by Falon Gold
Duchess snorted, the unelected leader of the clique, the one with the biggest heart and most problems—mainly financially until Bradley came back. I was praying her big heart was still in place, couldn’t afraid to lose one of the strongest women I knew. The other two stood beside us. They may be the only ones to pull me out my funk, which might be asking too much of them after what I had done.
“So, what’s the verdict?” I huffed. “Am I out the group again for violating the girl code about never dating each other’s exes or what? Just give it to me straight. At least one thing in my life can have a conclusion.”
Duchess eyed the other ladies then snorted again. They tittered like clucking hens harder. She dropped one hand down on my shoulder, warm, brown eyes as piercing as a knife.
God, don’t let her kill me in front of my kid.
Chapter Eleven
~Delilah~
“Delilah, what the hell makes you think I’d be mad with you about Bradley? I threw hints at him about dating you the day after you dumped Rafe’s trifling ass?” Wait. What?
That she’d been trying to hook us up stupefied me.
Her expression softened. “Honey, Bradley already told me to mind my own business in a roundabout way and I’m more upset you think I care who he’s with. I have bigger fish to fry and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone happiness. You and Bradley have so much in common if you didn’t fit like a square peg in a square hole, I’d be shocked. We’ve been waiting on one of you to admit that you two are dating.” Were dating. Secretly.
“How the hell did you figure it out? We made sure to never be in reaching distance around you guys because I’d have reached for him.” It felt so good confessing that.
Six-foot tall Samantha piped up, “Anyone can tell you both are in to each other by the way you two try not to look at each other when we’re all together. You failed. It’s been obvious you’ve both been hiding something all this time.”
And they figured out the rest from there.
Five foot nothing Laralie with jet-black hair and bangs dipped in blonde leaned in. “I’mma need my twenty dollars from you, Duchess and Samantha, since my wager was closer to the time it took Delilah to finally admit she and Bradley have been doing the four-legged monkey crawl.”
Did she say…
No, it was best I finished that thought verbally. “What in all the seven hells is a four-legged monkey crawl?”
Samantha laughed so hard she had to bend over. “Think about it, Delilah. Two people, four legs. Monkey crawl is irrelevant just funny. Your business if you were doing it.”
Except, we weren’t doing it anymore.
“Well, it doesn’t matter about Bradley and I now because he dumped me twenty minutes ago.”
Their laughter came to a halt. Faces fell. I wanted to cry some more and text Bradley that we didn’t have to hide our relationship from Duchess anymore at least. Of course, he wasn’t the one wanting to hide it in the first place, so I wouldn’t be giving him good news. One crucial person knowing about us hadn’t resolved everything standing in our way. Until there was complete resolution, I was going to have to live without him a little longer. And it slayed me.
“Well, shit,” Duchess mumbled. “I have a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream at the house. You’re welcome to it.”
Not so long ago, I coveted Duchess’ home—the biggest on the block—and relished in her suffering within its walls. My misery loved company back then. Now, she was trying to ply me with comfort food . Her heart was why I couldn’t lose her and had to hug her for being there for me.
Laralie made a face. “I prefer strawberry ice cream.”
Samantha raised her hand. “Vanilla.”
Duchess grimaced. “I wasn’t talking to you picky bitches. Delilah has the drama, she chooses the flavor.”
“Butter pecan,” I stated.
Duchess nodded. “Sounds like you all are in dire need of a trip to the store then. I’m sticking with the Rocky Road. Meet you all at my house. Bring the kids, and I want all two years’ worth of the details you’ve been keeping to yourself, Delilah.” Her chin went up as if thinking. “Well, maybe not all the details. You know the ones I don’t want to hear about.”
“Yeah, the ones that hubby Kincaid wouldn’t appreciate me telling you, but you’d definitely want to know,” I joked.
These women tempered my sadness, had become my life jackets over the years and it was impossible to feel completely down in their company.
“Well, you know you can always whisper the gritty details to me,” she bargained. “I can keep a secret from Kincaid.” Kincaid couldn’t, as bad a gossip as me if not worse.
He told his mechanic, his boss, and his construction co-workers everything that wasn’t his business with Duchess.
“Fine with me,” I conceded. “I’ll pick up the different ice cream flavors from the store and then, it’s girl talk at your house after school.” Anything to avoid moping and missing Bradley, which could easily turn to stalking for a glimpse of him if shit got bad enough.
You are not that girl, Delilah.
I didn’t want to be that girl anyway. Yeah, I should keep to my neighborhood streets and the grocery store for however long it took me to get him back. There was no getting over him, and I didn’t want to.
The bell rang for the kids’ dismissal.
Duchess cradled her stomach, glancing warily at me. “Delilah, you do know Bradley comes to spend time with Aiden at the house every day during the week, right?”
Dammit, how could I forget about that? “I know. It’ll be fine.” My churning stomach indicated it’d be anything but. This was why you didn’t date your friends’ baby daddies at least. I had to stop having mutual friends with my exes.
********
~Bradley~
I’d give anything to have my old desk job back at the Pentagon right now. Unfortunately, I retired from the military. This town wasn’t big enough for me and Delilah, and I was scheduled to spend time with Aiden today. Thus, I had to get up and out my sulk of missing Delilah. Not being able to fix her situation was getting the best of us both.
Easing my big body off the king-sized bed she compelled me to replace the old, full-sized one with, I stuck my feet in my boots nearby on the foot-hugging, brown carpet. The two-bedroom, single-wide was a bigger reminder of some of the steamier encounters she and I had here than of my father’s abuse. I couldn’t decide if that was a plus. At least the trailer wasn’t an eyesore anymore.
No man in his right senses would bring the woman he loved to the horror my father let the place lapse into, so I restored it to its… Yeah, no, not former glory. It never had any. He never took care of the place or the people that lived in it. Knocking out the panel walls, rotting foundation, and redecorating a room for Aiden in racecar theme of course—the boy was obsessed—exorcised a few of my demons.
Aiden slept over on the weekends, if not Bryony too. The trailer was now a home worthy of a white picket fence but had no family to fill it on a permanent basis. It didn’t seem as if that’d ever change. There wasn’t a damn thing to be done about it at this point. No one else was invited to stay but Delilah and Aiden and their kin. Since it wasn’t the weekend, I had to go to my son’s newly remodeled home.
At my truck parked on the freshly-paved drive, my phone rung as I reached for the driver’s door. Not recognizing the number, I answered anyway, climbing in the driver’s seat.
“White speaking.”
“Sergeant White, Lieutenant Kerry Shaw calling you about the monthly sum going into Aiden’s military account.”
“Yes ma’am. Is there a problem?” I sat, waiting for the truck’s bluetooth system to pick up the call from my phone.
Today had went far enough left already without getting a ticket for breaking the hands-free phone law while driving.
“No sir, I just need you to sign some paperwork and we can start robbing you of more money for him like you requested us to. How about Wednesday morning next week abou
t nine? I’ll be in the area visiting another veteran and can come to you.” The government was such a stickler for paperwork, they’d bring it to you.
My first instinct was to deny her request for that time of day. Normally, I was at Delilah’s. That was out. Free to do anything I wanted and when, I despised that with the passion of a thousand burning suns. Every part of me wanted to be with her and I would… when the time was right.
“Wednesday at nine’s fine. Meet me at Silo’s Diner. I’ll save you a trip to the boondocks in the back of the beyond.” Where I lived was as rural and far from civilization as it got, but I didn’t have to miss out on my usual breakfast while handling business.
Lt. Shaw’s tinkling laugh filled the truck, irking me—it wasn’t Delilah’s laugh. “That works with gas prices and all.”
“See you then.” I almost hung up, but an idea struck and I went on a fishing expedition. “Lt., do you know any PI’s?”
She spouted off a name immediately, hers. Trusting her, we discussed my need for a private investigator the entire way to Duchess’ home. While taking the first porch step up, Kincaid opened the door, looking back inside with a bag of trash in hand. Screams and yells from what seem like a herd of kids beat him outside. He cringed, slung himself outside, slamming the new front door shut.
I swore he would’ve took off running if he hadn’t spotted me. “Is it daddy daycare day and I wasn’t warned?”
He exhaled. “Hey, Bradley. Glad to see another adult male. It sure as hell sounds like it’s a daycare in there with six kids running around, hyped up on sugar.”
Oh, hell nawl. “I think I’ll come back later.”
Aiden yelled loud enough to be heard through the walls, the door, and clear to the other side of town where I lived. No wonder Kincaid was ducking out.
I was afraid to go in. “Jesus. What kind of sugar is that kid on?”
Kincaid puckered. “The expensive kind, Rocky Road. I think. Delilah brought so many flavors, it could be a neapolitan mixture that’s got your kid, my kid, the other women’s kids climbing the walls. I have never been so glad to take out trash in my life, maybe not going back in… ever.”
Delilah was here? Fuck!
Mentally, I went back and forth on going in or staying out. “I’ll keep your company out here until the sugar rush wears off.” And the rush of blood to my nether regions and thumping block in chest flowed elsewhere like to my brain.
One part of me throbbed, the other beat like a drum. Both wanted in her vicinity now, which would backfire. I’d be back in her bed by the kids’ bedtime. It was the wrong time to learn I had no ‘staying away’ power regarding her.
Kincaid smiled mischievously. “I know why you don’t want to go in. No point in staying away from her now that you’ve broken her heart.”
I flinched. “I didn’t…” A bald-face lie was in the making and I guessed Delilah finally ‘fessed up’ to Duchess.
“Yeah, you did.” He rubbed it in. The prick. “We’ve all known from almost the start that you two were seeing each other. Now, you’re afraid to actually see her. Even if that’s not the case, I’m stuck with the after effects of the women trying to make her feel better. You should be stuck with—”
“Is she okay?” I cut off whatever else he was about to say, had one focus—Delilah’s state of being.
Kincaid gave me the sappiest look no man should ever wear. “Ah, you still care. That’s sweet. She’s as fine as the brokenhearted can be with her friends by her side, and the only reprieve you get from the chaos inside is walking me to the trashcan outside the road. Come on. This bag stinks. You can give me details of your love affair in relative privacy.”
“There is no damn privacy on this street and you’re the worst gossip,” I complained, about-facing to tail him.
Hustling down the stairs, he glimpsed back at me. “I said relative privacy and just give me a breakdown.”
I huffed, “I couldn’t stand being a secret and stress for her anymore because Rafe won’t stop contesting the divorce. If he finds the right ammo, which is me in the right judge’s eyes, he could get custody of Olivia. I never wanted to break Delilah’s heart, just make things easier for her.”
Dropping the lid back down on the even more stinky trashcan, he cursed. “I didn’t know Rafe had gotten that bad. Should’ve had an idea because who the hell takes two years to divorce even with children involved and community property to split up?”
“Rafe does. He even went after the house at one point.”
Standing on the curb, Kincaid did a double take and crossed his arms. “Damn, he’s bitter.”
“Exactly, which is why she’s keeping secrets and live grenades like me from him. He’d blow them up in her lap.”
“After hearing that, I won’t make you go in. I ran back out with the trash after thirty seconds in there myself. How about I stick the kids in their coats, grab a couple beers for us? We’ll watch them run off some energy in the backyard. Might take all night though.” That explained why he was still in his work clothes—never took them off.
“I’ll meet you in the backyard.” I double-timed it in that direction in fear of him changing his mind.
Half of me wanted to go in, check on Delilah. Half knew my presence would upset her more. My love for her had caused enough strife. She and Olivia were better off without me until Rafe was legally out their lives.
I plopped down in one of the sway-back lawn chairs by the back door. It flung wide open just as the wooden seat’s coldness began seeping through my jeans.
Kincaid’s bottom half came out the house, top half leaning inside. “What? Are you for real, Delilah?”
A chorus of ‘Oh my God’ went up inside. The kids filed out one by one. Aiden jumped in my lap. Then, he had to make room for Olivia and Bryony on my knees. Somehow, I went from having one child to three in the span of two years. And I wouldn’t change it.
A set of redheaded twin boys and the tiniest little girl I’d ever seen with more jet-black hair than body ran out next. The latter was Laralie’s daughter in every way. Their chatter blended in with Duchess’ gasp of, “Seriously, Kincaid! You wasn’t supposed to hear that and you better not repeat it.”
“Dead serious,” he tossed at her and a net of outdoor equipment out the door. “That is not cool, so yes, I’m telling the guys and I think you and I should take advantage of me not having ED while I can still get it up.”
ED? What are they talking… I don’t want to know.
The kids followed in the path he pitched the net. He quit heating the neighborhood, claiming the chair beside me. After uncapping both beers, one was offered to me as he planted his elbow between us on the arm of his chair.
Leaning in, he stared me right in the eye. “Bradley, is it true you’re enhanced down there too? If it is, it isn’t fair you won’t ever have erectile dysfunction like us regular men.”
All I could do was laugh, uncertain if this day was getting better or worse.
Chapter Twelve
Wednesday morning
~Delilah~
Bradley was avoiding me. Excluding nightly texts about my and Olivia’s welfare, there was no other interaction, no running into each other even at Duchess’. It had been a week since we got up, close and personal. I was in withdrawals. As if that wasn’t bad enough, my lawyer Gavin Rue wanted to meet at Silo’s Diner for a briefing prior to court at ten.
The restaurant was between his office in Charleston an hour away and the courthouse here. Apparently, he had something explosive to show me. So disturbing, he needed me to look at it first then get my consent to use it. Usually, we met at his office or court. What could Rafe have done and with who that was so awful a lawyer hesitated to present it to a judge on my behalf?
Checking my makeup masking sleepless and lonely nights, hair, maroon skirt suit then my watch in the bathroom mirror, I had ten minutes to get to Silo’s. Darting out the kitchen access to the garage, I jumped in the preheated Mercedes SUV, speeding to
my appointment. Lucky me spied Bradley’s kitted-out truck standing out like a sore thumb from the other few cars in the parking lot. My idiotic heart sped up. Dumb hands shook. Why couldn’t he drive a low-sitting compact sedan or sports utility vehicle that was easily looked over like everybody else?
I had enough shit to be anxious about. Seeing him again surpassed it all. Too keen to get a peek of him kept my ass in the seat, palms glued to the wheel. My eyes did their own thing, scavenging for signs of him and getting pissed with the diner’s blinds in the way. They hung low at the glass ringing the building, blocking my view and the sun’s glare.
When Gavin’s red Stingray drove up, I had to get out then. Not the greatest move in my mind frame therefore a pep talk was in order. “Don’t run to Bradley. Don’t stare at him. Give him his space. If need be, leave to not make a damn fool of yourself. You will not be that clingy girl.” If this was how love on hold made me feel, I didn’t want anything else to do with it.
Trim build underneath raven-colored, straight strands of hair slicked back, Gavin was clean-shaven in light-blue dress shirt, black suit draped, and trench coat duster billowing around his calves. His fluid movements reminded me of Bradley’s. The two men couldn’t get more unalike otherwise. Gavin was gorgeous sophistication with a hint of devil in a suit. Bradley was lethal, seductive masculinity in tee and jeans with the face of an avenging angel.
Oh, how I wished that face still belonged to me.
Gavin made his way across the lot, peering back when my door banged closed. Mid step, he halted for me advancing with my purse. “Morning, Delilah. Cold enough for you?” His smile, as dazzling as the sun, unaffected me.
“Hey, Gavin. Good to see you and it’s too cold.”
We moved in sync toward Silo’s entrance. He opened the door for me. I couldn’t refrain from scanning the dining room. Two customers were already seated; Bradley in a corner booth with his back to the wall, his front to a woman. The only thing visible of her was a long, straight brown ponytail cascading down her neck, swaying as she giggled. The back of her head all my envy needed to rear its ugly one.
