I grinned, and then, without looking away from Delaney, I reached out and pushed the door closed. “Talk later, Kel,” I called. “Delaney and I are busy now.”
“No! Wait!” Kel knocked the door open again. “Brew. Brew-man. Brewski. Ireallyneed to talk to you. I have a situation. Like, a Code Red Emergency, Houston We Have a Problem, Fire in the Holesituation?—”
“Kel,” I began.
“Please, Brewer. I’ll owe you one. I’ll owe you a million?—”
I started to refuse again, but Delaney put a reassuring hand on my chest and gave me a wink before stepping away. “Come on in, Kel,” he said. “I’ll make coffee. Brewer and I will talk later.”
Because those last words sounded like a promise, I nodded once.
“Fine, then,” I told my cousin’s friend. “Talk.”
“I…” Kel’s phone pinged. “Shit. I’m on the clock. I have another order to courier. Could you…” His expression turned pleading. “Could you come with me in the Courier-Mobile?”
Delaney covered his mouth to hide his smile.
I sighed. “Fine. I’ll grab my shoes.”
“And, like, maybe a shirt that doesn’t giveWinnie the Pooh?” Kel suggested. He shrugged sheepishly. “Kitchen Couriers has standards, man.”
This time, Delaney didn’t try to contain his laughter.
“I had a plan,” I told him as he followed me up the stairs. I sounded a little petulant because I was. “A plan where you and I had a long, serious talk. Because I have things I want to say to you.”
Delaney bit his lip and nodded. “I have things I want to tell you, too.”
I grabbed the shirt I’d worn last night from the chair, exchanged it for Delaney’s, and continued. “A plan where I showed you the lube I hid in the jam cupboard.”
“Oh, fuck,” he breathed. “Jam cupboards reallyarethe best thing ever.”
I shoved my feet into my boots and stood quickly, backing Delaney against his bedroom wall. “A plan that did not involve my cousin’s best friend.”
“Fuck. Changed my mind,” Delaney said, only half teasing. “Sorry, Kel. We need to execute Brewer’s plan.”
I laughed. “Oh, we’re still executing the plan,” I promised, kissing him until he was breathless. “We’re just reconfiguring it slightly. A tiny tweak to the blueprints. The architect never has to know.” I pressed a final swift peck to his lips. “Be home as soon as I can, baby.”
Leaving Delaney slumped against the wall, looking gratifyingly slack-jawed and distracted, I grabbed my jacket and went back downstairs.
“This better be good,” I told Kel as he backed down Delaney’s driveway.
Kel gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles whitened. “It’s not good, man. It’s… fuck. It’s awful. It might literally be the end of the world as we know it. Well, asIknow it.”
“What is it?”
“Okay, so… you remember last night when we were all watchingWicked?”
I stared at him. Of all the places I’d thought this conversation might be going…
“Yeah?”
“And Hayes…” Kel chuckled, but it sounded almost pained. “He sang along with ‘Dancing Through Life’ the second time we watched it and was up on the sofa, doing all the moves?”
I frowned and nodded.
“Well.” Kel braked at the three-way stop sign and leaned forward to bang his head gently on the steering wheel. “I think I might be in love with your cousin.”
I dropped my chin to my chest. “This was your emergency, huh?”
