Page 48 of Deliah
“Come visit in the new year,” she said.
“I will,” I promised. And I meant it.
She wasn’t working anymore. Said she was getting bored. I could tell. She missed the madness, even if she wouldn’t admit it. Tommy had just landed some big new office in Marbella. All the lads were moving with him.
“Fresh start,” she said. “New energy. I think it’ll be good for us.”
She sounded excited. She needed a change, too. Maybe we both did.
Christmas came and went. It was… nice. Not perfect. Not groundbreaking. But nice. And before I knew it, I was turningtwenty-two. I’d made plans with some of the girls I went to school with—nothing fancy, just a cheap night out at a local dive bar that smelt like spilled cider and stale carpets. We were half cut by 10 p.m., sweaty from the heat, dancing like we had no pasts and no plans, just noise and neon and sugar-rimmed shots. I was mid-spin, laughing too hard at something stupid, when the music changed to that one god-awful song I used to hate but somehow knew every word to. I threw my arms in the air, twirling like some tragic disco princess, phone stuffed down my bra like always. And then it buzzed. I thought it’d be Cherry, sending some drunken voice note or a meme I’d already seen three times. Or maybe some irrelevant ex from Spain fishing for attention. But it wasn’t.
“Happy birthday, Deliah. I hope you’re wearing red.”
I stopped. Everything else kept going—the bass, the bodies, the blinding strobe lights—but I just stood there, heart stalling in my chest, phone trembling in my hand. No name. No number. But I knew exactly who it was. I hadn’t heard from him in months. Not since that night. Not a whisper, not a crumb. And yet here he was. In my phone. In my fucking head.
I stared at the screen like it had betrayed me. Like it had dragged him out from wherever I’d buried him and brought him right back into my bloodstream. Red. My stomach flipped. I was wearing red. A backless little dress that clung to me like a second skin—Cherry’s idea, obviously. “Birthday bitch energy,” she’d said. How the fuck did he know? My stories were private, locked down tight since the last stalking incident. I hadn’t even told anyone here about him—he was the thing I never spoke of. The thing I was trying to forget. But he knew. He always knew. The message sat there like a matchbook, and I could feel the spark catching. The ache that I’d spent months numbing with bad decisions and worse men roared back like it had been waiting,patient and smug. I read it again. And again. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, shaking.What do you want from me? How did you find me? Why now?But I didn’t type anything. I didn’t know what to say.
I shoved my phone back into my bra, heart thumping like a fucking drum, and turned to the girls. “I’ve got to go,” I said, already backing away. They blinked at me, confused, half drunk, too deep in some messy rendition of Shania Twain to care.
I didn’t wait for questions. I pushed through the crowd, hailed a cab, and practically sprinted into the house the second it pulled up. I kicked off my heels in the hallway, tore off my red dress, threw on some oversized pyjamas, and dove into bed like the duvet might protect me from whatever the hell this was. Then I just sat there. Staring at the message. Reading it. Re-reading it. Memorising every pixel like it was a spell I didn’t mean to cast.
Happy Birthday, Deliah. I hope you’re wearing red.
My heart was pounding out of my chest—the same way it did before our first night together. Same buzz. Same danger. Same electric, what the fuck is going on feeling. I hadn’t felt that in months. I grabbed my phone again and rang Cherry. She answered on the third ring, groggy as hell.
“Babe?” she mumbled.
“Cherry, have you… have you spoken to Damion?”
She groaned. “No? Why?”
I swallowed. “He texted me.”
Silence. Then, “No fucking way. What did he say?!”
I swallowed again, heart racing. “Happy birthday. I hope you’re wearing red.”
“You’re fucking joking,” she gasped.
“I’m not.”
Then I heard it—Tommy laughing in the background. She had me on speaker.
“You gave him my English number, didn’t you?” I snapped.
“What? No! I didn’t give him shit, Deliah.”
“Liar! You must’ve—how else would he have it?”
“I didn’t, I swear,” she insisted, but I could hear the grin in her voice. Tommy was still chuckling.
“He’s Damion,” he called out. “If he wants to find you, he will. You know that.”
I sank further into the pillows. “I don’t know that. I don’t know anything about him anymore. I haven’t spoken to him in months.”
Cherry cut in, softer now. “Are you going to text him back?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know. That man is a fucking nightmare waiting to happen.”
