Lowlander Silverback (Gray Back Bears #5)(12)

“Woman, you would feel a lot better if you saw my cabin right now. My roommates are slobs.”

“You have a cabin?”

He smiled at the genuine interest in her voice. “Yeah. I have a piece of land closer to Damon’s mountains.”

“Is Rhett one of your roommates?”

“Yeah, I live with Rhett and Kirk. Again, not my choice. Fiona assigned them to me when she chose me for the Kong.”

“Oh.” Layla set her purse down by a stack of mail and padded into the kitchen.

With a deep frown, Kong brushed the top letter away to reveal a red open immediately label on the next envelope. It was a late bill.

“Do you have a preference in teas?” she asked, her back to him as she rummaged through a cupboard.

“Uh, no. I’m not picky.” He thumbed away a few more, and all of them seemed to be overdue. “Layla?” he asked, holding up a stack of them. “What’s going on?”

Turning, Layla gasped when she saw what he held. She sucked in air as if she was going to give him hell for going through her mail, but then in a huff, she turned back to a box of tea she’d removed from the cabinet. “That’s none of your business.”

Kong tossed the mail back into the stack and strode for the kitchen. He pulled the half-wrapped tea bag from her fingertips and pulled her to face him. “Are you in trouble?”

“No. Things are tight right now, but everything will be okay. I’m handling it.”

“Handling what?”

She sighed heavily and yanked her wrists from his grip. “I didn’t ask you to come in so we could discuss my finances. I wanted to get away from all of it for one night. Can’t you understand that?”

Kong huffed a short breath. He understood the need for an escape more than she would ever know.

Not wanting to see the disappointment swelling in her sad blue eyes anymore, he pulled her in close, careful to be gentle this time. She was soft against him. Soft tits against his hard torso, and his boner was raging between them, but who gave a shit? Not him. “Tell me.”

Her rigid body relaxed by a fraction. “Mac was my neighbor growing up. He was the one I was talking to on the phone when you came into the office. So when I was sixteen… I swear to God, Kong, if you think I’m pathetic or pity me after I tell you this, I’ll never forgive you.”

“I won’t think you’re pathetic. I promise.”

“And I don’t talk about this shit with anyone, so no sharing it with your roommates or the bear crews or whoever it is you talk with. It’s a small town, and it’s taken me a long time to get to this point.”

“Okay, I swear I won’t tell anyone.” He was also trying real hard not to feel flattered since she was about to tell him things she didn’t share with anyone else.

“When I was sixteen, my parents left.”

“Wait. They left? Like, they just were out on parenting you anymore?”

“Yeah. They went on vacation and didn’t feel like coming back to Saratoga. It’s fine. It’s…fine.” She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself. “So they asked the old man next door to be my guardian so I could finish out high school here, and Mac was the one who took me in. He was a parent to me when my real ones bailed.”

“Geez,” Kong said, shaking his head. He couldn’t imagine ever doing that to his kid.

“Mac went into hospice care a few months ago, and I’m trying to keep his house for him. I tried to break the lease here so I can move into Mac’s house and just pay one set of bills, but the landlord will charge me a ridiculous amount of money to leave the duplex early. And my contract is up in four months anyway, so if I can just float us until then, I can start digging us out of the hole when I move into the house. But right now with his care bills, his mortgage, my bills and rent, things are just a little tight. And sometimes I get scared I won’t keep the collectors off my back long enough to keep Mac’s house. He’s really sick. If he found out I lost the house him and his wife bought together, he might stop fighting for his life.” Slowly, she wrapped her arms around Kong’s waist and snuggled her face against his chest, softening to him bit by bit. “And it actually feels really nice to tell someone that.”

Kong’s heart beat erratically against his sternum. Could she hear it? Could she feel the vibration of how much she affected him in this moment? It was plain and obvious that Layla was much more complex than just some bartender with an easy smile. She was one of those good-to-the-marrow, decent people. The type of person who would shoulder a huge amount of stress to reassure an old man that everything was going to be okay. She didn’t know it, but she’d just rocked Kong to the core with the admission of her daily sacrifices.

“Then why were you fighting my tip so badly? I don’t understand. You could use that money to take some of the pressure off.”

Layla sniffled, and that little sound pierced his heart. She brushed her knuckles under her lashes quickly and slid out from his embrace. “Sit on down, and I’ll get you cleaned up.”

“What?”

“You’re all cut up,” she said with a shrug as she avoided his gaze.

Cut up? He looked at his reflection on the glass insert cabinet near the fridge and cringed. Some faux-date he was. Harrison had popped him good right under the eye in the fight, and it had been a gusher. The cut was mostly healed now and hadn’t bothered him at all, but half his face was covered in a dried stream of crimson.