Page 80 of Layla

Dee’s house is about half an hour from the airport. “So, you moved here when you were sixteen?” he asks, his eyes on the monotonous frozen fields outside the window. It always strikes me as strange how quickly things turn rural so close to the city.

“No,” I say. “She only moved down here a few years ago. She was still in Detroit when she took me in.”

“Hmm,” he murmurs, apparently lost in thought.

“What?”

He finally turns back to look at me, and his brow is furrowed. “I was just wondering if it was difficult for you. Not to have a familiar place to come home to when you’re out on the road.”

I swallow, feeling a little sick. I want to tell him that home is wherever the band is. But I can’t force those words to my tongue. “I’ve never had a home,” I blurt out instead, and his brow furrows more. I stiffen, feeling defensive. I don’t like the idea of John feeling sorry for me.

It’s my turn to stare out the window. And though he takes my hand in his, neither of us speak for the rest of the trip.

I’m barely out of the car when the front door bursts open to reveal Dee. Dressed in bright stripped leggings, a heavy plaid tunic, an old hunters cap pulled low over her ears, and a pair of beat-up flowered wellington boots, she’s so familiar that I feel a sharp pang in my chest at the sight of her. Before I even realize what I’m doing, I’ve taken off across the frozen ground and I’m throwing myself into her arms.

She laughs as she holds me, the sound warm and earthy in my ears, and now there’s a lump in my throat. “Did someone miss me?” she asks, moving to pull away, but I only cling to her more tightly. I can feel her surprise in the brief pause but then she’s tightening her arms around me. “I missed you, too,” she whispers.

Shit. I’m totally going to start crying. I swallow hard, pulling back and avoiding her eyes, knowing she’ll have way too easy a time decoding exactly what I’m thinking. But in true Dee Montgomery fashion, she doesn’t let me, instead gripping my chin in her warm, callused fingers. “Layla?”

I brush her fingers away, turning my attention back to the car, and she lets me. Dee knows when to push. Across the snowy yard, John is watching us, an unreadable expression on his face. “This is John,” I tell Dee quickly. “He’s…he works for the band. Security.”

Her sharp gaze snaps to my face. When I called to tell her I was coming, I hadn’t mentioned anything about the security issues. It would only worry her, and a worried Dee is a hovering Dee. I didn’t much like the idea of her nannying me for the next week.

I know she’s about to quiz me on why in the hell I brought security with me to her house, so I hurry to continue. “He’s also a friend,” I say, watching as his expression softens. I had said it to keep her from worrying, but once the words have left my mouth, I realize how much more there is to it. Dee is the most important person in my life, and the desire to have her know John is sudden and surprising in its intensity.

“Well then,” she says after a moment, as if gathering herself. “You very welcome here, John.”

I start to move back towards the car to help him with the bags but he waves me off. “Get inside,” he says. “You’re not dressed for this weather.”

He isn’t either, but at least he has a suit coat on—because of course John Whitmore travels in a suit—so I follow Dee into the house. “That smells amazing,” I tell her.

“I put the cookies on as soon as I knew you were coming. Chocolate chip.” That stupid lump is back in my throat. I follow her down the creaky hallway to the kitchen, taking in a deep breath of the chocolate and sugar scent heavy in the air.

In the kitchen, Dee immediately sets to work brewing a pot of tea, and I can’t help but grin to myself. It doesn’t matter that I’ve only spent a handful of nights in this house—this part is familiar. Dee in her kitchen, bustling around. The kitchen in the Detroit house hadn’t looked anything like this. That place had been cramped, with outdated dark counters and cheap particleboard cupboards. The farmhouse kitchen is open and bright. But they both smell the same. They bothfeelthe same—warm and cozy and safe. Like Dee.

John appears in the kitchen doorway a moment later, his eyes moving from me to Dee. I think it might be the only time I’ve ever seen him look anything but totally confident, and it’s so cute and endearing that I have to laugh, my near emotional meltdown forgotten. “Come sit down.”

He joins me at the kitchen table as Dee brings her teapot over. “Chamomile?” she asks.

I make a face. “Please tell me that you have coffee somewhere in this house.”

“You drink too much coffee,” she says automatically. “Tea is good for you.”

John is grinning at me. “I’d love some tea.”

“Suck up,” I mutter.

Dee pours us each a cup before sitting across from us and offering the honey pot. “Dee doesn’t believe in sugar,” I tell John.

“That’s not true,” she argues. “Just because I don’t like the bleached, over-processed crap that most people call table sugar—”

“Here we go,” I say, but I’m grinning. “I thought you’d at least make it until dinner before you introduced John to one of your rants.”

She ignores me, pulling off the hunter’s cap to reveal a head full of messy curls. I’m taken aback to see so many strands of gray filtering through the familiar bright red. Had she had so much gray the last time I saw her? But Dee is smiling across the table at John. “Speaking of introductions, my rude daughter didn’t really do that, did she? I’m Lilah Montgomery.”

“Lilah?” his eyes dart to mine and Dee smiles.

“She goes by Lilah to everyone else, but we kept getting confused when I moved in.”