golden hour

part one - rainbow

April 2018

Layla

"Hey mom..I'm not doing so great. can I come home?"

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"Layla, honey - can you give me a hand with some of these tables?"

Standing up and brushing off her shorts, readjusting her crop top, Layla calls back, "Sure mom, be right in!" She puts her guitar aside and grabs her notepad from the picnic bench she was sitting on and heads to a table with a bunch of people from the navy standing around to take their orders.

Without looking up from her notepad, Layla says "Hi my names Layla, I'm helping out at the bar..can I get anyone anything?"

Looking up from her order pad Layla realizes one of the men at the table is Bradley Bradshaw, someone she grew up with during her childhood summers. "Lee Bradshaw??! Oh my gosh!" without thinking Layla rushes over to him and goes in for a hug.

Before Lee can process what's happening he's being hugged by this woman and racking his brain for any clue as to who she is when it clicks - only one person has called him Lee growing up. He hasn't seen her since he was 17 and she was 12, she looked completely unrecognizable now nearly 8 years later. Stunned, he asks to make sure if its really her -

"Layla Mitchell? Is that you?" He asks, finally standing and hugging her back, feeling awkward that she was leaned over while he was sat on a bar stool. "It sure is! How are you?" Recognizing her southern twang anywhere, he sits back in disbelief.

Stepping back to take a closer look at each other, Layla's childhood crush comes back in full force and Lee realizes she's not the same little girl she was when he last saw her about 8 years ago. Now a young woman with a perfect smile and bright hazel eyes Lee can't help but stare at her. "I'm doing good, it's really good to see you."

He steps back and smiles at her and she realizes the once tall and lanky dark haired boy has now grown into a muscular naval man and she can't help but blush and bite her lip and say "you're looking damn good Lee."

Laughing, he tells her "thanks. You do too. It took me a seconds to recognize you but wow you definitely grew up. I never expected to see you here. I thought you were in LA or Nashville or something doing music?"

After staring at each other for a moment too long to be considered friendly, one of the other table members cleared their throat and Layla snapped out of the little trance she had been in and realized she had orders to take before the whole bar got too packed to be manageable.

"It must be because I'm taller, huh?"  Winking at him she adds, "or maybe it's because  I grew up, don't look like a little boy anymore and I got a nose job to fix mine after you broke it that summer when I was 11! And I was working on my music, but I'm just taking a little break."

"Yeah that must be it, haha. And fuck I forgot about that. I'm still sorry about that" Lee rubs the back of his head awkwardly and still looks remorseful about that time he was practicing baseball with Layla's dad and she got hit with it, breaking her nose and leaving her with a weirdly healed nose up until she could afford to pay to fix it when she was 17.

"Oh don't worry about that, I'm just teasing you! I love my new nose. So..what can I get you guys to drink?" She says as she turns to show him her side profile, so he can check out her nose. "It looks great, Layla" he says laughing.

While she was taking orders Layla couldn't help but notice that Lee was checking her out, making her feel like a teenager with a crush all over again. Now though she had grown up, learned from her time traveling and performing how to put effort into her appearance and wasn't the same awkward, pre-teen girl he remembered her as.