Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
A hell of a night.
Considering they didn’t end up in bed together.
“Well?” Bexley asked after Delaney had shut the door and retreated into the apartment to remove her coat and boots.
She hung her bag up, stuffed full with her mittens, hat, and scarf, on the same wall hook as her jacket. “Well, what?”
“How did it go?”
Delaney hid her smile by pretending to rummage through the pocket of her jacket for nothing in particular. “Um …”
“Delaney, come on. I’ve been dying here all night.”
Her laugh filled the apartment like the lights flooding them overhead when Bexley hit the switch in the living room.
“It was great,” she told her cousin.
Bexley smiled knowingly. “Yeah?”
Delaney shrugged. “He’s a good guy.”
More than.
“And I had a lot of fun,” she added.
Which was what mattered.
Lucas, in the span of a few hours, proved to be many interesting things all wrapped in a very attractive package. Delaney honestly hadn’t expected to end the evening ready to make plans for the next one, as soon as possible, but she wouldn’t complain that it turned out this way, either.
“I’ll probably see him again,” Delaney said, turning to face her cousin with a grin.
“Oh, just probably huh?”
“Well, everything is just a maybe until it isn’t, right?”
The world wasn’t as scary when Delaney saw things that way.
Bexley only sighed.
“I think I’m gonna take a bath,” Delaney said, heading that way.
“You really had a good night, huh?”
“How can you tell?”
Bexley’s laugh tinkled through the apartment. “Because you haven’t stopped smiling.”
Well, then …
“I guess that speaks for itself, doesn’t it?” Delaney asked before slipping into the hallway.
*
Beautiful dreams, sweets.
The goodnight text lit up Delaney’s phone seconds after she slipped into bed. She wondered if he, too, had just found his way back to his own bed, and still had her on his mind. Who didn’t crave to be wanted?
“You, too,” she messaged Lucas back.
It wasn’t good enough. She had to make herself put the phone down to keep from hitting the call button just to hear his voice.
Delaney didn’t know what to do with those feelings.
That bubbling anticipation.
It started the second he greeted her at the front door of the apartment building and hadn’t dissipated throughout the evening. If anything, it just got stronger. And there Delaney was, left buzzing with all her nervous energy and excitement, but alone in bed.
She couldn’t stand it.
Hell, she barely understood it.
Delaney picked up her phone again, but this time, she bypassed Lucas’ contact in her list for one not too far below.
Gracen.
The cell number Gracen would answer, no matter the time or day, rang four times before Delaney started to think her best friend might be asleep. Her suspicions were confirmed when a gravely, familiar male voice picked up the call.
“You know it’s almost twelve, Delaney, right?” Malachi asked, not even bothering with a proper hello.
She didn’t blame him.
It was late.
“A little after twelve, I think,” she returned. “Is Gracen—”
“Sleeping. It’s been a long week. The morning sickness really kicked in hard. She hit the bed before nine.”
A first time for everything.
“Okay, well tell her—”
“Who’s that?” came a sleepy voice in the background.
Malachi sighed while the rustle of movement echoed over the phone. “Go to bed, babe.”
“Who called?” Gracen asked. “Is that my phone?”
“I can call back in the morn—”
Delaney didn’t even finish her sentence before the speakers crackled in her ear as the phone was handed over. Or, guessing by the muttered hey, be nice by Malachi, Gracen had simply taken the phone from him without asking.
“Delaney?” Gracen questioned, her voice less wobbly with sleep.
“How did you know it was me?”
“Nobody else calls me this late.”
Fair point, she thought.
“What about the manor?” Delaney asked.
“It wouldn’t be for anything good,” Gracen mumbled.
Yeah, true.
Delaney hadn’t considered that.
“Okay, so it’s me,” she said quickly.
Gracen laughed. “It is really late.”
“I know, but I can’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
Genuine concern coated Gracen’s question.
Delaney might have beat herself up internally over the time, and the fact that she could have waited until the morning. “Listen, I’ll call tomorrow morning after you have some sleep. It’s not that important.”
“Everything is important. Just in different ways. We talked earlier, things were good, right?”
“Things are great,” Delaney admitted.
Better than they were, anyway.
“Great,” her friend echoed.
She heard the confusion there, too.
Just spit it out, Delaney.
“So I did something tonight—I mean, I went out with somebody,” she told Gracen.
Silent seconds ticked by. One after another.
Delaney stopped counting once she hit ten.
“Gracen?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” her friend muttered in a groan like she was lifting out of bed. “Like, you went out with a guy?”
“A guy?” she heard in the background.
Malachi again.
“Lucas,” Delaney clarified, even if his name didn’t offer much information.
“Lucas,” Gracen repeated.
“Who the fuck is Lucas?” Malachi asked loudly. “What is happening?”
Gracen didn’t clue him in.
Delaney finally moved on to the crux of her call. “It was kind of amazing, and I needed to tell somebody. You’re the only person I really want to tell.”