Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
brEWER
It was sometime after midnight when I slipped into Delaney’s darkened house, drawn like a compass finding north to the man sleeping inside it.
Opening up to Hayes tonight had been cathartic. For years, I’d avoided discussing my father—what for, when it changed nothing?—but I’d known for a while that my silence had put Hayes in a tough position, and I’d owed him an explanation.
To my surprise, though, once I’d started talking, a torrent of words had tumbled out. About our family business. About my father’s years-long push to grow Harmon Construction—supposedly for my sake—while ignoring my ideas and suggestions and then my increasingly angry objections and warnings. About how selling our grandfather’s house hadn’t been my father’s only betrayal, just the worst… and the last.
Hayes had truly listened. He’d understood. And then we’d ended the night watching Wicked.
But when it came time to sack out on their sofa, I’d changed my mind. I’d missed Delaney. Missed his laughter and his kisses and the soft weight of him beside me as he drifted into sleep. I hadn’t even cared when Hayes teased me for wanting to “get back to Hot Delaney.”
I simply hadn’t been able to stay away.
At the base of the stairs, I met Teeny coming down— had Delaney actually let her sleep with him ? The thought made warmth bloom in my chest—and I let her outside briefly. I voiced no objection when she curled up by the radiator in the living room as I made my way upstairs.
I stood in the doorway of Delaney’s bedroom, watching moonlight spill through the curtains and land in silver puddles on his sleeping form. His dark hair was tousled against the pillow, his face relaxed and peaceful, but one of his arms was stretched out across the empty space beside him as if searching for something.
As if searching for me .
I undressed quietly and slid between the cool sheets, trying not to wake him, but when the mattress dipped, Delaney stirred and turned instinctively toward me.
“Brew?” he murmured, opening his eyes a fraction. His sleepy smile sent heat rushing through my body. “Thought y’were at Hayes’s.”
“I was. But I needed to come home.”
Home . The word settled over us like a thick blanket.
When had Delaney become that for me? Sometime between our wine-drunk confessions and our Jam Cupboard Mystery revelations, between apology croissants and accidental dog biscuits, between learning how much he cared about making the world fair and right… and watching him try to make things right for me .
I brushed that lock of hair off Delaney’s forehead, and his breath caught. Our eyes met in the darkness. Without a word, he slid closer and rested his hand over my thundering heart.
From one beat to the next, our lips crashed against each other, desire and tenderness tangled together. Delaney’s mouth opened beneath mine, and I groaned, tasting minty toothpaste and desire.
“Need you,” I growled, my hand sliding down to find Delaney’s cock, which was already half-hard beneath his sexy, silky shorts.
Delaney arched against me, gasping. “Fuck, Brew?—”
Our clothes vanished between more desperate kisses. My mouth blazed a trail down Delaney’s neck, chest, and his lean stomach. Then I took him in my mouth, swallowing him deep and relishing the cry that tore from his throat.
Delaney’s fingers twisted in my hair, pulling me up for a bruising kiss. “Inside me. Please.”
Our bodies aligned with practiced ease. I could count on two hands the number of times we’d done this—fuck, the number of days we’d been doing this—but it already felt familiar and perfect. When I pushed inside, Delaney’s eyelashes fluttered, but his eyes stayed locked on mine, vulnerable and burning with an emotion I was scared to label out loud.
It looked like adoration. Like trust . Finally.
We moved together in perfect rhythm, pleasure building between us like a gathering storm. The way I felt for him was beyond lust, beyond need.
I pulled back out almost all the way and held there for a breath before pushing back in. Delaney’s head twisted, his neck arching as his mouth opened on a silent scream.
“Look at me,” I commanded, voice wrecked. “Be with me. Stay with me.”
“With you.” With his eyes on mine, those words thrummed with power. Like a promise. Like a vow. “Brewer.”
His legs wrapped tighter around my waist, pulling me deeper.
When we came—when the storm finally broke—we came together, my hand wrapped around Delaney’s cock and the rhythmic pulsing of his channel pulling me headfirst into my own orgasm.
After, when we lay tangled in sweat-dampened sheets with Delaney’s head on my chest, too tired and sated to move for the moment, words hovered on my lips, begging to be spoken.
Words about falling. About staying. About fitting together like dovetail joints in a way that couldn’t be pulled apart.
I wanted to give them all to him.
But already Delaney was yawning, his body going lax and heavy against mine in sleep, so I decided they’d keep until the morning.
I pulled Delaney’s plush duvet over us and held him tighter.
And just as I drifted off to sleep, I heard Delaney whisper against my skin, “I’m so glad you came home.”
The next thing I knew, weak morning light was filtering through Delaney’s bedroom and assaulting my eyelids. I had no idea how long I’d slept or what time it was—I was pretty sure my phone was on the floor somewhere along with my pants—but I felt like I’d slept hard… and apparently without moving a muscle since Delaney was still in my arms.
He wasn’t asleep, though. The moment he realized I was awake, clear blue eyes flashed to me, and he gave me a shy smile.
“Good morning,” he whispered. “I?—”
I wrapped my fingers around the back of his neck and pulled him up to kiss him thoroughly, until those eyes I loved went hazy and his lips were shiny red.
“Now it’s a good morning,” I said with satisfaction.
Delaney shook his head as if to clear it. “Wow. You should go see Hayes more often if this is what happens.”
I laughed. “It was a good night,” I admitted. “There were… many revelations.”
“Oh?” Delaney’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t press, though I could tell he was curious.
To my own surprise, I was eager to tell him.
“Hayes asked me straight off if I’d rather watch a movie or play his zombie game. So I said, ‘Hey, have you ever watched Wicked ? It’s really good.’ And then I took a deep breath and said, ‘I really love musicals.’”
“And he was supportive?”
I rolled my eyes. “The little shit pretended to be all serious. He grabbed my hand and said, ‘Thank you for telling me, Brewer. I’m so proud of you.’ Apparently, Hayes heard me singing show tunes in the shower.”
Delaney pressed his lips together, but his eyes were filled with mirth.
“Go on and laugh,” I told him. “Apparently, I’m an open book after all.”
“Not true.” Delaney sounded serious, but he dropped an affectionate kiss to my chest. “Then what happened?”
“Then… we watched Wicked . Twice. And he and Kel loved it. Kel said, ‘Fuck, bro, Jonathan Bailey is a snack .’”
I laughed, and so did Delaney.
“Hayes was stunned. ‘But, Kels, you’re straight.’” I did my best impression of Hayes’s pearl-clutching shock. “And then… I left.” I looked down at him. “It’s way more comfortable here.”
“Comfortable, huh?” His hand drifted down my happy trail, and he grinned mischievously. “Did Wicked get you excited? Be honest. It was Fiyero’s tight pants and boots, right?”
I laughed, stretching back into the mattress and propping my free arm behind my head. Delaney’s fingers were teasing me gently—too gently—stroking down my hip and thigh as far as he could go before making their way back up, bypassing my morning wood. It was the best kind of torture.
“Honestly,” I said once I remembered what the fuck we were talking about. “I’m more into the tousled hair and the vest.” I shrugged. “The vest does things to me.”
Delaney’s hand paused its exploration.
“I have a vest,” he whispered. “In fact, several vests. Vests for literal days .”
“Is that right?” I grinned down at him and found his eyes hot, half-lidded, and focused on my jaw. “Lucky me, huh?”
Just when I thought I couldn’t be any more captivated by Delaney, the man blushed.
I grabbed him, rolled him to his back, and kissed him soundly.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” I said, propping myself on an elbow some long minutes later. “I love being with you like this.”
“Me too,” he said softly. He blinked up at me, trying to focus without his glasses. “I would— will —really miss this, if—I mean, when— you get a new camper.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
Though by that point, Delaney would be in Costa Rica, probably.
I didn’t know exactly how his job worked—was he always gone for weeks or months? How long would he spend in Copper County between assignments? Would he want to be with me when he was here? Would a relationship hold him back from achieving his ambitions?
The questions were complicated, painful, risky. Emotions that usually made me disengage before I risked too much of myself, back away slowly before I got hurt. But I knew instinctively that I was in too deep with Delaney already.
It was time to stop dancing around what was happening between us. To be brave and name it. To ask what Delaney wanted and be honest about what I could accept.
“Delaney, there’s something I need to tell you—” I blurted.
“Brewer, we need to talk—” Delaney began at the exact same time.
He burst out laughing, and I did, too.
“You first,” he said. “Please.”
“Okay,” I agreed since I needed to rip the Band-Aid off anyway. I took a deep breath. “Being around you makes me want to be more open and honest than I’ve been in a long time. Which is why I need to tell you…” I swallowed, my tongue suddenly too thick for my mouth. Come on, Brewer. For the love of fuck . “What I’m trying to say is?—”
KAK-WEEEE!
The doorbell’s unholy shriek sliced through the morning stillness.
Delaney and I jumped.
“No,” Delaney said firmly. His teeth set, and his eyes narrowed. “Absolutely not. Je refuse . Continue, Brewer. Please.”
“Right.” I let out a shaky laugh. “Okay. What I want you to know is?—”
KAK-WEEEE!
Delaney closed his eyes. “I take back every single nice thing I have accidentally and erroneously begun to think about this town,” he bit out. “I swear to God, Brewer, if someone is ringing our bell to invite me to a butter-churning workshop, or to reenact a human sundial, or?—”
“They’re probably looking to see the paintings,” I said reasonably.
Delaney inhaled through his nose.
KAK-WEEEE! KAK-WEEEE!
Downstairs, Teeny let out an inquisitive bark, just in case the whole fucking town hadn’t heard the bell.
“Forces are conspiring against us,” he whisper-moaned.
Despite myself, I laughed and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
“Go let Teeny out,” I said. “I’ll get rid of them. Meet back here. Yeah?”
I grabbed my jeans and T-shirt off the floor and pulled them on as I ran, which meant I was halfway down the stairs when I realized I’d grabbed Delaney’s shirt.
KAK-WEEEE!
Fuck .
I pulled the shirt on anyway, though it was ridiculously tight around the shoulders.
“Coming!” I shouted. “Jesus Christ.” I threw open the door.
“Oh, thank fuck, Brew!” Kel stood on the front porch wearing his trademark Kitchen Couriers uniform and year-round Birkenstocks. But today, he was wide-eyed, and his hair stood on end—like a cartoon character who’d caught the end of a live wire. “I need to talk to you. Like, now .”
“What the fuck?” I demanded. “Is everything okay? Is it Hayes?”
“ Yes !” Kel pushed a hand through his hair. “Yes, it’s Hayes. My dude, I haven’t slept. I can’t eat. I can’t even drink coffee without puking, and you know I can’t survive without caffeine.” He held out a hand to show me how it trembled.
“Kel,” I demanded. “What happened to Hayes?”
“Oh, man.” He ran both hands over his face. “He’s just… ugh . He’s perfect .”
I blinked at him. “He… what?”
Kel shook his head. “I just… I woke up early this morning, and Hayes was laying there next to me, sleeping, and I just… I couldn’t…”
His eyes met mine, and then he stopped and cocked his head as if actually seeing me for the first time.
“Brewer, my dude, what are you wearing?”
I glanced down at myself. Delaney’s U Conn T-shirt was stretched so tight across my chest, the outline of my nipples was clearly visible in the cold air, and so short it might as well have been Bear Chest night at the Hive.
I hunched my shoulders. “Who cares? Answer me, Kel! Is Hayes okay? Is he sick? Is he injured?”
Kel wrinkled his nose. “What? No! He’s completely fine.”
“Thank fuck,” I breathed. Then I shot him an angry glare. “Then why the hell are you ringing the bell like that this early?”
“Because I need to talk to you, man?—”
“Brewer?”
I turned to see Teeny and Delaney standing behind me in the hallway. Delaney had pulled my sweatshirt on over his sleep shorts again. His glasses were slightly askew, and his feet were bare.
Every cell of my body screamed fuck yes.
“Oh. Hey, Kel,” Delaney said uncertainly. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“No,” Kel insisted.
An icy breeze blew through the open door, and Delaney shivered. Without a thought, I pulled him against my side and dropped an arm over his shoulders. For a second, Delaney relaxed against me.
“Ohhh.” Kel’s eyes widened, and he pointed a finger between the two of us. “Shit. You two were ‘sleeping independently’ again, weren’t you?”
Delaney reacted instantly, stepping away from me with a guilty, apologetic look.
“Stop it right now,” he told Kel defiantly. “Whatever you’re thinking, you’re wrong. I was cold, and Brewer was being… courteous. That’s all. We have a professional, client-contractor relationship because Brewer is a professional… professional .”
If I hadn’t already known I’d fallen hard for Delaney Monroe, I would have known it then, watching him stare Kel down with fire in his eyes in order to protect my reputation… all the while, draped in my Portland Builders Con sweatshirt and sporting unmistakable sex hair.
Suddenly, all my questions about the future didn’t seem insurmountable. We’d figure it out.
I had no idea what Kel meant by “sleeping independently,” but that didn’t matter either. I pulled Delaney against me again, ignoring his halfhearted protest.
“We sleep dependently,” I told Kel. “Very dependently.”
Delaney blinked up at me from behind his glasses. “We do?” he whispered.
“Don’t we?” I challenged.
Delaney took a deep, shuddering breath. “We do,” he agreed.
I grinned, and then, without looking away from Delaney, I reached out and pushed the door closed. “Talk later, Kel,” I called. “Delaney and I are busy now.”
“No! Wait!” Kel knocked the door open again. “Brew. Brew-man. Brewski. I really need to talk to you. I have a situation. Like, a Code Red Emergency, Houston We Have a Problem, Fire in the Hole situation?—”
“Kel,” I began.
“ Please , Brewer. I’ll owe you one. I’ll owe you a million? — ”
I started to refuse again, but Delaney put a reassuring hand on my chest and gave me a wink before stepping away. “Come on in, Kel,” he said. “I’ll make coffee. Brewer and I will talk later.”
Because those last words sounded like a promise, I nodded once.
“Fine, then,” I told my cousin’s friend. “Talk.”
“I…” Kel’s phone pinged. “Shit. I’m on the clock. I have another order to courier. Could you…” His expression turned pleading. “Could you come with me in the Courier-Mobile?”
Delaney covered his mouth to hide his smile.
I sighed. “Fine. I’ll grab my shoes.”
“And, like, maybe a shirt that doesn’t give Winnie the Pooh ?” Kel suggested. He shrugged sheepishly. “Kitchen Couriers has standards, man.”
This time, Delaney didn’t try to contain his laughter.
“I had a plan,” I told him as he followed me up the stairs. I sounded a little petulant because I was. “A plan where you and I had a long, serious talk. Because I have things I want to say to you.”
Delaney bit his lip and nodded. “I have things I want to tell you, too.”
I grabbed the shirt I’d worn last night from the chair, exchanged it for Delaney’s, and continued. “A plan where I showed you the lube I hid in the jam cupboard.”
“Oh, fuck,” he breathed. “Jam cupboards really are the best thing ever.”
I shoved my feet into my boots and stood quickly, backing Delaney against his bedroom wall. “A plan that did not involve my cousin’s best friend.”
“Fuck. Changed my mind,” Delaney said, only half teasing. “Sorry, Kel. We need to execute Brewer’s plan.”
I laughed. “Oh, we’re still executing the plan,” I promised, kissing him until he was breathless. “We’re just reconfiguring it slightly. A tiny tweak to the blueprints. The architect never has to know.” I pressed a final swift peck to his lips. “Be home as soon as I can, baby.”
Leaving Delaney slumped against the wall, looking gratifyingly slack-jawed and distracted, I grabbed my jacket and went back downstairs.
“This better be good,” I told Kel as he backed down Delaney’s driveway.
Kel gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles whitened. “It’s not good, man. It’s… fuck. It’s awful. It might literally be the end of the world as we know it. Well, as I know it.”
“What is it?”
“Okay, so… you remember last night when we were all watching Wicked ?”
I stared at him. Of all the places I’d thought this conversation might be going…
“Yeah?”
“And Hayes…” Kel chuckled, but it sounded almost pained. “He sang along with ‘Dancing Through Life’ the second time we watched it and was up on the sofa, doing all the moves?”
I frowned and nodded.
“Well.” Kel braked at the three-way stop sign and leaned forward to bang his head gently on the steering wheel. “I think I might be in love with your cousin.”
I dropped my chin to my chest. “This was your emergency, huh?”
He whirled to face me, his face stricken. “Obviously! Dude. Brewer . What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”
I patted his shoulder. “Keep driving, Kel. Let’s get you some coffee.”
Kel drove us to Fanaille, where he needed to wait for his next order because, as the server told us apologetically, “We’ve had a run on honey buns this morning, and Cal’s making more.”
I ordered us each a coffee while Kel found a table.
“We’re best friends,” Kel said, picking up his tale before I’d had a chance to drop my ass into the chair. “Closer than brothers. I don’t have a single thought I don’t share with him. When I think it, boom , Hayes knows it. One time, he went to the bathroom when we were at the diner, and I noticed this whirly pattern on the tabletop that looked like a monkey carrying a sword while riding an elephant, and I texted a pic to him while he was peeing just ’cause I knew he’d laugh. You feel me?”
“That’s… slightly disturbing. On many levels. But sweet,” I added quickly.
I couldn’t really relate since I’d never experienced the need to share everything with someone… But then again, I realized I was mentally cataloguing this whole conversation so I could share it with Delaney later, so maybe I had .
“I feel you,” I assured him.
“Right, so then you get the problem.” Kel looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. “I can’t just, just… feel this…” He motioned vaguely at his chest. “…and not tell him. If I tried to keep a secret, he’d know.”
“So…” I tried to be as gentle as I could. “Why not tell him?”
“Tell him?” Kel gaped at me. “Just drop a bomb of unrequited feelings into the tranquil waters of our best-friendship and see what happens? Dude.” He shook his head. “What if he doesn’t feel the same? What if he feels bad for me, and we try… something… and it doesn’t work out? I can’t lose him.”
“Yeah,” I said heavily. “I definitely feel that .” I took a sip of coffee. “But—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—you can’t go through life expecting people will let you down. Someone smart recently reminded me: no risk, no reward.”
“That how you started sleeping dependently with Hot Delaney?” he asked.
“We’re still not calling him Hot Delaney, Kel,” I said with narrowed eyes. “And… yeah, kind of. We’re still figuring things out. His job, my bullshit. It’s complicated. But I guess the risk of not trying feels scarier than the risk of trying.” I swirled my coffee a bit to cool it. “You know, Hayes looks at you the way you look at him.”
Kel frowned. “Uh, not helpful, Brew. Until, like, twelve hours ago, I looked at him as a bro and thought I was straight.”
I ran a hand over my mouth. “Or maybe you’ve felt this way for a while, and you only just let yourself realize it twelve hours ago?” I smiled, realizing this applied to me and Delaney, too. “You’re not freaking out about being bi, right?”
Kel gave me a scathing look. “Be pretty stupid if I was, since my best friend’s bi, Brewer.”
I nodded. “For what it’s worth, while we were watching the movie the second time, Hayes wasn’t watching the screen. He was pretty much watching you .”
“Wait, really?” Kel frowned.
“He loves you,” I said. “You know that. So talk to him, Kel. Take it from someone who’s spent too long not being open with people. And trust that he’ll stick with you, no matter what. He’s as loyal as they come, and he has a giant heart. But you already know that.”
“Yeah, okay,” Kel said. He stared at the wall dreamily. “I just need to figure out exactly how to tell him. It needs to be perfect.”
By the time Kel stood to collect his order a few minutes later, I was beyond ready to get home and talk to Delaney.
So much so that when Reed approached me with a friendly smile and a lead on a new camper for my land—”my friend Bob and his wife are looking to upsize, and he’ll give you a sweet deal”—I thanked him but barely glanced at the contact info he gave me.
Frankly, I wasn’t sure living so far outside of town was what I wanted anymore. I thought I might prefer living closer to Hayes and Kel. And Reed.
And, most of all, Delaney.
If only people around here would leave us alone long enough for me to tell him so.