Chapter 9
DARREN
I palm my beer while staring at the photo Sasha sent me. The chatter happening around me at the table in Peakside is muffled, ignored again.
Abbie’s sitting on an oversized reclining chair in a home theatre. She’s grinning for the camera while her five fingers are deep in a bucket of popcorn. I love seeing her smile like that, but the bite of envy appears the way it always does when I see her at Brad’s place.
Sasha’s fiancé is loaded after a long, successful career in real estate, and he doesn’t have a shortage of toys or luxuries to make sure everyone knows it.
Bryce loves to say that Sasha clearly grew to have a type over the years we were together.
I know better than to think she chose Brad because he was anything like me.
She hates me. Has for a long time now.
Really, she probably chose him because he’s a more successful version of me. That’s if it had anything to do with me at all, which, when it comes to her, things usually do. It’s become tradition.
“Is that my beautiful niece?” Poppy asks, sneaking a look at my phone .
Sandwiched between me and Garrison, she’s been very snoopy all night. I’ve lost count of how many times she’s heard my phone buzz and asked who I was texting.
I tilt the screen so she can see the photo properly. “It is.”
“Oh. She’s at Brad’s.”
“Geez, Pops. Don’t make it sound any more disappointing,” Anna teases.
The wife of Cherry Peak’s homegrown country star smiles at my sister, the corners of her eyes crinkling with humour.
I glance over at Brody, her husband, and find him taking a sip of beer while staring boldly at her.
It’s almost too intimate of a look, so I dart my eyes to the end of the table, where Bryce and Daisy have taken up only one chair beside Johnny and Rory.
My best friend already has her eyes on me despite the hands she has roaming over Daisy’s thighs. I cock a brow. Bryce does the same. I scowl. Bryce copies.
“It is repulsive,” Bryce says, brow still lifted and lips flat.
Daisy shakes her head. “You can’t say that about Abbie’s stepdad, Frosty.”
“I can and I will. He’s a turd. The only time he’s ever around Darren is to rub something in his face. Why else is he always sending Abbie home with upgraded versions of everything she already has?”
Swallowing, I soothe my dry throat with foamy beer.
“Because he’s making a show of his wealth,” Garrison mutters, knowing better than any of us what that looks like.
“Do you think they’ll be helping with the drive-in reno?” Johnny asks.
I eye the long-haired cowboy and get hit with the startling realization that he somehow looks even older than he did last Saturday.
Daisy’s twin brother isn’t all that much younger than the rest of us, but where Daisy’s always had this maturity in her eyes, Johnny’s were always full of a bright sense of life and freedom that intimidated me for a while.
He’s the guy who kept up a facade that he didn’t take much of anything seriously and was just in search of a fun time.
The group of us learned quickly that wasn’t all he was interested in, and when Aurora—Rory—came to town, it became clear as day that I’d misjudged him.
Our friendship has grown steadily over the last few years and took a huge leap the past couple as I’ve dealt with Sasha’s engagement.
I trust Johnny with as much as I do Brody and fuck, even Garrison. That says enough.
Brody barks a laugh. “Not a fuckin’ chance. I doubt even Garry here will be offerin’ to help pick up trash.”
“I’m quite capable of filling a garbage bag, Brody,” Garrison grates.
Poppy kisses his cheek, smoothing a hand down his arm. “Don’t bully my man, guys. You’d be surprised how handy he’s gotten recently.”
“Not interested in learning about that,” I quip, expression twisting with disgust.
Johnny adjusts Rory on his lap and sets his chin on her shoulder as she meets my gaze and says, “Are you planning on helping, Darren? I heard that the entire station was.”
“Yeah, Caleb signed us all up. Is everyone else?”
“Yep! I got every business downtown to fill out the volunteer form too,” Anna says.
Brody stretches his arm along the back of the booth, draping it over Anna’s shoulders. “I heard a rumour that Wanda’s back. She sign up too?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that yet,” Rory answers.
Being half-sisters with Wanda Rose, the daughter of one of the biggest names in country music outside of Brody, Rory knows more about her whereabouts than the rest of us do. She left a few years back to head out to Toronto and hasn’t been back since. Not until now, supposedly.
Cherry Peak loves gossip, and the unexpected return of Wanda Rose is no exception to that.
“Well, then there should be enough help. I’m just surprised the mayor decided to care about it,” Brody says .
Anna tips her chin in agreement before looking at Bryce. “Did you speak with him about it, Ice?”
Bryce doesn’t so much as blink before replying, “Briefly.”
“Briefly? And that was enough to convince him to care?” Johnny asks, not buying it.
“Yep.”
I hide my every reaction to their questions and Bryce’s very obvious lie. We both know he only agreed because he’s still trying to buy back his daughter’s love after letting his wife trample all over her for years. She used it to our advantage, but it still wasn’t easy by any means.
And I know she did it for me.
“Right. We’ll just have to choose to believe you there,” Johnny says.
Bryce flips him off. “It’s sounding a lot like you want to be put to work the hardest.”
“Never been afraid of hard work, Ice,” he retorts with a quick wink.
“I personally think that this is going to be really fun. Like one last hurrah before we all get married and start popping out a thousand babies,” Daisy gushes.
Bryce’s arm tightens around her, a glimmer of awe there and gone in her eyes. “You heard her.”
“How about we focus on gettin’ Darren out on a date before talkin’ about babies? He’s got some catchin’ up to do,” Brody says, the pointedness of his voice reminding me of the brief conversation we had at Bryce’s Into The Shade opening.
“Who pissed in your coffee this mornin’?”
“Life,” I mutter.
“Tell it to fuck off, then. She’s alone. Go talk to her.”
I don’t pretend to not know who he’s talking about. I’ve been staring at her since the moment she got here exactly fifty-four minutes ago.
“It’s better if I don’t.”
“Why? Because you don’t want to put yourself out there?” he asks .
“This day is about Bryce. Not me.”
“Bryce isn’t even over here. She’s been doing flash tattoos for the last hour.”
I know. She threatened to give me one on the tip of my nose if I didn’t stop hovering around her.
From the moment Delaney walked in the door, none of the pre-rehearsed lines I’d repeated to myself mattered. They’d disappeared into nothingness, leaving me with an empty brain. So, yeah, I was unapologetically using Bryce as a shield.
That didn’t stop me from looking at her, though.
I just couldn’t stop myself. After going so long without catching a glimpse of her freckles or platinum hair, one unexpected glance had me desperate for more.
It was like the Earth had been off course and finally realigned.
Like I’ve been living in a windowless room and finally got to see the sun again.
“One day, she’s goin’ to stop comin’ to things alone,” Brody says, voice low.
My muscles lock as I force my words up through the sudden nausea. “She will.”
“And by then, you won’t have the power to do anythin’ about it,” he adds.
“It would be fair. I was with Sasha.”
“And miserable the entire time. I don’t think you’ve ever accepted just how bad you were doin’ back then or how obvious it was to everyone who knew you.”
“It’s in the past now. Why does it matter? You’re wanting me to go up to my ex-girlfriend and what, Brody? Ask her if she’s okay after losing her grandmother? The one person she had left in this town? I didn’t do it two weeks ago when I should have.”
“I’m sure she’d still appreciate hearin’ it from you. Especially from you.”
My stomach rolls, heat flushing up my throat. “She came here alone, surrounded by my friends and our families. She did that for Bryce and the women in our lives because they simply asked her to. I have no place ruining that kindness and making it about me.”
Brody lays a hand on my shoulder, firmly tugging me. “So make it about her. That’s all. Then let it go. It’s clearly been upsettin’ you that you haven’t reached out to her since we all heard about her grandma.”
“Fine. Yeah. Then you’ll let it go,” I demand.
He keeps his expression unreadable. “For now.”
I adjust the brim of my cap and glance past him at where Delaney still stands. As I push past the guilt and fear sizzling in my gut like wet Pop Rocks, I duck around Brody and head in her direction.
Every step is heavy and feels like there’s fresh cement in my shoes.
I pass a few groups of people who look from me to my destination before spinning to whisper to someone.
I grit my teeth and ignore them all. If Bryce or Poppy were with me, they’d make a show of telling them to fuck off.
It’s what they’ve been doing on my behalf for the past decade, even if I don’t need them to defend me at every turn.
It’s second nature at this point to ignore the voices of those who don’t really know shit about me.
Deep green eyes snap toward me. I slow my pace, struggling beneath the weight of emotions in that simple stare.
My ribs pierce into my heart when Delaney straightens in her spot beside the bathroom door and closes off her expression.
The flowy burnt-orange skirt she’s wearing brushes her calves when she twists and shifts enough that she’s no longer facing me directly.
I should have taken that as sign enough that this conversation wasn’t going to go well.
Instead of listening to my gut, I stayed, and the words that followed broke my heart all over again.
I don’t think I can have it happen again.
Not when I haven’t healed from the very first break.
Agreeing to go along with Bryce’s drive-in rebuild idea was reckless.
Yet, I haven’t been able to bail out yet.
Delaney Brooks might have been my first, last, and only heartbreak, but I still refuse to believe that that’s all she’ll be.
“Last I remembered, I was the first one of us to fall in love,” I say.
Bryce’s surprise matches Brody’s. It’s Poppy who speaks first .
“Well, how about that? You’re not trying to forget about your great love anymore, then?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Didn’t have to. We all know what or who you’re talking about,” Johnny teases.
Daisy’s the one I look to now, knowing better than anyone that it’s her who’s grown closest to Delaney.
She meets my waiting eyes and smiles knowingly. “So, back to the rebuild.”