Layla opened the passenger door and got in, pulling on the seatbelt as her friend got into the driver’s seat. “You’re a witty woman,” Layla said when Chloe started the engine.
“Did you just wait ten seconds to come up with that as a comeback? Because that’s really bad, Layla. We need to work on that.”
The car’s engine roared through the early evening, turning more than one head as they drove past.
“So, it’s almost that time of year,” Chloe said.
Layla smiled. “Is that why you want me to come out? I’m fine.”
“You say that, but I really do think you hide yourself away in books a little too often. You did it at this time last year, and the year before, so I’m sensing a pattern. I worry about you.”
“Thank you.” Layla meant it too. “But I’m okay. My mom dying four years ago was an awful thing, one in a long line of awful things that have happened. I miss my mom every single day, but I’ve learned to cope with her not being here.”
Layla’s mom and her new husband had been driving on a country lane when their car had skidded off the road and hit a tree. Some people had told Layla at the time that the fact they’d both died instantly on impact was a good thing. Layla wasn’t really sure how any kind of dying was a good thing, and distanced herself from everyone who’d tried to pay her their respects. She’d wanted time to herself to grieve, not to have to deal with how everyone else was feeling. In hindsight, she felt sorry for being so selfish, as if the grief was hers and hers alone, but at the time she’d been sixteen, and the constant pity everyone had shown her had been overwhelming.
“You sure?” Chloe didn’t sound as convinced as Layla had.
“I really am. I just like to spend time alone because I can throw myself into my work and not sit and feel sorry for myself.”
“So, going out drinking would achieve that too, yes?”
Layla smiled. “Yes, I guess so.”
“Excellent. I have a bottle of vodka at home with our names on it.”
As it turned out, Chloe wasn’t exaggerating. Once they’d both returned to her two-bedroom apartment overlooking the Itchen Village marina—only a few minutes’ walk from the coffee shop Chloe owned—Chloe had gone into her freezer and produced a bottle of Russian vodka. She’d proceeded to write her and Layla’s names on it in big letters with a black Sharpie pen, before passing it, and two shot glasses, to Layla.
Layla poured out two shots, passing one to Chloe, and both women raised them in a toast. “Let’s have some fun,” Chloe said, and knocked back the vodka in one go.
“Let’s try to remember how to get home,” Layla countered, before drinking her own shot, as Chloe laughed.
Chloe had chosen her outfit of black jeans and white top that showed off her midriff almost the second she’d walked into her room. By the time Chloe had finished in the shower, Layla had picked out a pair of dark blue jeans and a black off-the-shoulder top. Both wore black, strappy high heels and, just like Chloe had said, both of them were ready and out of the door by ten o’clock.
Layla was surprised to discover that even though Chloe hadn’t called for a taxi, one was waiting for them outside of Chloe’s apartment.
“You planned this all along?” Layla asked as they both climbed into the back of the car.
“I was planning on going out anyway,” Chloe pointed out. “You give me too much credit.”
The taxi took them through the city of Southampton to the Green Rooms nightclub, a sizeable venue that on Friday nights played a mixture of seventies and eighties classic rock. Layla had been with Chloe several times in the past—mostly because it played music that was even slightly tolerable.
Layla paid the taxi driver and the pair entered the club to the sounds of Van Halen’s “Jump,” which was exactly what the dozens of people on the large dance floor in front of them were doing. They weaved around the enthusiastic crowd and walked over to the bar, where Chloe ordered two bottles of beer and two shots of vodka.
Chloe passed one of the vodka shots to Layla. “To fun and frivolity.”
“To not having a hangover tomorrow.”
They downed the shots in unison and picked up their beer. “What is this stuff?” Layla asked after having a swig and reading the bottle. “Lurcher. This beer is called Lurcher. Why would someone name their beer after a dog?”
Chloe shrugged. “All I know is, it doesn’t taste like watered-down cat urine.”
Layla paused, the top of the bottle touching her open lips. “Thanks for that image.”
Chloe raised her bottle.
“Hey, you two, good to see you here.”
Layla turned around and smiled as Harry Gao, a smile on his face, stood beside them. Layla hugged her friend tightly; she hadn’t seen him for a few weeks. Harry was just as prone to throwing himself into his work as Layla. “You were told to meet me here, weren’t you?” she whispered.
Harry looked slightly confused. “Chloe said she’d already arranged for you to come out tonight.” Knowledge dawned on him. “You had no idea.”
“Not even slightly, but I’m glad I came. How are you?”
Harry did a sort of half shrug, half nod that Layla knew meant he could be better. “Turns out having a degree in marine biology doesn’t really do a lot for the job market. I know, shocking, isn’t it? So, since I last saw you two weeks ago, I’ve decided to train to become a teacher.”
“You mean, at school level?”
He looked aghast. “Oh, heavens no. I do not want to deal with a bunch of hormone-crazed teenagers. I’m going to get my PhD and become a lecturer. Essentially, I’m going to stay in education for as long as possible. It’s like a security blanket.”
Layla laughed. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
“How about you?”
“I’m good, thanks. University is almost done, and I might actually get a good grade from it. After I’ve finished . . . I have no idea. I’m doing a degree in metallurgy because I like it; it’s interesting and fun. But I honestly don’t know what I want to actually do with my life once the degree is over. Aren’t we meant to know by now?”
“I think some people never know.”
“How is that helpful?”
“Oh, you want helpful? I’m sorry, you’ll need to go speak to someone else about that.”
Layla smiled as Chloe joined them. “Glad to see you found us, Harry.”
“Well, you said be here at this time. I might not be good at understanding signals from women, but I do understand directions.”
“You set me up,” Layla said, leaning toward Chloe and whispering in her ear.
“Yep,” Chloe said with a grin. “We all need to let our hair down once in a while. And you needed a break. You mad?”
Layla held Chloe’s stare for a few seconds, before smiling. “No, it’s fine. You’re right, I needed this.”
The three of them spent the next few hours drinking, dancing, and enjoying themselves, forgetting whatever stresses of daily life might be getting to them. The merriment ended just after 1 a.m., when Harry caught a glimpse of someone walking into the club and cursed under his breath just loud enough for Chloe to hear.
“What’s wrong?” Chloe asked.
Before Harry could answer, Layla appeared next to them. “How are you not drunker?” she asked Chloe. “Drunker, is that a word?”
“Metabolism,” Chloe told her. “Mine is just better than yours.”
“But you’ve had more than me, more than Harry too. And you’re just . . .” She waved her hands around Chloe. “There.”
“That’s exceptionally eloquent,” Chloe replied with a smile, before turning to Harry. “What’s wrong, Harry?”
“A certain ex-boyfriend has just arrived.”
Chloe followed Harry’s gaze as it settled on the man in question.
“Oh, bollocks,” Layla said from beside the pair, having seen who her friends were looking at.
“We can go,” Chloe assured her.
“No. I don’t want to go. I’m having fun.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe we could go for a walk, get sobered up a bit.”
Chloe agreed and went to get their jackets, while Harry followed Layla outside.
“Layla,” her ex-boyfriend, Blake Davis, called after her.
Layla sighed when she realized that Blake was walking toward her with two of his idiot friends in tow. “Oh, this will be fun,” she muttered to herself.
She turned around. “Piss off, Blake.”
Blake’s expression darkened. “That how you want to talk to me after nearly a year together?”
“We haven’t been together in three months,” Layla said, the fresh air making her wish she could be anywhere else but where she currently was. “And you remember why we broke up, right? Because you were shagging Bianca? For six months of our relationship, you were cheating on me. You’re lucky I didn’t set fire to your car. Now go away.”
Blake took a step forward instead.
Layla’s eyes narrowed in anger. “You remember what happened when I tried to leave you, Blake? You want to try again? I think things will end differently this time.”
Anger flashed in Blake’s eyes.
“Hey, don’t,” Harry said, trying to calm things down.
“You need to keep your nose out of it,” Blake said.
“Yeah, go back to your own country, you little nothing,” one of the two men standing with Blake said. His name was Robert Mitchell, although everyone knew him as Rob. Layla thought of him as being one of those people who took a few classes in fighting and immediately thought themselves to be the next UFC champ. He was about five and a half feet tall, and while muscular, Layla wondered how much of that muscle was natural and how much came from a needle. He was also a massive misogynistic dick, and as she’d just discovered, a racist. Exactly the kind of person she wanted to avoid.
It had taken Layla a year to find out who Blake Davis really was, and three months to forget he existed. She really didn’t want to have to deal with him or his “me man, you listen” crap.
Layla didn’t know who the third man was; she’d never seen him before. But judging from his muscular physique, he was someone who liked to spend time in the gym.
“My own country?” Harry asked, quizzically. “Well, let’s see. My father is American, my mother English, and I was born here, in Southampton, so England is my own country. Or do you mean because I’m half Chinese? Because if that’s what you meant, then you meant for me to go back to my father’s parents’ country—my grandparents—who left China to move to America. So, whose country am I meant to go back to, you racist little troglodyte?”
Rob stared at Harry for several seconds, before shoving him back a step. “Blake said this is none of your business. Now, if you stay here, I’ll make it your business, and none of your little kung fu is going to help you.”
“My word, you really are an unpleasant little dick, aren’t you?” Chloe said as she walked toward the group.
Rob looked Chloe up and down. “I could show that to you if you wish.”
Chloe’s expression was one of disgust. “Not for all the surgical gloves and antibiotics in the world.” She turned to her friend. “You okay, Layla?”
“I’m good,” Layla told her. “Blake. Go. Now. I don’t want to talk to you, or be near you, I just want you to leave.”
“I thought we could be friends,” he said.
“And I thought you could keep your penis out of other women, but apparently we’re both wrong. Good-bye.”
She turned to walk away, and Rob leaned over, grabbing her arm. “He said . . .”
He never got to finish that sentence, as Layla spun toward him, smashing her elbow into his nose, which exploded with blood. Rob staggered back and she punched him in the gut, doubling him over, then she drove her knee into his face, doing even more damage. Rob collapsed to the ground, his face streaming blood, as several bystanders began to scream, or cheer, depending on which side they’d chosen to support.
“Don’t you ever touch me again,” Layla said.
Chloe removed a tissue from her bag and dropped it on Rob, as Blake and his friend stared in shock. “You need to clean yourself up, you’ve got a little something where your nose used to be.”
That was seemingly too much for the new friend, who swung a punch at Chloe. She moved quicker than Layla had ever seen, driving her fist into his stomach and immediately catching him in the temple with a punch that knocked the big man out cold.
“Is this really the kind of person you call a friend?” Blake screamed at Layla. “What the hell happened to you? You used to be sweet and . . .”
“Meek,” Layla finished for him. “You remember what happened when we split up and I went to leave the apartment? You remember?”
“I said sorry.”
“You barred the way to the door, and when I tried to get past, you raised your hand to me.”
Layla had never seen Blake angrier than she had at that exact moment, and the same expression was on his face now.
“Raise your hand to me again, Blake,” Layla said. “Go on, see what happens.”
Blake took a step toward her.
“I think we should go,” Harry said.
“It’s okay. Blake’s a coward, he’d never do anything if he thought I’d fight back.”
“This . . . dyke has you all confused,” Blake snapped. “She’s changed you. Probably trying to change everything about you.”
“Moi?” Chloe said. “That’s it? Calling me a dyke, that’s the best you’ve got?”
Blake stared at Chloe, and Layla shoved him hard in the chest, forcing him to step back and regaining his attention. “Rob got what he deserved because he placed a hand on me. The next time someone raises their hand to me, I’m going to break their arm. You ever come near me again, Blake, and you won’t find that meek woman who froze in fear. You’ll find the person who’ll kick the shit out of you and not think twice about it.”
Layla wanted to hurt him, wanted to make him feel how he’d made her feel. She knew she could. She’d played down how good at fighting she was around him because she hadn’t wanted to show him up while he trained. But that was done now.
Layla fought the feeling of anger as the three friends walked away into the night.
“You’ve been holding back,” Harry said to Layla when they were far enough away from the club. “I didn’t know you were such a badass.”
“What about me?” Chloe asked.
“I’ve always known you were a badass.”
Chloe laughed. “You’ve certainly never shown that level of ruthlessness at class,” she said to Layla.
“Lost my temper. I don’t like being grabbed.”
“What was that about Blake raising his hand to you?” Chloe asked, her voice hard.
“I’ll explain later. Let’s just enjoy the rest of the night.”
“Did that man really tell you not to use your kung fu on him?” Chloe asked Harry after several minutes of silence.
Harry nodded. “Racists never change.”
“Don’t you know several forms of martial arts?” Layla asked.
“And none of them are kung fu.”
The three of them laughed for the remainder of the walk to the closest taxis, where they split up to go back to their respective homes. But as Layla sat alone in the back of the taxi, she felt euphoric, buzzing from the excitement of her fight. She’d wanted to hurt him more, and Blake. She’d hoped Blake would raise his hand to her again. Last time she froze because she was terrified she’d hurt him if she allowed herself to. She looked at the blood on the knuckles of one hand; she hadn’t felt like this for a long time. She’d almost forgotten how good it felt to fight. Properly fight, not just spar.
Layla pushed all thoughts of the fight aside and went back to the other problem at hand. She’d seen Chloe move faster than she’d ever seen anyone move before. She shook her head; maybe she’d imagined it. By the time she got home, she was convinced it w
as the alcohol that had made her see the impossible.
3
Layla woke up without a hangover. Whether it was because of the amount of water she’d drunk when she got home, her age, or just the fact she’d sobered up after the whole Blake incident, she didn’t know; she just knew she didn’t feel like she’d been hit by a truck. And that was all that mattered.
She sighed when Blake’s name popped into her head. When they’d first met, he’d been this six-foot-three blond man who looked like a Viking and treated her with respect. He’d liked to go hiking and surfing, and he’d been fun. Being with him had been fun. And for a while, she’d thought that maybe she’d found someone who made her so happy that she no longer felt the urge to fight. No need for the little voice in her head to make its presence known. She got out more, she met new people, and she grew closer to Chloe and Harry.
And that was the problem: as soon as anyone else was involved, Blake didn’t like it. He didn’t like her having male friends and would ask her who she was going to meet on a constant basis. He was allowed to have friends, he was allowed to go out and not have to explain where he was going, or who would be there, or when he would get back. But Layla wasn’t allowed such freedoms; he’d go nuts if she was ten minutes late in returning a text. When he’d asked her to move in after four months of dating and she’d said it was too early, he’d gone out and started seeing someone else behind her back.
It had taken her a while to realize he was a controlling, manipulative jackass, and by then she’d also realized he’d been cheating on her for several months of their ten-month relationship. She’d told him she never wanted to see him again, and Blake had spent the next three weeks bombarding her with phone calls and e-mails, telling her he loved her and that if she’d only give him another chance, he’d change. But she didn’t believe it. Seeing him again had just proved how much she’d ignored, or rationalized, when she should have been running to the hills.
Blake had turned out to be exactly like all those people who had lied to her over the years. She didn’t need liars in her life; she hated the idea of someone professing to care for her but lying to her face. It was something she’d never been able to get over since her father had managed to ruin her life in such spectacular fashion.