Chapter 5I just like that someone is thinking of how I was treated. And cares to stake claim to my well-being. #2
I know I don’t, but if Delane doesn’t want me talking to this woman, well, I won’t. Atti can help her, and we’re not so big of an outfit that it’s going to do anything to his day. And if I’m gonna make this arrangement work with Delane, that includes keeping her happy.
The woman has a seat, and I make my way to Delane, taking her elbow in my hand. “Can we talk out back a sec?” I offer in a private tone. I glance at the blonde, but she’s engrossed in her phone.
Delane slides off the stool with a sigh, and once we’re behind the metal door and in the quiet, private shop, I fold my arms over my chest.
“Why can’t I hunt the noise? ”
She rolls her eyes and takes a moment to meet mine. What’s with that? “She was a total bitch to you yesterday, and now she’s trying to bat her eyes at you and get what she wants without waiting in the queue like everyone else. It’s gross. I don’t like her.”
I don’t like her. Well. I’m typically an advocate for people loving people and all that, but Delane not liking the blonde in the weird grown-up onesie is… making me fight a grin.
She doesn’t want me to have anything to do with the blonde, and even virgins know that means she’s feeling a bit territorial.
I’m surprised to like it as much as I do. And it’s not that I’m envisioning some skimpy tank-topped pillow fight with giggles and loose feathers, and I’m sure as heck not picturing them wrestling in jello over me either.
I just like that someone is thinking of how I was treated.
And cares to stake claim to my well-being.
That’s an incredibly basic gift of humanity and one that I have gone far too long without. And it feels so freaking good to finally have it.
Contentedness blossoms in my bones, strengthening me in a matter of seconds. I turn that rush of confidence into an offer. “Eat lunch with me today, out back on the loading bay. It’s going to be sixty. It’ll be perfect for a picnic.”
The way warmth sweeps through me when she smiles is such a good feeling. My earlobes tingle and my fingertips burn to touch her, like the feeling of her beneath my hands would cure me of anything and everything.
The way my heart dips before speeding up reminds me that I’ve never felt that before.
“Okay,” she says, a bit reluctant and a little shy. She reaches up to squeeze the end of the EarPod, to start her audiobook back up, but I catch her hand in time. “Thanks for looking out for me, Laney.”
Back and forth, our eyes move together, completely lost in the way we’re looking at one another. It’s like we’re seeing each other for the first time, and I can’t figure out why.
Because she shooed off the blonde woman? That doesn’t feel like that’s why she’s currently staring at me like I mean something, but maybe it is. Maybe acknowledging the way she protected me makes her feel strong, and she’s pleased with me for making her feel that way.
I know Delane plays a big part in her family, and that’s got to be hard. I was on my own at her age, but I only had myself to think of and support. Her situation is much harder, and she’s always thinking of everyone else, no matter what.
Maybe just hearing I appreciate her efforts makes her give me this look.
Why am I staring then?
Why is my pulse racing and my neck getting sweaty, and my groin doing that thing that it does right before I get a hard-on that can’t be ignored?
Because Atticus isn’t wrong.
Delane does things to me , inside and out. And the woman can kiss. My mouth goes parched at the thought. “Meet you out back at noon,” I force in a husky tone. She nods and slips back inside. With her gone, I’m left staring at a very, very smug-looking Atticus.
“What if I was going to eat lunch out back?” he asks, holding back a grin as he feeds his arms through a flannel, getting dressed to work in the bay beneath the garage. It’s colder down there, so he layers up like crazy. I watch him tug a beanie over his tousled hair, then shrug into a down vest.
“Then the three of us will eat together,” I reply .
He stops mid-zip and gives me a “get serious” look. “I ain’t gonna be out back. I’m givin’ you shit, Miller.” He finishes with his vest and grabs his gloves. “She likes you, you know.”
I shake my head and busy my hands with working the bill of my baseball hat. “Naa, I’m just helping her learn how to work on her mom’s car a little.”
Atticus freezes again, and I don’t think he’s ever been as interested in me as he is now. “Is that right?”
Nodding, I zip up my coat and puff some breath between my hands. “That’s right. But don’t say anything. That was all she was asking me about the other day.” I leave off the part about my confidence and how she’s helping me with that because he’d likely read it all wrong.
He lifts his chin and scrunches his nose as he takes a few sniffs. “Smell that?”
I shake my head.
“Love is in the air.”
For maybe the first time in my life, I roll my eyes. He wags his finger at me as he heads down below. “I ain’t wrong.”
I know it doesn’t happen often for him, but this time, Atticus is wrong.
Delane was waiting on the back bay when I came out.
This time, we each ate our own packed lunches.
She brought leftover spaghetti with meatballs and a huge slab of garlic bread—homemade, all of it.
Today I have sprouts, lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumber, pickles, peppers, avocado, and cheese on toasted wheat bread with fruit salad, barbecue chips, and a bag of fruit snacks.
As a kid, a plastic wrapper blew through our yard once.
I don’t know how far it had to come to make its way onto the commune’s property since we were well out of the way of everyone else.
Purple and blue with fruit-shaped blobs on the front, I stomped the wrapper with my boot as it blew by.
I picked it up and ran my fingers over it, reading the words FRUIT SNACKS on the front.
It could’ve been magic beans to me at that point in my life, honestly.
I hid the wrapper in my pocket and then kept it under my bed.
Took it out and looked at it every day for weeks.
Eventually, like all kids, I got lazy with hiding it and got caught.
Got the belt for it and was told at that time that we don’t put poison in our bodies. I didn’t know what that meant, and I don’t know a lick more now than I did then.
Life is too short to only use your tastebuds for corn, stew, and bread. There are a lot of sinful things to taste in the world, and I wanted and still want to taste them all.
I look at Delane’s lips as she sucks up a wild spaghetti noodle, red sauce splattering on her nose and chin.
I want to kiss it off, then taste her lips all in one pass.
But that’s probably more of a Beau move than a Miller move, so I reach for my handkerchief from my back pocket and hand it to her.
Tapping my nose and then my chin around a bite of sandwich, I say, “sauce.”
She looks down at the patterned handkerchief, the navy blue fabric wearing greatly at the edges.
“A handkerchief? Really?”
I sip my coffee. “I’ve had it since I was a little kid. Got it from my dad.”
She clutches her hands to her chest, abandoning her loaded fork in the Tupperware of pasta. “Fuck, Miller, I’m sorry. I know things are rocky with your folks… I’m sorry.”
I don’t curse. I guess that’s another thing that kind of stuck with me–avoiding bad language. No one cursed where I grew up. Ever. I didn’t hear my first curse word until I was eighteen and told my father I didn’t want to get married.
Even then, his word of choice wasn’t meant as a curse but a threat.
“You’ll marry Carrie, or you’ll go to hell.”
I take another bite of sandwich Earthside and shrug off her apology. Not necessary. “Not rocky. There isn’t anything between us. I haven’t talked to them since I was eighteen.”
She doesn't pick up her fork. Instead, she sticks out her bottom lip in a pout. “Miller,” she draws my name out slowly, sweetly, in a tone I’ve never heard from her. Bumps rise up on my skin everywhere as the edges of my jaw tingle and burn.
Man, I like Delane. A lot.
And seeing this private side of her that she doesn’t give to Kings makes me more than like her, which I have no business doing.
“It’s okay. I’m much happier now.” I take another bite, chew slowly, and swallow. I feel her eyes on me the entire time, and I’d pay good money to keep her interested in me like she is now. “I left because I wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t.”
She nudges the tip of her sneaker into the heel of my boot as she takes another bite of spaghetti. With food in her mouth, she says, “Why weren’t you happy there?”
I shrug as I set my sandwich down on the wax paper spread out next to me. I scratch my hairline and tug my hat back down. “Too long of a story for a lunch break.”
“Another day,” she says, sending my hopes through the sky. I’m not eager to tell her about my life, but I can’t deny the flutter in my veins at her interest in knowing me. Who knew interest could feel like someone holding your hand?
“So, how’s your mom and Art doing? How’s your sister?” I have half a sandwich left, but I don’t want to waste time eating. If I eat, I can’t talk. And I rarely get Delane like this.
She sets her food down too. “Good. Art’s slipped disc is really giving him shit lately. Like, bad. They want him to have surgery, but he’s putting it off.”
With her hands on the edge of the concrete, she braces the edge of the bay the same way I do. Our pinkies touch, and my heart races. And before I can think best of it, I hook my pinky finger around hers. The corner of her mouth lifts as her wide, bright eyes lock onto mine.
“Sounds painful; I’m sorry he’s going through that.”
We look at each other as flames eat up my chest and throat. It’s just my pinky on hers, our eyes dancing together in the cool winter air. And it’s making me feel things.
And it’s making me hard . I can feel the entirety of my length stiffening against my thigh, but with her eyes on mine, I don’t worry about it.
“It’s okay. We’re trying to talk him into getting the surgery soon.
He needs it.” Her eyes drop to our pinkies before slowly coming back to mine.
“My mom is still working dispatch in Oakcreek. She picks up extra shifts at the Willowdale Police Department sometimes too.” She smiles, and I like that bubbly Delane can get a little shy sometimes, too.
“I’ll tell her you asked about her. She’ll like that. She likes you.”
I swallow hard, and I’m about to say, “does her daughter?” but she speaks first, and the moment passes.
“Where’s your place at? You still in the apartment?”
Her lips are the perfect shape. A little heart at the peak, sloping down into full, pink perfection. She catches me staring, and I’m grateful she didn’t break our pinky connection as she snaps using her free hand.
“Yeah,” I reply, fully aware of the love-drunk smile drooping off my lips .
Her grin isn’t far from mine, and that makes me feel so good.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt like this, and they’ve all been with Delane. “Do you like it there?” she asks.
“I love it. It’s a great complex. It’s small but perfect for just me.” I think of my apartment and how it’s everything I never knew existed, never knew I wanted, and never knew I needed. “I love it.”
“I’m jealous. I’m in love with the idea of my own place. I just don’t like living alone as much as I thought I would. We have a team thing going on at home, and while I liked some parts of my own space, I missed the team vibe.”
I nod. “That’s tough. But if you had your own place again later, couldn’t you still help them as long as you lived in town?”
She considers my words as she wraps a loose tendril of dark hair around her finger. Releasing it, the curl springs back as she turns to me. “I could. I guess life just showed me I wasn’t ready to leave the nest yet.”
I nod because I get that, too. I wanted to leave home at sixteen but couldn’t fathom it. Everything I didn’t know seemed too big of a mountain to climb. Only when faced with a future I knew for certain that I didn’t want, did I begin to get right with the idea of leaving.
“But I guess I should think about it soon.”
I bump her shoulder with mine. “In a couple of years, you’ll be on a mechanics salary and have a lot more options.” She bumps back into me.
“I hope so.” I’m disappointed when she reaches for her bowl of food even though it is lunchtime.
But she puts the lid on and stuffs it in her bag instead of eating.
I’m also disappointed we aren't physically touching anymore. Turning to face me, she gathers her legs to her chest and rests her chin on her knee. The wind carries a curl across her face, and I push it back behind her ear. “Thanks. Hey, let’s plan our first lesson.” She dances her brows up and down a couple of times, earning a chuckle from me.
“Okay. Well, where do you want to start?” I’m glad she brought it up, and all of me is excited that she did.
“We’ll keep going with kissing.”
I swallow around the knot of budding arousal I’m fighting down. I move my legs a little to send some movement and, hopefully, new signals to my groin. Now is not the time to get ready for battle.
“I meant with The Mechanics Bible, but…” I scratch a hand up the back of my head while I grin foolishly at her. “I like that more.”
She smacks her palm to her mouth as if she’s embarrassed, and I chuckle a little.
“Okay, I’m sorry, I’m just finishing my audiobook today, and it’s heating up.
I guess I have a one-track mind.” She smiles.
“I’ll bring the MB with me to your place when I come over, and we can choose the lesson together. ”
“Tonight,” I rush out, wasting no time. “You can come over tonight.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “Can’t. Mara has karate. Couple days?”
I nod. “Literally any day. All day. Every day.”
She laughs again, and I do too, and it feels good to make her happy.
“Alright, later this week. Sounds good.”
And suddenly, I have something to look forward to.