Chapter 40
DARREN
“Is it your plan to stay in your grandma’s house?”
Delaney swallows her sip of wine and brings the bottom of the glass to rest against her knee. The pink tint on her cheeks is still there from earlier, and I’d like to think it’s from happiness now rather than lingering arousal. Even if I wouldn’t take offense to that either.
I’d just like to believe that she’s happy enough here with me that her body’s unable to hide it.
“I never planned on living there at all. But it’s not like my parents were or have been much help with anything since she passed.
I’m still going through all of her things, sorting them into sell piles to keep and give away.
She has a storage locker in town, so that’s where I’ve been bringing whatever I decide should be kept.
It’s just been easier to stay there full-time. ”
“She always did have a lot of stuff,” I muse, stroking my thumb over the bare skin of her ankle.
From the moment I got back from the bathroom, I’ve been at Delaney’s side. It’s like I’m afraid to be gone for too long in case she changes her mind and I come back to find her gone. After I came in my pants like a prepubescent, I wouldn’t blame her.
I should have seen it coming. She thinks she’s inexperienced, but in reality, so am I. I’ve been celibate since the night Abbie was conceived. However, I don’t know if she knows that.
“Was this your master plan after all? To get me relaxed so that I’ll be more open to talking about my grandma?” she asks, but there’s no anger or defensiveness there.
I may have slipped my shirt back on, but that hasn’t stopped her from curling into my side and toying with the ring hidden beneath it. She hasn’t left it alone since after we finished eating, and I’m still trying to piece together what that really means.
If she wanted it back, she’d have asked for it. That’s what I’m waiting for.
“You know me too well, Elle,” I coo, unable to keep my lips to myself and skimming them over her hair. “I want you to talk about her, but only if you feel comfortable doing that.”
“She was always trying to get me to come home to see her. The tricks got so good that I’d max my credit card on flights back just to find her sitting at the kitchen table with a deck of cards already shuffled and ready for us.”
I grin, resting my chin on her head. “That sounds like her. Blackjack?”
“With nothing to bet besides a few sour green grapes and a tub of cottage cheese.”
“Shit.”
Delaney takes another swig of her wine, the light in her eyes staying bright. “I miss those moments the most. The thoughtless fun she could always create.”
“I remember the time she brought a crib board to one of my games and had a crowd of high school students around her begging to join by the time the third quarter started.”
“Oh, she had a big head about that for weeks.”
“It was deserved. Everyone loved her and misses her. You’re not alone,” I say softly.
“I wish I’d have felt like that.”
“The entire town let you down.”
She shrugs before setting her glass down on the coffee table and tucking her legs beneath her. Leaning into me again, she sighs, cheek rubbing against my shoulder.
“I don’t hold it against them. When I left for school, I think there were more than a few people who felt betrayed.”
“It wasn’t fair. Still isn’t. You didn’t owe anyone here anything. Vancouver is a part of who you are now, and that isn’t going to change.”
“Everything is mostly back to how it was before I left. I think I’ve been almost completely forgiven,” she notes.
“I love this town, but the loyalty that’s expected from you when you grow up here can be suffocating. It’s not fair.”
Her head turns as she stares up at me, an expectant expression on her face. “Yet you wouldn’t live anywhere else, would you?”
“Not unless you wanted to.”
“Oh, don’t start. You would not move away from Cherry Peak for anyone.”
I pull back and pull all of my focus onto her. “You’re wrong. I’d move anywhere for you.”
“It will never be that simple. Abbie needs to stay here.”
“Not forever.”
Her smile is gentle and so beautiful it makes my chest throb. “Where is she tonight?”
“With my parents. They jumped at the chance to watch her when I brought up needing a babysitter.”
“I always wondered what their reaction was to you telling them you were having a baby. I’m assuming your mom was a blubbering mess?”
I swallow as those memories try rising to the surface. “She was, but they weren’t entirely happy tears.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was fresh out of college with a degree in my hand that I didn’t know how to use yet and no money to my name.
My parents were always going to let me move back in with them until I found a job and saved enough to get my own place, but they weren’t expecting me to be bringing anyone with me.
Let alone a woman they didn’t know who was pregnant with their granddaughter. ”
I clear my throat, but it doesn’t help stop the words from flying out of my mouth. Not now that I’ve finally let myself talk about this.
“They hid it well, but I know they were disappointed in me, and they had every right to be. I was raised better than the way I acted before and after I found out about the pregnancy, and they didn’t know what to do with me or that or anything.
Everything just . . . fell apart around me.
I was a terrible fucking father for months after Abbie was born.
Sasha dealt with more than she deserved from me, but we were married, and I told myself that meant we were together for life, whether we were miserable or not, which we were.
Constantly.” My laugh is venomous and angry.
The years of self-hatred I’ve worked through left a lingering sting that I’ll never be able to get rid of.
“Everyone thinks it was me who issued the divorce, but it was her. She had read the interview I gave in the article you saw earlier and slammed it down in front of me one night with the divorce papers already drawn up. After three years of a loveless marriage, she was hoping that I’d have ‘ built a bridge and gotten over her ’ by now. ”
“Her, meaning me,” Delaney says simply.
“You’ve always been the ‘her’ when it came to me and Sasha.
I’ve made too many mistakes, Elle. I did so many things wrong.
Too many people were brought into my shit.
You, Sasha, Bryce, Poppy, my parents. Everyone who cared about me, I hurt because I was too mad at myself to see a way out of the funk I’d fallen into. ”
Emotion clogs my throat as I stare ahead at the TV and the second movie we’ve started tonight. It’s been years, but I’m still carrying a lot of baggage. The same baggage that I’m now expecting Delaney to be okay with seeing on my back, like a permanent reminder of everything we’ve been through .
Gently, two fingers sweep along my jaw before guiding my face back toward her. I hold my breath, waiting for her to tell me that she’s changed her mind and what we had is just too complicated to replicate. It would be fair, after everything.
She doesn’t look at me like she’s considering leaving, though.
“Twenty-two feels old at the time, but it’s not.
It’s na?ve, hopeful, and feeling weighed down by the expectations that we feel like we need to meet.
We’re still learning who we are and who we want to be, Darren.
Making mistakes is what we’re supposed to be doing, even if that includes hurting those we love.
I’ll never forget what happened between us, or the way I felt because of it, but I don’t have the energy to keep convincing myself that I hate you for the mistakes we made.
And you shouldn’t either. I’m starting to see the kind of man your mistakes turned you into, and I think they paid off. ”
I don’t know who moves first. All I can think about is how good it feels when she’s draped over my body and our lips are touching.
We kiss slowly, with small breaths exchanged between us and hands exploring. She finds my chain and rolls it between her fingers while running her tongue along my bottom lip.
“You didn’t drink your wine.”
I hum, gliding my tongue over hers. “I don’t drink much anymore.”
“Why?”
Grabbing her thigh, I tug it up to curl around my hip. “It clouds my judgment. And with you, I’d like to be fully present. I’ve already missed too much time.”
“Mm, alright.”
“There’s dessert,” I whisper.
She drops a hand to the cushion beside my head and pushes herself up, wiggling like she wants to slip out of my arms. “You’re just mentioning that now?”
“I was a bit preoccupied.”
“What is it? ”
“Chocolate cheesecake.”
She drops her head and moans into my ear. It’s a devilish little maneuver that has the exact effect she was hoping for. My dick stiffens in my second pair of briefs, twitching against her pubic bone.
“It’s in the fridge chilling. We can leave it there for a while longer,” I muse, running my fingers up the length of her spine.
She arches a brow, pressing herself down on my groin. “And what could you possibly want instead?”
“I’m not picky.”
“You’re still a hopeless flirt at thirty years old.”
“It’s been a long decade.”
“You never even went on one date? With anyone?”
“Not even one,” I admit.
Her tone swoops slightly, revealing a lingering pain when she asks, “Sasha?”
“No.”
“How is that possible?”
“When Sasha and I . . .” The flinch on Delaney’s face nearly kills me.
I ignore the fresh slash of regret and continue.
“She was at a party over near Oak Point, out by the campground. I was so drunk I didn’t even remember how I got there, but she found me leaning against the shop, drinking my body weight in whiskey.
It was the one and only time we slept together, not like that’s much of a defense.
Once was all it took. But there were no dates.
No kissing or hugs. We spoke enough to have dinner together with Abbie or to pretend we weren’t at each other’s throats all the time while taking her for walks downtown.
At home, if there wasn’t a crying baby or a toddler throwing a tantrum, it was silent. ”
“That sounds lonely,” she murmurs, blinking away the gleam in her eyes.
“I wasn’t the only one of us that was lonely, Elle. At least I was still here. I had my parents and friends. Who did you have?”
“My grandma. ”
Releasing a heavy breath, I shake my head and bundle her up in my arms again. I drag my hand up and down her back, trying as hard as I can to soothe the hurt that I know she’s trying hard to hide.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to keep apologizing,” she tells me.
“Yes, I do.”
“We can’t change what happened. It’s the story of us, I suppose.”
I press my forehead to her temple and hold her a little tighter. “The story of us. I like that.”
Her lashes flutter, tickling my throat. Silence creeps in before she pushes it back.
“Please don’t break me again.”
My heart gives a hard kick. “Breaking you would destroy me, and I can’t survive that again.”
“You promised not to do it once already.”
“I won’t make that promise again. I’ll prove it to you instead.”
Even if it takes me another decade.