Page 57 of Attached At Heart
Was she trying to fucking kill me?
I might have volunteered to be the sole audience and judge of her pre-trip fashion show, but I never imagined she’d walk out of her room wearing a dress like the one she had on last night. I never would have signed up for that kind of torture had I known.
And then she’d wanted to know if Ilikedit.
Liked. It.
What a loaded question that I didn’t know how to answer—at least not aloud.
Yes, Lane, I like your dress. I like that dress so much that my brain malfunctioned when I saw you in it. It made me momentarily forget that you have no idea how viscerally attracted to you I am, and I had to lean forward so you wouldn’t notice how fucking hard you wearing it made me. So yes, I like the dress. But I also hope I never see you wearing it again. Because there’s only so many times I can see you wear it before I’m on my knees, begging to take it off you.
Somehow, I managed not to say that.
But then she wanted to know if I would have asked for her number if I didn’t know her.
First of all, it was hard imagining a world where I didn’t know Delaney. But sometimes, I wished I could go back in time and ask for her number. I wished I had made it clear how I wanted to be more than her friend from the beginning. I wished I’d done exactly what I described to her.
But I also knew if I had done that, we would never have worked out how I wanted us to. Perhaps I would have found my way into her bed for a night, but then I would have lost her. She didn’t keep men around like that. She’d never had any interest in serious or even casual relationships. And if I had to pick between one night in Delaney’s bed or being in the friend zone for the rest of my life, I’d pick exactly where I was every time.
Especially where I was right now, boarding a plane with her in tow. For the next week, I got to have Delaney all to myself. I’d never been so fucking excited or terrified in my entire life, and that included taking the MCAT. All I could do was hope that I didn’t screw this up.
I just wanted Delaney to have fun. Be happy. Be cared for in a way that her family never had. Actually experience an emotion that wasn’t stress or worry or responsibility for once in her life.
At the moment, though, I wasn’t sure I was achieving that.
“Oh my God.” Delaney waved the plane’s safety pamphlet in front of her face like a fan. “I think every orifice in my body has sweat coming out of it right now. Every single one.”
How this woman could say things like that and I could still be so irrationally turned on by her was beyond me. I suspected it had something to do with the wave of perfume she sent in my direction with every flick of the pamphlet. She smelled like fucking sin. She smelled like how that dress looked. Edible. Having her near me in such tight quarters on this plane wasintoxicating. Even though our first-row Comfort Plus seats had afforded us ample legroom, we were still shoulder-to-shoulder.
“It’ll get better once we’re in the air,” I reasoned. “It’s always stifling when people are boarding.”
Delaney nodded idly and checked her phone. A smile immediately stretched across her face, hinting at who might have messaged her.
“Look what Bryan just sent me,” she said a moment later, confirming what I’d suspected. “That’s his girlfriend, Makayla. She’s the sweetest.”
She showed me a picture of her brother with a young, blonde-haired woman. Sun drenched their overpowering smiles and the towering cones of melting ice cream in their hands.
“They’re cute together. Should we send a picture back?”
“Okay.” Delaney seemed to like that idea, snuggling impossibly close to me as she held out the camera to take a picture of us. “But you have to look happy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Iamhappy.”
She had no fucking clue about the extent of my feelings at the moment.
Which was how I planned to keep it.
“Prove it,” she said, nudging me with her elbow until a laugh slipped out of me. “There it is.”
Satisfied with the shot, she lowered her phone, and I settled back into my seat. While Delaney kept her attention on the message with her brother, I decided to mind my own business, clicking aimlessly on the TV in front of our seats. But when Delaney tried to muffle an abrupt laugh, I couldn’t help but look over at her, raising a brow when she tried to hide her phone.
“Did he roast our picture?” I asked because I knew Bryan got his sass from his sister. Or maybe it was the other way around.
Delaney shook her head. “No…not exactly.”
I laughed. “I can take it, Lane. What did Bry say?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
