Page 94 of The Score We Never Settled

LAYLA

Briggs barely saida thing all night. You could cut the tension between him and his father with a knife, but Adeline, Everly, and Caleb tried their best to keep the conversation flowing.

Even I would attempt to make small talk about things just to keep dinner going, but Briggs barely ate and, when he thought I needed something, he’d ask. If he needed two seconds to himself, he’d grab himself and me another beer.

All in all, I wouldn’t say it was a successful night of reconciliation between the two, but Everly seemed extremely happy that her brother got to meet her man.

And he’s nice.

Briggs insisted he’d drive me home even though I could walk. I didn’t argue or push him about it because I didn’t want to trigger him any more than he may have been, nor did I want to overstimulate him.

I came tonight to support him because I know how hard it was, and probably still is, to manage a relationship with his only living parent.

When Briggs pulls up into my driveway, I instinctively reach for the door handle, but his hand shoots out to stop me.

He doesn’t say a word when he slides out of his own side, closes the door, and rounds the front end of his truck to come to my side.

He opens my door, poses a hand for me to take to help me out, and I don’t bicker about that either because this is more than our past together. It’s more than the push and pull. It’s more than my need to protect myself from this man.

It’s an open wound he still carries around.

We approach my porch steps, and I nervously fumble in my small purse for my keys, but when they jingle, Briggs promptly spins me around by my bicep and props my spine against the coolness of my front door.

His palm lands on the surface next, close to my head as he leans in, and I wait on bated breath to see what in the world he’s up to next.

“I don’t remember invitin’ you to dinner, Layla Jean,” he drawls, removing my purse from my hold and letting it drop aimlessly to the wooden porch. “What’s your motive here?”

“Support,” I immediately respond, and it’s true. Everly had texted me about her shift next week, one I bring her in for to practice, and I teach her a few small things, then she told me that Briggs was coming back to meet her boyfriend. And that his dad was going to be present. “And your sister invited me.”

“Which one?”

“Everly.”

He bows his head, and when I think that’s it, he mutters, “Weston has made a threat to go to the press and spill about our marriage. It’ll be a media circus. This town will flood with cameras and reporters, and you will sit center stage with all that.”

My stomach drops to my feet. “Oh.”

That sounds like an absolute nightmare, and I’m not surprised Cruz would do something like this. He has this evilstreak about him, I’m realizing, where he just will not stop harassing us both about stupid things that don’t matter.

I mean, we matter, it’s just there’s zero reason to do this but pettiness and cruelty.

“I already have my lawyers servin’ him with a cease and desist letter,” he continues. “I can sue his ass off if he decides to invade our privacy, along with harassment. However, I’m not a fan of that one.”

I shift my weight and try to focus on the matter at hand and not the fact that Briggs’s hand just found my hip and began kneading it.

“Which…one are you a fan of?”

“The one where I get MLB intervention for blackmail and extortion.”

My brows crash together. “What?”

“They’ll investigate him for conduct detrimental to the game. I can claim he asked me for money to keep it quiet, he didn’t, by the way. He still leaks the story, my agent will go public with his story and what he’s done. Rumors and bullshit headlines are enough to scare the shit out of his team. Baseball is full of image management. I go to his manager and team owner, he’s done.”

I inhale because this all sounds messy and chaotic, at best.

And I started all this.

A long time ago, because I wouldn’t go to Uncle Ben and tell him what was going on. I could have changedeverythinggoing on between us right now, but I was too scared to go about it.