Chapter 3
I’m sitting on Connor’s living room floor, surrounded by boxes containing my entire life. Everything happened so quickly. I can’t wrap my head around my reality.
Not even sixteen hours ago, I was sleeping on the same twin bed I always had—snuggled beneath layers of blankets, because Mom didn’t pay the gas bill. Again.
Spring is shining her light brighter every day, but it’s still downright freezing overnight in the Rocky Mountains.
When I got home last night, as late as I could bear before I fell asleep on my feet, Mom was passed out face-down on the kitchen table.
I found a relatively clean blanket to cover her with and quietly pushed the beer cans away from her face.
I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow. I’ve been avoiding home as much as possible since my sister moved in with her fiancé. I can’t bear being alone with my mother anymore. It’s hard work finding things to do at all hours of the day to stay out of my house, so I’m exhausted every night.
I was a few hours into dreamland when the unmistakable sound of glass breaking ricocheted around the small trailer. I was jolted awake and on high alert.
I thought, please just let it be Mom stumbling around. Maybe she knocked over some dishes. How naive of me to think I was safe in my own home.
The front door slammed open against the outside of the trailer, meaning someone broke the glass to reach inside and unlock it. Loud boots stomped across the hollow floor, and shouts of rage filled the air—several different male voices, and of course, my inebriated mother, slurring and crying.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time in my twenty-four years of life the sanctity of my home had been destroyed. I knew all too well what type those men were, and what they were after.
I dressed in whatever clothes I could find in the dark, grabbed my phone, and opened the small window in my room.
This wasn’t the first time I’d had to escape, not my first rodeo, so to speak.
I know exactly how to lift and shimmy the window along the rusty track to make the least amount of noise, and gently popped out the screen, letting it fall to the snowpack below.
Things were being thrown and broken, and doors ripped open. I was out of time. I jumped out of the window and was spotted by the man who was standing look-out. He shouted at me to stop, and to alert the thugs inside, but I was already gone.
I ran through the trailer park weaving around homes, cars, junk, and piles of snow.
I lost my footing several times in the icy night but had to get as far away from the trailer as possible.
Once I was nearing the trailer park entrance, I hid behind a dumpster and called the one number that would guarantee my safety.
Minutes later, tires squealed down Main Street heading towards me. Tires that normally took twice as long to arrive. Connor jumped out of his truck, door swung open, engine running, shouting my name.
I didn’t look back as I ran into his arms. He wasted no time getting me into his truck and taking me away.
Like I said, not our first rodeo.
Connor Hayes has been my knight in shining armor since I was seven years old. And here we were again, the brave knight rescuing the damsel in distress from the evil witch.
I didn’t buckle my seatbelt. I burrowed under Connor’s arm as he drove us to his apartment. No words were needed, we’d said them all countless times before and nothing ever changed.
Violent shivers from the cold and adrenaline wracked my body when we arrived at the drawbridge, so the knight carried the damsel up the castle steps without needing to be asked.
Connor deposited my shaking body on the closed toilet seat and turned on his shower, filling the small bathroom with steam.
He returned with clean clothes for me to sleep in and shut the door behind him.
I went through the motions of showering, warming my bones, towel drying and braiding my long hair, and dressing before padding into his bedroom.
Connor sat on the edge of the bed in nothing but sleep shorts, head hung low between his shoulders, elbows resting on his knees.
Despite the morose aura in the room, I couldn’t help but notice Connor’s beauty. Hearing me approach, he reached over to his nightstand and passed me a glass of water and two pain killers.
He flipped back his covers and slid into bed, holding them open for me to join him. I curled into his warm, hard chest and disappeared into a deep sleep.
This morning was far less peaceful. Connor and I have a history of going rounds arguing about my living situation.
He wanted me out. I did too but I was never brave enough to make the move.
And in the harsh morning light, in the aftermath of yet another close call, everything was game for discussion.
I was inappropriately relieved we needed to head out for Sam’s memorial, because Connor wouldn’t argue with me there.
I should’ve known better.
Even when he pisses me off, Connor always has my best interests at heart, and last night pushed him over the edge into raging-alpha-protector-mode. I would’ve found it sexy had I not been so furious with him.
We tabled the argument during the gathering along Whitetail River where our sole attention needed to be on supporting our loved ones.
But, like the pain in my ass he always is, Connor resumed arguing with me as we left the memorial. That’s how my sister found out what our mom got herself into and how I ended up freezing behind a dumpster waiting for Connor to rescue me.
She and her fiancé Reid have been so generous to host me at the ranch for endless hours to keep me away from home. They offer me a permanent place to live on a daily basis. But a little something in me still tethered to my mother always has me declining the invitation.
This morning, however, my world was flipped on its axis when Connor declared I’d be moving in with him. He left zero room for argument.
He took me back to his apartment, forbade me from leaving, and went to my no-longer-home and packed my things. One truck load was all it took to move my world to the other side of town.
Connor stomps into the apartment carrying one last box and locks the door behind him. I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off.
“Delilah, don’t try me right now. You’re staying here and that’s final.”
I’ve spent the last seventeen years under Connor’s constant supervision and protection. Typically, I’m equal parts embarrassed and grateful. But today, I’m pissed.
“Connor, I’m a grown woman, and can make my own decisions,” I snap.
“Clearly not, since you should’ve gotten out of that hellhole years ago. I decided for you, end of story.” His highhanded declaration infuriates me.
“And who are you to make my decisions for me?” But I already know the answer.
“I’m yours. You damn well know that. You’ve been mine since I found you crying in the dirt in that pretty yellow dress.”
His recollection spears me in the heart every single time.
“I don’t want to burden you. You work a ridiculous number of hours, take care of your parents, and have been taking care of your sister since Sam died. I can’t be another weight on your shoulders.” I slide the tarnished sun pendant across the chain I’ve replaced over the years.
Tears leak from my eyes without my permission. I’m not crying intentionally. My tears have always been Connor’s weakness. Since we were tiny kids, he’s taken it upon himself to dry my tears and hold them at bay with his love and support.
“Fuck, don’t cry, doll. You know I can’t take it when you cry. I didn’t mean to be an asshole.”
He joins me on the floor, sits behind me with his legs bracketing my hips, pulls me into his chest, and cages me with his rainbow-colored arms.
I’m sobbing. “It isn’t fair! Why do other people have parents who take care of them when I got left by one, and forgotten by the other? What’s so unlovable about me they couldn’t take care of me?”
“No, no, no, doll. There’s nothing unlovable about you. Izzy loves you. Olivia loves you. I fucking love you. Everyone who meets you adores you. It’s not your fault your parents prioritized their vices over their children.”
He kisses the top of my head, softly rocking me in his arms.
“It was past time for you to get out of there. Please let me do this for you. Please, doll. I can’t stand you hurting, and you being in that trailer makes me sick to my stomach.”
Since he has my arms pinned, I smoosh my face into his forearms, rubbing it back and forth on his arm hair to wipe away my tears. I’m so tired of crying over my parents.
I huff a humorless laugh. “Oh, so the move was all for your benefit?”
He pinches my side, making me squirm and yelp.
“If that helps you sleep at night, sure. It’d be doing me a huge favor if you’d live with me so my stress level will drop back below heart attack range. You little shit.”
He tickles me along my ribs as I curl away from his fingers. He always knows how to make me smile.
I twist around in his arms to face him.
“Thank you. For everything, Connor. I don’t know what I’d ever do without you.”
The rich chocolate irises that’ve always soothed my soul trace across my features. He looks at me like it’s the first time he’s seeing me, taking in my every detail.
“Good thing you’ll never have to find out, because you’re stuck with me, doll.” He kisses my forehead and hoists us both off the ground.
“Come on. Let’s go find somewhere to put all your things.”
In his one-bedroom apartment, it goes without saying we’ll be sharing his queen-size bed. His parents never allowed boy-girl sleepovers, but I’ve fallen asleep in Connor’s arms more times than I can count. And it’s my favorite place to be.
Lithe back muscles ripple beneath his thin cotton shirt as he lifts several of my boxes at once and carries them to his bedroom. He packed them, so he knows better than I do where they need to go.
A pang of longing hits me in the stomach as he walks away. My best friend is the sexiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on. Just shy of six-feet-tall, he’s the perfect height to kiss the crown of my head.
Due to lucky genetics, Connor’s golden tan all-year round. He never burns and doesn’t resemble a Victorian ghost in the winter like I do.
His hair matches his skin-tone perfectly, a dirty blonde streaked from time in the sun he wears in the most fuck-me hairstyle.
It’s buzzed to his temples, with thick, straight hair long on top and is either pushed back by running his strong fingers through the strands or hanging playfully over one eye.
I’ve touched his hair plenty of times to fix it, or to comfort him. But I’ve never gripped it in the throes of passion the way my fingers ache to.
His body is immaculate, tight and toned—but not bulky, sculpted from hard labor working on the highway.
From his eighteenth birthday forward, he’s covered himself with a collage of rainbow-colored art.
Tattoos rise from the collar of his shirt and snake around both arms to the backs of his hands.
Ink covers his chest, and his back is a breathtaking collage of vibrant images.
It wasn’t long ago his tattoo artist filled in the blank spaces on his back to weave the pieces into one cohesive back-piece.
I’ve traced the lines of every single tattoo on hot summer days when he’s shirtless, massaging his back after a hard shift, or while we watch movies together. I know his upper body like a map.
How desperately I’ve wanted to grip his shoulders and kiss him. To rake my nails down his back while he makes love to me. To kiss and lick the tattoos on his neck and chest with nothing between us.
But it’s never been like that between us, and it never will be. He’s always seen me as a little sister. Not as a potential partner. Not as a woman.
Based on the girls he’s always dated, I’m clearly not his type. He only goes for girls with dark hair and eyes. Unfortunately for me, Connor is my only type.
I’d never jeopardize our friendship by revealing my nearly two-decade-long crush on my best friend. Some things aren’t meant to be.
But I’ll take any version of a relationship with Connor he’ll give me. And that’s always been as the best of friends.
We’ve been inseparable since the day he found me crying in the dirt.
Dad went on a bender and Mom was stuck at home with us girls.
Taking care of us was her least favorite activity.
Izzy was locked in her bedroom, grounded for some asinine reason when Mom spilled beer on my pretty yellow dress.
I’d found it in the donation bin near the market and cleaned it the best I could.
Mom was furious her beer was wasted, and she screamed at me to get out, over and over again.
I didn’t want to leave Izzy, but she was safe behind her locked door. I ran as fast as my little legs could take me. I tripped on a rock and skinned my knees right before I got to the nice sidewalk outside the trailer park that led to town.
I tried not to cry, I really did. But my life was a lot for a seven-year-old to endure, and I collapsed under the weight of my sadness.
That’s where Connor found me. Dressed in nice new clothes, with a shiny two-wheel bike, inviting me to his home for cookies and lemonade.
I’ve loved Connor since before I knew what it meant to love. But he’s only ever seen me as a friend, and that’s okay.
Or so I’ve desperately tried to convince myself over the years.
And being the world-class friend he is, I find myself here.
About to live with my walking-testosterone sex-god best friend, knowing I’ll be sleeping against his bare chest every night.
Seeing parts of his life I’ve never been privy to, private things like the way he brushes his teeth, and when he changes his bedsheets.
Oh god. How often does he change his bedsheets?
Does he have women here? What am I supposed to do if he brings a date home?
Sit in the living room with noise cancelling headphones and a blindfold on?
Or does he go to their place? Does he spend the night with them?
Or will he roll into bed with me in the early hours of the morning, covered in their perfume?
I’m going to be sick.