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“Beautiful,” I told her, and she turned around with a smile on her face and her phone in her hand.

“I’m going to show you these, but you’re not allowed to make fun of me.”

How bad had her hair really been? I was dying to know now.

“I don’t think I can make that promise,” I told her. If it was really bad, I was going to mock her.

James huffed and turned the phone so I could see it as I wiggled closer. “Fine, but don’t be too mean.”

“We’ll see,” I told her, and she smacked me on the arm.

* * *

She’d dyedher hair some truly appalling colors it turned out. We went through them all and I gave my critique until we both were laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe.

“Are you telling me you didn’t dye your hair the color of neon vomit?” she asked me, and I gagged.

“No, I did not.” That led to me finding my pictures from college and showing her. I hadn’t had much of a social media presence back then because I thought it was a waste of time.

I didn’t think about going home. I was fully in the moment because in this moment I didn’t have to think about anything else. Not what all of this meant, not how I’d never come that hard in my life, not about the changing feelings I had for James.

Nope. Not touching any of that. Set down the can opener, do not touch that container of worms. Walk away.

“Hey,” James said, touching my arm. I’d mentally drifted off again.

“Yeah?” I asked, staring at her. She was pretty even with her face bare and her hair half-damp and hanging on her shoulders.

“I’m really glad you stayed today.”

The way she looked at me made all sorts of big, scary, squishy things move in the vicinity of my rib cage and I wasn’t going to wonder about that either. Instead I smiled and nodded. “Me too.”

* * *

I hadno intention of leaving until I absolutely had to, and James appeared happy to have me stay. A few hours after the shower, I found myself sitting on her counter while she cooked for me.

I’d offered to help, but she told me that she could handle it, so I watched as she chopped peppers and onions, seared chicken, warmed tortillas, and made a fajita seasoning with items from her spice rack. Add a few shakes of hot sauce and a squeeze of lime and we had a platter of gorgeous fajitas.

We ate on her couch, which was much more comfortable than mine.

“Where did you get your couch?” I asked her.

She grabbed her phone and mine vibrated momentarily with a notification. “Sent you the link. I had to get a new one because my old apartment was so small, I couldn’t fit a full-size one and only had this little dinky loveseat. I sold it to a college student who’d been very happy to get it for a decent price.”

“Nice. I really need to change my apartment. It’s…I need a change.” We were veering very close to topics I absolutely didn’t want to discuss. Her brother being the main one.

Fuck. James was Connor’ssister.

I shoved a fajita in my mouth and pushed all of that aside. I’d have time to flip out about it later.

Chapter Twenty-Two

James

Delaney kept zoningout and I knew she was probably panicking about today. Things had changed for her, there was no way of getting around that.

“Hey,” I asked her after we loaded the dishwasher, “did you want to talk about anything?”

She washed her hands for a long time and shook her head as she dried them.