Chapter 31 Deli
Deli
Lachlan was brooding as he drove. The landscape around them was cast in pale gray, like someone had turned the saturation down as the night began to yield to day.
Streaks of silver blue cut through the muted green-and-charcoal mountains, trickling from unseen places into streams on either side of the road.
Deli touched the glass of the window with her finger. “It’s like magic he—AAH!”
Lachlan snickered after cranking the wheel around a corner.
“Would it Kill You to drive like a person who values his life?”
He didn’t slow down. In the haze of gin and lost memories of her evening at The Wallflower, Lachlan had seemed like a very different man from the one she’d known so far.
He’d been warm and caring with the people who gathered in his place.
And he’d been so attentive to her . . . almost tender.
But he’d been stony over breakfast, and now he was flinging her around the truck while he bordered on giggling.
Deli was sick of whiplash from men who didn’t know what they wanted to be. She felt her dislike and distrust of him surge up with her breakfast, and she swallowed. Fine, she thought, I can do whiplash, too . . .
“So,” she asked, inspecting her nails. “You and Blair?”
Lachlan’s knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. “That’s none of your business.”
“What happened there?”
He glanced at her murderously before returning his eyes to the road. “What part of ‘none of your business’ is hard for you to understand?”
“Seemed tense yesterday . . . when Douglas brought it up.”
“It’s none of his business, either.”
“How long ago?” She waited, but Lachlan didn’t answer. “Did you two break up?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Deli. How long have you been in love with a man who doesn’t know you exist?”
She knew Lachlan was just trying to get under her skin, but still, it worked. A little too well. Deli clenched her jaw and sniffed against the hot prickling in her nose as she looked out the window, away from him.
“Doesn’t feel too good, does it?” His voice had lost some purpose. Lachlan looked at her nervously. “Deli? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Deli’s voice was quiet. “Don’t worry about it.”
“No.” His hand twisted on the wheel. “Deli, I didn’t mean it.”
She channeled her mother and sighed in the exact same way. “It’s okay. You’re probably right.”
Lachlan reached toward her like he might touch her leg, but snapped it back to the wheel, his eyes forward. Deli let the silence tug at him.
He took a big breath. “Love is not my strong suit. I just think . . .” He looked at her, and the combativeness fled again. Lachlan looked suddenly earnest. He looked sad. “Never mind.”
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
The tires hummed along with the wind’s current as they cut a path through the rainwater on the road. She heard a bird’s morning call and its partner’s cheery response, and Deli felt like a cold, thick water was flooding her heart.
Lachlan spoke in a sudden burst. “I just think that if someone is in love with you, they should, you know . . . see you.” He took a sharp breath and nodded to himself. Deli’s annoyance blazed back to life, pushing back the waves.
“Trey sees me.” He looked at Deli sideways but didn’t respond. Frustration bubbled inside her. “Anyways, it’s like you said—what do you know about love?”
The shadow of tenderness in his face vanished under haughtiness. “I know I haven’t had to run to the other side of the world to make someone jealous.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Oh right, I forgot, you’re also here to what? Avoid your mommy issues?”
Deli’s jaw dropped. “Really?”
He grinned. “Really.”
“Okay, you mammoth babyman.” Her nostrils flared as he rolled his eyes. “You wanna talk mommy issues? Why is my aunt washing your dishes while you’re practicing for your Bitter Divorcé era with me? Where’s your family?”
When Lachlan didn’t respond, she repeated his words. “Doesn’t feel too good, does it?”
Deli’s seat belt locked and squeezed a wheezy sound out of her as Lachlan slammed on the brakes.
“Get out,” he said flatly.
She gasped and choked on her spit. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“You’re gonna leave me on the side of the road? Because you lost an argument?”
She jumped as the outline of a man materialized like a ghost through the condensation before he walked away.
Lachlan still wasn’t looking at her. “We’re here.”
“Great.” Deli rubbed the goosebumps on her arm. “What did you even tell him about me?”
Lachlan’s face split into a Grinch grin. “Don’t worry, I told him everything he needs to know.”
“That’s comforting,” she muttered as she wrestled with her seat belt.
“It shouldn’t be.”
Deli slid out of the ridiculously tall thing Lachlan drove and turned to glare at him one more time. A voice called out behind her, “Before I’m dead? And, Lachlan, have you a minute? There’s a fence that needs fixin’.”
Deli closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Lachlan made a similar sound in the truck.
It’s all for love, she told herself.
Lachlan hung his head as he took the keys out of the ignition. “Aye, Cairn. Whatever you need.”