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)
Yet, there he stood.
In that exact office.
Doing the same damn thing.
Why wouldn’t his brother pick up the phone?
Chapter 15
Delaney blinked awake to a darkened bedroom. The second she came to awareness, her gaze cut to the window where a crack in the pulled shades would tell her what she already knew without picking up her phone on the nightstand to confirm.
For no particular reason—except maybe the universe had decided it would be fun to fuck with Delaney—she had woken up every morning that week an hour before her alarm. She blamed a certain someone for her brain’s inability to shut off at night but considering it had been almost three days since she spoke to Lucas last, she refused to give him more of her time. Even if it was just thoughts passing her mind by.
Besides, she didn’t have a lot of time to waste.
Not the type to be able to fall back asleep, even if she could get a solid hour more before her alarm started beeping, Delaney snagged the phone from the bedside table off the cordless charge. The five o’clock time made her scowl into the glow of the phone’s home screen before it deepened when noted the empty notification box at the bottom for her messages. Nothing new to see there, either.
Don’t do that, Delaney. The guy would have called you if he really wanted to or gave a shit—how many messages have you left since Monday?
Nope.
She wouldn’t do that with herself, either.
Lucas owed her nothing. They had one date. It didn’t have to be more even if it had felt like it would be right up until everything seemed to change last minute.
Oh, well.
Delaney spent the first two days of the week playing that foolish game with herself and her feelings all because a man didn’t want to pay her any attention. Or really, that’s how it boiled down to her. And she didn’t like that.
Couldn’t stand it.
Or herself, for that matter.
Delaney made herself get out of bed to start the morning of her third shift of a four-day week. She put her focus into getting up and around, on the day ahead booked up with cuts, blowouts, and colors, and didn’t look back. She muddled about the apartment, taking a quick, hot shower before getting dressed in white skinny jeans and an oversized black sweater that would prove hard to keep clean throughout the day. After, she moved to food, frying a couple of eggs to eat with buttered, jam-smothered toast. Not that she needed the caffeine, but the cup of coffee she made to go with her breakfast couldn’t hurt her overall mood for the day, so she tried to savor that, too.
It was all about the little things.
The sun climbed over the cloudless sky as Delaney washed the handful of dishes she’d made in the sink at the same time her cousin finally started moving around in her room. The two didn’t speak when Bexley came out for a glass of water before heading to the bathroom, but that wasn’t unusual. Neither were morning people.
The shower started seconds later.
Delaney rifled through her purse on the table, making sure everything from her wallet and keys to the mints she liked to suck on throughout the day were all in order. Not that it made much of a difference because everything went to hell as soon as she tossed the slouchy bag over her shoulder. Still, it gave her something to do.
To focus on.
Instead of the quiet phone that she swore felt like it had eyes where it sat on the table. Or that could have just been her inner bitch begging to pick it up and make one last phone call. One that would get all of her feelings out of her chest.
It wouldn’t hurt, then.
Distracted by her angry daydreaming, the loud knock on the apartment door made Delaney jerk in surprise. The apartment manager, who lived in the only ground floor apartment of the thirty-one unit building, would never intrude on the tenants so early unless an emergency had come up, but everything seemed quiet. On the other hand, if Bexley had a friend coming over, one of the girls she attended nursing classes with, then she absolutely would have told Delaney as much.
No one should be knocking on their door at a little past six in the morning. The second set of knocks banged louder than the first, and couldn’t be mistaken that it was, in fact, their door. Delaney blamed her confusion on who it could be, and the time, for the reason why she immediately yanked the door open instead of checking the peephole first.
A stupid move.
She lived in the city long enough to know better.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t something—or someone—bad waiting on the other side of the apartment door.
Mostly.
“Lucas?” Delaney asked, his name coming out of her mouth like a question because she couldn’t make sense of his image standing there.