Chapter 26 The Real Interrogation #2
She wore blue scrubs and looked at me with an expression that combined curiosity, assessment, and judgment.
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
She raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. The exact same eyebrow raise Davina had when I said something stupid.
“Is my sister here?”
Sister. Right. Davina had mentioned a sister. My brain, which had apparently taken an unscheduled vacation to process the visual paradox in front of me, slowly began to reconnect to my mouth.
“I...” I blinked. Tried again. “You're...”
“Delilah Lawson.” She extended her hand. “Is she here?”
“Delilah?” Davina’s voice carried from behind me. I shifted in the doorway, flattening against the wall to get out of the way.
“So it is true?” Delilah scowled. “You got married and didn’t even tell your sister?”
Fuuuuccccckkkk….
“I was going to call you today,” Davina explained.
“Today,” Delilah screeched. “You got married when?” She looked up at me, then back to her sister. “Why not before you got married?”
“It’s complicated…” I started and stopped when she cut me the same look she’d been giving her sister.
“Complicated,” Delilah repeated, her voice climbing an octave.
“I'm your sister.” Delilah's gaze swept from the dog to Davina's outfit, my shirt, bare legs, the evidence of a morning that had involved very little clothing, and her expression sharpened.
“The sister you apparently forgot existed when you decided to elope with...” She gestured at me with a manicured hand. “Him.”
“His name is Dallas,” Davina said, a defensive edge creeping into her voice.
“I know his name. I've heard his name approximately seven thousand times over the last two years, usually preceded by phrases like cocky, arrogant, and my personal favorite, I'd rather eat glass.”
I grinned. “She said that?”
“Multiple times. With feeling.” Delilah crossed her arms over her chest in a move so identical to Davina's that I did a double-take.
“So imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to twenty-seven text messages, three missed calls, and an Instagram post announcing that my sister is married. To the glass-eating alternative.”
“Okay, in my defense…” Davina started.
“There is no defense. There is no universe in which there is a defense.” Delilah pushed past me into the house without waiting for an invitation. “You got married. In Vegas. To a man you have spent the last two years publicly eviscerating on your podcast.”
“I… It’s complicated.”
Delilah stopped in the middle of my living room, taking in the space. Her gaze landed on Karen, who had appeared on the back of my couch like a calico specter, watching the proceedings with an expression of supreme boredom.
Karen slow-blinked at Delilah, and she slow-blinked back. Some kind of understanding passed between them that I was pretty sure didn't bode well for me.
“So. Someone want to explain to me how we went from public evisceration to it’s complicated?”
I glanced at Davina. She glanced at me.
“Maybe we should sit down,” Davina suggested.
“Maybe you should start talking.”
“Coffee?” I offered, because I had no idea what else to do. “I make excellent coffee.”
Delilah stared at me for a long moment, her expression cycling through several emotions I couldn't quite identify, before she let out a long breath, and some of the steel in her spine softened.
“Fine. Coffee. But it better be exceptional, because you're going to need it to survive this conversation.” Her gaze flicked between Davina and me. “And maybe put some clothes on.”
Twenty minutes later, we were arranged around my kitchen island like a war council.
Delilah sat on one of the barstools, her posture perfect, her coffee untouched in front of her.
Davina had claimed the stool next to her, Ricky curled protectively in her lap.
I stood on the opposite side of the island, which felt safer somehow.
“I know it seems sudden,” Davina started, and I watched her slip into performance mode, her hand finding mine on the countertop. “But Dallas and I have been seeing each other secretly for a year. We just... didn't want to go public until we were sure.”
Delilah's eyebrow arched so high it nearly disappeared into her hairline. “A year?”
“Since Matt and Brooke's engagement party,” I added, squeezing Davina's hand. “That's when everything changed.”
“Changed.” Delilah's tone could have frozen the Gulf of Mexico. “At the party where, if I recall correctly, you called him a, what was it? Oh, that's right, a walking mid-life crisis with commitment issues.”
Davina's smile didn't waver, but I felt her fingers tighten around mine. “That was before I got to know him. Really know him.”
“Uh-huh.” Delilah picked up her coffee, took a long sip, and set it down. “And what, exactly, did you get to know that changed your mind?”
“His heart,” Davina said. “Under all the bravado and the showmanship, Dallas is... he's kind and thoughtful.”
I blinked.
“He's also standing right here,” I said, trying to recover, “and feeling very objectified by this conversation.”
“Good.” Delilah's gaze swung to me like a spotlight. “Your turn. Convince me.”
“Convince you of what?”
“That you're in love with my sister. That this isn't some elaborate PR stunt or drunken mistake you're both too stubborn to undo.” She leaned forward.
I took a breath. Thought about the story Sam had helped us craft. Then I thought about this morning, waking up with Davina in my arms.
Maybe the best lies were the ones threaded with truth.
“When I met your sister,” I said slowly, “she told me my personality was a red flag factory, and my haircut was a cry for help.”
Delilah's lips twitched. “That sounds like her.”
“It was the hottest thing anyone had ever said to me.”
Davina made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Dallas…”
“No, let me finish.” I turned to face her fully.
“Every woman I've ever met either wanted something from me or was intimidated by me.
But Davina? She looked at me like I was a puzzle she was going to solve, whether I liked it or not.
She challenged everything I said. She didn't care about my career or my money or my…”
“Good looks?” Davina supplied dryly.
“I was going to say championship titles, but sure.” I grinned at her, and her answering smile made my heart stutter. “The point is, she saw through all of it. Saw me. And instead of running away, she stuck around to tell me exactly how I could be better.”
“By insulting you on a podcast?”
“By being honest.” I shrugged. “No one's ever been that honest with me. It was terrifying. It was also the most attractive thing I'd ever experienced.”
Delilah was watching us with narrowed eyes, her gaze ping-ponging between our faces.
“So all those podcast episodes...” she said slowly.
“Flirting,” Davina said, and her cheeks flushed pink in a way that made me want to kiss her. “Very aggressive, very public flirting that I was in complete denial about.”
“You called him a testosterone-poisoned man-child.”
“I stand by that assessment.” Davina's hand was still in mine. “But I've discovered I'm apparently attracted to testosterone-poisoned man-children. The heart wants what it wants.”
“The heart,” Delilah repeated flatly.
“And other organs,” I added helpfully.
Davina elbowed me in the ribs. Hard.
“What? I'm just saying, the chemistry was…”
“Dallas.”
“...immediately apparent from our very first…”
“DALLAS.”
Karen let out a yowl that sounded distinctly like for the love of God, stop talking, and Ricky started barking at nothing, apparently deciding the tension in the room required an auditory response.
Delilah watched the chaos unfold with an expression I couldn't quite read. “Show me,” she said.
We both froze.
“Show you what?” Davina asked carefully.
“Show me you're in love. Kiss. Right now. Like you mean it.”
Oh.
Oh.
Davina's eyes met mine, and I saw the flicker of panic there. We'd kissed before, last night, this morning, multiple times in between, but that had been private. Real. This was performance, and somehow that made it feel more dangerous.
“Dee, that's ridiculous…” Davina started.
“Is it? Because if you're really as in love as you claim, it shouldn't be difficult.” Delilah's smile was sharp enough to cut glass. “Unless there's a reason you don't want to kiss your husband in front of your sister?”
I stepped closer to Davina, cupping her face in my hands. Her skin was warm under my palms, her pulse fluttering rapidly at her throat.
“Okay?” I murmured, low enough that only she could hear.
She nodded, almost imperceptibly.
I kissed her.
It wasn’t a performance kiss. It was slow and thorough, with every ounce of genuine feeling that had been building within me since the moment I'd woken up with her in my arms.
Her hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer. She made that small sound, the one that drove me crazy. When I finally pulled back, her eyes were dazed, her lips swollen, her breath coming in short gasps.
“Wow,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I agreed, stunned by my own response.
We'd both forgotten Delilah was there until she cleared her throat.
“Okay.” Delilah’s voice was different now. “That was... convincing.”
I kept my arm around Davina's waist, partly for the performance and partly because I wasn't sure my legs would hold me up otherwise. “Told you.”
“I didn't say I believed you completely.” Delilah held up a hand, ticking off points on her fingers. “There are still approximately seven hundred questions I have about the timeline, the logistics, and why you didn’t mention this to me before Instagram broke the news. But...” She paused, studying us with an intensity that made me want to squirm.
“You look at her like… Well, like you are in love with her.” She stood, directing her attention back to Davina. “When do you plan to tell mom and dad?”
“Um…” Davina hummed.
“Soon,” I answered for her.
“Great,” Delilah said. “I can plan a dinner.”
“Actually,” I said. “Why don’t you let us do the dinner, and we’ll invite my family too.”
“Sooner rather than later.”
I nodded.
“If you hurt her, I have access to surgical instruments and a very thorough understanding of human anatomy.” Her smile was terrifying. “Just something to keep in mind.”
She swept out of the kitchen.
“Well… That was intense.”
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s why I hadn’t told her yet. I knew convincing everyone else would be a piece of cake next to her.”
“I think she liked me,” I teased.
She was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, a smile spread across her face.
“Yeah,” she said simply. “I think she did.”