Page 44 of Choosing Forever
Holding my breath, I shift and turn away. My skirt gets bunched in my fists as I grip the soft fabric and release a forced exhale.
“Can I join you over here?”
“I don’t own this wall.”
Silence.
I inwardly cringe and force myself to release my skirt. “Yeah, sure. You can join me.”
“Alright,” he says lowly.
His shoulder comes into view before the side of his neck does. The ball of his Adam’s apple strains upward when he swallows and turns his head, staring down at me. I cross my arms and take half a step backward before meeting his gaze.
Immediately, I wish I’d just walked away instead.
“How are you?” he asks, so much sympathy in his eyes that I feel it in my bones.
There’s no point in wasting my time lying. “Been better.”
Nodding, he slips a hand into the pocket of his jeans. “I’ve been wanting to stop by. Bring you something to eat in case you weren’t feeling up to cooking.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
Hurt flashes across his face before he tucks it into a box. “That’s fair. I’m still sorry. Your grandmother was a great woman, and she should have had more years here with us.”
“Do you even know how old she was when she died?” I ask, the question whipping between us like. It leaves the air split, singed with a fire so hot nothing can cool it. The fresh wound in my heart oozes poison as it widens. “Or when it happened?”
Darren’s eyes blow wide, exposing the truth quicker than words. “I?—”
“You don’t. So please don’t try and say shit like that to me. Not here, not right now.”
“You haven’t spoken with anyone about it. Not Poppy or Bryce and sure as shit not me, Delaney. But you can tell me the details. Do it right now if you want. I’ll listen to whatever you need to say,” he offers, somehow balancing on the border between whispering and being loud enough for the entire room to hear us.
I wet my dry lips. “This isn’t the place for a conversation like this. Tonight is about Bryce.”
“It will still be about her even if you talk about your grandmother.”
“What makes you think that you’re who I want to be speaking about her with?” I attack, skin growing too warm.
Darren reaches a hand out. I freeze the moment the tips of his fingers make contact with my bare arm. The skin of my elbow comes to life, buzzing like a beehive as I part my lips on a silent whimper. I snap my head back, our eyes connecting and holding despite every voice in my head hissing in warning.
“I just want to listen. Let me do that for you right now,” he begs softly.
A burn begins in my nose before spidering outward. My eyes tingle with the threat of tears while I retreat mentally.
It makes no sense why his fleeting offer can affect me so badly. A decade of growing distance between us, and I’m so easily yanked back as if it was never there to begin with. I don’t know anything more dangerous than that. Than beingsovulnerable when it comes to just one person. Nobody deserves that much power over someone else.
I move quickly, only half caring if he follows and the repercussions that would bring.
It’s dark in the bathroom. Still, I bypass the light switch and stand in front of the sink, ignoring the mirror until Darren appears. The door shuts with a click of the latch behind him.
“Talk to me,” he mutters, voice steady as he flicks on the light.
Leaning against the door in this tiny room, his wide frame is more pronounced, impossible to deny. With shoulders that stretch the fabric of his shirt, thighs thick enough to test the seams of his dark-wash jeans, and hair hidden beneath a baseball cap on the “correct way,” he looks so incredibly different from the Darren I used to know, yet still the same.
Boyish was never a word I’d use to describe him, even whenwe were young. There was always a manly aspect to him that he used to intimidate men double his age. Sure, his love of football and exercise helped keep him in shape in high school, but he was at least two inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter back then.
I can’t pinpoint when the change hit him hardest, but it wasn’t until after Abbie was born, and I stopped being able to look at him without crying so hard I’d nearly puke.
