Just Desserts. Jeannie Watt

Justin settled a hand on her waist to help steady her, and she felt the warmth of his fingers through the thin silk of her black dress. But she didn’t move away, because she couldn’t.

      Robert-1. Justin-1. Layla-0.

       Double-teamed in the worst way. Hell, if she counted the gin, she’d been triple-teamed.

       “Hey, Miss Taylor!” A teenage voice penetrated the fog and she moved her head to the left, focusing on the group of people passing in the hall, headed toward the concert venue. Students. Her students. She forced the corners of her mouth up, but was not so foolish as to try to speak. Or wave, since she was still hanging on to Justin.

       She glanced down at the bench, wondering how a few feet of altitude could make her head spin so nastily. She had to do something. Mind Breakers were big and several of her rather privileged students were likely here in the hotel. Along with their deep-pocketed parents.

       “Get me out of here,” she muttered to Justin, without looking at him. “Please,” she added, just to make her humiliation total and complete.

      LAYLA©WAS©TRYING©HARD©TO©WALK without leaning on him. She was losing the battle. Justin didn’t know how many martinis she’d downed after receiving the happy news that her boyfriend was sleeping around, but he knew from experience that the bartenders at this particular hotel didn’t play coy with the booze. They charged a lot for a drink and they delivered.

       What Justin wanted to know was whether Robert had abandoned her at the bar after she’d found out he was sleeping with the “trollop,” or if she’d stormed out of their room and taken refuge in the bar while waiting for Sam. Because if Robert had abandoned her, drunk as she was…well, Justin might have to do something about that.

       They stepped out the front doors onto the freshly shoveled sidewalk. The snow had let up a little since he’d come into the hotel, but it wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. Just a lull.

       Layla clamped a hand to her stomach, and Justin stopped walking. If she was going to be sick, he’d prefer it wasn’t in his car.

       “I’m fine,” she said in a brittle voice as she took a resolute step forward. Justin moved with her, only to have her stop dead a few seconds later and look around wildly. He steered her off the sidewalk, through the snow and as far around the giant juniper bush flanking the walkway as he could before she heaved. She swung at him when he tried to get hold of her hair, so he let go of her and stepped aside, allowing her to commune with the bush. When she sat back on her heels and drew in a shaky breath, he held out a hand. She clutched his fingers, allowed him to help her up, but she didn’t look at him.

       “I…feel a little better.”

       Justin shook his head and, after brushing the wet snow off her knees and the front of her black wool coat, helped her back to the sidewalk. People had paused to watch the spectacle, but now moved on. Show’s over, folks. Nothing to see here.

       He and Layla started for the car again, which was parked in the employee lot, even though Justin wasn’t an employee of this particular hotel. Layla was walking better now that she’d emptied her stomach, and Justin hoped she had no memory of puking in the bush in front of a crowd, because, tight-ass that she was, she wouldn’t be able to handle it.

       “Layla!”

       She stopped dead, her entire body going stiff at the sound of the man’s voice calling her name. Then she turned with what sounded like a growl to face the guy jogging lightly toward them through the snow. He stopped a few feet away, eyeing Justin suspiciously. “Who are you?”

       “Old family friend. Here to help pick up the pieces. You must be the Robert I’ve heard so much about.”

       “Is he?” Robert asked Layla. “A family friend?”

       “Who he is…is none of your business,” she said with an air of dignity and only the slightest slur.

       Robert grimaced. “How much have you had to drink?”

       Justin’s jaw slid sideways and he took a step toward the guy. “Since you walked out on her, you mean?”

       “I’m not talking to you.”

       “But I can’t help hearing the conversation.”

       “I’m not going to have her driving off this mountain in a snowstorm with someone I don’t know.” Robert fished in his pocket. “I hadn’t realized you didn’t have the room key,” he said to Layla, holding it out to her. “Take it. You can spend the night as planned. Your overnight bag is in the room.”

       Layla stared down at the plastic card, then slowly raised her eyes to Robert’s face. He continued to hold the key, giving it a slight shake as if encouraging her to take it. She pulled in a breath that made her shoulders rise a good inch, then drew back her arm and punched him square in the jaw.

       He stumbled backward as she lost her balance and went down. Justin made a grab for her, grunting when her elbow smacked into his cheekbone with a healthy crack.

       “Oh, shit…” Tears sprang to his eyes as Layla slowly struggled to her hands and knees, and finally, her feet. She stared at Justin in horror as he stood with his hand over his eye. Five yards away, Robert held a hand to his nose.

       “Oh, I’m sorry. So sorry.” She continued to stare at Justin, a dazed expression on her face.

       “Get out of here,” he said to Robert, keeping his full attention on Layla, half-afraid of what she might do next. “Leave her bag in the room and I’ll take care of it.”

       “I’m not—”

       “I honestly am a family friend. I know her middle name and everything.”

       “What is it?” Robert asked through his fingers, and Justin had to give him points for not abandoning her.

       “Sunshine. Layla Sunshine Taylor.”

       “Brothers?”

       “Twins—Eric and Derek. Sister is Sam. Formerly Belle Blue, from the song ‘Bell Bottom Blues.’ She renamed herself when she was five because the kids called her Ding Dong.”

       “Good enough.” Robert turned and walked away without another word, still holding his nose.

       “You didn’t have to tell him all that,” Layla said as Justin put a hand under her arm and steered her the last few feet to the Challenger—an adequate car, but a poor substitute for his classic Firebird, destroyed in a wreck last year.

       “I think he already knew.” Justin held the door open and she got into the passenger seat, then carefully arranged her coat over her knees. “Where do you live?”

       She muttered an address on Bannock Drive. He made her repeat it, since it wouldn’t be cool to drag her up the sidewalk of someone else’s house. Then he asked for her keys.

       “Why?”

       “So that you have them when we get to your place.”

       With a deep sigh she spilled the contents of her purse onto her lap, then pulled the keys out of the jumble. She slapped them into his outstretched hand before haphazardly shoving stuff back into her bag.

       Justin closed the door and walked around to his side of the car. By the time he got the beast started, Layla was leaning against the leather headrest and her eyes were closed. Good. He hoped she stayed that way during the entire trip.

       It wasn’t to be. She got sick again at the top of the grade leading down to Carson City, where, thankfully, it wasn’t snowing. She was still a bit green when she collapsed back into the passenger seat and fell asleep.

       Justin couldn’t say he was unhappy about that because he wanted to focus on the road, not on his passenger. Nearly a year ago, he’d had a close call on this road, when fellow employees at his hotel who were involved in the drug trade erroneously deduced that he was a narc, due to his association with his current brother-in-law, a drug task force