist. She studied the text as I lectured, took notes—because who was Layla if not the dutiful student—but in between the notes, her eyes would be on me. They burned with an intensity I’d never seen in her before.

  I spent the hour lost in thought, lecturing purely by memory, wondering what was going on behind her stare. Had she decided to walk away? I couldn’t necessarily hold it against her if she had. Our timing was shit. Did she blame me? I would. I took advantage of her, in more ways than one. Used our history to get her into bed, risking both of our futures.

  There wasn’t one good reason she should even consider anything I’d said the day before or my carefully reasoned arguments that had gotten her into bed.

  Everything was against us. Hell, even I’d done my best to sabotage us in the beginning.

  By the end of class, if I hadn’t written the lecture and given it several times, I wouldn’t have known what the hell I talked about. I considered dropping to my knees right there in front of God and everyone and begging. Is that what she wanted? For me to beg? I was more than willing.

  Without looking up, I packed my things. I was sure if I did, I’d watch her walk away and I didn’t want to tempt myself. Layla hated scenes, being the center of attention. By the time I’d carefully stowed away my laptop, phone, pens, and anything else I could think of to give myself more time, I’d at least gotten my hands to stop shaking.

  Christ. What was this girl doing to me?

  When I couldn’t put it off anymore, I looked up.

  And there she was.

  Layla.

  A knowing smile sat on her lips as though she could read my mind.

  When had she become the aggressor in this little scenario?

  Probably around the time I got my first taste of her, if I were being honest wit
h myself. Maybe even before that. Maybe it had been the first lashing she’d ever given me with that sweet tongue of hers.

  My feet drew me toward her without thought. She stood, shouldered her bag, and waited for me.

  I stopped when I could scent her. Clean, something simple. Something that invited me closer to find all the places where it lingered on her skin. Oh, how I wanted my mouth on her again. I would have given anything to taste her.

  “Mr. Hampton,” she greeted soberly.

  All I could do was nod.

  “Do you have office hours now?” she asked.

  I had no idea, but I held out a hand for her to lead the way. If I didn’t, I’d cancel whatever class I was supposed to be teaching next.

  When I found my voice, I said, “What is it you want to talk about, Ms. Tate?”

  I couldn’t read her expression. “We can discuss it when we get to your office,” was all she’d say.

  I followed her out of the lecture hall, through throngs of students, and wondered if I could convince her not to throw us away before we’d even got started. If my friends from high school could see me now, they wouldn’t believe the womanizer Dash Hampton was following a woman around like a forlorn puppy dog.

  She stood patiently as I unlocked my office door and let her in. It closed behind us with a pronounced thump and I locked it, just in case. With exaggerated care, I placed my bag beside my chair and turned to face her. For the first time, I couldn’t read her expression, so I memorized the moment instead.

  She was wearing jeans and some sort of sweater combo, one whose neckline dipped just enough to tease at the tops of her breasts and nip in at her waist. Her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders and I wanted to bury my face in her throat where her scent was the strongest.

  As I studied her, she sat in the chair across from my desk, crossed her trim legs, and knotted her hands in her lap and simply waited, watching me.