Page 56 of Adoring Delaney

I tried to hide my smile but failed.

“What?” she asked, her tone still biting.

“Nothing.”

“I didn’t make the lasagna for you. I made it because it’s easy.”

“Right.”

Delaney’s homemade lasagna was my favorite and it was not easy. It took her an hour to put it together, so I only asked her to make it for me on occasion instead of every time I came home.

Whether she knew it or not, she had softened to the idea of us starting over and moving forward. I may’ve been a complete dumbass in a lot of ways, but this was one time I knew to keep my mouth shut and not push it.

The tight rope I was walking was precarious at best but at least now I felt like I had on a safety harness. If she shook the line, I wouldn’t fall to my death.

18

Carter was out of the shower and dressed. The lasagna was out of the oven and cooling. And I was having a minor panic attack. I knew what tonight was and for the first time in my life, I wasn’t looking forward to my parents’ visit.

“Laney baby, calm down.” Carter came up behind me, brushed my hair off my shoulder, and kissed my neck before he wrapped his arms around me.

“I don’t want to do this,” I told him.

“Everything’s gonna be fine. We have to talk to them.”

We didn’t have to do anything. We could just continue on the way we were. At least until I figured out if this starting over business was going to work.

I’d spent the day trying to convince myself we should put a stop to the madness before more people got hurt, but Mercy’s words kept playing in my head. I tried telling myself it was too late for Carter and me and we should learn to just be friends, but that thought made my heart hurt.

I’d even spent time picturing Carter with another woman. Him bringing her to family barbeques, him marrying this pretend woman, having children with her, and I’d actually broken down into tears. The visions were torture. Pure agony. I’d never live through seeing that. I’d have to move away and disconnect with everyone.

Those thoughts brought me to what Carter must’ve felt when he’d seen me with Steve. If I’d cried at the mere thought of him touching or kissing another woman, I wondered what it was like for him to actually witness it. Then I remembered the times he’d told me in that new bossy tone he’d started taking with me, telling me to never mention another man and I understood why he was behaving the way he was.

“I’m sorry about Steve,” I blurted out and Carter went solid.

“Delaney,” he warned, his tone immediately taking a hard edge. “Don’t.”

“I need to.”

“Do not go there.”

“I have to. I need to explain.”

“No, you don’t. I told you I don’t want to know and I don’t. I understand what you were trying to do, but I do not want the details.”

“You don’t understand.”

He stepped back putting distance between us and I turned to face him. I hated the squint in his eyes and the space we now had. Even him pressed against my back stiff as a board was better than the cold I felt when he wasn’t touching me.

“I saw him walking in holding your hand. That fucker put himself between me and you. The only person here who doesn’t understand is you. You have no clue what it took for me not to rip that asswipe’s head off when he stepped in front of you trying to keep me from getting to you. You have no clue what I felt when I saw his arm around you walking you to the orchard. And lastly, watching him kiss you. His fucking lips on my woman. So, no, Delaney, we don’t need to talk about jack shit. Leave it alone.”

“I didn’t know you’d be there.”

“No, I guess you didn’t. But I knew you’d be there and knew he was coming. I also knew that shit was going to piss me off but what I didn’t know until I saw it was it didn’t piss me off—it fucking shredded me.”

“You knew?”

“Ethan told me.”

---