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lingered in the doorway. He nodded at Layla before closing the door, reassuring her that he would follow through on his end of their bargain.

ANXIETY
    "Anxiety, anxiety, keeps me happy.
Anxiety, anxiety, keeps me happy.
Always screamin' at someone.
Got a temper like a gun.
Hair trigger personality.
Anxiety, anxiety, keeps me happy."  
    ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

    Chase tossed his keys on his oak dresser. With a sigh, he collapsed on the king size bed he shared with his wife of five long years, Trisha. He kicked off his boots, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it to the ground onto a pile of others just like it.
    “Fuck,” Chase said aloud. He couldn’t stop thinking about the promise he had made to Layla. He didn’t know the girl any more than she knew him. She was stuck up, commercialized, a red head , and everything else Chase despised, but he couldn’t knock the way she made him feel. He would never admit it aloud, but she had a certain way about her. Something capable of giving a grown man butterflies.
    I didn’t need to tell her about Leo, Chase thought to himself.
    He honestly didn’t even know why he had. Just a few moments before he had spoken to Layla, Leo had pulled him aside, suggesting that they have a cigarette and talk.
    “Let’s let bygones be bygones brother,” Leo said, slapping Chase on the shoulder as he sipped his beer. He looked over at Layla, who was sitting on the porch with the other boys looking notably unsure of herself.
    “She’s not so bad,” he added.
    It wasn’t that Chase thought she was bad. She was just a citizen.
    She might have had Leo Marsden’s blood flowing through her veins, something anyone could tell just by looking at them together, but she was still an outsider.
    “How do I know we can trust her?” Chase asked, looking over at her. “It’s…not like she has a great track record. Last time you brought her around, Richie ended up killing someone. Two people, actually. Did you forget that?”
    Leo cleared his throat, spitting into the mud before shrugging.
    “She was being assaulted. Now you know as well as I do that any one of us would have done the same thing. If we can’t protect women, why do we even wear these?”
    Leo pulled at his leather cut, raising his eyebrows. Chase nodded in reluctant agreement.
    “Now don’t get me wrong,” Leo continued. “I’m just as tore up about what happened with Rich. He wasn’t just your brother. He was all of ours. I miss him too, but her, she’s not our enemy.”
    Leo looked back over at Layla before giving a Chase a knowing glare. One Chase could easily decode.
    She’s my kid, Chase.
    Months ago, after one too many beers, Leo had revealed to Chase that he had a daughter. At first, Chase was happy for him. He offered Leo his congratulations, remarking on how it sure was funny that Leo, of all people, was the first of the boys to have a kid.
    Then, Leo explained further.
    “It’s Layla Carter, man.”
    Chase wasn’t following, then it clicked.
     “Who you were with the night Richie –”
    “Yeah,” Leo interrupted, taking a sip of his beer and ashing his cigarette, “That’s the one.”
    He wore a somber look on his face, and Chase read between the lines of what he was saying.
     “When did you find out?” he finally asked, “better yet, how?”
    Leo was hesitant. He looked up at the TV set that hung above the bar. A football game played on mute. He tried to distract himself, but Chase pushed him for an answer.
    “I don’t know bro,” Leo began, his voice hoarse. “I think I knew the moment I met her, if you want to know the god honest truth. But I fucked up. We did, I mean.”
    Chase was no fool. Like any other man, he understood what fucked up meant.
    “Shit,” he whispered, finishing of his cigarette.
    “Well L…I mean come on…you didn’t exactly know the truth. You might have suspected it, but you didn’t really know .”
    Chase’s words were clustered and lacked any sort of