16. 16
Iam ten times more nervous to tell my mother what I’ve done than I was when Delaney and I were actually getting married. That can’t be right—right?
There are sweat beads pooling at the back of my neck and across my forehead. There’s a tremor in my hand that I just can’t shake off.
“We’ll need to touch,” Delaney says, watching me as I putter around my house, gathering absolutely nothing. I’m stalling.
“Touch?”
“Yeah. Miles, we’re newlyweds. That means we kind of like each other.”
“I do like you,” I say. I don’t know her well. But I like her. As fake as this marriage is—she’s real. And I wasn’t crazy when I saw kindness in her on the television screen. She is kind. I see it. I feel it.
Her cheeks go pink with my words producing a grin of my own. I haven’t figured out what it is that makes her blush, but I like it when it happens. She swallows and tugs at the end of her long braid. “Right. But like, love-like me.”
“Oh.” I clear my throat. “Right. Sure.”
“Miles?”
“Just looking for my keys,” I tell her.
She stands next to my door, next to the wooden plaque painted with miniature keys, cars, and houses. She lifts my keys from the small hook there.
“Ah, those are the keys to my Toyota. I’m looking for my house keys.” Sure. Why not? I don’t normally bother locking the door to my loft. Most people don’t even know about the entrance through the gallery. The gallery is locked, so why lock my home?
“They aren’t together?”
“No, I—” I pause with a pounding on my door.
“Miles Gavin Bailey, open up!” my sister bellows. The knob on my door twists but doesn’t open. Delaney locked it after Alec and Bonnie took off.
Delaney cups a hand over her mouth and whispers, “Aww… I thought you said no girlfriend.”
“That isn’t a girlfriend.”
“Stalker? Who else would sound so angry?” she says, flapping her hands to her sides.
I cough a little. “I do not have a stalker. That would be my sister. Though she should be at work.”
“Miles!” Coco barks again. “I know you’re in there!”
I speed walk over to the door and open it up for her.
“What in Charlie’s Chocolate Factory is going on, Miles?” Coco says, pushing her way inside. Her green scrubs are anything but clean. I don’t even want to ask what’s on them. Her hair is pulled back, and there are lines around her glasses where protective eyewear probably pressed into her skin. I’d guess she just got out of surgery by the looks of her.
I swallow. I’ve never seen my sister quite like this. “Ahh—”
“I’m in surgery, and my tech keeps showing me photos of you. They’re all over the internet. With this girl. They’re calling her—” Her speech slows as her eyes see just past me. “Lane… Jonas.” She blinks just as a hiccup escapes her lips. She slaps a hand over her mouth, still staring.
I glance behind me to a closed-mouth, smiling Delaney.
“Aw, Coco, this is Delaney.” I nod toward my sister. “This is my sister, Coco—she’s a vet who may have skipped out early on her duties.”
Coco blinks back to life and slaps my shoulder. “I didn’t skip out on anything. It was a simple neuter. I finished up.” She licks her lips, taking her eyes from Delaney to question me again. “Delaney?”
I nod. “Yes. Delaney Jones.”
Her chest heaves and her words come a mile a minute. “The online gossip said Lane Jonas, and while that’s completely insane, she looks—” Her eyes swoop over to Delaney once more. “She looks like her.” She gives her head a small bobbling shake. “Ah, you, you look like her. You know that?”
Delaney tilts her head, still beaming. “I am her.”
My sister’s mouth falls. “But you—” she says, and with the words, her knees dip. I swoop one arm around her back, keeping her steady on her feet, though she doesn’t seem to notice. “But—Delaney.” More rapid blinks, as if she’s trying to see this scene clearly and it just won’t come. It’s a blur that won’t focus.
“Delaney is my given name. Lane Jonas is a stage name. My real friends all know me by Delaney.”
“Real friends?” Coco stammers. “Miles is a real friend?”
“I hope so.” Delaney laughs. “He’s my husband.”
I grit my teeth and glare at my new wife just as Coco loses all feeling in her legs.
Thankfully, I’m already holding her, and she’s easy to catch when her limbs stop working. I walk my sister to the couch, all while her eyes stay glued to Delaney.
“Husband?” Coco shakes her head.
“I wanted to tell my mother first,” I say to Delaney.
She clamps down on her bottom lip. “I’m sorry, Miles. She’s your sister, I just—”
“And I wouldn’t have told her like that.”
“Wait.” My sister’s eyes find my face. “This is real? You’re married? You—Miles Bailey—are married?”
I swallow and look down into Coco’s kind, disbelieving face. “I am.”
“To her?” Coco says, sliding her gaze back to Delaney.
Delaney holds out her hands as if she’s a Price is Right model putting herself on display.
“You got married without us?” Coco suddenly has all the strength of a full-grown gorilla as she slaps my arm. “How could you do that? How could you date Lane Jonas and not tell any of us?”
“Oh! Oh!” Delaney waves her hands, calling attention to herself and jumping in to redeem herself. “That’s my fault. I wouldn’t let him. I was under contract with the network. Technically, it was pushing it for me to tell Miles that I was still single.” She clears her throat with the lie. “So I made him promise not to tell.” She zips her fingers over her full lips as if locking them up.
Coco stiffens as if remembering that we are in the company of someone she watched date a dozen guys on TV, someone famous.
It’s funny.
I get it. But Delaney is just a girl.
Only, I suppose she’s a girl who was hurt and humiliated in front of a million people. The thought hits me like a brick.
Okay, maybe not just a girl.
“That’s why you wanted to watch the show with us.” Coco’s eyes zone out in thought.
“Wait, you watched Celebrity Wife?” The color drains from Delaney’s face. It’s easy to see that this thought horrifies her.
“No.” I shake my head. “Once. I watched it once.” I don’t want her uncomfortable—not because of that show and not because of me.
Yes, I want my building—more than almost anything. I want a studio for my students. This is going to change things for Walt, for Cinnamon, and so many others. But I’m also overwhelmed with compassion when I look at this girl. No one should have to go through the heartache she’s suffered while others watched. No one should be treated the way those two men treated her. I want to help her for so many more reasons than my building.
It’s a truth I’m just now coming to.
The realization turns me into a world-class actor.
I stand from Coco’s side and walk over to Delaney. I slip my hand into hers as if it were the most natural thing in the world, though her soft palm and long fingers feel like an electric current lighting up my limb.
“I never wanted to keep anything from you,” I tell Coco, and in my defense, it’s one hundred percent true. I’d love to tell my sister the truth. “But I couldn’t let Delaney get hurt again.”
Coco’s eyes drop to our fingers clasped together. With Delaney’s other hand, she wraps her fingers around my bicep, holding to my hand and my arm like a lovesick newlywed.
“Holy snowballs.” Coco stares at the two of us, her eyes ping-ponging from our faces to our hands. I can’t tell if she’s just in shock or completely impressed.
“Snowballs?” Delaney looks from my sister up to me.
“Coco dropped a curse the other day, and her daughter repeated the word. She’s…” I draw out the note, trying to decide how to explain this, “experimenting with new words now.”
Coco huffs, arms crossed, on the defense. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t even know Alice was in the room, and Princess peed all over my newly mopped floor. She’s one hundred percent potty-trained.” She throws up her arms. “One hundred percent! Turns out the poor girl had a UTI. But still, I work all day at the clinic, then come home and spend time with my girls before I have to put them to bed. Mopping my own kitchen is like a delicacy. And then Princess went and peed all over my delicacy!”
“Delicacy?” Delaney wrinkles her nose.
“That four-letter-word slipped out one time, and Alice had to repeat me in front of her father.”
“Alice,” Delaney says, remembering our short conversation about my nieces. “Stepdaughter, right?”
Coco’s eyes turn into marbles. “Crack bananas, Lane Jonas knows I have a stepdaughter.”
Delaney points at her. “And another daughter!”
“Peter pumpkin eater,” Coco mutters.
Delaney tilts her head. “You swear a lot, huh?”
My sister scrunches her nose. “Actually, no. I’m just sort of on a roll with my made-up curse words. Jude challenged me and—” She waves a hand. “It’s a whole thing.”
Delaney smirks, then draws her eyes from Coco to me. Her hand inside of mine squeezes. She breathes out a small laugh. “I’m gonna like the Baileys.”