Author's Note: Is it February 4th yet?
Takes place between episode 3x08, "You're Lookin' At Country" and 3x09, "Two Sides To Every Story".
I don't own Nashville.
I.
"So let me get this straight."
Will braces himself for war: lay low, keep your voice down, and above all else, smile.
"You volunteered us," she says, "to watch Gunnar's kid for the night."
"Just for the night," Will echoes.
Layla stares at him, unamused.
"And naturally, he thinks you and I are the perfect ones to take care of his long-lost son."
"His sitter fell through at the last second. He didn't have anyone else he could call on such short notice."
"And why did you think this was a good idea, exactly?"
"Look," is all he says. "He called me. He was in a bind. I helped him. He's my best friend; what was I supposed to do? Say no?"
"Yes," Layla says. "When saying yes involves making me do something I don't want to do. I'm not a daycare center. Gunnar can call someone else."
"There is nobody else. He already called half of Nashville looking for a sitter."
"Well, then Gunnar should have given him twenty bucks and dropped him off at the mall for the night." She shakes her head. "Or, I don't know. Chuck E' Cheese. Anywhere but us."
"All we have to do is make him dinner and make sure he doesn't break his neck before nine o'clock. I think it's doable."
"Then you do it yourself," Layla says. "I didn't sign up for this."
"Well, he's coming back to the house with me no matter what," Will snaps, "so either find something else to do until nine or hang out with us. I don't care either way."
Will doesn't want to add that they were far from Gunnar's first choice – he'd called two back-up sitters, the mother of one of Micah's friend, and in a total fit of desperation, even tried calling Scarlett. But she was busy, and Will was not, and that was how he and Layla ended up here, parked in front of Live Oak Elementary School at 3:45 on a Tuesday, waiting to be responsible for the life of his best friend's kid for the next five hours.
He'd gone over to Gunnar's house earlier today, and when he let himself in, he found Gunnar in the living room, surrounded by ties.
"Which one do you think looks nicer?" Gunnar asked, instead of a greeting, and then shoved two of them in Will's face. "This one, or the red one?"
Gunnar's hair was flattened into what looked like a giant shingle across his head, and he was wearing slacks and a belt, with very shiny shoes. A sports coat Will had never seen before was draped across the couch, along with a white button-down that looked newly dry-cleaned.
"Hi there," Will said. "I was looking for my buddy? Gunnar Scott? Maybe you've seen him somewhere around?"
Gunnar scowled.
"Come on, man, don't joke around." He threw the red tie down on the couch and picked up another one. Blue this time. "I have to make sure tonight goes completely perfect, and that means I put on the tie and look like a real person."
"As opposed to what?" Will asked.
Gunnar threw his arms up in the air.
"As opposed to a new single dad who has no idea what the hell he's supposed to be doing!" He shook his head, but the shingle of hair didn't move. "I've never been to a Back to School Night before! How do I not make a complete jackass out of myself in front of Micah's teachers?"
"I have no idea," Will said, watching Gunnar shift through more ties, "but I don't think stressing out over a tie is doing you any favors."
"You don't get it," Gunnar said as he rejected a black tie. "If this goes wrong, it's bad for everybody. It makes me look like I don't what I'm doing."
"But you DO know what you're doing," Will said. "Come on, man, everybody who sees you with Micah knows you're an amazing dad."
"Yeah, well, it doesn't matter what everybody else thinks," Gunnar snapped. "It matters what his teachers think. And if they look at me and think that I suck as a parent, then they'll tell the guidance counselor, and she'll call family services, and it's all over. Everything. They take my son away and stick him with total strangers and I lose the last family I have."
Gunnar threw the ties he was holding across the room. They landed against the wall and slipped behind the couch.
"So excuse me," he said, his voice quiet, "if I don't treat all this like one big joke."
Gunnar put his hands on his hips, taking a deep breath. Will reached over on the couch, picked up a red tie Gunnar had rejected before, and handed it to him.
"You know how to tie this?" Will asked.
Gunnar nodded.
"Thanks," he mumbled to Will after a minute.
Will went around the room picking up the scattered ties. While he studied his shingled reflection in the mirror, Gunnar explained to him the whole concept of "Back to School" night. He would be going to Micah's school to meet all of his teachers. They'd all give presentations, and he'd hear about how he was doing in school. Get progress reports, discuss grades. It sounded boring as shit, if Will was being honest, but it wasn't his kid and it wasn't his concern. Gunnar, however, was really into this whole thing, just like he was into the whole business of being a dad.
Which, all things considered, doesn't surprise Will. Gunnar's just naturally great at it, being someone you can count on. Being someone you can trust. The only person who seemed totally oblivious to what a natural father he was turning out to be was Gunnar himself, who constantly stressed about every aspect of Micah's life – how much TV he should be allowed to watch on week nights, if he should be taking vitamins, whether or not Gunnar should spring for private school tuition when Micah was old enough for middle school. Sometimes he thinks Gunnar needs to loosen up, but he loves seeing him this happy, and he never seems happier than when he's around his boy. Any kid would be lucky to have him.
Not that Will had much basis for comparison.
He tries not to think about that. But it's hard not to, when he sees Gunnar throw his arms around Micah just because he loves him, or the open adoration on Micah's face whenever he looks at his dad. It makes Will's throat brick shut and something in his stomach tug.
By the time Gunnar was dressed, tie and all, he stood in the middle of the room, fixing the cuffs on his jacket and flattening his already-flat hair.
"How do I look?" he asked Will.
Will considered this.
"You look like a dad," he said finally, and Gunnar had smiled.
Will holds his breath, waiting for Layla to start yelling at him. It's hard to predict how she'll react to anything – which was why he didn't tell her he'd enlisted them for emergency childcare before he went downtown and picked her up from a meeting with her management team. If it seemed like less of a negotiation and more like a fact, Will had hoped she wouldn't completely blow up in his face.
(Which, as far as plans go, he admits isn't the most full-proof way of dealing with things.)
But she just rolls her eyes and slumps down in the seat, head against the window. She doesn't seem like she's in much of a fighting mood tonight. She just seems resigned, like she's too tired to argue. Which Will is grateful for. The less drama the two of them have going on, the easier this whole "adventures in babysitting" deal should be for them.
But at the same time, he wishes things were different for her. Layla had been like this for a few weeks now, ever since the CMAs, and it really sucks to see her so down and defeated all the time. It's almost as bad as her being a drunk, angry mess who won't shut up. At least then, she had more fight to her. This post-CMA, post-reality show version of Layla is like all of that just got sucked away, and left this sad, quiet shell behind.
A few days after the CMAs, there had apparently been some new meme going around social media. It was another riff off of her Harvard line, which apparently had trended on Twitter and become a huge internet catch phrase all the late-night talk shows were laughing at. Will didn't pay much attention to it – he avoided all that stuff like the plague, and doubly so since the show premiered – but he couldn't stop Layla from obsessing. Once she saw that new meme, she locked herself in the bedroom and cried for the whole afternoon. Will had tried to talk to her from the other side of the door, but after almost twenty minutes of listening to her hiccup into the bed sheets, he gave up.
She had her laptop in the bedroom with her, so he couldn't take it away and force her to stop looking at what people were saying. But her keys were on the kitchen counter, so instead of sitting in the house and listening to her cry, he drove her car to the gas station and filled up the almost-empty tank, then vacuumed out her backseat and put air in the tires. Then he went to the grocery store – a chore they both avoided until the last possible second, thank you SO much Gina Romano – and did all the food-shopping. He even bought Layla some of that organic crap she liked to eat, along those fancy, girly bottles of sparkling water, which she swore tasted better than actual, regular water.
(Which he didn't get. Water was water.)
But it seemed to help. At least a little. He came home, tank full and tires inflated and grocery bags filled with nachos and beer and sissy organic food. Layla, red-faced and still wiping her damp eyes with tissues, mumbled "thank you" and then offered to do his laundry.
It didn't do much to erase the new humiliation of that stupid meme, but it was how they worked things out these days. Trading work for peace, chores their new currency of having to live together. Layla would unload the dishwasher if he took out the trash, and she'd get the mail if he rinsed out the coffee pot. He'd replace the dirty shower curtain liner and she'd make sure to pick up his nice button-downs from the dry-cleaners. He'd show her how to check the oil in her car, and she'd teach how to iron.
It was an awkward, hesitant peace. But one they both accepted. They had to learn to deal with each other, and neither one of them admitted it, but they needed each other's company. Nobody else knew what it was like to Layla and Will.
Things had been particularly tense the last few days. The reality show was still banging out the highest weekly ratings for the network, quickly becoming one of the most popular new TV shows of the year, and Gina called to tell them that they with numbers like these, they were guaranteed a second season. Which they would start filming in the spring.
Good thing they both signed contracts.
The day after they got that bit of news, he woke up to the sound of something banging on the floor. When he got out of bed and poked his head out the door, he saw his wife standing on a chair in the middle of the hallway, reaching towards a smoke detector in the ceiling while the furniture wobbled beneath her.
For a moment, all he could do was stare at her and wonder if he was still asleep. Until the chair she was standing on rocked sideways, and he rushed over and put his hands on her waist to steady her.
"Shit," he said, touching the small of her back until the chair quit shaking. "Are you trying to break your neck or something?"
Layla pushed his hands away.
"I was trying," she snapped, "to change the battery in the smoke alarm. It wouldn't stop chirping all night. You seriously can't hear it?"
He'd spent the night watching Independence Day on TV before Benadryling himself to sleep around three-thirty in the morning, but now that he was awake and holding his wife on a chair in the middle of the hallway, he could hear a sporadic chirping sound coming from above his head.
"Wow," he said. "That is annoying."
She scowled. "I looked online, and it said that means the battery's low."
"And we have smoke alarm batteries just lying around?"
"I went to Walgreens and bought a new one this morning," she said.
"Seriously? What time did you wake up?"
She frowned, reaching up towards the ceiling. "I didn't go to sleep."
Will peered up where her fingers were poking at the plastic covering of the alarm.
"You're probably gonna need a Phillip's head to take the top off," he told her.
Layla banged her hand against the ceiling, startling him.
"What the fuck even is a Philip's head?" she cried.
Will couldn't answer for a moment; it was rare that Layla ever swore. "A screwdriver."
She glared down at him, and he could see her blinking back tears. Shit.
"Well," she asked, her voice wobbling, "do you have a screwdriver just lying around? Because I don't. And I can't even do one stupid thing without it!"
She banged the ceiling again. The smoke alarm chirped, and she slumped over, making this half-laugh, half-cry noise that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
"Layla, come on down." He reached out a hand to her. "I'll go check the garage. There might be a Phillip's head in there."
Layla still laughed that crazy laugh, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Awesome," she said. "Now Gina and everybody in the world can have a nice episode of me being too pathetic to know what a Phillip's head is!"
She buried her face into her hands, and Will wanted to reach out and touch her but he was afraid she'd start laughing again.
"Come on down," he repeated. "If we don't have one here, I'll go to the hardware store and buy one. We'll get it fixed. I promise."
Layla sniffed.
"Fine," she said, and climbed off the chair without taking his hand. "They already caught me on camera, anyway."
She picked the chair up and carried it back to the kitchen, her face weary. Will watched her disappear down the hall, and then peered back up at the ceiling. The smoke alarm was blinking red, and every few minutes, it let out another shrill chirp.
He headed to the kitchen, bracing himself for tears and talking her down from whatever had just happened, but he stopped in the doorway when he found her slumped over the kitchen table, head buried in her hands.
This time, there weren't any tires or gas tanks to fill up. So he just went back to his bedroom.
He did find a Philip's head in the garage. And a stepladder, which he brought into the hallway instead of the chair Layla had been standing on. Then he put the screwdriver in his wife's hand and held the ladder steady while she took off the top of the smoke detector, put in the brand new battery, and screwed the lid back on. The light blinked green. The chirping stopped.
The little victory didn't do much to lighten the mood. Layla stayed quiet for the rest of the day, and when he went to work out that afternoon, he saw her sitting at the table with her head in her hands, just like he had before. When he came back, she was in the same position, like she hadn't moved at all since he left. Maybe she hadn't.
Layla points out the truck window.
"That's him, right?" she says. "The one in the red jacket?"
He follow where she's pointing, and sees the boy walking out of the school, Incredible Hulk backpack on his shoulder and Gunnar's smile. Impossible not to notice that on the kid – Will could see that the first time he ever looked at him.
"Yep," he says. Then he gets out of the truck and waves, trying to get the boy's attention. "Hey, Micah! Come on over here!"
"He's not a dog," Layla says from inside the truck, but Micah spots him and runs over, smiling that wide smile.
"Uncle Will!" he shouts, and Will tries not to feel like he's matching that crazy grin on the boy's face. Nobody told him that the best part of his best friend having a kid suddenly appear in his life was that he'd be "Uncle Will" and the boy would smile at him like that. Like Will can make somebody happy just by existing.
Then Micah flings his arms around his waist, and it feels amazing.
"Micah, this is Layla." It's the briefest hesitation before he adds, "my wife."
Layla grimaces at him, then turns it into something that resembles a smile before turning to face Micah.
"Hi," she says. "I'm Layla. Nice to meet you."
"Wow," Micah says. "You're Layla Grant!"
Layla flinches, and Will braces himself for the inevitable: you're from that TV show!
But instead, Micah says, "I saw you at the CMAs! You sang with Uncle Will! You sang so good!"
It's a moment before Layla manages to answer, "Ummm, thank you."
Then she adds, "sang well, actually. I sang so well."
Micah blinks at her.
"Okay!" Will says loudly. "So, Micah. What do we want to do for dinner?"
"I don't know," Micah replies, at the same time Layla turns to him and says, "I thought you were going out to eat."
"We've had take-out every night this week," Will says to Layla. And he couldn't explain this in front of Micah, but Layla knew just as well as he did that if they went to a restaurant, people would be bugging them the entire meal – asking him to take pictures when he was in the middle of his food, girls flirting with him and putting their hands on his arms, batting their eyes and asking if he wanted to take his shirt off, making little side comments to Layla about can openers and robot tones. The entire night would be documented by cell phone cameras, and on the internet before they could make it home.
They stopped eating out a while ago.
"I am not going to the grocery store," she hisses.
"We're out of everything in the house," Will says.
"I don't care. I'm not going to the store."
"We're out of beer," he tells her.
Layla sighs. Her hand goes over her face, pushing the hair out of her eyes.
"Fine," she says. "We're going to the store."
"You can wait in the car," he says.
She shakes her head. "You always get the wrong kind of detergent."
"Just tell me what kind to get and I'll get it. You seriously don't even have to leave the car."
"No," she says. "I'll do it. But if you're not done in ten minutes, I'm leaving you both here and going home without you."
II.
By the time they get to the store, it's filling up with the just-off-work crowd, and Layla is freaking out.
"Can I borrow your hat?" she says, and picks up a brown beanie off the floor of the truck.
He stares at her. "Seriously?"
She jams it on her head. "I need something to cover my hair."
If Will had to guess, he would say that nobody in the store would recognize her anyway. She isn't dressed like she's going to the CMAs; she's wearing jeans and scuffed boots and a sweatshirt that says TRINITY ACADEMY across the front, and she has her glasses on instead of contacts. She looks more like a college kid – or a high school student – than a reality show star.
"This thing smells terrible," Layla says, tugging at the beanie as they circle the parking lot.
"Yeah, well, it's been on my head, and my head is sweaty."
She scowls at him.
"There's a spot!" Micah shouts, startling them both. "Right there! See, it's close!"
Will smiles at him. "Nice call, buddy."
They walk into the store, Layla darting around behind them like she's expecting someone to leap out with a camera any second now and start filming her walking down the produce aisle. Maybe she is. Will can't help but feel a little paranoid himself, grabbing a shopping cart and waiting for some girl to come up behind him and giggle and ask him to take his shirt off.
"Meet you guys by the check-out," she says. "Ten minutes."
"Sure," he says. "You get the foofy stuff, and Micah and I will get the real food."
Layla makes a face. It might be a sort-of smile, but it's hard to tell – the hat keeps falling into her eyes.
"Do you need help?" Micah asks.
Layla stares at the boy.
"Uhh," she says. "No, I think I got it. You get dinner. Okay? I don't need help picking out cantaloupe."
"What's cantaloupe?" Micah asks.
"Exactly," Will says.
This time, he sees her rolling her eyes at them, before making a beeline for the section where the store keeps their organic nonsense.
It makes him remember, all of a sudden, last year – food-shopping with Layla and Gunnar. It was before the engagement. Before he was radio's most-requested. Before any of them realized how out of control things could get.
Not even a full year ago. Things were so different, and they got kicked out of this same grocery store.
"I'm just saying," Layla had said to them, as she grabbed a clear plastic bag for fruit. "You guys need to take better care of yourselves. Living off beer and nachos isn't helping anybody."
"I disagree," Will said. "It helps me. Cause it's delicious."
"And it's giving you cholesterol through the roof."
"Yeah, but it tastes good, so I'm okay with it."
"What about when you're forty and your arteries are clogged and you have a heart attack?" she argued. "You need to take better care of yourself. What kind of girlfriend would I be, if I didn't care?"
She smiled at him. Over his shoulder, Will saw Gunnar give him a pointed look. Then he cleared his throat, and acted like he was absorbed in the tomato selection.
"Look, I'm glad you care," Will said, as Layla picked up a bag of grapes and set it in the cart. "But you don't need to be cooking for me, or doing my grocery shopping."
"Who said anything about cooking?" she said, and then pointed to the cart. "The healthiest thing in there are those Super Mario fruit snacks. You should stick to eating foods with ingredients you can actually pronounce."
"I can't pronounce half the fruit you just put in the basket." When she made a face at him, he grinned. "Besides, they're fruit snacks! So they're basically healthy."
"You might want to be careful," Gunnar told Layla. "You might actually get stupider just by standing next to him."
Will beamed him with a pear. Gunnar hit him back with a green pepper. Then the lady who was stacking bags of lettuce came over and told them that they should pay for everything right now and leave, or they'd be escorted out of the building. Layla had been mortified, but Gunnar and Will couldn't stop laughing about "grocery store secret service", even with Lettuce Lady glaring at them.
The memory pops into his head, as he watches his wife head towards the vegetables.
"Uncle Will?"
Micah tugs on his arm, shopping basket in hand. "Are we picking out dinner?"
He looks back to Layla, but she's already melted into the crowd of shoppers.
"Sure, bud. What are you in the mood for?"
III.
"The taste is weird."
Layla stares at him.
"I am telling you," Will says, holding the box of pasta in front of her face. "The texture matters! It has a completely different taste!"
His wife takes a deep breath. Like she might hit him if she doesn't.
"It's noodles," she says finally. "It all tastes the same."
"No, it doesn't," Micah says. "They do taste different. I can always taste it when Dad makes spaghetti and when he makes the shell pasta."
Will smirks. "See? Micah believes me."
Layla stares at him. "Micah's nine."
"And Will's older than you are," Micah points out.
Will laughs. Layla doesn't.
"Fine," she says, aggravated. "Just get whatever. I don't care." Then she looks up at Will. "Can we leave now, please?"
Before Will can answer, Micah jumps in.
"Sorry, Layla!" he says, his voice high and worried. "I'll eat any noodles you want! I promise! I like any noodles!"
Layla's eyes widen. Micah's lower lip shakes, his eyes glassy.
"Hey," Will takes the box of pasta out of the boy's hands. "No worries, buddy. We're all fine, okay?"
He looks up at Layla. "Right?"
It's a second before Layla blinks and replies, "right," in a tone that tells Will she lost track of where this conversation was going a while ago.
Micah is still looking like somebody kicked him, so Will puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Tell you what," he says. "Let's go pick out desert." He smiles at the boy. "How's that sound?"
Micah looks back at Layla, who just stares at Will.
"Okay," he whispers. "Can it be ice cream?"
IV.
There's a woman in the frozen food department who bumps him in the shoulder.
"Excuse me," she says, and Will braces himself. For the inevitable photo-op. For the grabby hands. For trying to laugh off being asked to strip naked right here in the frozen food department of Harris-Teeter, in front of people in business suits and shelves of microwave pizzas.
But she just taps him again, and asks, "Excuse me? I'm trying to reach that box."
He turns and sees a middle-aged lady with a bad dye job, pointing to a frozen lasagna dinner right next to his head.
"Oh," Will says, relieved. "Sorry 'bout that, ma'am." Then he takes the box off the shelf for her.
She smiles and thanks him, and he lets out a breath. If Micah would just hurry up and pick out the ice cream, maybe he and Layla can get out of the store without being subjected to public humiliation for one whole day. A world record, practically.
"How's the dessert going, bud?" he asks.
Micah is concentrating on the shelves of Ben & Jerry's like it's advanced nuclear physics.
"Good," he says. He looks at Will, eyes wide. "But I'm still looking."
Will runs a hand over his head.
"No worries. Just pick out whatever you like."
"Hey."
Will turns around to see Layla with the shopping cart. "Don't worry. We're almost ready to go. He's just picking out the ice cream."
Layla peers over his shoulder at Micah, then tugs Will down the aisle.
"So what was up with that whole thing with the pasta?" she demands.
"What?"
She glares at him. "I'm talking about you turning me into the bad guy. What's your problem?"
"It's not a problem," he says, narrowing his eyes. "He was about to lose it in the spaghetti aisle. I was trying to stop a meltdown. Mission accomplished."
She shakes her head.
"You made me look like a jerk," she says.
Will checks behind him. Micah is still focused on the ice cream, so he takes Layla by the arm and walks her further away from where they can be overheard.
"I wasn't trying to make you look bad," he whispers. "This isn't about you. Have you noticed he's basically hanging off of us?"
Layla frowns. "Meaning?"
Will shakes his head. "He's a latchkey kid. Look, for years it was only him and his mom, and then she just dumped him and probably isn't coming back. Then, just as he's getting close to Zoey, she breaks up with Gunnar and moves across the country. And now his grandparents aren't picking up the phone."
Layla's eyes follow his, watching the boy. "So what does that have to do with me?"
Will rolls his eyes. "He wants you to like him!"
Layla puts her hands on her hips.
"Look, I know you didn't sign up to play shrink to Gunnar's long-lost kid," he says. "Neither did I. I'm just trying to get us through tonight without any major drama, okay? This isn't the reality show. We just have to keep him happy for a few hours."
Then he adds, "he's been through a lot."
Before Layla can say anything, Micah appears at Will's side, holding the ice cream out to him.
"It's cold!" he says.
Will smiles. "I bet. What kind did you get?"
"Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough." Micah says it like a question, with the end slightly turned up.
Will looks at Layla. Tilts his head towards Micah. Layla stares back at him, and sighs.
"Sounds good," she says wearily.
Micah's face is like Christmas. It completely lights up.
V.
What annoys Layla the most, she thinks as they get closer to home, is that with Micah around, she can't catch up on The Walking Dead.
It's what they'd been doing almost every night Will had been home, when they didn't have to be performing or promoting "Love & Country". It's a good distraction, and it's just gory enough to keep up with Will's attention span. Ever since Thanksgiving, the show's become a minor obsession for the both of them, since they had nothing to do on the holiday but stay home, eat Chinese food, and watch TV, alone together.
Depressing isn't exactly the word Layla would use for it. More like pathetic. Miserable. Unbearable.
To be fair, it wasn't Will's fault the holiday sucked. Gina had preemptively – let's put that Harvard acceptance to the test here – ruined the entire thing by calling the night before and saying that not only had they been renewed for a second season, but that the network wanted to film a "Love & Country" Christmas special, and because Will's tour schedule was so hectic, they would have to film it in the next few weeks. It wasn't as if either one of them had much holiday cheer before that, but the phone call soured whatever uneasy peace had managed to settle in the house.
Will mumbled some excuse about needing to go to the store and disappeared for the rest of the afternoon, and Layla crashed on the couch with her guitar and a pen and paper. Except ten minutes into trying to strum, her hands were shaking, and all she could see instead of lyrics were the Tweets and Facebook comments about how she was too stupid to exist and might as well just die and do everybody a favor by not being such a dumb, worthless bitch. After Gina & Co. filmed an episode of her burning the turkey and ruining the pumpkin pie, thousands and thousands more of those would come pouring in.
Will didn't come home that night, and when he finally did he sulked around the house in silence while they kept to separate corners, licking their private wounds. And it wasn't just because of Gina – since the CMAs, he'd been quiet. The reality show only exacerbated the silence.
(Watch the Harvard girl use exacerbate in a sentence.)
Some mornings, she'd walk past the hallway bathroom and find him staring at the mirror, like he couldn't figure out who was looking back at him. She'd go downstairs for coffee and he'd be sitting at the table, staring into a cold cup like there was some answer at the murky bottom. Once she went to take out the recycling at sunrise and found him standing at the edge of the driveway, hand tugging the lid of their dumpster, just staring at the empty street like something was about to drive in and announce itself to him, in the lazy gold crawl of the dawn.
He never talked about what he was thinking, those times he spaced off into nowhere. Not that she was asking.
Then she spent Thanksgiving Day flipping through the channels. There was nothing else on except sports and the Macy's parade, until she found a marathon of people killing zombies. After a few episodes, she was hooked, and so was Will, who crashed through the door with two orders of Chinese take-out and a six-pack for their holiday feast. They drank beer and pretended the zombies were eating Gina's face off, and ate each other's teriyaki chicken. After a few episodes, Layla was fairy sure she wasn't the only one who couldn't take her eyes off Daryl Dixon and his incredibly muscled arms.
She didn't know what it meant, exactly, that she and her husband were at the point where they could sit next to each other and check out the same guy. But she didn't really want to think about it, so she took a long swig of beer and then coughed when it went down the wrong pipe.
Tonight though, Daryl Dixon and his beautiful arms would have to wait.
"So, bud," Will says, as they troop into the house. "Homework first, or dinner?"
"He might as well start his homework now," Layla says tiredly, setting the grocery bags on the countertop. "We have to actually cook the dinner first."
Why Will couldn't just take Micah out for dinner instead of doing this whole "home-cooked meal" routine was beyond her. Just get him something from Chik-Fil-A and let him sit in front of the TV. Then they'd be covered until Gunnar was done with the temporary insanity that was making her and Will responsible for his kid.
At least nobody stared at them in the grocery store. An entire crowd of rush-hour shoppers, and no one asked if she'd need help opening that can of tomato sauce. And as far as she could tell, nobody was taking photos of her with their cell phone cameras while she picked out a tub of cottage cheese.
Small victories.
Of course, there had still been the magazines in the check-out line. She could see them as they approached the registers. Which was why she steered Micah firmly to the self check-out line, and Will followed her with his head down, bypassing the screaming headlines. It took twice as long to get out of the store – especially because Micah insisted he could help – but at least they didn't have to look at the horrible words, or the pictures of her and Will.
The sickest part – whatever those pages were saying couldn't even come close to the truth.
She grabs the pasta, the sauce, the grated cheese out of the plastic bag. Then she puts the beer in the fridge. Wonders if it would make her the world's worst babysitter if she cracked one open right now, in front of the kid.
A small hand reaches out and grabs the box of pasta. Micah peers up at her through his curly head of hair.
"I can help make dinner," he says. "Really!"
Will's explanation comes back to her, and now the kid won't stop looking at her. It's like he's some lost puppy one day away from being put to sleep and desperate for a home.
"He wants you to like him!"
She wishes she could tell the kid – tough luck. She's got a gay husband she can't divorce and a reality show that is making her the most popular internet meme since Grumpy Cat. On top of that, her career is one more nasty meeting with Jeff Fordham away from being dead in the water. Some days, getting out of bed is the hardest thing she's ever had to do. Micah's crappy excuse for a mom doesn't make him the only person going through a shitty time.
But he clutches the box of pasta, big-eyed. They're so bright and sad, and it's weird, for a second. Will told her that his mom hadn't spoken to him at all since she abandoned him, and her parents told her they were done with her forever when she married Will.
Gunnar would make a good dad, she decides. He hadn't left Micah.
"You know how to make lemonade?" she asks him, and Will smiles at her over Micah's head. "I think we have some mix in the pantry. You think you can make us a pitcher?"
Micah nods so fast his hair flies everywhere. "Yeah!"
"And you can cook the pasta sauce," she adds, before she can stop herself. The kid's so excited, and for the first time since she can't remember, she smiles without needing to remember how.
Micah beams, ecstatic, and runs to the pantry.
Will slides over to her.
"How is he gonna make pasta sauce?" he asks her.
She holds out the jar of Prego. "He can use a microwave, right?"
VI.
Dinner ends up being…not terrible. The pasta isn't crunchy, the sauce isn't watery, the cheese tastes like slightly edible plastic instead of just regular sucky plastic. And with a little bit of salt and pepper they had in the pantry, they actually made the noodles taste like something they want to put into their bodies – everybody takes seconds. When they empty the entire pot, Will burps and winks at Micah, who explodes into giggles and says "gross" in an exaggerated stage whisper, while Layla rolls her eyes and kicks her husband under the table.
The powdered lemonade Micah makes is way too sweet and makes her lips want to shrivel off her mouth and run away when she tastes it. But Will makes a big deal out of drinking it, and Micah looks relieved when Layla puckers up and takes a sip and tries to look convincing.
When dinner's over and Layla is loading the plates into the dishwasher, Will announces that Gunnar texted and said that parent-teacher night is going well. He likes all of Micah's teachers, and saw all his class projects, and can't wait to get home and talk to him about it. Micah's face is so transparently adoring, and there's a moment when Layla freezes at the dishwasher, dirty plate in hand, so paralyzingly jealous of a little boy loving his daddy.
Layla remembers that kind of love. She remembers it so vividly it makes her skin ache and pulse and bruise with how much it hurts to remember. That's what Jeff and Gina and everybody telling her to kill herself on Twitter don't understand.
It's what Will doesn't understand.
Her hands are shaking. She dumps the rest of the sauce-covered bowls into the sink. Suds splash everywhere and the front of her shirt is soaked. She swears loudly, slamming the dishwasher shut so hard the counter rattles.
"Ohhhhhkay," Will says, raising his eyebrows at Layla as he hustles Micah out the door. "Why don't you and I watch some TV, bud."
"I can't," Micah says. "I have homework."
"I think homework can wait one night, can it?"
Layla wipes some dirty suds off the countertop.
"If he needs to finish his homework," she says, her back still to her husband, "let him finish his homework."
Will frowns at her.
"I don't really want to do it," Micah says. "I hate doing math. But if I don't, then I get a check mark for not doing the work, and then Dad'll make me go to more tutoring after school."
"That sucks," Will says.
"I hate it," Micah says. "Plus, Dad never knows how to help me with math."
Will looks over at her, and in her head she's already throwing something at him, telling him to shut up. Rewinding time so she could smack him into last week, before Gunnar puts them in charge of his puppy-eyed spawn.
"Well, Layla was really good at school." he drawls. "Maybe she could help you out."
"I can't," she says, just as Micah goes, "Even math?"
Those big eyes stare at her, and Will does, too. She knows what he wants her to do. But she doesn't care anymore. She's so fucking tired of spending her life on his leash. Smiling for the cameras, playing the missus. Like she's a character in her own life and she has no idea how to be her anymore. Or who she even is.
"I'm not his mom," Layla snaps at Will. "He can do it himself. And you can clean up without me."
VII.
Will follows Layla back to the bedroom, leaving Micah sitting at the kitchen table with his homework. His eyes were wide and glassy, like he was going to burst into tears right at the kitchen table.
He closes the door before rounding on his wife.
"What the hell was that?"
She rolls her eyes, doesn't even look at him.
"That's your problem," she mutters.
He takes a step closer to her. "Excuse you?"
She meets his gaze evenly.
"I said," she says, "that's your problem." She laughs. "You never know what's going on."
She laughs again, but it's more to herself than laughing at him. He doesn't know what her deal is tonight, but if she's going to make a ten-year-old cry for no reason, then he doesn't really fucking care.
"I don't know what your problem is," he snaps. "I thought we could just put the bullshit aside for one night and not cause any drama!"
Her face turns red.
"You're the one who signed us up to be here!" She jabs her finger at his chest. "If you want the perfect family so badly, go out there and do it on your own. Because I quit!"
Will shakes his head.
"You know what? Stay in here." He turns away. "Keep your crazy to yourself for the night."
"Real nice, honey," Layla says, as he slams the door behind him.
He takes a few deep breaths on his way back to the kitchen, where Micah is still sitting frozen at the table, staring at his homework.
"I'm sorry I made her mad," he says quietly.
Just like that, all the fight rushes out of him.
"You didn't," he says. "She's mad at me."
Why, he has no idea, but he quit trying to figure out Layla a long time ago. He pulls the chair out next to the boy and sits down. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Micah taps his pencil against his workbook, biting his lip.
"Whenever things went bad with one of her boyfriends," he says, "Mom always said that they were mad at her because of me."
He looks up at Will. "She said they weren't ready to be a parent and they didn't sign up to deal with a kid. And she'd always tell me that they weren't Dad material."
No mistake, those were direct quotes.
Will can't imagine what Kiley was thinking, saying all of that to her own kid. But then, she dumped him in Nashville and ran off to live with some guy she met online and never called to see if her child was all right. So maybe this kind of behavior was just normal, for him.
The day after he married Layla, she got a call from her parents. Layla didn't tell them that they eloped – she was too afraid they would try and stop them – and Will told her to do just as much, saying their negativity would only drag down her special day. Besides, they'd find out soon enough, when the press got word of their marriage.
The Grants called Layla when they were on their honeymoon. His wife's ring tone woke them up from a late afternoon nap, and Layla took the call out on the hotel balcony. She was only on the phone for a few minutes, but when she came back, her face was red and tear-stained, and when Will asked her what was wrong, she crawled into his arms and sobbed, and it took him a few minutes of patting her hair and whispering in her ear for her to calm down enough to tell him what happened.
"My dad," was all she had to say, and Will was already tightening his grip on her shoulders. He'd never met Layla's father, but he was glad he never did. Listening to her talk about him was enough to make his fists clench and his throat burn and his teeth grit so hard his jaw ached.
"He said – " Layla sniffed, taking a wet breath, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Will ran his hand down her back, his stomach aching. "He said that he didn't raise a sl…a slut for a daughter, and if I was going to get married without his permission, then –"
She burst into a fresh wave of tears.
"He said I could go fuck myself," she said, and buried her face in his shirt. "And that they were done with me."
She was crying so hard that the last part came out garbled. She collapsed across his lap, sobbing into his knees, and he felt sick and burning hot all over while he stroked her back and touched her hair and whispered it was all going to be okay.
Who the fuck spoke to their daughter like that?
Layla spent the rest of the night crying on and off. He woke up in the middle of the night to hear her sobbing into the pillow, sheets buried in her mouth to muffle the sound. It wasn't the first time Will had heard Layla crying herself to sleep at night, but instead of lying still and pretending he didn't hear it like he usually did, he turned over and pulled her into his arms. When she woke up the next morning, it looked like someone had punched her in both eyes.
Her father never called again. Neither did her mother. As far as Will knew, Layla never spoke to her parents after that honeymoon phone call. After that night, she never mentioned them again.
Will grits his teeth.
Parents shouldn't leave their kids. They should love their kids no matter how shitty the circumstances. Anything less was hell.
It's not like your kids ever asked for this life.
Micah is still staring at the table. He has his pencil in hand, balanced over the workbook, but he hovers the point above the paper and leaves it dangling in midair.
"Is my dad coming yet?" he asks quietly.
Will ruffles his hair, trying to smile. "In a little while."
He points at the workbook. "How's the homework going?
Micah shrugs. "Good. I'm studying for my vocab test."
"Good," Will says.
The boy finally looks up at him through his hair.
"Will you quiz me?"
Will grins.
"Sure," he says, and takes the book from Micah.
So they run down the list of vocabulary words. Micah has this look on his face that he gets when he's concentrating that reminds him so much of Gunnar, it makes Will smile.
"What's so funny?" the boy asks.
VIII.
The temperature plunged dramatically the last couple of days. Since then, every dawn has been still and hushed and blue, like something already dead. It's so cold the frost on the trees makes their outlines look like glass, shaped like fists. Like the branches are stiff, frozen fingers scrabbling their way to the surface, before they get sucked to the bottom to drown.
When it started getting really cold at night, Will had dug through the closet to give her extra blankets, making sure she had the heaviest ones. He also offered one of his own sweatshirts to sleep in.
She'd said no. The sweatshirt smelled like him. It would feel like wearing his arms around her. Like she'd unzipped his skin and crawled underneath it, looking for the place where he once made her feel warm.
She used to believe.
After the CMAs, he put her laptop on the shelf and held her until she stopped hearing the beat from that fake rap video in her ears. He touched her hair and pushed it out of her face and she used to love it when he did that, when they shared a bed together, when she would feel safe. He held her as long as she was still awake and didn't let go because he'd failed that night in the only way that had ever mattered to him, and after everything he put the both of them through he still had nothing to show for it but his hands gripping hers, head on the shelf on her collarbone, heart beating into her back, fused with his fake wife like an embryo on top of the covers. Both of them, halves of an unformed thing.
There are some mornings when she can't push herself out of bed. When she has to drag herself into the shower. When the concept of putting on clean clothes and facing the world as Layla Grant is a current sucking her underwater and drowning her where she lays.
"What are you working on?"
The kitchen feels cramped, even though it's just the two of them. It's too bright and too warm, sun streaming through the glass, lining the walls in glowing symbols she doesn't know the meaning of.
Micah stares up at her with those big eyes, and the expression looks familiar for some reason.
"Fractions," he says, after hesitating a moment. "I never do good on them."
Do well, Layla corrects in her head.
Then she says, "what is it you don't understand?"
Micah bites his lip. The heat crawls up the back of her neck and she takes the seat across from him at the table.
"Can I see your worksheet?"
He looks like she might bite him. She wants to be annoyed and does feel annoyed, but feels more frustrated than anything else.
For some reason, seeing the expression on Micah's face makes her think of the reality show. Like how it feels to have someone ask her about robot tones.
He pushes the paper toward her.
IX.
Gunnar knocks on the door exactly at nine, like he's afraid of what will happen to Micah in this house if he's a second late.
"Dad!" the boy flings himself right into Gunnar's arms, like it's been days since they saw each other. Like he wasn't sure if his dad would come back for him.
"Did you like it? Did you like my teachers? Did you see my project about Ellis Island? I got a really good grade on it!"
Will grins at Gunnar over the boy's head.
"I loved it, buddy," he says, hugging his son. "When we get home, I'll tell you everything. Go get your stuff, all right?"
Layla follows Micah back into the kitchen, reminding him to check that all of his homework is packed.
"So," Gunnar asks when she's out of sight, "how'd you make out?"
"Good, Will says. "I think so, anyway."
When Gunnar looks worried, Will adds, "He was fine. He's an easy kid. We ate, he did his homework and everything. He's all set."
"Even the math?" Gunnar's eyebrows shoot up. "Wow, normally that involves a whole trauma team."
"Yeah, well." Will shrugs. "It was a little touch-and-go there, but Layla talked him through it."
Gunnar's eyebrows shoot up. "Wait, seriously?"
"Yeah." He frowns. "She DID get into Harvard, man."
Gunnar puts his hands on his hips. "I guess."
Micah clomps back with his shoes and coat, backpack over his shoulder.
"Uncle Will tested me on my vocab words, and I got all of them right." He frowns. "Except 'peculiar'. I forgot the 'I' at the end."
"Don't worry, big guy," Will tells him. "I'm not sure I know how to spell peculiar, either."
"Which is exactly why you need to know how to spell it," Gunnar tells Micah.
Will punches him lightly in the shoulder. Micah looks between them like he's trying to figure out who's joking.
"And Layla helped me with all my math homework. She knows everything about fractions."
Layla slumps into herself against the kitchen wall, giving them a tired half-smile.
"I heard that," Gunnar says, looking up at her. "She's really smart."
Layla pulls her arms around herself. Will wonders if she thinks Gunnar's making fun of her.
"I think we all had a pretty successful night," Will says, stepping between Gunnar and Layla. He grins at Micah and ruffles the boy's hair. "Good luck on that vocab test, bud."
"Thanks, Uncle Will."
"Yeah," Gunnar echoes. "Thanks, Uncle Will."
Then he turns to his wife and adds, "and Layla."
Layla stays in the shadow of the kitchen doorway, and Will stands at the porch while they drive off. He waits until their headlights have completely disappeared down the street and the cold air freezes his fingers before finally letting the door swing shut on the night. When he turns around, Layla's slumped against the wall, holding herself together, hair in a limp knot down her back. She stares at him, and he stares back, and he feels the cold inside right away. It's worse than the icy wind on the other side of the door.
It felt good to have someone else around. A buffer. Even if it was a ten-year-old kid.
X.
He's still standing in the doorway after the car is long gone, letting in the night. She shivers, wrapping her arms more tightly around herself, but this house is so cold anyway it would hardly matter if they left the front door open 24/7. Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night shivering, and it feels colder buried under the sheets in the darkness of her empty bedroom than it does if she's outside without a coat, winter opening like a blade against her skin.
"So," Will says. He looks around for a moment, like he's still waiting for Micah to come in and need them and provide a distraction. "Still want to watch The Walking Dead? I missed it last night, so we could play a little catch-up." He shrugs. "Whatever you want."
He used to say that to her all the time. Before. It drove her nuts.
"What do you want for dinner, honey?" Whatever you want.
"Should I wear this dress or that one to the interview?" Whatever you want.
"Do you think we could…you know…try again tonight? It's been a while." Whatever you want.
The night after the CMA nominations when he dragged her back to the hotel room, he held her hair over the toilet while she puked so many times she felt like she was turning inside out. She doesn't remember the part where he picked her up off the bathroom floor and put her into the bed, but she does remember the hands, cool and rough on the back of her neck, and then brushing the sweaty hair out of her face while she shivered under the covers. She does remember, he tucked the sheets up to her neck, brushed the hair out of her eyes, and wiped her mouth with some toilet paper to get off the last traces of vomit.
When she woke up, there was a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin on the nightstand, along with a note saying 'went to the gym. We have to meet Gina at noon. Take two aspirin and you should be fine'.
He never told her what happened when she found his face black and blue, but she can guess. That trainer boy-toy he used to mess around with was never mentioned or seen again after that visit. Sometimes she lets herself think about it, and the smallest bit of pity escapes her for her husband, who hurt her and used her and lied to her over and over again, and who she owes exactly nothing to. Sometimes there are less-flattering thoughts about being happy someone rearranged his face and beat the crap out of him. But they come and go, like waves on water.
When she sees Will like she does now, looking at her like he hopes she'll say yes and watch television with him so he can hide from the same coldness she's finding in her own dark nights, it makes her feel enough pity to be grateful that whoever hit him didn't do worse.
She saw his face, when Sadie won that award. Her career was still in freefall and her husband was still gay and a liar and she still had to pretend to love him while the entire world thought she ought to kill herself and do the world a favor. Somewhere between American Hitmaker and now, her gay husband had become the only person she could trust, even though she didn't trust him at all.
"No," she says. "I'm pretty tired. I think I'm gonna take a shower and go to bed."
Does he look disappointed? She can't tell. Mostly, he just looks tired.
Layla looks over at him. "Good night."
He smiles back. "Good night."
XI.
Layla put a new container of pump soap in this bathroom. It smells like vanilla. He only realizes this after washing his hands and realizing he smells like a sugar cookie. A few months ago he might have tried to rinse off the smell, but now it just makes him smile a little.
He'd had a problem last winter with his hands getting so dry they started to crack. It didn't help that he's kind of a germaphobe and militant about being clean – especially when he's on tour crammed in tight spaces with so many people. He was going through so much hand sanitizer he practically bathed in it. Between the cold and the hand-washing and all the Purell, his hands took a real beating.
When it got so bad his knuckles started to bleed, Layla freaked out and forced him to do something about it.
"No way," he'd said flatly.
She frowned, waving the bottle of lotion in his face.
"It's just Vaseline." She rolled her eyes. "It'll make your skin less dry."
"Skin's supposed to be dry! It's skin! If it were meant to be wet I'd be in the water!"
"Do you want your knuckles to bleed all the time?"
"I'll live. I ain't putting on girly lotion."
"Wow, that's mature."
His knuckles did keep bleeding, and they itched, too. He had a show that night and before he went onstage, he rubbed the cracked skin absentmindedly, trying to soothe the ache. When he got back to the hotel room at the end of the night, he was still doing it, and before he could argue Layla grabbed one of his hands and a bottle of lotion and was spreading the cream across the cracked, exposed skin.
"Shit," he hissed through his teeth.
"You're such a baby," she teased him, dabbing a little more lotion between his middle and pointer finger. "Is that why you wouldn't use the moisturizer?"
"No. I didn't use the lotion because guys don't use lotion."
"Ryan Seacrest does."
"Do I look like Ryan Seacrest?"
She considered this, then made a face. "Sorry, honey. Not enough hair product."
He snorted. Then winced again, as she took his other hand and did the same.
"You know," she said, "this wouldn't be such a problem if you laid off the hand sanitizer. I know you like being clean, but there is such a thing as too clean."
He didn't tell her that he knew what clean felt like, because he knew what it was like to feel dirty. Dirty like he hadn't showered in days, because he had nowhere to sleep at night, no roof over his head, and the best thing he could do was find a Burger King and wash up in the men's room in the handicapped bathroom, where he could lock the door and look at himself in the mirror and see how disgusting he'd become.
He blinked. He wasn't a kid anymore. He was the future of Edgehill. He wasn't dirty or hungry or freezing, sleeping on park benches at night and hoping the cops wouldn't find him. He'd never feel that way again.
"Feels good," he said quietly, when she dabbed the last little bit on his hands. It stung a little, but the itching went away, and after a moment or two the ache disappeared, replaced by soothing relief. He ran his fingers over the skin, and it did feel softer. Kinda nice.
He thinks of that moment right now, when he stands at the sink with sugar-scented hands. Nothing he owns has a smell to it, and being around Layla reminds him of how much everything around her has a specific scent. The shampoo that makes her hair smell like rainwater; the bar soap that smells like mint; perfumes and deodorants and lotions. The whole house smells like her, like she belongs here.
Even the guest room, where he sleeps whenever he's here, reminds him of her. The detergent she uses, the smell of the dryer sheets. After living out of hotel rooms for so long, now he sleeps in a bed that smells like an actual home. Somewhere lived-in, and familiar.
A place where things come back.
He's headed off to sleep when there's a noise coming from the living room. He tiptoes down the hall, peering inside, and sees his wife balled up on the couch, blanket tucked around her legs.
Her head is head ducked to her chest. In the dark, she cries into her hands.
She can't hear him or see him, standing in the hallway, so he stays where he is, watching her. In his mind, he replays the entire night. Wonders what made her so upset. She wasn't thrilled about having to babysit, sure, but apart from a few moments, it went okay.
Besides. It was a night without having to be "Layla and Will". A night without Jeff Fordham, or the CMAs, or reality shows.
He thought being busy with something else and not having to dwell on all the bullshit would help. Not having to suck on the cloud of misery that had been following her around ever since…
Since the night he told her.
On the other side of the wall, his wife cries on the couch.
He doesn't know what he'd say to her that could make her happy. Or at least make her stop crying. He could ask her what's wrong, or what he could do to make it better.
He could hold her.
But he just stays where he is. Listens to her tears. Then he walks down the hallway back to his bedroom and closes the door.
He lies on top of the covers and stares up at the still blades of the ceiling. Blackness rattles against the windows, looming outside the glass. The dark crawls across the floor and along the walls, onto the sheets, and everything hushes still. He can't hear anything anymore, except his heart rushing in his ears. He chokes on the breath he can't let out and grips the covers, trying to make his chest move in, out, in.
Out.
In.
Outside, the snow falls.