Chapter 12
TROY
I’ve been standing outside CC’s for way too fucking long.
It’s cold. I don’t mind the cold—I grew up in Colorado, I thrive in this shit—but I do mind waiting in the cold. For Delilah. Who was the one who insisted on being on time and not half-assing things. Who still isn’t here.
It’s been a couple days since our site visit and I’ve got ideas that I’m actually excited to share with her and see what she thinks.
I check my phone again. No messages. Then I hear it—the unmistakable rumble of a loud-ass car engine pulling up. I glance up just as a black Jeep parks on the curb. Delilah steps out of the passenger side, laughing at something. And then I see who’s driving.
Jared. Fucking. Jared.
And just like that, my good mood is gone. Well, my bad mood is now an even worse bad mood. Delilah doesn’t immediately see me.
She’s pushing her hair back, adjusting her bag, smiling as she says something through the window.
Jared leans out of the driver’s seat, grinning back at her like he thinks he’s fucking charming.
He’s not. The moment Delilah turns toward the café, her eyes land on me.
I fold my arms over my chest. Jared notices me next. His grin fades slightly.
“Hawk,” he says, nodding.
“Jared,” I reply, tone perfectly casual.
I don’t move or don’t look away and neither does he.
Delilah, to her credit, at least has the decency to look a little guilty about being late.
“Took you long enough,” I say idly.
“Sorry,” she says, not sounding remotely sorry. “We ran into traffic.”
“Traffic? In Mountain Springs? Crazy,” I say dryly.
She rolls her eyes. “Are we working or not?”
“Yeah,” I say, finally flicking my gaze back to Jared. “We’re working. Greer and I have important things to do. You good to go, man?”
Jared’s jaw ticks slightly, but he keeps his expression cool.
“See you around, Delilah,” he says, giving her one last slow once-over. I want to punch him in the face.
Then he drives off.
I wait exactly three seconds before turning to her.
“So,” I say casually, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “Why the fuck were you with him?”
Delilah narrows her eyes. “Why do you care?”
I shrug. “I don’t.”
She raises a brow. “Really? Because you seem pretty worked up for someone who doesn’t care.”
“Just making conversation, Mittens.”
Her jaw tightens at the nickname. “I don’t owe you an explanation, Hawkins. Can we go work now?”
“By all means.” I gesture grandly. “Where to, your highness?”
Delilah pushes past me, leading the way toward campus.
“Library or the engineering building?” she asks.
“Engineering building,” I say immediately.
“Because it’s closer or because you just don’t want to step foot in a library?”
“Bit of both.”
She scoffs but doesn’t argue.
Delilah pushes past me, leading the way toward campus. Which means I get a good view of her ass as she’s walking ahead of me. And okay. Fine. Maybe I’ve always been aware that Delilah is…
Well.
Fucking gorgeous.
Not in an obvious way. Not in a soft, delicate, girl-next-door way. But in her own way with sharp edges and confidence, long legs and dark eyes, and a mouth that always looks like it’s about to tell you off. She’s never been my type.
I like girls who are easygoing, fun, uncomplicated.
Delilah is none of those things.
Which is why I refuse to acknowledge the way-too-inconvenient thought that she looked hot as hell when she climbed out of that Jeep—hair windblown, lips slightly parted, cheeks flushed from the cold.
We reach the engineering building, find an empty study room, and Delilah immediately pulls out her laptop, flipping to her notes, setting up in record time.
I watch her, amused.
“You always work this fast, or are you trying to distract yourself from the fact that your taste in men is horrendous?”
Delilah freezes mid-scroll.
“Excuse me?”
I tilt my head at her phone, which is face up on the desk.
A new message just popped up on the screen.
Jared.
Had fun earlier. When am I seeing you again?
I raise a brow.
“You seeing him?” I ask.
Delilah’s jaw tightens.
“No.”
“Good.”
She snaps her laptop shut. “Why do you get a say in this, exactly?”
“I don’t,” I say easily. “If you want to make a mistake, that’s on you.”
Her eyes flash. “Oh, so now you have control over my decisions?”
“Nah,” I say, leaning back in my chair, stretching lazily. “I just think you could do better.”
She stares at me for a long second, then exhales, rubbing her temples.
“If I tell you why Jared picked me up, will you drop it?”
I tilt my head. “Depends. If it’s a shitty reason, I’m gonna keep giving you shit for it.”
Delilah groans. “Fine. My bike broke. I was stranded on the side of the road. Jared happened to be driving past while I was trying to fix it, and he offered me a ride.”
I gulp. “Oh.”
She folds her arms. “Yeah. Oh.”
“You break your bike a lot?”
“No, it just hates me,” she mutters.
I grin. “Yeah, that tracks.”
Delilah folds her arms, still looking annoyed. “If you must know, Jared did hit on me. I turned him down.”
I don’t know why that answer satisfies me so much, but it does.
I should leave it at that, but I apparently have no sense of self-preservation so I don’t.
“So, what’s the deal with your bike?” I ask, leaning back in my chair.
Delilah’s caught off guard. “What?”
“Your bike. The one that left you stranded on the side of the road.”
She shrugs, looking back down at her notes like this is already a dead conversation. “It’s fine. Just needs a tune-up.”
“My roommate Freddie’s good with that kind of thing,” I say easily. “If you bring it over this weekend, he could probably fix it.”
Delilah hesitates. “I’ll figure it out.”
I study her.
She’s tense. Not in her usual permanently irritated, barely tolerating me kind of way. No. This is different. She seems stressed. It clicks before I even think about it.
“Where do you live?” I ask.
She snorts. “Why, so you can sneak in and poison my coffee?”
“Mittens, if I wanted to kill you, I’d be more creative than that.”
“Oh, well, that’s reassuring.”
“Tell me,” I press, ignoring her sarcasm. “I just want to know how you get into school.”
She huffs, crossing her arms. “I live in town.”
I frown. “That’s far in the cold.”
“Really? Hadn’t noticed,” she deadpans.
I ignore that too.
“I’m picking you up from now on.”
Delilah scoffs. “No, you’re not.”
“Yeah, I am.”
“You definitely aren’t.”
“I don’t want a dead project partner, Greer.”
Her jaw tightens. “I can handle it.”
“I’m sure you can,” I say. “But I don’t feel like dealing with the inconvenience of you freezing to death.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “So this is about your convenience?”
“Exactly,” I say, smirking.
Her lips part like she’s about to argue, but then she stops.
I can tell she wants to keep fighting me on this but she doesn’t.
She just shakes her head, muttering something under her breath before reopening her laptop.
For once, Delilah doesn't argue just to argue. Once we actually start reading through the project brief, she's focused. Efficient. Sharp as hell. And, annoyingly, I kind of like that. It's fucking hot. And she respects my ideas, listens. She doesn't seem to just dismiss me as a dumb jock.
She takes notes at lightning speed, highlighting key points, already breaking down how we should split the workload.
“Okay,” she says, pulling up a shared document. “We need to decide on our approach to the toilet block before next week, but we don't have to finalize anything yet.”
“Cool. What are we thinking?”
She tilts her laptop toward me. “The competition has that broad sustainability focus—'Reimagine the D4 toilet block area as a space that benefits both our campus community and our planet.
' We have two main options: either a conservative retrofitting project—maintaining most of the existing structure but modernizing it, or a more ambitious complete redesign.”
“What about something in between?” I say, leaning in. “Keep the foundation and some of the structure, but completely reimagine what the space is for.”
She nods, but I notice she's chewing her bottom lip—something she does when she's not convinced. “It's a possibility. But this competition is going to be fierce. Every team is going to pitch some variation of a sustainable hangout space with solar panels and recycled materials.”
“So we need to stand out,” I offer.
“Exactly. And I'm not sure a hybrid approach is enough.” She taps her pen against her notebook rapidly. “We need something revolutionary, not just 'good enough.'“
I sit back, watching her. “You're really worried about this, aren't you?”
Her eyes snap to mine. “Of course, I am. Aren't you? This isn't just another class project, Troy. It's—” She stops herself, then exhales. “Never mind.”
“No, tell me.”
She shakes her head, staring down at her notes. “It's...complicated. But I need to win this competition.”
“Need to?”
“Want to,” she corrects herself quickly. “Whatever. The point is, a mediocre idea won't cut it.”
I lean forward. “Alright, so what makes something not mediocre? What would make the judges sit up and take notice?”
She's quiet for a moment, thinking. “What if—instead of just making it sustainable—we actually made it regenerative?”
“Regenerative?”
“A space that doesn't just reduce harm but actively improves its surroundings.” Her eyes start to light up now. “What if we designed it to actually clean the air, purify runoff water, generate excess energy that feeds back into the campus grid, and produces food?”
I whistle low. “That's ambitious.”
“Exactly.” Her excitement falters slightly. “Maybe too ambitious for the budget and timeline.”
“No, I like it,” I say quickly. “It's a challenge, but that's what makes it worth doing.” I tap my finger on the table.
“We could integrate vertical farming elements, rainwater harvesting that filters through a living bio-system before returning to the groundwater, piezoelectric tiles that generate power when people walk on them...”