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)
Bexley nodded, the exaggerated motion rocking her body forward and back from the chest up. “Right, his brother died—you told me that.”
She tried not to flinch at the almost careless delivery of Bexley’s words. Her cousin didn’t mean for it to come out as cold as it did, likely, and Delaney had to remind herself that Bexley didn’t have every single detail about the situation so she could be careful to sound less heartless.
Delaney thought it wasn’t for her to share.
“Do you have to say it like that?” Delaney asked.
Bexley’s brow lifted higher on her forehead. “Well, I mean, you wouldn’t even tell me a phone number for the guy before you left, so—”
“You need to know how his brother died, or even that he had barely finished making arrangements before he showed up at our apartment door to care about the fact that he needed someone, and he asked for that person to be me?”
There was no good way out of this conversation.
In only a few words, Delaney had backed Bexley into an impossible corner, and they both knew it. Her cousin either needed to admit defeat, and accept she had been the one in the wrong between them entirely, or … sound like a total bitch.
There was no in between.
Bexley tried for a few seconds to come up with something, only to settle on a flustered, “I was worried about you!”
“I know you were—and I am sorry,” Delaney said. “Next time—”
“Next time, she says,” Bexley cut in, laughing. “Is that something I should start trying to plan for? I’ll make a checklist for the next time Delaney runs off with some random man for a week away.”
Well …
Delaney shrugged. “Anything is possible.”
It just wouldn’t be for any man.
There was only one.
One above all the rest for Delaney.
Bexley rolled her eyes. “You drive me crazy—okay? There, I said it. I don’t know how Gracen lived with you for like five years, or whatever.”
“We had a few rows together, too.”
“You remind me of Mom,” Bexley muttered under her breath.
That comment froze Delaney as she reached for her boots. “What, why?”
Her aunt, the sister of Delaney’s father, had been a severe woman with a wooden spoon at the ready to swat whatever kid wasn’t fast enough to get out of her way. Shrill when she yelled, and pious to an extreme, a lot like Delaney’s own mother, she was the last person who anyone should want to be compared to.
“You’re hard to talk to,” Bexley returned, turning again to make her leave, “you know, when you’re not giving someone the silent treatment for days.”
“That was only Sunday!” Delaney yelled at her cousin’s retreating back. Her piss poor way of stepping back from the situation after Bexley called her stupid. Two freaking times. “Come on!”
“Same thing!”
Okay, Delaney thought, that’s enough.
She let Bexley return to whatever she’d been doing in the apartment while Delaney finished getting ready for her lunch with Linda. The coffee shop close to the salon was a favorite spot of her boss, quiet with a cozy vibe and great coffee.
With soup and bread on the side, too.
Despite having a hundred good reasons for continuing the argument with Bexley, mostly because Delaney happened to be right, she didn’t have the damn time. Besides, she was nothing like her aunt, or her own mother, and now she resented Bexley for saying that, too.
It was what it was.
Delaney exited her bedroom with leather ankle boots buckled tight and her handbag ready to get everything transferred from the one she had been using to the new bag. She plopped it onto the table next to the bag from the week before, unceremoniously dumping one into the other while Bexley huffed into the couch just a few feet away.
“I’m not like your mother,” Delaney said, unable to keep it inside.
Her cousin’s messy bun swayed back and forth in her view.
“Did you know giving someone the silent treatment is another form of abuse when it’s used—”
“For one day—because you pissed me off and called me stupid! Get over it, I could have said mean things like you, but I chose not to say anything at all. Which one is better, Bex?”
Better yet, what was really going on?
This issue had gone on longer than it should have.
Delaney had questions.
“How about you just say whatever it is you want to say, and get it over with?” Delaney asked. “Get it out and be done with it.”
Bexley swung around on the couch, her gaze narrowing with hurt on Delaney across the room. “I heard you talking to Gracen last night on the phone in your room, and how she mentioned you could take over her salon if you went back home because she’s too busy making her little art, or whatever.”
Delaney’s eyes widened in understanding. “We were just talking … not being serious, or anything. It didn’t mean anything. I don’t have plans to leave.”