“Just go see Briar and Colter,” I tell Wren, wanting to get this over with.
She takes another sip of her orange juice, swallows, wipes her face, and drops the napkin on the table before running off.
“Slow down,” I call after her, but she’s long gone.
“Whoa, Wren.” I hear Emmett behind me, no doubt about to join us. “Babe, here comes Wren,” he hollers down the hall, not caring that he just interrupted the guests’ breakfast.
“Go ahead.” I wave toward my mom and lean back in my chair. “Just get it over with.”
“Get what over with?” She keeps her head buried in her phone.
“Why you told Wren about Briar and Colter being here. To get me alone.”
“What’s up?” Emmett pats me on the back.
“Nothing much. Mom wants to interrogate me about Delaney being back.”
My eyes stay locked on my mom, who still hasn’t looked up from her phone, but she wears that smug little smirk she always gets when she’s caught.
“Funny, me too.” Emmett slides into Wren’s now-empty seat and eats her leftovers.
“Then go ahead.” I sip my coffee and glance at my watch. I’ve got about ten minutes before I need to get Wren out the door.
“Any old feelings come back?” Emmett asks. “You guys were really into one another back in high school.”
“Exactly. High school.”
What my cousin doesn’t know is that our paths reconnected seven years ago. And now that Delaney’s back, I need to make damn sure that fact stays buried.
“Come on, man. Tell him, Aunt Darla. He was head over heels in love. Hell, you skipped U2 just to hang with her.”
“It was her birthday. She was alone.”
As if I don’t think about that night enough. The first time we had sex under the big sky. I can almost feel my hands on her again, reliving that moment as if it was yesterday.
“I’m just saying. I didn’t understand it until I got with Briar. Now I get why you were always ditching us for her.”
I set down my coffee. Even if I have to sit in the school parking lot for twenty minutes, it’s better than letting Emmett drag me through the memories I’ve tried to bury. “I should go.”
“I’d be careful if I were you,” Mom says, interrupting me as I stand.
“Excuse me?”
Emmett focuses on her, and she sets her phone on the table.
“Delaney’s starting her life over. She doesn’t need you putting your selfish needs in front of hers.”
I sink back into the chair. “And here I thought you were going to tell me to ask her out.”
She shrugs. “I’m not telling you not to, but I’m just saying you better get a grasp on your feelings because you can’t just twirl her around a dance floor and convince her to go home with you for the night. But if you want her back?—”
“I don’t.”
She tips her head. “If you do, you need to be one hundred percent sure. She doesn’t need someone to add to her problems. She needs someone who will stand beside her while she finds herself again.”
I glance at Emmett, whose eyes are crinkled with disbelief. I have no idea why my mom’s suddenly Team Delaney. It’s not like her to warn us off anyone. She’s usually pushing us toward any member of the opposite sex.
“I think I always did that,” I say.
