Bad Seed

But if he could make two seemingly opposite lives work, then maybe he could make us work.

Maybe we could make us work.

CHAPTER 29

Drake

After a quick ride into town, I grabbed everything we needed. Though, I still didn’t trust Delia not to run off into the sunset with my child, so I called the tractor company on the phone instead of going into their store. That shit was gonna cost me way more than I wanted to pay, but the tractor we had couldn’t be fixed. Paul and I had slaved over that piece of shit for days trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with it. But, I was done fighting with it.

I needed to conserve my energy for other things.

Like fixing shit with Delia.

When I got back to the ranch, I drove the truck around to the feed barn and helped Paul toss bags into the corner. Then I drove the truck back up to the house and walked inside. I braced myself to find Delia gone. For her stubborn ass to have walked back to her apartment or some shit. But instead of finding the house devoid of her, she was the first thing I saw when I walked in.

It reminded me of that night when I walked onto the bus and saw her asleep on the bus tabletop.

She was asleep was on the couch while Elsie sat at her feet with a book. Elsie was reading to her, talking her through all the concepts of this new book she was studying. I watched for a while, listening to Elsie read page after page to a sleeping Delia. The soft snores that fell from her lips caught my sister’s attention, and Elsie looked back before she sighed.

My sister touched Delia’s arm a couple of times before I intervened.

“Thanks for keeping her company, sis,” I said, with a smile. “I’ll take it from here.”

Elsie smiled up at me as she got up, taking one last look at Delia before she left us alone.

My sister never ceased to amaze me. How attentive she was to the needs of others, despite struggling with her own. The same could be said for Delia, for her independence and her fire and her perseverance.

She was a mixture of amazing and frustrating. And I loved every minute of the polarity of her.

I sat on the couch, lifting her legs and hooking them over mine. She began to stir, her body stretching and her groans filling the room. The swell of her breasts was mesmerizing. I was trying to read up on what was going on with her in my spare time, trying to educate myself on what she would be experiencing so I could help her the next time she was in pain. I'd been through some of this with Shannon, but Delia's problems were entirely new to me.

I saw her wince as her hand went to her hip, and I instantly began massaging it. Her eyes popped open at my ministrations and she looked up at me, but she didn’t pull away from my grasp. Instead, she pulled the blanket up to her chin, her eyes fluttering shut as I continued to massage her aching ligaments. I knew that if this was going to work between us, we had to come clean with one another. I had to let her know the real me and she had to do the same. It was time to be honest.

“Feel better?” I asked.

“Mhm,” she said, with a hum.

“Now that I’ve got a break, I want us to play a game,” I said.

“A game?”

“Yep. It’s called the truth game.”

“Sounds like a stupid game,” she said.

“The name’s lame, but the p

remise is simple. I tell you one truth, then you tell me one. We go back and forth until we run out of truths to tell one another, then we order pizza for dinner. How does that sound?”

“Fine,” she said with a sigh.

“I shattered my leg three years ago, right before the band was discovered. I was on the tractor, drunk, and I fell asleep. I fell off and the tractor rolled over me, nearly severing my leg. My drinking only got worse after that,I said.

I watched Delia’s face drop as her jaw unhinged in shock.

“This is the part where it’s your turn,” I said.

“I can’t ask you any questions about it?” she asked.