Chapter Eight
MARC
Delaney brushed past me through the front door of the shelter, her shoulder bumping mine just hard enough to be intentional.
The contact lasted maybe half a second. But my body leaned towards her as though trying to close the distance even further.
My brain cataloged the cotton blend of the light sweatshirt she wore and the faint give of her softness beneath.
The body heat that seemed disproportionally noticeable for such a brief contact.
I told myself I was simply observing details, the way I always did.
Data collection. Pattern recognition.
The lie sat uncomfortable in my chest.
Her lips pressed together in a way that meant I’d already annoyed her. A new record, even for us.
I arrived forty-five minutes early. Not because I was eager, although the tightness in my shoulders and the fact that I had checked my watch seventeen times in the last hour suggested my body disagreed with that assessment.
I didn’t trust chaos. And this grant meant too much for us to lose.
That was the reason. The only reason.
Not because I’d been awake since four-thirty this morning, running through conversation scenarios. Not because I’d changed my shirt twice, settling on the blue one because—and this was irrelevant—Delaney liked blue almost as much as she liked purple.
I drew in a slow breath, clutching my clipboard tight in my hands. My fingertips dug into the plastic so hard I was surprised I didn’t leave permanent indentations.
The pressure grounded me and gave me something to focus on besides the fact that Delaney was here, I was here, and we were about to spend the next several hours in close proximity.
That thought shouldn’t have made my pulse jump, but it did anyway.
I followed her inside. The clinical odor hit me first—industrial cleaner with that almost medicinal edge, mixed with wet dog, hay, and something sweet I couldn’t quite place. The layered scent of animals, care, and organized noise that never fully left a place like this.
And underneath it all—
Lavender.
Delaney’s lavender.
My shoulders drew back, and I straightened my spine like I was preparing for combat rather than a planning session.
I hadn’t noticed it before the other day.
That she smelled like lavender. Or maybe I’d been noticing it for months—filing it away in that corner of my brain labeled “Irrelevant Observations About Delaney Hart”, which was, concerningly, becoming rather crowded.
Things like the exact shade of purple in her hair when the sunlight hit it. The way she tucked it behind her left ear, but never her right. How her voice went up half an octave when she was excited, and dropped when she was genuinely angry, as opposed to merely irritated.
I’d told myself I only noticed these things because I noticed everything. Details. It was simply how my brain worked.
Except I couldn’t recall the pitch variation in anyone else’s voice right now.
When I stepped closer, Delaney spun around to face me. Her arms crossed over her chest—a defensive posture, I noted automatically—and her gaze locked onto mine with an intensity that made my stomach twist. Not unpleasantly. Which was, in itself, highly concerning.
“You know,” she said, a harsh edge to her voice, “you could try saying hello first.”
I stopped short. Had I not said hello? I ran through the last sixty seconds in my head. No. No, I hadn’t. Crap. Sometimes I was so focused on what I was going to say next I forgot that part. “Hello?”
It came out as a question. That hadn’t been intentional.
Her eyes narrowed, and the temperature in the room dropped approximately five degrees. “I just … when I got here … you didn’t even greet me. You just—” She gestured vaguely with one hand. “Started in on me. Criticizing me.”
“Started in on you?” I replayed our interaction. “I commented you arrived early.”
“The way you said it—”
“Delaney.” I tried to keep my voice level, even though pressure was building behind my sternum, hot and unwelcome.
The old itch of not being understood—familiar, childhood-worn—scratched beneath my skin.
“I’m not criticizing you. I was stating a fact.
You were here early. So was I. That’s—that’s just data. ”
Except it hadn’t been just data, had it? There’d been a flutter—small, unbidden—when I’d seen her car already in the parking lot. Uncomfortably close to pleasure, if I was being precise about it. The thought that she’d cared enough to come early, too.
What was wrong with me? Delaney hated me. Coming early hadn’t been about wanting to spend time with me. I suspected a whole other reason entirely.
She had the decency to look slightly chastised, but it vanished quickly. Her shoulders remained tense. Her scowl froze in place.
And I wanted to fix it. The tension. The way she watched me as though I was a problem to be solved rather than a person to work with.
More than anything, I wanted warmth and patience from her. Softness, maybe, the way I’d seen her with her friends.
Which was ridiculous. And irrelevant.
“Right,” she said finally, though her tone suggested she didn’t believe me. “So … where should we go?”
“There’s a back room the staff uses for breaks.” I gestured toward the hallway. “It should be quiet enough for us to work without interruption.”
My hand landed on her lower back instinctively as I guided her forward.
I heard her inhale—soft, quick, almost a gasp as heat shot up my arm. The warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of her sweatshirt seemed to brand itself into my palm. Every nerve ending in my hand lit up like a circuit board, sending signals to my brain I didn’t know how to process.
I dropped my hand immediately, curling my fingers into a fist at my side as if I could contain the sensation. To make it stop spreading up my arm, traveling across my chest, and prevent it from settling somewhere dangerous and warm, low in my gut.
What the hell was that?
And worse—infinitely worse—why did I want to do it again?
I forced my attention to the matter at hand.
We had work to do. Important work. Structured work.
Work that didn’t involve noticing how the curve of her lower back fit perfectly against my palm, or how warm her skin had felt through the fabric, or the way my hand still tingled like I’d touched something electric.
Focus, Kingsley. You’re here for the shelter. For the grant. Not to—
Not to whatever this was.
We walked into the break room. It had a second-hand table scarred with years of coffee rings and pen marks, a few mismatched chairs that wobbled, and a refrigerator and a microwave that both looked to be from the last century.
The appliance hummed ominously. The fluorescent lighting buzzed faintly overhead, flickering in a way that made my right eye twitch.
I’d need to mention that to Theo. Inconsistent lighting was a sensory nightmare.
I pulled out a chair for her.
“What are you doing?” Suspicion laced each word.
I blinked. “This seat’s for you.” Was that not obvious? My parents had always told me it was polite to pull a chair out for a lady. The right thing to do, to show respect. And while I struggled with reading social cues at times, this is one I’d memorized. This one I knew by heart.
Her eyebrows lifted in genuine surprise, and her expression softened in a way that made my chest ache. “Oh. Um … Thank you.”
She sat, and I caught the faintest hint of that lavender scent again, and I had to resist the completely inappropriate urge to lean closer.
I took the chair across from her, and pulled out a printed version of the protocol I had messaged her earlier. My hand was steady as I set it on the table. Good. At least some part of me was maintaining the illusion of competence.
She grabbed the papers without a word, and her eyes scanned the first page. Her brow furrowed as her lips pressed together again.
Here we go.
I cleared my throat. “I may have communicated poorly at the town hall meeting.”
She stared at me like I asked her to take up taxidermy as a hobby. “Communicated poorly?”
“Yes.” I adjusted my glasses even though they weren’t slipping. It was either that or clench my fists. “My intention was not to undermine you. My word choices suggested a lack of confidence in your competence. That was not what I meant.”
What I’d meant was: I’m terrified we’ll fail. I’m terrified someone’ll get hurt. I’m terrified that if I don’t control every variable, it will all fall apart and I’ll lose the one place that’s ever felt like home besides my clinic.
She set the papers down and crossed her arms. “It sure felt like it.”
“I know.” The words came out sharper than I intended, frustration bleeding through. Not at her. At myself. At my complete inability to say what I actually meant, instead of hiding behind facts and protocols and the illusion of control.
I slowed my breathing, forcing myself to continue carefully. “I know it felt that way. And I’m—I regret that.”
Her shoulders eased slightly. Progress. “I know you didn’t mean to, Marc, but you did.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it again.
She was right.
I hated that. Hated that my intentions—good, careful, protective—had translated into something that hurt her.
“You’re right,” I said finally, each word feeling like pulling teeth. “It doesn’t matter that I was attempting to prevent foreseeable harm. I bypassed acknowledging that you have experience running events like this.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“It was dismissive,” I said. The words sat heavy in my mouth, tasted bitter. “And I dislike being dismissed. Intensely. I shouldn’t have done that to you. It was hypocritical of me.”
Silence settled between us.
The fluorescent light continued to buzz overhead like an impatient insect. The refrigerator’s humming seemed louder than before. And somewhere in the shelter, a dog barked.
I was losing focus.