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She was in the guest room answering last-minute emails from her new university, thinking of what she would take when she left in another two weeks, when Brynn called for her to come down the stairs.

“What?” Helena stood in the middle of the staircase while her old coach looked between her and the front door.

“Care to tell me who this lady on my porch is? She says she knows you. She says you’re expecting her.”

Helena finished coming down the stairs but approached the front window curtains with trepidation. She knew Delia would be too good to be true.

Sure enough, that was another figment of her past standing on the porch.

Chapter 25

No matter how much Delia attempted damage control, word got out that something happened between her and Helena. While Elena and her cohorts told no one the truth, if only to save face, the rumor mill churned for about a week until something more interesting came along. People think she stole from me. Or that Helena had beef with Emma, a woman she hadn’t met.

The only person who knew the truth was Tiffani, who came over to keep Delia company when she returned from the office to want nothing but a hard drink. Even during a messy breakup, she was adamant that she not fall back down the alcohol trap that haunted her for most of her twenties. She could have some wine or a beer, but that was it. Tiffani gave her an outlet to vent but also kept Delia accountable when she opened her cupboard.

Because Helena was not a woman worth that. Not to the extent that Delia was drunk half her nights and regretting it the next morning.

“Nineteen, huh?” Tiffani blew air threw her lips as she picked at the takeout she brought over to Delia’s place. “I would have never guessed. She seemed older.”

“Yeah. She was good at passing herself off as twenty-one.” Delia had to say that so she wouldn’t kick herself in the ass for not figuring it out. “A part of me thinks I should have been able to tell, but I think I’ve hit the age where everyone under twenty-three acts the same to me.”

“It’s soooo dependent on the person, you know? Some girls are that mature already. Sounds like she had been through some shit.”

Although it wasn’t Delia’s place to talk about Helena’s traumas, she had mentioned that there were things that had happened in the past that led to Helena behaving the way she did. Delia saw that more clearly than women like Tiffani, who had lived an even more charmed life than most heiresses. But she was emotionally intelligent enough to be there for Delia when she needed it, and that was the only thing required.

The takeout was nice too. Not that Delia could taste it when her thoughts were elsewhere.

“Nineteen and the ex-pet of Irene Feist and her husband Josh.” Delia had done more research on the couple since Helena first talked about them but hadn’t found much until she called in some favors with people who knew how to look at things scrubbed from the internet. Most of what Ms. Feist didn’t want online included her recent legal troubles as tied to the Candace Lister debacle. Irene was a key witness the FBI warned to not leave the country until she was released from interest or testified, whichever came first. All of that led me down another rabbit hole. While Helena swore she wasn’t trafficked, she had seen some things. Things that she was not wont to discuss with Delia yet.

I wonder how much of that played into her mindset. Delia was now old enough to know that events that didn’t seem like big deals ten years ago had lasting effects on her brain – and her body. Sometimes, I feel like I can’t fully exhale. The breaths were trapped in her shoulders, forever tensing, forever cramped.

Like now.

“You don’t think I’m like… terrible for dating her, right?”

Tiffani had finally shoveled a mouthful of pad thai into her mouth. “Huh?” she said through her rigorous chewing. “Why would you be terrible?” she continued after swallowing.

“Because she was nineteen. I feel like such a creep. Like a cradle robber.”

“Is that what people are saying?”

“Not that I’ve heard, but if they knew the truth…”

“Which they won’t, because it would fuck up a lot of businesses we like.”

“Doesn’t matter. I feel so weird knowing she was nineteen the whole time. When did that happen? Caring about them being over a certain age. Ugh. Now I feel old.”

“Priorities changed, I guess. Maturity matters the older you get. You said so yourself… she could be immature about some stuff.”

“It’s true. She was.” Nothing Helena wouldn’t eventually grow out of as she gained more life experience, but wasn’t that part of the problem? It wasn’t Delia’s job to help her through those growing pains of facing an unjust world full of nuance and the sense that no matter how much you did correctly, things could go terribly wrong. “I still liked her. She was fun.”

“Most twenty-year-olds are.”

“We had a lot of interesting conversations. I never stayed up late debating the merits of going to college or what certain kinks say about you and actually had my mind changed a little. Did you know she had a full-ride scholarship to some university out in Washington?”

“What? Like Georgetown?”

“The other Washington, Tiff.”