The Plan (2/2)

No...Layla wasn't going to think that way just yet. Derek said this wasn't a game. He'd said over and over that he wasn't the guy she assumed him to be. She just hadn't listened.

Maybe it made her a shitty person, but part of her still didn't believe him.

Well, now was the chance to prove that he'd meant what he said. She ignored the voice in her head that told her he'd already proved it multiple times.

The guy Derek said he was, the guy he showed her more times than she deserved during the last few weeks...that guy would accept her apology. He might not still want that elusive "more" that he'd talked about, but he'd at least listen to her.

"Quite a grip you got there." Wolf flexed his bicep under her fingers.

Layla relaxed her fingers, which she'd inadvertently begun to dig into his arm. "Sorry."

"Nervous about something?" He said matter-of-factly.

"Nope." She tilted her head to look up at Wolf. He was a Viking god, alright. "You're the drummer, right?"

"The way you say that makes me think you're not a fan at all."

"I'm getting there."

"When you pulled up and just sat there in your car like a weirdo, I thought for sure you were either a stalker or a nosy neighbor. Wait..." He stopped walking halfway up the steps. His face was serious in the warm light of the porch. He looked down at her with green eyes. The stubble on his jaw was a tad darker than the buttery yellow of his hair and precisely matched his eyebrows. "You promise you're not a weirdo. Derek wouldn't want me letting a weirdo in his house."

This time Layla did giggle. "I promise."

Wolf made a big show about prying her fingers from his elbow, then fake grimaced and flexed his arm as if recovering from an injury. "I can't feel my hand...I hope you didn't do any permanent damage." He opened the door and nodded for her to go in first.

Once inside, Layla blinked in shock, slowly turning around to look from room to room. This was not the house she remembered.

Somehow in the span of a week, Derek had managed to furnish it like something out of a magazine. The saw was gone from the parlor, replaced by what she'd be willing to bet was a real Persian rug, a leather sofa and chairs, and a coffee table that matched the wood paneling, which from the looks of it had been completely restored in that room.

Unfortunately, the magazine worthy looks of the room were destroyed by the empty beer bottles and take out containers littering pretty much every flat surface in the place. As she turned to the other room, she nearly stepped in an open guitar case, which was luckily sans guitar. Whatever instruments these guys played probably cost more than her car.

The piano was in exactly the same spot, and she felt her face growing hot as her body remembered exactly what a perfect spot it was. Irritation tinged the fluster of sexual remembrance when she saw that even the piano wasn't free of the slander of empty bottles.

There was a couch and some chairs in the piano room as well, along with a drum kit, some amps...oh, and the rest of the band.

Adam Nakamura, Morphium's dark-eyed, dark-haired bass player, sat in an armchair, taking notes of some kind in a notebook while Seth Buckley, the group's red-haired guitarist, downed his glass of what appeared to be whiskey judging from the half-empty bottle on the coffee table. He set his empty glass on the table, refilled it, and leaned back on the couch then picked up an acoustic guitar from where it leaned against the side of the couch and played a fragment of a riff.

Layla recognized them from all of the pictures she'd been looking at, though Derek was the one she'd really been looking at. She tried to tell herself it was purely for educational purposes, you know...trying to learn about the man who'd hidden himself away in her little town, but even she couldn't buy that load of bullshit.

Let's just say Derek wasn't the only one who'd been masturbating.

Wolf whistled, and Seth paused in his improvising to lift a disinterested eyebrow in her direction. Adam watched her, a flicker of curiosity in his brown gaze.

"This is Layla. She's *not* Derek's friend, and don't even think about asking her if she's a hook up." Wolf nudged her toward the living room with a warm hand on her lower back. "She brought us pizza."

"Well, not exactly...I didn't know you'd be here. But you're welcome to it..." she cleared her throat. It had suddenly gone dry what with three--count 'em, three--rock gods staring at her. "Is Derek around?"

Adam stood and held out his hand. His smile was quiet and sweet, but she could tell he would be able to render a woman defenseless with one look from those dark eyes if he set his mind to it.

When he spoke, his voice was as quiet as his smile, and just as sweet. "He's out back with his sister. It might be a while. I'm Adam."

Layla shook his hand and forced herself to remain calm. What had Derek been telling her this whole time? He was a real person. Which meant they were real people too.

Plus it was hard to be too nervous when the sight of all those empty beer bottles on the piano had just about pushed her into full blown "teacher" mode. A coffee mug or two was one thing, but a case of empty bottles...

"Derek won't mind you just dropping by like this, will he? You don't look like his normal type." Seth kept playing his guitar as he spoke, his voice melting between the strums like butter.

The guy was a bonified bad ass, from the open collar of his button down shirt, to the tattoos covering his forearms, to the shiny tips of his boots. His lip curled when he caught her staring at him, and he made a lewd gesture with his tongue.

Her hackles raised even though logically she knew this was just one friend looking out for another, and these guys didn't know a thing about her.

She was not a fan girl. She and Derek were...well she didn't know what the hell they were, but she wasn't a desperate woman who threw herself at a guy just because he had tattoos.

"First of all, you are being extremely rude. I would never let you near me with that tongue of yours, so just keep it in your mouth. Second, I am not concerned about being Derek's type, nor am I concerned about what his type normally is. I'm here to have a conversation with him." Layla narrowed her eyes at each of the men in turn.

Wolf grinned at her from over the piece of pizza he had halfway raised to his mouth. Adam blinked in surprise, and Seth, though he kept right on strumming as if she hadn't just lectured him like she was his mother, looked down at his knee. It wasn't exactly contrite, but she'd take it.

"A conversation that doesn't concern any of you," she added.

"I think Derek told us he was sticking around for the turret just to throw us off." Wolf laughed. He laughed even harder when she folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. He elbowed Seth, jarring the guitar off the other man's thigh.

"I'm going to leave," she said Just tell Derek I was here. He knows where to find me if he wants to hear what I have to say."

"D-don't leave," Adam said. "You have to understand we don't exactly have time to make n-new...friends."

"She's a non-friend," Wolf said.

"Whatever, idiot." Adam rolled his eyes and resumed speaking at a slower pace. "One thing you have to remember is that p-people don't typically come near us unless they expect something in return. Plus Derek told us he came here because he needed to be alone."

"Why you poor little things." Layla fixed her glare on Adam. "Too many groupies trying to get you to eat pizza and play Trivial Pursuit...I should have chosen a less obvious tactic. And as far as him wanting to be alone? I guess that means he won't mind me being here any more than he minds you."

"I really like you," Wolf said.

Layla ignored him. "This place is disgusting. You all didn't see this house before, but I can tell Derek's has been working hard around here. The least you can do is throw away your beer bottles."

Before any of them could say anything about it, she turned and headed in the direction of where she assumed the kitchen would be. She didn't want to go through Derek's things, but she convinced herself that looking for a garbage bag wasn't a violation of privacy.

She found them under the sink and pulled one out of the box. As she shut the cupboard door, she glanced out the the window of the back door to the darkened yard. There was a barn out there with the light was on inside. She recognized Derek's silhouette as he crossed in front of one of the windows.

The back door opened, and a woman walked in. Her eyes looked almost exactly like Derek's and they widened in surprise when they saw her cleaning off the counters.

Layla paused, not sure if she was ready to meet someone. It didn't matter, because the woman was ready to meet her.

"Oh my god. I know who you are." She grinned as if Layla were the celebrity. "You have to be the woman that has my brother acting all angsty and lovesick while he hides in his manhole."

"Manhole?"

The woman wrinkled her freckled nose. "Yeah...I gotta quit trying to make that work. Every time I say it, I think it's going to sound awesome, but it doesn't."

She took a step forward, and Layla had the feeling the woman wanted to give her a hug.

"I'm Layla," she said and held out her hand.

"I'm Rose. Derek is my twin brother. I'm the older, smarter, and better looking one." Rose took Layla's hand. Her eyes glittered with excitement. "My brother is going to be so happy to see you."

"Do you really think so?"

"Well, he's pretty pissed right now because if his ass hat manager, but I think you being here will make it all better." Rose kept grinning as she helped Layla straighten up.

Layla glanced out the window again at the barn. She hoped Rose was right. After everything she'd just said to Derek's friends, it would humiliating if he came in here and told her to get the hell out.