He leans down, presses a kiss to the top of my head, and walks out. Controlled. Calm. Dangerous as hell.
The rest is fast. Jett signs with a dramatic flair like he’s sealing a blood pact.
Margo, Chad, and Hank scribble like they are doing taxes.
The judge clears his throat, sounding as if he hates joy. “This satisfies all court conditions. Charges dismissed. File will reflect compliance across the board.” Which is a boring way to say, Delilah, you win.
I smile at him like I’m not thinking about fucking one of the men at this table on his desk.
We stand. We file out. And I’m already planning what to do with the rest of my terrifying, beautiful, completely unhinged life.
Spoiler: it’s slutty, glittery, mildly illegal, and 100% unapologetically mine.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Delilah
We all head to Benji’s to celebrate.
When I walk in, the living room floor is covered in thick plastic. The couch too. He’s moved the coffee table entirely out of the way. In its place there are buckets. Big gallon tubs, like party-store icing. Each one labeled in aggressive Sharpie: strawberry, honey, salted caramel, cake, blue raspberry, peach, chocolate.
I clap. “They all came.”
“This is ridiculous,” Jett says, but he’s already peeling off his shirt. His mouth twitches like it’s trying not to smile. “There’s a cake flavor?”
Rhys steps in behind me and slides my blazer off my shoulders. “This is regressive.”
Benji’s locking the door. “You two don’t have to take part,” he says. “We can make art without you.”
“Art is my thing,” Rhys says, loosening his tie. He doesn’t sound dismissive. He sounds hungry.
“It’s therapy, right?” Jett says.
“You no longer have to take part in therapy,” Rhys replies smoothly. “Judge signed off on you too.”
“Fuck you, I still have anger issues,” Jett says, popping open the cake flavored bucket.
“And impulse control,” I say sweetly, already kicking off my heels.
“I didn’t say I wanted to fix them,” Jett says.
Benji’s behind me again, warm and solid, rolling me out of my pants. I’m suddenly bare-skinned and goosebumped.
“Group therapy then,” he says.
“Group project,” I purr. “Multimedia.”
“Performance art,” Rhys says, undoing his cuffs.
Jett looks down at the paint. Then at me. “You gonna let us draw on you?”
“No, baby,” I say. “You’re gonna eat me.”
The plastic crinkles under my knees like a tarp-wrapped secret. It’s already warm in here, bodies and paint and tension thick in the air, and I haven’t even been touched yet.
I pick up a paintbrush, thick, flat, made for a wall and not a canvas, and dip it into the cake-flavored paint. It’s bubblegum pink. Obnoxious. Sinful.
I slap a stripe of it across Jett’s chest.
