Chapter Three

“I'm a moron.”

Lance leaned against his kitchen counter, nursing the glass in his hand as he watched the dancing crowd in his living room, his eyes focused on one particular person.

“Talk about the most random moment to blurt out the most embarrassing thing ever,” he continued.

“Maybe she didn't hear you,” Michael said, loading a plate with bite-sized Halloween-themed treats.

“She heard me,” Lance said. “I thought her eyes would pop out of her head when she looked at me.”

“Well, that's a bit of an embellishment,” Michael said, chuckling as he tossed pieces of caramel-covered popcorn into his mouth.

“She's been ignoring me all night,” Lance said somberly. “She must absolutely hate me.”

“Anybody who knows Lay knows she could never hate you,” Michael said. “Give her a break, man – she's been through hell and back lately. Six weeks ago she was laid up in bed with broken ribs. She just started therapy. She's got a lot of stuff to process.”

Lance mumbled, taking another sip from his glass as he watched Layla. She stood near the living room wall, trying to stay away from most of the party-goers. She stuck close to Jamie-Lynn and Lance's assistant, Lisa – mostly because they were the ones she was comfortable around. She had a hard time in big crowds, always wary of an unexpected situation. For a moment, he wondered if he should gather his courage and go to her; make sure that she knew she was in a safe zone.

“Staring at her from across the room isn't going to turn back time, you know,” Michael leaned in and said softly. “You've got two choices – either go talk to her or don't.”

“I have to talk to her at some point,” Lance said. “She's not like the other guests – at the end of the night, she isn't going to leave. She lives here. She...oh, shit, she sleeps in the same bed as I do.”

“That presents a pretty good opening opportunity to talk to her about it,” Michael said with slight amusement.

“I've really fucked this up,” Lance said, shaking his head.

“Not yet,” Michael said with his trademark grin.

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“And so I said, 'Only one of us can go out Halloween night with a baby in the house'...”

Layla hugged her glass closely as she scanned the room. As if she wasn't nervous enough, Lance's party-hardy guests made her more so.

She heard Lisa chuckle at something Jamie-Lynn had said, then felt a hand touch her arm.

“Layla, you okay?”

She looked over to see Lisa looking at her.

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay?” Lisa asked again.

“Oh, yeah,” Layla said, trying to sound carefree.

“Are you sure?” Jamie-Lynn asked. “You've been quiet all night.”

“I'm just distracted, that's all,” Layla said.

“Mmmm, I think I know why she's been distracted,” Jamie-Lynn said, smirking in Lisa's direction.

“What are you talking about?” Layla said, clueless to the look the two of them shared.

“Doctor Lance, Nurse Layla requires your assistance,” Jamie-Lynn whispered.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glance at him. Lance was by far the most dressed-down of the evening. He had shed the warm, uncomfortable doctor's coat, wearing only his sneakers, baby blue scrub pants and shirt, and a white t-shirt barely peeking underneath. They had both washed off the white makeup that made them both ghostly pale. Other than her slightly era-outdated nurse's dress, the two of them looked like any regular person who might walk the hallways of a hospital.

“No,” Layla said. “No! He's all the way over there and I'm all the way over here. I'm just looking around at all these people. It's getting a little crowded in here.”

“Lance has plenty of space around him,” Lisa said. “So why don't you walk over there...”

“No, okay? Just no,” Layla said. “I'm fine right here.”

Just as she thought she was safe from the two womens' continuous urging, Lance stopped talking to Michael in the kitchen and shoved himself off the counter with his arms, heading her way.

“Oh,” Jamie-Lynn said. “Looks like someone got lonely with all that space around him.”

Don't come this way, don't come this way, Layla urged him in her mind. But she quickly realized that no matter how much she urged, he wouldn't stop, when he walked straight up to her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she responded.

He glanced over at Lisa and Jamie-Lynn, giving them a brief smile before he looked back at Layla.

“Can we go somewhere and talk?” he asked.

She swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Yeah,” she said, trying to keep herself casual.

She handed her drink over to Lisa, noticeably shaking.

“Have fun, kids,” Jamie-Lynn said, giving them both a smile and wave.

I will kill you, Layla tried to say with the look she shot back at her friends before she walked away.

Lance led her through the crowd of people who had made a dance floor out of his living room, gently excusing the two of them between couples and dance partners. He finally found the only semi-quiet spot in the entire house, the upstairs hallway.

“There's a lot of people here,” Layla said, partly out of insecurity and partly out of amazement.

“Yeah, I invite friends and then they invite friends and before you know it, it's a madhouse,” he said, leaning up against the wall as he turned towards her. “I hope it dies down soon.”

“Isn't this what you're into though? The big Halloween parties?”

“Usually, but I guess tonight I'd just rather be by myself, in a quiet house,” he said.

She bit her tongue, afraid to say one of the plethora of things running through her head.

“Layla, about what happened tonight...”

“Lance,” she said, abruptly stopping him, “we don't have to talk about this. Really. It's okay.”

“Okay with who?” he asked. “I know you. It's been hours, and you've analyzed what happened earlier a million ways to Sunday. You have at least fifty different things that you want to say about what happened.”

“Well, maybe,” she responded. “But I know you only have one thing you want to say. That it was a mistake, and you're sorry, and let's just go back to being friends and pretend it never happened. And I'm okay with that.”

He shook his head. “No. No, Layla, that's not what I wanted to say at all.”

She gave him a puzzled look.

“I meant what I said earlier,” he said. “Every word of it, in fact. The only thing I wish I could take back was blurting it out like I did.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You meant it...that you...?”

He was waiting for the finish of her sentence, but they were interrupted by a couple of party-goers bumping into them – first into Lance's back, then into Layla's arm on the recoil.

“This is insane. Let's go upstairs to talk,” he said, sensing her discomfort in the space overrun with people.

“Aren't people going to wonder where we've run off to?” she asked.

“The alcohol will keep them occupied for hours,” he said. “Don't worry about it. Come on.”

He took her hand, pulling her in front of him as he put a hand on her shoulder. He led her up the stairs, the warmth and simple presence of his hand on her shoulder a comfort. Once they were up the stairs and the crowd of people had dwindled, she felt some of the anxiety lift off her shoulders.

But as she made her way into the bedroom they shared, a whole new emotion took over.

“Peace and quiet,” Lance said as he closed the door behind them. She noticed that he took the extra precaution of locking the door, to avoid random guests and those who happened to be drunk trying to wander in. “I'm sorry, Lay. This whole party was probably a bad idea so soon after...you know, with you trying to recover.”

“It's okay,” she said.

She took the opportunity to sit down on the bed on her normal side, craning her foot to remove the shoes that had become uncomfortable. She felt the dip in the bed as he sat down beside her.

“No, Layla, it's not okay,” he said as he turned to look at her. “This whole night...I mean, it's not just the party. I shouldn't have sprung that on you like that.”

“It's really okay,” she said with a slight smile, looking at him as she threw her last shoe down on the floor. She turned to lift her legs and rest her whole body on the bed, holding herself up with her arms.

He was quiet a moment, the sounds of the party still going on in the background, watching her as she seemed more relaxed than she was a few moments ago.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

She smiled. “What are you thinking?”

“We could play that game all night,” he said with a light chuckle. “One of us has to start.”

She paused a moment, to think.

“I guess I'm thinking...” she started. “Well...I guess I'm thinking, 'Wow. He told me he was in love with me.'”

“And?” he asked.

She leaned up, hooking her arms around her knees, her face closer to his.

“And I guess I'm wondering, if you've been in love with me for so long,” she said. “...why haven't you kissed me yet?”

He felt a smile coming to his face.

“Do you want me to?” he asked.

She turned her face slightly away as she smiled, her cheeks blushing.

“I'll take that as a yes,” he said.

He reached up to brush her turned away cheek with his finger before cupping her chin. As he tried to turn her face, she resisted slightly, and he could see her smile growing in embarrassment.

He leaned in further and turned her face toward him, angling his eyes down as she lowered hers, in an attempt to avoid his stare.

“Layla,” he said with a whisper.

At the sound of his voice, she lifted her eyes. She barely peeked at him beneath long eyelashes. As he lowered his lips, she closed her eyes, pulling back slightly out of fear.

But the moment he touched his lips to hers, she leaned back in. The fear and anxiety she had felt lifted out of her stomach like a weight, replaced by a light, fluttery feeling. She relaxed into him as he pressed his lips closer into hers and he wrapped his hand around the back of her head.

As she felt him lift his lips off hers, she sighed, closing her eyes and leaning her forehead against his.

“Lance,” she whispered.

“I'm sorry, Layla,” he said. He started to pull away. “I shouldn't have--”

She clamped her hand gently over his mouth. She could feel him exhale a breath against her palm as he reached up, grabbing her wrist and pulling her hand off his mouth. She extended an index finger and touched it to his wrist, allowing it to travel up his palm until she intertwined her fingers with his.

“I love you too,” she said.

She barely managed to catch her breath before he leaned in and landed his lips to hers, making her moan softly. She released his hand from hers and placed it on his leg, traveling up to his waist and moving her hand underneath his shirt. Her fingers trailed the ribbing on his wifebeater, all the way to his back. She felt him jump slightly as she ran over his spine, feeling him shiver at her touch.

She grasped at the hem of his blue scrubs, pulling away from his lips, and lifted it over his head, throwing it to the floor.

“Make love to me,” she whispered.

His eyebrows raised, wary. “I'm not so sure that's--”

“I haven't had a man make love to me in over three years,” she said. “Do you love me?”

“Of course I do,” he said.

“He didn't,” she said, hating even bringing up the thought of him in such a setting. “It just felt...filthy. It wasn't love; it was dirty, filthy animal lust. I haven't felt love in such a long time, Lance.”

She bit her lip as he pushed a clump of stray hair that had made its way out of her ponytail out of her face.

“I'm not sure I remember what it feels like,” she said.

“Well,” he said softly, “let me remind you.”

She felt her heart jump as his lips crashed against hers again. She leaned into him and wrapped her arms around him securely as she felt his fingers travel up the back of dress and grasp the zipper.

She broke away from his kiss as she felt him start to lower the zipper. As much as she tried to push it away, a disgust at the memory of Lucas doing much the same thing took over her.

She was comforted when his nose and lips brushed against her ear and her cheek.

“It's me,” he said, as if reminding her.

She turned toward him as she felt the zipper reach its end, once again connecting with his mesmerizing green eyes. She reached for his wifebeater, pulling it over his body and head as he stared at her.

Before she realized what she had gotten into, she found herself lifting her dress over her head, staring across at her best friend – her best friend in the entire world, the only man she could even trust – hoping she wouldn't only end up regretting it.