Chapter 25
DELANEY
My arm is weighed down by seven beaded bracelets by the time Bryce interrupts and excuses herself to answer a call. The moment she’s gone from the table, Abbie juts her bottom lip out and gazes up at her aunt.
“Can I make one more? Please? Delaney isn’t done hers yet!”
Poppy nudges my foot beneath the table before replying, “Alright, but you have to play dumb when Bryce gets back, and don’t tattle on me.”
“Okay, deal.”
I blow out a low laugh and fidget with the unfinished bracelet lined up in front of me. The right side is complete, but there’s empty thread where the charms and letters should be. I’m stalling in a very obvious way.
“Do you want me to give you some ideas?” Poppy offers, examining the rows of white letters and numbers in front of me that I’ve rearranged a thousand times.
“No. I’ve got it. Just stop watching me while I work.”
“While you work? You’re suddenly so serious about this, Della. I never took you for a professional bracelet maker.”
Abbie giggles while expertly tying the beginning knot on her next bracelet.
I dig the toe of my boots into Poppy’s ankle. “Careful, or I’ll start using bracelets as my way of blowing off steam. You’ll get one in your mailbox with a dirty cuss on it.”
“Did you know the way to my heart all this time?” she asks on a gasp.
“At least now I know how Garrison did it.”
Of course, Abbie uses now to start paying close attention to what we’re saying. Her second giggle is even louder than the first.
“Uncle Garry made you a bracelet with swear words on it?”
“No! He didn’t. Delaney is just teasing. Go back to your bracelet. You better finish before Bryce gets back and snatches it away,” Poppy rushes out with her narrowed eyes on me.
I smirk while pinching a bead and sliding it onto the string without overthinking it. The bracelet isn’t for me, which could be the problem. Making one for Abbie would have been easy. Poppy too.
But no. Of course, I chose the most complicated person to make one for. Darren will understand the odd array of beads and what they mean. I can only hope now that he’ll see it as what it is: an offer of friendship.
Working quickly, I listen for Bryce to return. Poppy, I can risk seeing the completed bracelet, but Bryce? Not a chance.
She might not be Darren’s sister by blood, but she’s the one he’s chosen.
Poppy’s been my friend as much as she has her brother’s, and that keeps her tugged in the middle of us more often than not.
Bryce is my friend in a loose sense of the word.
We’re brought together by shared relationships and this town itself.
If we’d met in any other circumstances, we wouldn’t get along.
That’s never been a problem between us, really.
I like her, and she likes me—I think. It’s just never going to get deeper than that, and because of our lack of a deep relationship, her loyalty is to Darren.
She might play everything off as the teasing friend, but she has his interests at heart always when it comes to the two of us.
I appreciate that as much as it makes me constantly second-guess myself around her.
Her real feelings about what Darren’s doing are unknown to me. She could approve, or she could hate everything about it. I probably won’t ever know which one it is. All I can do is try to keep my feelings close to my chest instead of on my sleeve when she’s around.
That includes hiding the stupid beads I’ve strung onto this bracelet.
“Okay, I’m done,” I announce a minute later.
The knot I’ve tied in the elastic is pathetic, but I hide it well as I slip it into the pocket of my jeans.
Abbie glances up from her eighth bracelet and crinkles her face in thought. “Can I see? It looked pretty.”
“How about I show you these ones instead?” I ask, lifting my heavy wrist and waving it around.
“I already saw those ones.”
I gulp. “The one I just did was bad. Really, really bad. I’m afraid it’s so bad that nobody can see it but me. Mm, maybe the next time we make bracelets. If you want to do them with me again. Or we can. Either-or,” I ramble, face flushing.
Poppy, apparently having more than enough sympathy for me, jumps in to help. “How about we let it go, Abs? Remember, we’re all about respecting boundaries this year. It’s what we agreed on when the fireworks went off on New Year’s Eve.”
“But I want to see it,” Abbie argues.
Glancing around, Poppy snaps her fingers and grins, relieved. “Oh, would you look at that. Bryce is back.”
“Hi, Bryce,” I announce, twisting in my seat to face her.
The tattoos on Bryce’s neck and behind her ear catch my eye when she lifts a brow in suspicion at both me and Poppy. “What did you two do?”
“What? Why would we have done anything?” Poppy asks, sounded mockingly offended.
“You’re clearly acting weird. What did they do, Abbie? ”
“Nothing,” Abbie groans.
“Well . . . good. Because I have to go.”
“Okay. Can I have a hug before you’re gone, Abs?” Poppy’s already pushing back out of her chair when Bryce speaks again.
“No, I mean I have to leave alone. I already called Darren to let him know, but Shade needs me at the studio. Something’s come up that I can’t miss.”
Poppy’s concerned gaze isn’t misplaced. I know Bryce well enough to realize that it isn’t normal for her to have to take off so suddenly. The fact that she is should be taken seriously.
“I’m assuming I’m watching Abbie until Darren’s off, then?”
“You assume right. He’s trying to get out of the station early because I know you have to head home soon.”
“Soon as in half an hour soon,” Poppy clarifies.
Bryce pushes her empty chair in and offers us a winced smile. “Sorry. I know it’s shit timing.”
“It’s okay, right, Abbie? We’ll find something to do. And if your dad can’t find a way out of work early, then I guess I’ll have to drop you off at the station like a newborn baby, hmm?”
The little girl’s eyes bulge. “You wouldn’t!”
“Oh, but I could,” Poppy sings.
“I’ll just go with Delaney, then!” Abbie exclaims.
I freeze up, every muscle in my body locking. “Oh—I don’t . . . That wouldn’t—Poppy’s just teasing.”
“Your dad said that was only if he couldn’t get off work in time. And if Delaney didn’t mind.”
There isn’t a coherent thought in my head.
“He did?” Poppy asks, not sounding as mind blown by that as I feel.
My mouth has a mind of its own. “You told him I was here? With Abbie?”
Bryce doesn’t answer either of us. “I’ve got to go. Just send Darren a text or call the station. He’s doing nothing like always. Bye.”
It’s blunt and quick, and then she’s gone.
I’m still trying to reel my thoughts together when Poppy urges to Abbie to clean up her bracelet supplies for real this time.
I watch them both work together to rid the table of beads and string without speaking.
There are more than enough words in my head that there’s no reason to say them out loud.
“Okay, ready to go, Della?”
I slowly follow the line of Poppy’s body up to her face. She’s standing at the edge of the table watching me, waiting for a reply.
“I’m going to walk home,” I tell her, the words forming slow and heavy on my tongue.
She frowns. “What? Why? You don’t need to do that. I picked you up, so I can drop you off.”
“I have a few things to do today still. You take Abbie to the station. To the doors .”
“Are you sure? We wouldn’t mind the company.”
“No, I need to go. It was nice, though. Today. All of us here.”
“You won’t come with us, Delaney?” Abbie murmurs, immediately sending spikes through my chest.
The guilt from putting that disappointment on her face is sweltering beneath my skin. “I shouldn’t.”
“Why? You can say hi to my dad!”
“You should come, Della,” Poppy urges gently, cautiously.
Run, Delaney. Duck out before you agree to something you shouldn’t.
“Okay. Sure. I’ll come.”
Idiot.
“Yeah, I’ll be done in five. You can come inside,” Darren says.
His voice is just as strong and commanding when it’s coming through the speakers in Poppy’s car. It has the hairs on my arms sticking up in anticipation of seeing him and hearing that voice face to face again after a week of being without it. Greedy is what it is.
I went all these years without hearing it, and now that I have again, I can’t seem to go on without it. Greedy, greedy heart.
“Okie dokie. See you in five,” Poppy says before hanging up and pulling into the station parking lot.
I notice Darren’s car first and give my head a shake. “Are you sure I shouldn’t head home now? It’s only a five-minute walk.”
She leans over the centre console and twists her mouth to hide an oncoming smile. “As if. What would you do with the bracelet in your hand if you went home before you could give it to him?”
I pull away and glare. Her responding laugh is fully expected.
“Can we just go in now? Dad isn’t even working,” Abbie grumbles.
Poppy glances over her shoulder into the back seat. “Yeah, let’s go in.”
Abbie moves frantically, excited to be free of the car after being subjected to the same time-killing drive around town that we suffered through for the last half hour.
There are only so many times you can stand seeing the same few businesses on Main Street before you’re so bored you want to pull your hair out.
I step out of the car last and keep a step behind the both of them the entire way to the station doors. The engine bay door is open, and the fire engine is sparkling inside, unused once again.
Slipping my hands into my pockets, I loop a finger through the band of the bracelet. I doubt I’ll give it to him today. It’s not my ideal time or place. The odds of him even being alone here are slim, and with both his daughter and sister with me, I’m sure?—
Abbie dives inside the station after Poppy, and before I can lift my arms in time, the open door flies back and smacks me in the face.
I cry out at the impact and the searing pain that spiderwebs from my nose outward to my ears and chin.
Vision blurring with tears, I spin around and face the street while clutching my nose.
A breeze hits my back, and then shoes scuff the sidewalk. “Jesus Christ, Elle. Are you okay?”
I shake my head and sniff, only to make the liquid now dripping from my nose run faster. It slides down my hand and, without a doubt, onto my clothes as I try to make out the blurry man in front of me.
“You’re bleeding. Here.”
My vision might be thick with unshed tears, but there’s no mistaking the sight of Darren stripping in front of me.
Throat drying up, I watch as he tugs his shirt over his head for the second time in only a few weeks and brings it toward my face.
I hold my breath as he gently removes my bloodstained hand and eases his shirt to my nose, pressing firmly.
“This is wonderful,” I mutter, wincing at the fresh wave of pain.
“Take my hand and come inside.”
I don’t, but he does it for me. Our fingers glide before interlocking, palms flush and warm. The pain in my nose dulls to a low throb as I blink and blink and try to free my vision of the tears tracking down my cheeks. It doesn’t work, and my chest begins to ache.
It’s the first real physical contact we’ve had in years, and I’m completely, embarrassingly weak in the knees. Every step is wobbly and off-centre. I struggle to see where we’re going, but that doesn’t stop me from moving.
Not when he’s the one leading me.