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)
So he said.
Lucas only heard: they don’t mean anything to her.
His brow furrowed. “Pictures of what?”
The man shrugged. “Your brother, I guess. All of you throughout the years. I only looked at a few. She went through them last night. She does care, Lucas. This hurt her, too, but—”
“Stop right there. The second you put but into the conversation, you’re also saying I should forget everything else that came before it. And let’s be honest here, I’m done doing that. I think it’s obvious at this point,” he said, determined to let that be the end of this awful conversation and morning.
He had better things to do.
An appointment with his therapist.
Jacob’s apartment to start clearing out.
Anything—literally anything—except this.
“Have a safe flight,” he told Hanson, rolling up the window at the same time, and turning his gaze onto the windshield and road ahead, “but don’t call me for her ever again.”
The other man backed away from the vehicle.
In his lap, the envelope full of pictures grew heavier while Lucas maneuvered the Bronco out of the parallel parking. He tried to pretend like the pile of images—probably ones he’d never seen before—didn’t leave an invisible ache behind already.
Lucas tossed the envelope to the passenger seat once he got the Bronco on the road. It was something that would have to wait.
Chapter 29
“You’re not still mad at me, right?”
Delaney, trying to decide between a sweater that bared her spine with diamond shaped cut-outs or a dressy blouse, hadn’t properly heard her cousin’s question. “Didn’t you have classes today, or …?”
The blouse felt more appropriate for lunch with her boss, but there was something about the black color of the sweater that drew Delaney in that direction. She made no apologies for the lack of vibrance in her wardrobe.
The way it made her look spoke for itself.
“I guess that answers that,” Bexley bitched under her breath before spinning on her heel.
“Hey, whoa.”
Delaney turned away from the mirror, realizing too late that she’d been more absorbed in her reflection than her quiet cousin who had lingered in their apartment long past the time her first classes for the day had started.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t really listening,” Delaney admitted.
Bexley, who had stopped just beyond the bedroom threshold, peeked over her shoulder quickly, and gave a cursory look at the items Delaney held. “Just wear the sweater—you know you don’t want to put on the blouse.”
Was it that obvious?
Delaney tossed the blouse, still hanging from a metal hanger, onto the bed. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“And the being mad thing?” Bexley asked. “Am I right about that, too?”
“What, am I mad at you?” she asked.
“Well—”
“Are you still mad at me?” Delaney interrupted before Bexley could get another word out.
Their matching grins eased the bit of tension created by the initial overreaction. Without prompting, Bexley turned to lean against the door frame so she could watch as Delaney slipped into the back-teasing sweater after removing her push up bra.
“See, cute,” Bexley said.
Delaney smiled at her reflection. “It is, huh?”
She smoothed down the front of the sweater while turning enough to enjoy the view of the back.
“Are you going to say sorry for calling me stupid—twice?” Delaney asked.
Bexley sighed. “It’s not good enough to admit I might have a bad way of communicating my feelings when I’m worried?”
“Nope, it’s not.”
Because that wasn’t an apology.
“Would it have been better if I had told you I thought what you did was reckless, and the fact you didn’t call me for days—”
“Reckless isn’t stupid. They’re not the same words, and they don’t have the same meanings. I’m sorry that we had to listen to people tell us we were stupid every time we turned around growing up,” Delaney said, moving on to the wall rack next to the mirror where her variety of bags waited to be chosen. “It sucks that it’s the first thing to fly out of your mouth every time you have an argument with someone, and it hurts. It’s hurtful.”
Bexley pursed her lips, but muttered, “I know, like I said, I don’t deal with stress well, and I’m working on it.”
“That’s not an apol—”
“And I’m sorry,” Bexley said, one octave louder than Delaney.
Clearly to be heard.
There was only so much oxygen in the room, after all. Some people, like her, did it without even knowing it.
That was Delaney’s fault to own. Sometimes, she made herself louder than she realized in conversations, but especially arguments, where she felt like she wasn’t being heard. None of them were perfect, including her.
“Yeah, me too,” she told Bexley over her shoulder.
A black handbag decorated in metal buttons caught Delaney’s eye above the other selection of bags she’d collected since moving to Fredericton. Her last collection, much larger, ended up safe in the walk-in closet that Malachi had renovated for Gracen.
Delaney tossed the bag to the end of the bed, and then dropped down beside it where the boots she’d already chosen from her closet waited at her feet. “But all of these apologies change nothing,” she told her cousin lingering in the doorway of her bedroom, “because I’d do it again in a second. He needed me.”