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)
“Only when I’m expecting things, dear,” the older woman replied, waving a hand. “Why?”
“I sent the invites out digitally last week. We made special keepsakes for the table settings instead that people can frame, or display, with our names and the date, so I tried to save on paper elsewhere. Save the planet, and everything.”
Miss Cathy’s eyes brightened even though her cheeks pinked. “Oh, really?”
“Mine went to junk,” Delaney told the woman, shrugging. “Stupid filters. You might have to check there.”
“I’m going to do that right now.”
“You’re invite didn’t go to your junk folder,” Gracen said quietly to Delaney as Miss Cathy headed back into the belly of her store.
“I was trying to help,” Delaney replied, winking.
And it did.
Delaney opened her arms as if to silently ask, So?
Gracen only laughed, but spun around to admire her dress once more. “Almost there.”
“And Mimi will be back home next week,” Delaney added.
Her friend met her eyes in the reflection of the mirror. “Can’t forget you—you came home, too.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Delaney leaned into the section of wall near the light switches where she wouldn’t disturb anything hanging. “Yeah, I came home, too.”
The unbridled joy lighting up Gracen’s whole face made the anxiety Delaney felt about actually being home fade away. Or at least, numbed it a bit so it wasn’t so unpleasant and constant. She still felt like every time she saw a familiar face, even if it was just someone waving at her on the street as they had driven through town that morning, that person thought about the awful thing that had made her leave.
Like a shoe had yet to drop.
Maybe that would get better over time?
Delaney wouldn’t know if she didn’t try.
*
Delaney hauled in only a few boxes to the upstairs apartment that welcomed guests into a small nook that made up a bright, white kitchen before she wished she had waited one more month to make the move back home. Not because she wasn’t happy to be home—no, rather, the early spring in New Brunswick didn’t look very different from late winter.
Cold.
Icy.
Blustering, blistering winds.
The heavy rain and rising temperatures they would see in the coming month would melt what remained of the snow and ice, but it wouldn’t be comfortable to go outside without bundling up until early to mid-May, at least. As it did every year, over night, the little snow left would go, and the sun in the afternoon would make a person think they could wear shorts.
Until those cold evenings came in again.
Delaney tried to warm her hands up using the base heater on the entry wall as Malachi shuffled into the apartment behind her. He dropped the armload of boxes he’d carried up from the U-Haul next to the ones Delaney piled on the floor beyond the entry mat.
A shiver raced over him.
“Jesus, whose idea was it for you to move in the winter again?” he asked.
Delaney snickered. “Technically, we’re three days into spring.”
“Yeah, yeah. Some bullshit,” he muttered, making his way to the baseboard heater where he squatted down next to her to warm his thin-gloved hands. “They shouldn’t be allowed to call it spring if we’re still slipping on ice every damn morning.”
Fair enough.
“Delaney, we’re putting everything marked bedroom or books in the bedroom, right?” Gracen asked as she entered the kitchen through the short hallway that connected the only bathroom and bedroom to the living room at the far side of the apartment. In her arms, she carried a box that made Malachi scowl instantly. “This one says—”
“I told you not to haul boxes, didn’t I?”
Gracen glared back over the box. “Did you just interrupt me?”
“Are you carrying a box?” her fiancé returned, unbothered.
“It’s full of linen! That’s like … five pounds. Stop being ridiculous,” Gracen returned, even going as far as turning away with the box when Malachi stood to take it from her. “No, I’m pregnant, not helpless. Get out of my face.”
“That’s mean,” Malachi deadpanned.
Gracen didn’t even blink. “And?”
“Babe—”
“This is why I’m spending the night with Delaney, okay?” Gracen asked, wide-eyed and as serious as could be.
“That’s not why, and we both know it. You just think you can’t technically do a proper sleepover if I’m in the house because someone—that person is you—believes I can’t sleep on the couch,” he countered swiftly.
“Because you can’t. You’re not taking this box.”
Malachi, stone sober and staring down the box in Gracen’s arm like it was an enemy to kill, sighed in frustration. “I can move the boxes where they need to go. Just put it down.”
“I’m putting it in the bedroom,” Gracen told Delaney, refusing to acknowledge Malachi at all before she turned on her heels and headed back down the hall.
“She’s going to kill me,” Malachi muttered through a tight smile that he turned on Delaney.
“Nah, she’s just making a man out of you,” Delaney replied, shrugging.