Page 5 of Unstoppable You (Sapph in the City #6)

Chapter Five

Delaney

It was mostly what I’d expected, but I hadn’t anticipated how much pain I’d hear in her voice while she spoke. She hadn’t cried, but there had been tears in her voice.

Well, that made two of us. I’d spent many nights crying into my pillow and hoping my parents didn’t hear me. They’d done the best they could and had gone to the school about the bullying, but it hadn’t solved the problem.

I had to wait it out until I got to high school and for my main bully to move away. That had been James’s friend, Eva. I wonder whatever happened to her. I could look her up online, of course, but if she was doing well, that was going to be a knife to the chest. Hopefully she was single and had a bad job and lived in a tiny roach-filled apartment. She deserved it. The absolute sadism she’d exhibited as a tween was still wild to me. It had been strange, that James had been one of my main tormentors in middle school and she practically disappeared from my life when we moved to a bigger school.

I almost lost track of her, but every now and then she’d pop up in one of my classes, but she made sure never to talk to or make eye contact with me, and it wasn’t like we were sitting with each other at lunch. She’d left my social sphere, but the damage remained.

It hadn’t ruined my life, obviously, but it had really fucked me up for a few years.

I still didn’t know what to think about Delaney. I managed to get the box of pastries home safely even though I was vibrating from the caffeine in the latte that I basically gulped down because it was so good.

Met with James today and she apologized. Drinks tonight?

Larison’s response was quick. Yes, absolutely! Jo can watch Juni. She owes me because she’s going hiking with Reid on Saturday.

Perfect. We agreed to meet at the bar with the good wings in a few hours. Until then, I buzzed around my apartment in a frenzy, cleaning and doing laundry and dishes and clearing out half my closet before my energy crashed. Oops.

I also had another one of the croissants, this one filled with Nutella.

What was James doing tonight? Probably going out or doing something fabulous, but I really didn’t know. We might have spent a lot of time together in our younger years, but she was basically a stranger to me now. I didn’t know what she did or if she was seeing anyone or had weekend plans. I wanted to go to Pilates this weekend, but I wasn’t going to pick the same class for fear that she’d be in it, so I selected the Saturday late morning class instead. I’d get brunch after as a reward. Perfect way to start the day.

Did James like brunch?

Ugh, this caffeine was really messing me up. I shouldn’t be thinking about her. When I left the café, the only things I should have brought with me were the croissants and the relief that I had finally gotten an apology from a bully. I never had to think about her again, but here I was, still thinking about her.

She’d looked good, I had to admit. The new look with the piercing and the hair suited her so much better than the generic pretty-girl thing she’d had in school. She also seemed more comfortable. There was a brittleness about her that I’d noticed when we were kids. Like she was so close to completely snapping. Always on the edge.

She’d mentioned something about her family and taking it out on me, and knowing her family, I could understand that part, at least a little.

James and Connor’s parents were two people who were so mired in their own resentment and hatred of each other, they’d made it their entire personalities. You couldn’t talk to his mom without hearing what a disgusting jerk his dad was, and you couldn’t talk to his dad without hearing a list of grievances about his ex-wife.

There was a reason why I had rarely joined Connor for family dinners or holidays. The tension and resentment were painted onto the walls, soaked into the floorboards of his mom’s house and his dad’s penthouse apartment. You left feeling like you wanted to have a drink or sleep for a week or both. They were bitter, vicious people and all of that had done a number on their son. Why wouldn’t it have affected their daughter?

Not that I blamed Connor’s parents for the way he turned out, but they certainly hadn’t helped. I’d watched him get away with everything in high school with a smile and charm and his lazy “I’m just a local boy” veneer. It didn’t hurt that his dad owned a car dealership and had a lot of local power and clout.

Great, now I was thinking about James and Connor. A recipe for a bad night. The worst night.

I threw myself into the shower and then put on a cute dress before making a little extra effort on my makeup and curling my hair before I pulled half of it up and away from my face.

Checking myself in the mirror hung on the back of my bedroom door, I grinned. Damn, I looked hot. The dress I had on hit me at just the right spot, making my legs look longer. Since I didn’t have to walk too far, I slipped into my cute shoes that weren’t that comfortable.

Hell yeah, I looked great. I’d say that looking this good was revenge on Connor, but he’d never really noticed my outfits or commented on them except to say that he didn’t like me showing too much skin because he thought it would make other guys look at me. Or that I was trying to attract other male attention and make him jealous. It was all ridiculous. I had been completely and totally faithful to him.

One terrible thought that sat in my stomach and woke me up some nights was what if that wasn’t the first time that Connor cheated on me? Most guys didn’t wake up one morning a few years into a relationship and think “oh, I’m going to meet a woman at a bar, tell her I’m single, and bring her back for sex while my girlfriend is out for the evening.”

There had been several other times that I had questioned, but he’d explained it away and turned the tables on me until I was the one apologizing. He’d bought flowers and had started being sweet and I’d just…let it go.

I’d let it go and now look where I was.

Fuck, I was still thinking about Connor! Angrily, I shoved my phone and my lip gloss in my bag for the night and shrugged into my jean jacket.

Tonight I was having drinks and wings with Larison and I was going to promise myself not to think or speak about Connor. Couldn’t make that rule about his sister, though.

Larison and I had far too much to discuss about James.

* * *

“You did not!” she gasped when I told her how many croissants and muffins I’d ordered.

“She’d said I could order whatever I wanted and I thought about it, but that would have been rude and the employees would have had to pack everything up, so I just settled for like, most of it.”

Larison laughed and shook her head, taking a sip of beer. I reached for another wing, my fingers already sticky and covered in sauce.

“And you didn’t bring any of them for me? Rude,” Larison said.

“Sorry. A few croissants and muffins are the least she could do after years of psychological torture.”

She winced. “Shit, I’m sorry. You’re right.”

I shrugged. “It’s water under the bridge.”

Larison gave me a long look that I didn’t like. I squirmed under her scrutiny and tried to cover it by drinking and then shoving another wing into my face.

“Is it, though?”

“Yes,” I said, after licking some sauce from my thumb. “It is.”

She seemed like she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t, and that was one of the reasons that Larison was my friend. When I asked her to drop something, she did. I didn’t have to ask her to do it very often. Most of the time, things could be brushed off with a smile and the knowledge that things would be better tomorrow. They always had been, in my experience.

My silver linings philosophy hadn’t failed me until now. It wasn’t working so well on my cheating boyfriend. Right now, the biggest upside was not having to do his laundry for him. I guess that was something.

“What is it?” Larison asked, and I realized I’d drifted off again. I hated how often that happened to me now. It was seriously frustrating.

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head and giving her a smile. “Just thinking. How’s miss Juniper doing in her ballet class?”

One sure way to get Larison to speak about something else was to bring up her daughter. I absolutely adored that child and I needed a Laney and Juni day soon.

“Oh, she’s loving it. Reid is strict, but she’s getting into it. At this rate, we’re going to have to get a bigger place just so she can have a dance room. I’m already budgeting for shoes, so we’re going to have to keep planning more book events.” She rolled her eyes, but she was beaming.

We both laughed and settled into familiar territory. It was good to be out with my friend, to be doing something normal. The only bad part was that I had to go home to an empty and quiet apartment. Larison started yawning and I wanted to beg her to have another drink, to maybe go nearby and get some ice cream, but she needed to get home to her family.

“You can always come have a sleepover with us as long as you don’t mind Juni waking you up at the crack of dawn. I’ll cook you breakfast to make up for it.” While that was a wonderful idea, I wasn’t in the mood for it.

“Soon,” I told her. “How about we plan one for the end of this month?”

She squeezed me in a hug and then let me go. “Absolutely. I’ll talk to Jo and see what works for our schedule and school. Juni will be ecstatic.”

Larison stayed with me while I waited for the car to get here and then she sent me off and I went home alone.

At least I had a ton of croissants and muffins to keep me company.