Free Homerun (Pro-U Book 4) by Ali Parker Page A

over my chest. "I'm stuck with him. I'm not stuck with you."
    "Layla." His voice softened immediately, causing a flood of emotion to attack me.
    "Please don't." I lifted my hand to keep him away and turned, walking toward the passenger's side of the truck. I got into it, buckled up and shifted to face the window. I could hold in my tears for a few more minutes. At least until we got back to the apartment.
    I half expected him to say something to me, to berate me further when he got in the jeep, but he didn't. The silence on the drive back to campus calmed me a little, but it wasn't going to take much, and I would be on the edge of breaking in half again.
    Embarrassment rolled over me in thick waves. Of all things to feel, it was the cheapest, the most ridiculous of all my emotions, and yet it was the one that pressed down on me the hardest. No one knew how bad it had gotten, not even Aubrey.
    Now Jayce had stepped into the very worst of it.
    What would he think about my family? Would he understand that it was the liquor and not my father? Did I really believe that?
    He parked beside the apartment and turned the truck off, sitting there for a few seconds as I continued to stare out the window.
    "Layla, why didn't you tell me?" His voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper.
    "Goodnight, Jayce." I got out of the truck and walked up to the apartment as a nasty cocktail of emotions swirled in the pit of my stomach.
    I had no clue if he said anything else, or tried to stop me, namely because the sound of my own grief filled my ears. After unlocking the door to our apartment, I walked to my small bedroom, locked the door and stripped. I put in my ear-buds and turned my music on high before crawling into bed and crying harder than I could ever remember crying before.
    What happened to my family? To my mom and dad, who weren't perfect, but were working their shit out. What happened to them? What was happening to me?
    Who the fuck left a drunk man on the floor to possibly die, and his wife in the bedroom down the hall, beat up and bleeding?
    Maybe he wasn't the only monster in the family tree. Maybe I was one too.
    The beating on the door finally died down after a little while, and from what I could tell, Jayce gave up and went to bed.
    "Good," I mumbled against my wet pillow. I figured I'd pack up my stuff in the morning and find somewhere else to live. Going back home was a possibility, and one I needed to consider. If I wasn't going to go against my mother's wishes and call the cops on my father, the least I could do was try and protect her.
    I tossed and turned in the bed for another hour before finally getting up and putting on pajamas. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to sleep with everything that had happened.
    My phone had three messages from Aubrey and one from my mom, thanking me for taking care of her.
    "Did I take care of you?" I tossed my phone onto my bed and ran my fingers through my hair. There had to be an answer to all of this madness that everyone could live with.
    "What if it was Aubrey? What would you do?" I paced the floor as tears burned my eyes. I was so damn tired and weary from fighting myself. I knew what to do. Why the hell wasn't I able to do it?
    "Because I love him," I whispered through my tears. "He's lost in his madness and he deserves for someone to help him."
    But did he really?
    I tugged at my hair, driving myself half-mad with the conversation switching back and forth in my head. I needed Aubrey, but she was probably asleep. I checked my phone again and realized that the last text was only ten minutes before.
    I texted her quickly, 'you there?'
    Nothing.
    The sound of water running from somewhere in the apartment left my pulse spiking. Was Jayce up? Did I care if he was?
    "Yes," I whispered and tossed the phone onto the bed again. He wasn't just my love interest. He was one of my best friends too. He always had been. How many nights as a kid did he sneak out with me and Aubrey, wrap