The scent of coffee clings to the cab of the truck. Thankfully, it masks whatever perfume Delaney might be wearing. I can’t afford to be thinking about her that way, but she’s sitting beside me, and every damn thing about her is impossible to ignore. Her fingers wrap around the travel mug, the same fingers I used to trace with my own. She moans softly after every sip, like it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted. As if she doesn’t know her sounds are slowly driving me insane.
I was late getting Wren to school this morning, distracted by too many what-ifs about what today would bring. It frustrated me that just Delaney’s presence in my life again was messing with my usual punctuality, my usual control over my thoughts.
It’d be just the two of us for most of the day, traveling to the golf course then deciding what we’re keeping and what we’re tearing out and planting new. I should be focused on the job, but the tension humming in the cab is all I’m consumed by.
Twenty minutes until I can flee this truck and the suffocation I feel inside it.
“You still drive aggressively,” she says after a car honks behind us.
“Why don’t you get in the back seat?” I shoot back.
She shrugs. “I’m just saying, we’re not late.” She holds up her hand before I can respond. “I know, if you’re not early, you’re late.”
I lift a shoulder. “It’s the truth.”
“In your lifetime, how many times have you actually been late?”
I shake my head, not wanting to get into this. She was always on my anal habits, wanting to calm me, relax me so I wasn’t strung so tightly. And now my mind terrorizes me with the memory of her giving me a blow job, like a game to see how much self-control I had. Turns out none, since her mouth on my dick made all clocks disappear.
“Truth?” I ask.
“Always.”
“You’re always the one with me when I’m late.”
Her cheeks flush, and she hides behind her coffee cup.
“Payback for making fun of my driving,” I mutter.
“At least they were good reasons,” she says with a smirk.
I stop at a red light, and for a moment, our eyes lock. Something familiar and way too dangerous crackles between us.
“Definitely.”
The light turns green. I focus on the stretch of soybean fields outside the window, but she shifts in her seat, adjusting the mug in her hands.
“You looking forward to today?” I’m desperate to direct us away from the memories of when we were so entwined in each other’s worlds.
“I’m a little scared actually. Stayed up late researching Nebraska land, zooming in on pictures of the golf course.” She cringes.
“You’ve got nothing to be nervous about. You’re killing it at the shop. Everyone’s raving about your arrangements. Romy said two women almost fought over one of your centerpieces at a luncheon the other day.”
Romy… I need to nail her down and ask why she’s been disappearing every few days recently. I know she’s dating someone, but it’s not someone from around here, that’s for sure, or I would’ve already caught wind of it.
She presses her hand to her heart. “Really? That makes me so happy. Thank you for telling me.”
It makes me happy too. But I don’t say it. Just watching her light up like this is thanks enough.
“I—I forgot what it feels like.”
“What?”
“Working with flowers, on a design project,” she says, quieter this time. Her fingers tighten around the mug. “Sean liked me at home with Leia. Which was great. I’m grateful I was able to be home with her. And I had my own garden, but that’s not the same as earning someone else’s praise. I know it should be. But it’s not.”
Something hot curls low in my chest. “Did you want to work?”
She shrugs. “Yes and no. I was happy to stay with Leia until she went to school. I helped friends with their yards, went to floral markets with them, but most of the women I hung around hired other people to do that stuff. When Leia started school, I asked Sean about getting back into work. He said we should redo our own landscaping for starters and then maybe look at finding me a job. I was halfway through the project when it all fell apart.”
