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)
Each one came a little faster.
In all the time they spent there, he hadn’t cried. At first, she expected him to—most people expressed their grief in that normal, healthy way. It hadn’t taken Delaney long to realize Lucas held control of his emotions above all other things in his life—the one place he had the most power—even if doing so was to his own detriment. As if that was the last rope he would grab onto trying to save himself from drowning. She’d wondered if his inability to express his emotions, or the willingness to stuff it down as much as he could inside himself, stemmed from not having an environment where showing them was safe or acceptable.
Or perhaps, that question answered itself.
Having that understanding made the first sounds of his sobs as he scrubbed shaking hands over his face all the more painful for her to hear. Delaney didn’t think about what he might want or need from her before she wrapped her arms around his heaving chest, and held on tight. Her head rested against his ribcage where every beat of his head echoed into her head, and the noisy breaths he couldn’t steady vibrated them both.
He kept crying.
She just held on.
“They don’t care,” he muttered thickly.
She couldn’t say any different, so she didn’t. It wouldn’t make anything better for him.
Delaney hugged him harder.
“I already had to go home and deal with Jacob being dead, but now I have to go back to this shit, too,” he added with a gesture at the mess on the floor. “And they really don’t care. It’s just another game of public relations to these fucking people. Smile on the outside. Die on the inside.”
As proverbial as those papers were scattered below them, the actions behind the reason for their place on the floor were knives that could leave irreparable scars. In that moment, she tried to be his Band-Aid so it didn’t hurt as much while his pain bled out.
“They don’t care about Jacob, or me … about anything but themselves,” he mumbled sadly, his palms catching the words and his tears.
His pained words, that he so clearly struggled to say, made her ache. She was aware of her helplessness. That she couldn’t make this better or easier for him, and all she had to give to ease his anger and grief was herself.
So, she kept holding him.
After all, he didn’t shove her away.
*
“One last tea for the road?”
Delaney smiled and took the cup of steaming tea—no rum, that she could smell—from Lucas’ outstretched hands keeping the mug level lest it spill. She was forced to resituate on the couch to drink the tea, but making room served a better purpose.
Lucas slipped under the quilt they had pulled from the back from the couch with her. Despite waking up to her smile as he had every morning at the cottage, he had still been hesitant in taking his good morning kiss. Shame had kept him from meeting her eyes.
The shame of what, she couldn’t say.
Crying?
The outburst, even?
He’d tried to apologize for the night before while she peered up at him from the pillow of her folded arms on his stomach, but she didn’t let him get far. Delaney had chosen to let Lucas know with a lingering kiss and a touch of their foreheads that shame wouldn’t be useful between the two of them, and his regret was for nothing.
No one should apologize for being human.
“Maybe we should have slept on the couch the whole time,” she muttered around the rim of the mug.
Lucas chuckled. “Yeah, I guess so, huh?”
Outside, daylight had already crawled above the trees. It took a quick check of the phone Lucas had left on the floor to tell them that they had very little time to enjoy the rest of their time in Birch Ridge. Sleeping on the couch hadn’t been the best for Delaney’s back, but she hadn’t complained the night before while snuggled on top of Lucas. Even if he made for a very hard pillow.
She couldn’t say he cried himself to sleep, because that wouldn’t be true, but he let it out what needed to be released, anyway. It had to help.
He didn’t wake up angry.
That was a start.
Throwing an arm around Delaney’s shoulders, he pulled her in closer on the couch while she sipped from the mug, and his lips found her temple for a soft, sweet kiss.
“If you think your boss is going to give you any trouble for taking off without much notice, get her to call me,” Lucas said. “I’m definitely on her good side.”
She laughed. “What would you do, bribe her to keep me on the payroll? Technically, I’m not even on the payroll. Hell, I pay her a chair rental.”
Lucas didn’t blink a lash. “Maybe, if that’s what it took.”