Page 133 of The Score We Never Settled

LAYLA JEAN: I know. Been busy.

“Which means you should probably shut it,” Theo suggests. “You might make it last longer before she leaves.”

BRIGGS: I bet.

“You guys are just jealous that y’all have no game, sittin’ here at a bar, by yourselves,” Davis defends. “And, not only do I think that this girl is a freak, but she hastwonames, so I know she’s gonna do all sorts of shit tonight.”

My head shoots up because now he has my full attention. “What did you say?”

Davis flicks his focus to me, still wearing his annoyed expression from the boys riding him. “What now?”

“Her name,” I press impatiently, feeling my heart kick up several notches. “What is it?”

He shrugs. “I dunno.”

This stupid moron.

Pushing my stool back, Davis quickly moves around the guys to get to me. But it’s not to get me to calm down, but because he always believes one of us is trying to take from him.

Only child syndrome or something.

“Where are you going?”

“I wanna see this girl you’re takin’ home.”

He shoves his hands in front of me when I make a move to look around the bar. “Wait, why?”

I push his blockade away and glower at him. “Whereis she?”

“Aw, c’mon, Kerrigan,” he whines. “Don’t be stealin’.”

“I ain’t stealin’ what’s already mine,” I bark back. “If you don’tmove, you’re gonna be part of the floor, Blaine. Move your ass.”

“You can’t just get up and—wait,whatdid you say?” I face palm him, literally, and move his whole frame out of my way. “Wait, Briggs, donotsay bad things about me.”

My face skews at his comment because he’s not even relevant right now. “Are you on steroids?”

“Wh—no. That’s a rumor.”

“Well, something’s affecting your hearing because I just asked you where she was.”

He points toward the other side of the bar. “She’s over there, jackass.”

Barging by him, I walk down the length of it, looking from table to table for my girl when I get to the end and don’t find her.

The place isn’t huge, that’s why we come here, and it’s easy for security to keep the media and reporters out, but I find myself disappointed as all hell that the one person I want to be able to sneak in somehow isn’t here.

My fingers clench into annoyed fists when I realize I’m still holding my phone in one.

Glancing down, I power on the screen to text Layla Jean when I hear a female’s voice ask, “Can I have your autograph, Mr. Kerrigan?”

Knew if I had stepped away from the bar, this would happen.

Inhaling to keep my annoyance with current events at bay, I turn on my heels and fall upon hazel eyes, curly brown hair, and, I bet to shit, she smells like sugar.

Because the girl who stands in front of me is none other than the one I was searching for.

Layla Jean Melrose.