Chapter Nine
Delilah
I don’t leave a note on Rhys’s windshield.
Not yet. I’m not ready. We’re not ready.
I haven’t gathered enough intel to tailor the vibe.
What if he’s a man who appreciates poems, not puns?
What if he hates glitter? What if my handwriting disappoints him and he psychoanalyzes my looped y’s and the way I cross my t’s like a desperate woman craving structure?
I need more time.
So I’m parked a totally reasonable distance from his car, steeped in the warm, slightly sweaty cocoon of my own anticipation. My engine’s off. Air off. Sanity long gone. I’m melting into the faux leather like a tragic milkshake of lust and longing.
My fries are long gone, the evidence crumpled in a greasy brown bag on the passenger seat. I tried to eat slowly, to savor, but you can’t chew thoughtfully and spy at the same time. It’s rude.
I’ve switched back to my sunhat. I’d been wearing Jett’s hat earlier, but it felt wrong.
Disrespectful. Like bringing your ex’s hoodie to a first date.
This is Rhys’s time. Rhys’s moment. Rhys, who probably drinks black coffee in silence and eats yogurt with a tiny silver spoon and reads nonfiction books for fun.
Still, my fingers keep drifting down to the hat in my lap, tracing the rim like it holds the answers to the universe. I fold it. Unfold it. Think about putting it on again and then whisper a quiet “no” to myself like that’s a healthy thing to do alone in a car at dusk.
It’s 7:03 when he finally emerges from the building. I know because I’ve checked the clock twelve times in the last two minutes.
And God.
Rhys in slacks is a religious experience.
A low-simmering, high-functioning, fully buttoned-up wet dream.
The sweater’s gone, which means the air conditioning must’ve finally stopped trying to kill him in his office.
His shirt sleeves are rolled, exposing just enough forearm to undo a girl’s entire personality, and he moves with that slow, efficient grace that makes me imagine things like kitchen counters and wine stains and dinner parties where he says, “She’s a little weird, but she’s mine. ”
He doesn’t even look around. Just tosses his briefcase in the passenger seat and slides behind the wheel like a man who fully intends to spend his Friday night watching black-and-white noir films alone, probably with subtitles and a lowball glass full of something aged and expensive.
I bet his couch is leather. I bet his house smells like cedar and restraint.
I want to ruin it.
I want to show up in fuzzy socks and a slutty little cardigan and feed him overpriced cheeses off a marble tray while he explains the themes of the movie to me, even though I already know them.
I want to listen anyway. I want to be good for him in that very specific, let me sit on your lap and validate your trauma kind of way.
But instead I’m sitting in my car, half-delirious with sodium and desire, trying not to fog up the windows with my breath. This is fine. This is healthy. This is step one in becoming the kind of girlfriend who respects boundaries.
Even if I do kinda want to wear his shirts like a nightgown and read his patient notes out loud like bedtime stories.
He doesn’t drive to a house. Not a bachelor pad. Not a sad little apartment. Not even one of those painfully modern condos with too much glass and zero personality.
Nope. Rhys turns into the parking lot of the community art center.
Because of course he fucking does.
I trail a few cars back, discreet as hell, all tinted windows and borderline obsession. I idle at the curb and stare at the glowing signage. The Community Art Center. A place where people, allegedly, choose to spend their Friday nights. Willingly. With no threat of blackmail or jury summons.
I watch him park. Watch him get out. No rush. No nerves. Like this is just what he does.
Art center. Friday night. Alone.
What are we doing, baby? Is this who you are?
Is this a secret kink? The kind of man who gets off on brush strokes and tortured metaphors?
Are we staring with reverent silence at abstract paintings that might be either flowers or childhood trauma?
Is there an underground poetry reading in the basement? Should I have brought a beret?
I roll into the parking lot and find a spot close enough to stalk but far enough to preserve the illusion of sanity. There are a few other cars here, which is somehow more concerning than if he were the only one. Other people are doing this too? Is this… a group thing?
Communal art appreciation?
I check the mirror. Glitter gloss still popping. Mascara intact. I spritz myself with vanilla-spice body spray because I believe in assaulting all five senses when I’m imprinting, and then I get out and stretch out the stakeout stiffness.
The steps are dramatic. Too many. The building’s trying to weed out the emotionally unstable and the physically unfit. Which is ableist, and also rude. By the time I reach the door, my thighs are burning and I’m quietly wheezing through my nose with revenge cardio asthma.
Inside, it smells like paint and moral superiority. There’s a stuffy-looking man at the reception desk, squinting at me, trying to place my exact level of chaos. I give him my best I’m totally meant to be here and definitely not stalking anyone smile.
“I’m here for…” I trail off, let the smile widen. Sweet. Innocent. Dangerous.
“Figure drawing?” he says, deadpan.
Oh.
Oh Rhys.
You secret, buttoned-up, highly-respectable pervert.
You’re here to draw naked people.
This changes everything. This deepens the lore.
I grab one of the fliers off the desk, fold it neatly, and stash it in my backpack because I will be signing up. If they do roll call or check names or some other adult shit, I need plausible deniability. I scribble something vaguely legible on the sign-in sheet.
The desk man looks down, then back up. And smiles politely. “Do you know the way, Miss Darling?”
I freeze for a half-second. Then smile back, too sharp to be soft. “Oh, I will,” I say. “Soon.”
The guy at the desk waves me down a short hallway that smells like linseed oil and socially repressed horniness.
I follow the muffled sounds of charcoal scratching paper until I reach a door that’s slightly ajar, light spilling out in warm, dramatic tones that scream “art is happening, bitch.” Be normal.
I push it open and slip in like I belong.
Confidence is camouflage.
The room is… unexpectedly full. There are maybe a dozen people, all arranged in a wide horseshoe around a little stage where a woman is already posing, completely naked and disturbingly unbothered by it.
She’s doing this elegant lean on a stool with one knee bent like a fancy nudist flamingo.
A soft overhead spotlight casts tragic shadows over her hip bones. Her expression is serene.
I hate her immediately.
The artist closest to the door shifts and blocks my view just enough to piss me off, but it’s fine. I’m scanning, eyes darting, hunting for the real subject of interest.
There.
Rhys.
Near the middle. Sitting tall at his easel.
A man made of restraint and expensive moral fiber.
He’s got a big sketch pad clipped to a board, long fingers smudged at the tips from charcoal or pastels or whatever they use to capture the essence of naked strangers.
His shirt sleeves are rolled, throat open, jaw clenched as if he’s deeply offended by nipples.
He does not look back.
Not once.
Not even when the door creaks.
Sir. I am literally behind you. Do you not feel the aura of obsession radiating toward your spine like a laser pointer on a cat?
Whatever. I slink to the back corner, choosing a spot where I can see him and the model and not have to sit next to anyone with a ponytail and artistic superiority complex.
There’s a spare easel already set up, a giant piece of newsprint clipped in place.
Under the stool is a tray with charcoal sticks, vine charcoal, and an eraser that looks like a chewed-up wad of gum.
I sit gingerly and pick up a pencil like it’s a weapon I might accidentally use on myself.
The model shifts. Someone hums. Rhys is focused. In full life-or-death sketch-off mode. As if he’s about to sell this portrait for millions and retire to a vineyard. His gaze doesn’t flicker, not even a twitch.
And listen, I’m mature. I understand the human form. I’ve got one. But watching him study that woman’s naked everything with the concentration of a monk reading smut is making my teeth itch.
She’s pretty. All long limbs and minimal body fat and tasteful nipples. She probably does yoga and volunteers for dog rescues and drinks herbal tea with honey and doesn’t chase her ex across state lines. She’s the worst.
I glare at her while furiously sketching Rhys’s side profile.
Stick figure version.
Labeled. With tiny sad eyebrows.
Then I draw the model as a goose.
Then I draw me holding hands with stick-Rhys while goose-woman cries in the background.
Everyone else is quiet. Focused. Dignified. Meanwhile, I’m in the back like a chaos raccoon doing vengeful doodles and trying not to choke on my own silent rage.
I lean forward dramatically and whisper to my sketchpad, “Get her, girl,” as I draw devil horns on goose-woman’s head.
Still, Rhys never looks back.
Not once.
Just sketches. Sharp. Controlled. Stern.
I bet he’s good at it. I bet his hands know how to coax out shadow and form and all the soft-edged things he won’t give me.
I frown at my page, which now contains a heartsplosion labeled “art is for horny cowards” and a doodle of me drop-kicking the model into the sun.
We’ll see how focused he is when I’m the one on that stage.
I fake a polite little yawn that says, I’m just so artistically fulfilled I need to leave early, then quietly unclip my paper from the easel and roll it up. The goose-woman is still posing. Rhys is still sketching. Probably doing justice to the curve of her thigh.
I give his back a lingering stare full of betrayal and mascaraed spite, then slink out of the room with the grace of a cat burglar who stole nothing but vibes.
The hallway’s quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you question if you imagined the entire class. The guy at the front desk is sipping something that smells like decaf moral superiority when I appear.
He startles. “Oh! Finished already, Miss… Darling?”
I nod and lean on the counter. “Quick question,” I say, sweet as arsenic. “The model… what a stunning woman. So professional. Such poise. What’s her name?”
His face twitches, caught somewhere between flattered and suspicious. “That’s, uh, Miss Kira. She’s one of our regulars. Very dependable.”
Kira.
Like a villain in a dystopian young adult novel.
Of course she is.
“That’s lovely,” I say with a plastic smile, already pulling out my phone. “It’s just so inspiring to see a woman so confident in her skin. Empowering, really. I might follow her work.”
For self-improvement. And justice.
He frowns. “Her… work?”
I laugh like I’m normal. “You know. Her portfolio. Her artistic journey. I’m a huge fan of journeys.” Then I spin on my heel and waltz out before the walls close in on my last shred of mental stability.
Outside, the sky is purple with dusk. I slide into my car and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Finally, goose-Kira exits. She’s wrapped in a long cardigan and walks like someone who doesn’t have a single delusional woman drawing her as poultry twenty feet away.
I slouch low, squinting over my steering wheel.
Rhys doesn’t leave right away. He probably has to clean up his feelings and his hard-on for modesty. So I let him be.
I tail her from a very respectful distance.
The kind of distance that says “I’m not stalking you, I’m just wildly curious about your lifestyle and maybe your blood type.
” She doesn’t notice. Just walks two blocks like she’s in a European indie film.
No music. No sense of danger. Just vibes and soft footfalls.
Then she turns into a grimy little building that squats over a 24-hour laundromat. There’s a buzz-in door. No cameras. The lights flicker.
Bingo.
I coast by once, then circle back and park across the street. Discreet. Innocent. Just a girl, out for a drive with a rolled-up emotional hate drawing in her lap.
I pull out my phone, open Google Maps, and drop a pin on the exact location.
“Goose Bitch HQ.”
Saved.
Folder: Strategic Planning.
I take a deep breath and lean back in my seat, feeling something warm and predatory settle in my chest.
Know your enemy.
Protect what’s yours.
Leave a glitter trail.
Rhys may not know it yet, but I am doing the laying the foundation for our forever by eliminating distractions from his personal growth.