Chapter 50 Deli
Deli
While she waited for Lachlan, Deli was alone in The Wallflower with Wi-Fi. She palmed the phone in her pocket. It was a bad idea. But she had to.
A video of Chloe filled her screen. She was singing along in the passenger seat of a car Deli didn’t recognize. The camera panned over to a new man, driving with his hand on her knee.
In the last few days, Deli had thought a bit about her situation with Chloe, turning it over like a gem in a tumbler until it came out smooth.
When she’d read in her mother’s text that the two of them agreed Deli had forsaken everything for Trey, she’d felt entirely responsible for the distance between them.
But the more she’d thought about it, the more she felt like Chloe could have carved out a minute to at least answer one of Deli’s many attempts to learn what she had done wrong.
Maybe Deli should have known that Chloe felt invisible, but she’d done the next best thing. She’d tried to figure it out.
Chloe hadn’t helped.
As Deli contemplated the new man in Chloe’s life replacing Jared, who’d been with Chloe on Deli’s birthday, she admitted, in the darkest, private corners of her heart, that she was a little bit angry.
The next video was of Chloe surrounded by new friends, smiling with mimosas and big sunglasses at a Malibu brunch spot Deli had asked Chloe to go to a hundred times. They don’t have anything I like there, Deli.
And Deli had . . . feelings.
“I’ve seen caged zoo tigers look less murderous.”
She felt the strange and sudden halt that had begun to accompany Lachlan’s presence still her mind again. He had a duffel bag over one shoulder, and he ran his hand through his thick hair, sending a fine spray of water into the air.
Deli shook the feeling off. “Raining?”
“Just barely. It should clear up.”
“They drug those zoo tigers, you know.”
“I know.” Lachlan walked around the bar. “Fucking bastards. Caging something wild to keep it wounded?” He reached for a glass. The soda hose fizzed. “No excuse for that sort of thing.”
By the time she slid onto a barstool, there was a Diet Coke with lemon bubbling gently in front of her, and she felt a surge of fondness for the man who could cause such destruction in the world with his place and his power, but who didn’t believe in it.
She put her lips to the glass and sipped from the rim with no hands. Lachlan shook his head, but he smiled.
“So,” Deli said between sips, “what’s in the bag?”
Lachlan released a deep sigh. “Well, we’ve got the costume—”
“The KILT?”
He rolled his eyes. “Aye. The kilt. The object of your fascination.”
Deli clung to the feeling of a small win after he’d been so stubborn about the darn thing. She kept herself from doing a victory lap. “I just can’t wait to see you in one.”
His cheeks flushed. “Well, I—”
Deli realized how that sounded a little too late. “Oh, I don’t mean—”
“I didn’t think—”
“Just that you’ve been such a brat about it, and—”
“I’m sorry, did you just call me a brat?”
They fell quiet. Deli scanned her vocabulary for a better-suited word to describe how surly he’d been. “Would you prefer butthead?”
He considered her with pursed lips. “You know what? We don’t need to do this. No kilt for you.”
Deli made a shocked face. “Well, that’s odd. Because I remember a certain someone’s ex asking a certain someone to photograph her wedding this weekend, but that certain someone was all like, Aye, no lassie, I couldnae possibly! I’ve no touched the witch’s photo box since Culloden—”
“Did you hit your head on a magic rock since I saw you last?”
“—and a perfect angel muse model appeared—”
“Can you follow my finger?” He held his pointer finger in front of her nose. “I need to check your pupils.”
“—whose beauty will grace thy lens and thy portfolio forevermore!”
“At least that part’s true.”
Silence fell over them like a weighted blanket. Deli felt a hot blush creeping under her turtleneck, and she would bet it matched the one flushing Lachlan’s cheeks.
“Camera,” he blurted out.
She stared. “Huh?”
“In the bag.” He slapped the duffel with a large hand, then withdrew with a worried look. “All my camera gear. I . . . shouldn’t slap it.”
“No, you shouldn’t”—Deli swallowed—“slap it.”
Another stretch of quiet pulled like taffy.
“Oh!” Deli hoisted the bag laden with Aunt Mo’s mystery fare in the air. “Snacks!”
Lachlan looked like a dog who’d just heard the cheese drawer open as he slung the duffel back onto his shoulder. “What did she pack?”
“I didn’t have a chance to check. Beans caught the scent.”
“Of course.” He held the door for Deli, muttering as she walked past, “That cat’s a pain in my arse.”