Climbing three flights of stairs, I find a long hallway with three apartment doors, pausing for a minute to get my bearings.
North.
The turret is north.
Standing outside a door labeled 3B, I hear voices. Two of them. A man and a woman.
Delilah.
I hear them laugh, their voices muffled by the thick, wooden door. Moving closer, I all but press my ear against it.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you . . .” she says. “I mean it. You’ve been so wonderful. I don’t deserve it.”
There’s another man in there and from the sound of it, Delilah thinks he’s pretty fucking great.
My fists clench and my jaw tightens.
I’m halfway between staying and going when the door opens, leaving me no choice.
A man stands on the other side. He’s clean cut. Well-dressed. Preppy almost. He wears a checkered button down, thick hipster glasses, and his sandy blond hair is combed back on top. He’s lanky and serious. This man is the complete opposite of everything about me.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Hayden, who is it?” Delilah comes out from behind him, pausing. Her expression pales.
“Hi Delilah,” I say.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
I smirk, besotted all over again at the sight of her. “I came to talk.”
“Is everything okay here?” the hipster nerd asks, waving his pointer finger between us.
Delilah and I lock stares, the seconds before she answers ticking by slowly.
“Yeah,” she says. “Everything’s fine, Hayden.”
“All right, well, I’ll be next door. Pound on the wall if you need me . . .” He squeezes through the doorway past me, disappearing behind a door labeled 3A.
“Can I come in?” I ask.
She stands back, nodding, eyes averted and arms wrapped around her side. We stand in silence after she shuts the door.
“You’re quiet,” I say. “I was prepared for a Delilah Rosewood lashing, but you’re standing here looking like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“I only found out today that you moved to Chicago. And now you’re here. I’m still kind of processing everything.” She takes a step away, keeping a guarded distance.
“Before I say all the things I came here to say,” I begin. “There’s just one thing I want to get out of the way. And I want to say it now, before it gets buried beneath all the things that are going to come out of our mouths once we get started.”
She folds her arms, her eyes snapping to meet mine. “Okay.”
“I love you.” I blurt it out before I have a chance to let that concentrated scowl on her face keep me from doing what I came here to do.
Delilah’s expression softens, her jaw falling. “What?”
“When I first met you, you were a thorn in my side. A real pain in the ass,” I say. “And you were sexy as hell in this little college student sort of way, and I really wanted to get a piece.”
“Nice.” She rolls her eyes.
“I know the arrangement we had, Delilah. I know we both agreed it was just fun and sex . . .” I sigh. “But you have to admit, somewhere along the line, it turned into something more.”
Delilah steps backwards, falling to the edge of her sofa, her arms limp across her knees and dark brown tendrils hanging in her face.
She places a hand up. “That’s great that you moved to Chicago and you’re standing here professing your love for me like you’re in some Nicholas Sparks movie, but it still doesn’t change the fact that you lied to me, Zane.”
“I never lied.” My fingers drag over my heart in the shape of a cross. Pulling in a deep breath, I take a seat in the chair across from her. “Carissa cornered me at the gym back in June.”
“It was Carissa?!”
“Let me finish. Every year, her father throws a big party just before camp starts . . .”
I tell Delilah everything, leaving nothing out. I tell her about Carissa blackmailing me, threatening to have me cut from the team, about her promise to leave me alone after the date, about the way she behaved at the party.
Delilah listens, clinging onto my every word and probably trying to read between the lines, but she doesn’t need to. I’ve given her nothing but the truth.
Straight up.
No chaser.
“So I yelled at her,” I say. “In front of the entire party. In front of her father.”
Delilah winces.
“A few days later, I was called into Coach Roberts’ office. Carissa’s father was there.” My mouth forms a hard line. “They told me I’d been cut from the team. They signed some kid from Texas at the last minute. Didn’t need me anymore. I’m sure that was part of it, but I’m sure the real reason had very little to do with that and a lot to do with Carissa’s meddling.”
“And now you’re here.” She picks at a loose thread on the sofa cushion. “Everything worked out for you. Glad you got your happy ending.”
“What makes you think I got my happy ending?”
Her warm eyes lift to meet mine. “Just seems like you got everything you wanted. You had your fun with me, you got signed to a team in your hometown . . . congratulations.”
“Delilah, stop.” I place my hand on hers, and she tenses at my touch.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me about Carissa.” Her tone is louder now, and a storm brews in her dark gaze. “I would have understood.”