Chapter 10
TWELVE YEARS AGO
DELANEY
“Darren’s going to drop dead when he sees you,” Poppy squeals.
I flush, eyeing myself in the vanity mirror. “Do you think so? It isn’t too much? Should I put back on the dress from earlier?”
“Are you kidding? You’re going to be the most beautiful girl at prom. If I look half as good as you for mine next year, I won’t have any issues with finding a date.”
“You’re already gorgeous, Poppy.”
Darren’s sister flashes me a soft smile. “I know. I’ve really started to love my body again the last few weeks. It’s beautiful.”
“It is. You are.”
“Anyway, this isn’t about me and my good looks. It’s about you,” she says.
I laugh, popping the lid off my favourite nude lipstick. “And Darren.”
“Prom isn’t about my brother. If it weren’t for us, he wouldn’t have even known that corsages were a thing.”
“Isn’t that a very typical teen guy issue?” I ask, running the smooth edge of the lipstick over my bottom lip. “Grayson didn’t know about them either.”
My younger brother couldn’t have cared less when I brought it up and asked him. He was too busy with his nose in his game controller.
“Probably. Teen boys suck. I’m pretty sure Bryce is going to avoid taking one to prom at all. You honestly got lucky with my brother.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” I joke. With a final look at my reflection, I pull in a long breath. “I hardly recognize myself, Pops. You killed the hair and makeup.”
She gives her deep red hair a flip over her shoulder. “Thank you, thank you. I’m a natural talent.”
“Do you really think Darren will like it?”
I’ve tried telling myself that it’s only one night out of the hundreds we’ve already spent together, but my heartbeat still refuses to stop racing.
I enlisted Poppy’s help not only because I knew she could do a better job than I could, but because I wanted her friendship tonight.
While she’s a year and a half younger than me, she’s still the best friend I have in town.
Not only is she honest and kind, but she’s gotten to know me like a sister over the years I’ve been with Darren. We’re our true selves around each other, and I’m almost as grateful for her as I am her brother.
“He’d tell you you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, even if you showed up wearing a cardboard box,” Poppy declares.
My hair is curled and pulled back into a half updo with a few pieces left out to frame my face. I pluck at one and say, “I know he would. That doesn’t mean he’d be telling the truth, though.”
“Nah, it absolutely does. He’s so stupidly in love with you. Now, get up and do a spin so I can see the full look.”
I roll my eyes and grin before doing as I’m told. My heels are a bit wobbly despite my attempts to break them in as I lift my arms and do a wonky twirl. My deep green, sequined dress is form-fitting enough for my boobs to stay tucked in tight as I move, a laugh erupting as Poppy starts cheering.
Our laughter mixes and carries out the open window as I lose my balance and grab her, using her arms to steady myself. Poppy takes the chance to pull me in for a hug. We clutch each other tight.
“Oh, I missed all the fun, didn’t I?”
I glance up over Poppy’s shoulder and find my grandma’s eyes watching us. My grin spreads wider somehow.
“You made it,” I say while Poppy lets me go.
My grandma clucks her tongue. “Did you doubt me?”
“No. But I know how hard?—”
She gives her head one firm shake and pulls me close. Her lips meet my cheek before I’m being held at arm’s length and she’s giving me an up-and-down look.
“You’re a vision, Laney. A dream for that boy of yours.”
I swallow past the ball in my throat. “Thank you.”
“When’s he getting here?”
Poppy waves her phone in the air, drawing our attention. “He’s outside! This isn’t a drill. He’s outside!”
“You better get down there to greet him, then,” Grandma says.
“Or you could stay up here, and I’ll go down and greet him. We could record you going down the stairs, and you could keep it to play at your wedding one day. Oh, I just gave myself the shivers,” Poppy rambles, hearts in her eyes.
I roll my lips. “Isn’t that a little cliché?”
“Cliché? You’re going to prom with the same guy you’ve been dating since you were fifteen. There’s a literal promise ring on your finger, Delaney. No offense, but can it get more cliché than all of that?”
“She has a point,” Grandma interjects, smoothing a hand down my crown.
I exhale, automatically reaching to twirl the thin band on my left finger. “Alright. But at least tell him that I’m not trying to back out of going.”
“Deal,” Poppy says at the same time the doorbell rings. “I’ll call you down when we’re ready!”
I let her go without another argument, and Grandma wraps an arm around my shoulders. The soothing motion of her rubbing my bicep has me relaxing slightly.
“Your parents wish they were here to see you today. You know that, right?”
“I do. There’s nothing they could have done to make it work.”
Grandma sighs and holds me tighter than a frail old woman should be able to. “You’re my girl, Laney. I’m so proud of you, and so are they. One day, we’ll all be here together to celebrate you and the beautiful life you’re going to have.”
“I know. I’m pretty sure the entire hall could hear them cheering over video during the grad ceremony.”
“Good.”
I wouldn’t have chosen for my parents to both work jobs that have taken them all over the world, but it’s what’s given me the childhood I’ve had.
Them being in London this week instead of here to watch me graduate and attend my one and only prom hurt at first before I reminded myself that they’d be here if they could.
And I’ve got my grandma and Grayson with me. Not to mention Darren, Poppy, and the entire Huntsly family.
“Let’s get you down to see Darren now, hmm?”
A swarm of butterflies fills my stomach. I can’t stop the climb of my smile.
“Yeah, it’s time,” she adds, taking in my reaction.
We leave my bedroom, and I grip her arm a bit tighter the closer we get to the staircase. Darren’s voice travels toward me.
“If you’re trying to build anticipation, Poppy, I don’t think I can handle any more.”
“It’ll be worth it. ”
“I know. She’s worth everything.”
There’s no making me wait any longer after hearing that. I release my grandma’s arm and rush down the hall. I’m still as wobbly as earlier when I clack a heel to the first stair and draw my favourite pair of brown eyes.
Darren’s lips part as he stares at me, the hand that was fiddling with his tie dropping to smack his thigh.
Time stills as if it’s giving us a moment to just .
. . stare at one another while slowly closing the distance.
We linger in place once we’re only one stair apart, our eyes roaming and exposing the words still held inside.
The corner of my mouth tips up when I lower my gaze to see him pinching his thigh. His throat bobs, colour crawling up his neck and ears. In a flash, he’s taking my hand in his.
I step off the final stair and lean up on my toes when he cups my cheek in his hand. He glides his fingers down past my throbbing pulse and settles them on the back of my neck, holding me there.
“Let me marry you, Delaney Marie Brooks.”
I clutch the waist of his suit jacket and flutter my heavy lashes. “You know that we have to wait four years.”
“Four years is too fucking long, Elle.”
“It’s the only way I’ll know you mean it.”
He blows out a breath that fans over my nose and leans down to kiss me.
It’s hungry, desperate, yet nothing that I worry will scar my grandmother for life.
I respond in kind, hoping he can feel the confidence I have in us.
The promise I’ve been giving him since the day he asked me to be his girlfriend three years ago, when nobody, not even us, thought it would be much more than an infatuation meant to burn off quickly.
That’s all love is expected to be with fifteen-year-olds, but it was the opposite.
I knew from the moment he found a nine-year-old Delaney nursing a grass-stained, skinned knee on the football field with a book in her hand that he was meant to be something far more than an infatuation.
Unlike all of the other boys our age, he saw me and rushed into the school before coming back out with a giant wad of wet paper towels in his hands.
He plopped himself on the ground in front of me and began cleaning the smeared blood and grass from my skin while telling me about how many times he’d done the same thing while learning to play football.
My books caught his eye, and suddenly, I was gifted the rest of the series from him the following Christmas.
I didn’t say much of anything to him then, but from that day on, we were attached at the hip.
“Four years,” he relents, the words lingering on my lips.
I press my thumb over the smear of nude lipstick left on his mouth and laugh when he tries to lick it. “Let’s focus on tonight. Not tomorrow or four years from now. Just tonight.”
“Anything you want, baby.”
“Anything?”
Fire flares in his eyes. His massages the back of my head, teasing the delicate mess of curls and bobby pins that Poppy created earlier. I lean into his teasing touch and run my fingers over the gelled swoop of his hair.
“I’m still here, in case you forgot. And so is Grandma B. Do you really want to scar such a sweet old lady with your love talk?” Poppy interjects.
Grandma’s laugh is croaky but kind, the way it always is. “I’m not a prude, Poppy. Let them love on each other. One day, you’ll find yourself doing the same thing with someone of your choice.”
Darren stares at me, content despite the teasing. Like he’d be okay with doing just this for the rest of forever.
“You look incredible, Elle. I don’t know what I did to deserve you or to find you so early on in my life, but I feel really fucking grateful that I did.”
I trace the strong length of his nose with a freshly manicured nail. “You can show me just how grateful you are when I force you to dance with me tonight. ”
“And if I already want to dance with you?”
“Then I’d say I love you,” I muse, giving him a peck while he takes hold of my waist and tugs me in close.
“Did you remember the corsage?” Poppy asks.
I look away from Darren and to his sister, noticing the phone she has lifted in front of her face. Darren releases me and spins to the entrance table. When he faces me again, it’s with a giant white flower in his hands.
“You reminded me ten thousand times today to pick it up, Pops,” he says.
I extend my hand for him, and he slips the flower and its black band onto my wrist. His eyes fix themselves to the ring on my finger before flashing back up at me. With a smirk, I wiggle my fingers at Poppy.
“Did you help him pick this out?”
“She did not ,” Darren answers for her. “In case she tries to take credit.”
Poppy scoffs. “I would never.”
I laugh, knowing just as well as Darren that teasing her brother about something like this is absolutely something Poppy would do.
“Let’s do pictures. Your mom keeps asking for some,” Grandma says with a hand on my arm.
Excitement flows through me. “Okay, but no lame poses, okay?”
Grandma ignores me and gets to work. Darren traces the low cut back of my dress, and I shiver while wrapping my arm around his front, my hand tucked beneath his jacket.
“The lame poses age the best,” he murmurs, lips to my ear.
“Fine. But we have to love them enough to hang one up in our new house once you’ve built it.”
“You have a deal, Elle.”