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)
Again with the little birdy bit …
Delaney side-eyed Gracen who pretended to be busy sniffing the tea that wasn’t even hers, and that she couldn’t drink. “Oh, she did, did she?”
“Yep.”
Well …
“To be fair,” Delaney said, “the little birdy isn’t wrong.”
That earned Delaney a grin from Gracen.
Mimi, on the other hand, wiggled in her wheelchair excitedly with a quiet, drawn out, “Ohhhh.” Then, she popped one eye open to stare at Delaney as she told her, “N-now tell me more.”
*
Delaney and Gracen lingered in the doorway connecting the salon to the house while Mimi sat under the one dryer with her hair set in small curlers. She took slow, deliberate sips of her tea and flipped the pages in a magazine that Gracen had set up on a collapsible wooden table she also used for Mimi to take her meals. The dryer and curlers weren’t exactly needed or even asked for, but the way Mimi lit up when Delaney suggested it, even if it meant another piece of equipment to wipe down and sterilize before her workday was over, then so be it.
Mimi’s simple joy over being spoiled made it worth it.
“Thanks,” Gracen said, for the third time, as she bumped her hip to Delaney’s.
“Yeah, no problem.”
“You don’t regret it, right?”
Delaney looked over at Gracen, confused. “Regret what?”
“Moving back here so suddenly. Filling up your day with my clients instead of your own. I don’t know … Come on, you know how I overthink things all the damn time.”
“All the damn time!” came the loud echo from the kitchen.
Clearly, their conversation traveled.
“Shut up,” Gracen called back playfully to Malachi.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t really want to be,” Delaney told her friend.
Rubbing her lips together in silent contemplation, Gracen eventually nodded like she believed Delaney. “Yeah, I guess. Hey, do you want some of Malachi’s chicken stew before you head over to the apartment?”
“No, go back—why, yeah, I guess, like that?” Delaney asked. “You don’t believe me?”
Delaney had done a lot of things she wasn’t proud of over the course of her lifetime. Lying to Gracen was not one of them, nor would it ever be.
“I just—”
“I made rolls, too,” came a new voice in the rear hallway of the downstairs. Malachi’s figure darkened the other side in the halo of light spilling out from the dining room attached to the kitchen. “So let it never be said that I can’t cook.”
“Let it never be said again,” Gracen added under her breath with a giggle.
“I still heard that.”
“And I totally meant for you to, babe,” she returned.
Delaney nodded at Malachi. “Could I just take a bowl and some rolls up to the apartment with me?”
“Sure,” Malachi said, giving Gracen a look before he turned the corner back into the dining room.
Gracen, on the other hand, looked hurt. “You don’t want to stay for supper tonight? It’s not because I asked if you were happy, right? I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, or anything.”
“You didn’t. And I am happy,” Delaney assured. “I don’t understand why you think I’m not, though.”
Her friend shrugged under her oversized, wool cardigan. “I mean, most times, you seem happy. Sometimes, though, I check on you throughout the day or notice when you get quiet, and I wonder if you are happy because you just don’t look like it.”
“I didn’t know I had to be mindful of my expressions when I think I’m alone,” Delaney said.
Only a little defensively.
Gracen didn’t miss it.
She cocked an eyebrow high. “Really?”
Delaney sighed. “Sorry—that was mean.”
“Yeah, you do that sometimes to protect your feelings.”
Nothing could be simple, right?
“Maybe being here makes me aware of things I don’t have,” Delaney said, focusing on the hangnail on her thumb instead of her quiet friend. “Things that I want.”
“Like,” Gracen hedged.
“A family. A home. I’m twenty-five,” Delaney said, trying to make it sound less pitiful than it did inside her head. One reason why she hated admitting the thoughts out loud. “Maybe it’s because I see you settling into this nice, little domesticated life, and a part of me thinks it’s time for those things to happen for me, too.”
“They will.”
Yeah, when?
Delaney didn’t ask that question to Gracen.
It wasn’t really for her friend to answer.
“Have you told someone else that you are looking for those things?” Gracen prodded, making it clear who she meant without actually saying his name.
“I don’t want to pressure Lucas,” Delaney admitted. “He’s got a lot going on that he’s still trying to deal with and work through. He doesn’t need me on the phone crying to him because I’m in my feelings about my friend having a baby and getting married. That’s a bit—”
“No, I meant,” Gracen interjected, stopping Delaney’s ramblings instantly, “have you told him that you want those things with him?”
“I didn’t say—”
“You don’t have to.”
Delaney scowled up at Gracen. “I hate it when you do that. Interrupt me.”