One Last Time (Loveless Brothers 5)

Then we look at each other. Just look. It’s a strange, unanchored moment, and I can’t help but smile.

“Did we just display surprising maturity?” I ask.

She laughs.

“Surprising for you, maybe,” she says.

“Excuse me, I’m a paragon of maturity.”

“I’m surprised you’re not blowing raspberries and calling me a stupidface,” she teases.

I grin, then stick my tongue out. She laughs again, and I feel like I’m jumping on marshmallows.

Don’t tell me it could have been this easy all along.

“I’d like to reiterate my question, though,” she says, leaning over and grabbing her fur cape off a bench. “Which was: what the fuck?”

“I told you, I heard —”

“I know you know what I mean, Seth.”

I do, because I’m not an idiot, but I don’t want to tell her. This is nice. This is fun. This is just the two of us, unweighted for once, and telling her that I went behind her back and made a deal with Vera will surely ruin that.

“I’m sure I don’t,” I tell her.

Delilah narrows her eyes, then glances around. Over her shoulder. Through the window to the still-empty first floor, her hair catching fire in the low sun as she takes a step toward me.

“Are you crashing?” she asks, voice low, one eyebrow raised.

“Crashing?” I echo, as if astonished. Solemnly, I put a hand over my heart. “I would never.”

“I bet you would.”

“I might crash another wedding, but I’m not brave enough to crash a Vera Radcliffe affair,” I tell her. “That’s God’s honest truth, and you know it.”

Delilah just laughs, hands buried in the cape as her eyes crinkle at the corners, shoulders shaking.

“Okay, I believe that,” she says. “There was some issue with the beer and Vera made you wear a suit to come fix it?”

“Nope,” I say. “I was invited.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“Hand to God.”

“Seth, I saw the guest list yesterday and you weren’t on it,” she says, as if she’s catching a child out in a lie.

“You must’ve missed my name.”

“I don’t think so.”

“There are five hundred people here,” I point out. “Easy to gloss over a single entry in a list.”

“There are three hundred and sixty-something people here, and if you were supposed to be one of them, I’d know,” she says, simply.

It’s an admission, and I feel it down deep like a string tugging on my spine, tied into a notch she carved long ago. I grab it, hold on.

“Someone invited me at the last minute,” I say, and at least it’s the truth.

Delilah looks down, unfurls the cape in her hands, spins it around herself, settles it over her shoulders, all without looking at me.

“Does this someone know you’re out here, rescuing damsels in distress?” she asks, fastening the clasp.

She thinks I’m on a date. Her voice is light but brittle, like a glass bubble that might explode into shards at any moment.

“What damsel?” I ask.

“Your wording, not mine,” she points out, smoothing her cape, still not looking at me.

“I’m thinking of walking it back.”

“Even though I’m so very helpless in heels and a corset?” she says, that sharpness still in her voice. “I can’t even button my own clothing, for fuck’s sake.”

Corset?

I’m intensely, fervently glad for the cape that mostly covers her.

“There’s no way you’re a damsel with a mouth like that,” I say.

“You should hear me in my natural state,” she says.

“Come to think of it, I have,” I say, unable to help myself. “And you can be incredibly un-lady-like.”

It works, pink flaring up her cheeks from below. She’s always blushed this easily, this obviously, and I’ve always liked making it happen.

All it takes is a quick whisper. A suggestion. Sometimes, a look.

“You should probably go back to your date, I’m sure she’s looking for you,” she says, pretending I haven’t made her blush. “I mean, if you actually have one and you didn’t just sneak in for the free snacks and whiskey.”

There it is again. My date. Delilah is jealous, and God help me, I don’t hate it.

I put one hand to my chest, as if hurt.

“What kind of lowlife do you take me for?”

“Should I really answer that?” she asks, but there’s a hint of a smile underneath the words.

“Maybe after more free whiskey,” I say, then pause. “I can finish buttoning your dress, if you want.”

“Are you going to rip them all off?”

Don’t tempt me with a good time.

“That one was your fault,” I point out. “I’d almost gotten it and you pulled away.”

“You sneaked up on me in a state of undress,” she says, and now she’s keeping her voice low, like she doesn’t want to be overheard.

“I’ve seen it before,” I say, matching her tone.

It could be my imagination, but I think I’m rewarded with the faint glow of pink.

“That doesn’t mean now is appropriate.”

“I didn’t know you’d be in disarray,” I tell her, my voice lower still. “Imagine my surprise. I never even asked why you were getting dressed on the veranda.”