Chapter Twenty-Two
DELANEY
The dishes were done—Marc had insisted, which meant I stood in his kitchen handing him plates while he rinsed and stacked them in the dishwasher. Chaos watched us from the doorway, the small, horned supervisor deeply invested in our technique and finding it lacking.
It was the kind of ordinary that shouldn’t have felt significant, but it did.
Marc dried his hands and poured us both a glass of wine. I took mine and glanced down at Chaos. “Seems like he’s a house goat now.”
Marc grunted—a sound that wasn’t quite agreement and wasn’t quite denial—which was basically his version of “you’re probably right.” He led me toward the living room, and I followed, glass in hand, actually seeing the space for the first time instead of just moving through it.
This entire room was beautiful.
The ceilings were high, the trim original, and the floors a warm honey oak that I was fairly certain hadn’t originally been this color—too even, too perfect, with none of the scuffing that came from years of use.
The light was good in the way that didn’t happen by accident, the kind where someone had thought carefully about where the windows would maximize the most light.
The space was open, and each section felt cozy.
But.
I turned slowly to take everything in as a whole.
Couch. Coffee table. Dining table. Kitchen island.
An expensive lamp or two. Barely any photographs in sight.
No stack of paperbacks with broken spines.
No mail piled up on the counter. No evidence that a person lived here in the messy, accumulating way that people did.
“You live like a monk,” I teased.
Marc raised his eyes from where he’d settled on the couch. “I live minimally.”
I scrunched up my nose. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up.
I gestured at the crown molding, the built-in shelves flanking the fireplace which were clearly custom, clearly made for this room. “These are beautiful. Who made them?”
“I did most of it. Hired out the parts I couldn’t do.”
Of course he had. Such a typical Marc response. If he wanted something a certain way, he learned to do it himself.
I turned back to the shelves and really took them in this time—the joinery at the corners, the way the proportions fit the room exactly, the fact that he’d thought about the fireplace and built it so the pieces all blended together seamlessly.
“Marc.” I turned back to him. “You built those?”
He shrugged, not in a dismissive way—it was just how he was. How he did things quietly, without making them a big deal. “I like working with my hands. It’s different from the clinic. Slower. You can actually see what you’re doing take shape. See the finished product.”
I sat down beside him, tucking my foot up under me.
Chaos, who had entered the space right after us, was already investigating the large dog bed in the corner with suspicious thoroughness.
When Marc laid his arm along the back of the couch, I snuggled in. “It’s a good thing you’ve got me now.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yup,” I took a sip of wine. “You need to hype yourself up more. People should know about the incredible things you can do. And I’m great at that. You built yourself a stunning house, and you’re just sitting in it like a normal person instead of doing backflips or patting yourself on the back.”
“I don’t do backflips.”
“You should start.” I took a sip of wine. “Seriously. Be a little smug about this. I’ll allow it.”
He hummed a noncommittal response, which meant he was pleased with my reaction and had no intention of admitting anything.
Marc set down his wine and reached for his phone. “I need to call Theo so he knows we’re not coming.”
A thread of guilt laced my subconscious. “We can still go. I hate that I derailed the night.”
“Hey.” The look on his face was patient but final. “You didn’t derail anything. We can just as easily talk about animal pairings over the phone. The space is set up, and we know how we’re going to run it.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Then looked at Chaos, who offered no support.
Marc shook his head, effectively cutting off my protest. “It’s done. Stop fighting me. I’m trying to take care of you. Let me. You’ve had a rough day.”
“Fine,” I said, and laid my head on his shoulder after letting out a long sigh. “Thank you.”
It was hard to accept help. I’d spent so long being the person who pushed through, who handled it, who showed up anyway—pretending that the mental stuff wasn’t weighing me down—that sometimes I just wanted to shut my eyes and sleep for days.
He kissed the top of my head, and I swear his lips were curved into a smile, but being a smart man he said nothing.
Marc’s arm came around me before I could spiral any further “Hey,” he said into the phone. “Yeah, we’re okay. Something came up.” A pause. “Did you decide on any other animals for Friday?”
I laid my cheek lightly against his chest and listened to the low rumble of his voice without being able to make out Theo’s side.
“The rabbit?” Marc asked. “Fluffy or Butterball?”
I bit down on a laugh. Those names in his voice were weirdly funny and sexy.
“What? No—not together. Fluffy will spend the whole class trying to groom the other animals and the dog won’t know what to do with that.” He paused. “That’s not calming, Theo. That’s an existential crisis waiting to happen.” Another pause. “Yeah, those two will work.”
His hand moved in slow, absent passes along my shoulder, settling me into a dreamy relaxed state.
“The dachshund and the—yeah. Yeah, that could work, too.”
He pressed another kiss to the top of my head, and I just wanted to swoon. Each of these movements were caring and easy, but he also wanted me to know that even if he was doing something else, he was aware of me.
“Because he’s calm. She’s not. Sometimes that’s the right pairing—they balance each other out.”
It was like he was talking about us.
Another pause. “Sure. We’ll look at the list tomorrow and flag anything I’m worried about.”
I loved how, even though this was his area of expertise, he didn’t try to exclude me.
He paused again. “Theo.” His tone sounded firm. “Go home already.”
He hung up and put his phone down on the side table.
“Everything good?”
“It is. Theo’s got it covered. If I'm concerned about a fit, I’ll let you know and we can go over it.” He placed a kiss on my temple. “Stop looking for a reason to feel guilty.”
“I wasn’t—” I started.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I was a little,” I admitted.
His eyes darkened as he ran a finger across my cheek. “Good girl.”
He didn’t say anything else as he withdrew and leaned back against the couch. And for the first time in a long time acknowledging my feelings and thoughts didn’t seem so dangerous.
“Movie?” he asked.
I grabbed the remote before he could suggest anything with subtitles.
“I’m picking,” I announced.
“I wasn’t going to stop you.”
“You were going to suggest something meaningful with subtitles.” I turned away from him so I could settle back against his chest.
He didn’t deny it.
Chaos, apparently satisfied with his inspection of the dog bed, turned in a circle three times and dropped onto it with the gravity of a much larger animal.
He arranged his legs. He sighed. And within two minutes, he was fast asleep, one ear twitching occasionally at sounds only he could hear, his small chest rising and falling with absurd peacefulness.
Marc watched him for a moment. “He never does that. I think your presence calms him.”
“Maybe. He’s really cute like that.” I looked away, not wanting to call too much attention to how good the goat was being. Afraid that if I did, he’d sense it and decide to do something off-the-wall just because.
I found a rom-com I’d seen probably four times, but was still a favorite. A comfort watch, low stakes, and the type of movie you put on when you want the company of it without having to actually pay attention.
The title sequence flashed across the screen and Marc shifted me, settling in behind me so I was between his legs with my back to his chest and his arms loose around me.
It happened without either of us narrating it.
One moment, there was space, and then there wasn’t, and neither of us felt the need to comment on that.
It was everything and nothing all at once.
Onscreen, the lead actress was washing dishes in a warm, cluttered kitchen—the kind with a drawer that didn’t close all the way and too many things on the counter and a whole life accumulated in the corners.
“My aunt’s kitchen’s like that,” I said the second it popped into my head. “Well, really it’s my kitchen now, but it just felt different when she was alive, more like it does in the movie.”
Marc’s arms tightened slightly. Not enough to make it a thing. Just enough for me to notice.
“She had this dish soap she ordered from some apothecary shop online. She loved it.” I watched the screen without really watching it. “After she died, I spent three days obsessively going through her browser history trying to track it down.”
“Did you find it?”
“No.” I sighed. “I don’t even know what I would’ve done with it if I found it. I didn’t particularly like the scent.”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t try to fix it. His thumb rubbed against my arm, and that small pressure landed in me, easing the tightness that had begun forming in my chest.
The movie played on. Chaos snored. Outside, the sun lowered and the bright sky took on a rosy hue.
With every second that passed, I realized that this, right here, with Marc, was something I could look forward to doing. And that was exciting just as much as it was scary. We’d been hating on each other not that long ago, and suddenly things felt right in a way our old behavior never did.
By the third act, I’d stopped watching entirely.
I was aware of the darkness settling in, the warmth of Marc at my back, and that particular quality of silence that had grown between us over the last hour and a half. The easy kind. One you don’t have to manage.
“I don’t really know how to do this,” I finally said.
It came out quietly. Not quite an accident, but not a decision I’d consciously made—something in between, the kind of thing that happens when you’ve been held gently for long enough that your edges start to go soft and hope has gotten a foothold in your heart.
“This?” He repeated.
“Any of it.”
He stilled behind me.
“You. This. Whatever this is.” My laughter came out small and rueful.
I was still raw over the thoughts of my aunt, and tonight had been perfect so far.
So why was I pushing this? It was far too soon to label what we were to each other, and I didn’t even know what I was looking for from him.
“You don’t have to answer that. I’m usually not so needy. ”
“You’re not needy, Delaney.” He shifted my body so I sat facing him. He gently tugged my legs to go to either side of his waist. “Tonight felt easy. So did last night.”
I nodded.
“After years of it not being so easy between us.” His voice was low, careful, like he was working through this in real time, too.
I nodded again, not ready to trust my voice.
“Maybe this is what we were leading up to all along?” he offered. “All the noise and friction and the—I think after our tumultuous start we can ease into this without any expectations.”
I frowned.
He cupped my cheek, his thumb rubbing at the corner of my mouth. “I’m not saying this is casual.” He paused. “You’ve probably guessed I’m not good at that.”
I smiled just as he intended. And the muscles in my body that had tensed eased. “You’re not wrong.”
“But while we figure things out, I’m not figuring things out with anyone else.”
I let out a breath. I had needed to hear that more than I realized. “Same.”
His mouth curved. “Yeah.”
“Don’t make it weird,” I replied. “I said what I said.”
He laughed—loudly—and then kissed me.
Not desperate. Not rushed. Just certain.
The same way he was certain about most things, like he’d considered what we were to each other and decided to show me he meant what he said.
He touched me then, one hand sliding to my jaw, and the other settling on my hip, and everything inside me went quiet.
The low-grade hum, the nervous energy that had buzzed inside me all day began to fall away.
I kissed him back.
Slow at first. Easy. But easy had a way of accelerating into something else when his hands were involved. I pressed closer, chasing more, and loving his response—fueled by it, even—the shift in his breathing, the way his grip changed, the low sound he made against my mouth when I rolled my hips.
His mouth consumed me. Each nip, each press of our lips, each swipe of our tongue made me want him more.
Desire licked at my spine, and I couldn’t stop myself from rocking against his hardened length.
My hands tugged at his shirt, freeing it from his pants so I could run my hands over him, slowly tracing each muscle, each defined ab, learning his body as he learned mine the other night.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he moaned. He cupped my ass so he could push our lower halves closer together. Exactly the way I wanted.
He shuddered with each pass of my body over his hardness.
His hand slipped beneath my shirt, tugging my bra just under my breasts so he could pinch, rub, and soothe my nipples.
Soon my breath hitched, and I sucked his lower lip into my mouth. I was slowly losing my mind. My hips rocked erratically as my legs squeezed around his hips, and my back arched into his touch. I was so damn close.
“Be good for me, and let me see you fall apart,” Marc whispered.
And that was all it took to have me break apart and fall into tiny pieces.
He held me, his kissing turning tender as I came down from the high.
“Bedroom,” I managed.
He pulled back just far enough to look at me. “Are you sure?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Right,” he said with a smile. “Forgot who I was talking to.” He shifted to his feet and held out his hand to me. “As you wish.”