“I’m sorry. I meant Mirabelle’s replacement.”
Just like that, she pulls the rug out from under me. My breath grows weighted in my chest and my body is anchored for war.
“Don’t,” I seethe, “ever fucking say her name around me again.”
By the time I’m done seeing red, the door has been slammed in her face and I’m standing in the middle of my foyer.
“Everything okay out there?” Delilah’s voice trails from the living room.
“Yep.” I hook my hands on my hips, take a deep breath, and pull my shit together because I’ll be fucking damned if I let someone like Carissa rain on the parade that is Delilah Rosewood sitting in my living room at this very moment.
“What was that about?” she asks when I return.
I take the seat beside her and stretch my arm across the back as I settle in. It takes everything I have to pretend like there aren’t fifty tons of explosives coursing through my veins, but something about seeing Delilah’s expressive dark gaze and observing her cool, collected mannerisms brings me a sliver of peace.
“That,” I say, “was my stalker.”
Delilah laughs. “You have a stalker? Like a real-life stalker?”
I exhale, eyes rolling back. “Yeah. It’s hilarious.”
“She’s so sweet. There’s no way.” Delilah won’t stop snickering. Glad my personal drama can be someone else’s cheap entertainment.
“A girl gets stalked by a guy and it makes the five o’clock news. A guy gets stalked by the team owner’s daughter and he’s just supposed to keep it to himself or brag about it like it’s a goddamned rite of passage.”
“When you say she stalked you . . .”
“Followed the team from city to city, hung out outside locker rooms, faked press passes to get into places she wasn’t supposed to be, snuck into hotel rooms on the road, convinced her daddy to give her all-access passes to team parties and events, hid in bushes outside my house, sent me creepy-ass love letters, snuck into my home when I wasn’t here, detonated an atomic bomb in the direction of my personal life . . . do I need to continue?”
“Damn.” Delilah’s smile has long since faded.
“She’s bat-shit crazy. I’m surprised she didn’t snip off a lock of your hair when you weren’t looking.”
“Now you’re just being dramatic.” Delilah clucks her tongue. “She seemed nice enough, you know, in spite of me not having known all of that. We talked about how you first met.”
I about choke on my spit.
“She said she was interning for a newspaper and got to do a one-on-one interview with you,” Delilah says.
“Yeah, no. That’s a lie. Everything that woman says is a lie. Don’t believe a word she said to you today.”
“You don’t even know what all we talked about.” Delilah playfully smacks my chest.
“I don’t need to know. Carissa is a liar. She lies.” I shrug as I state the facts. “And I’m only going to say one more thing before we move on because I’m not going to sit here and talk about the woman who made my life hell for the past three goddamned years.”
“Okay, fine. What is it?”
“Next time you’re in my house, do not open my door and let random people inside.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little presumptive?”
I scratch my temple, brows up. “What am I presuming?”
“That I’m going to be a regular fixture over here.” Her elbow is bent, resting on the arm of the loveseat as she situates herself farther away.
“Because you’ve only been here a couple days and already you can’t stay away from me.”
She rolls her eyes, trying not to smile. “Don’t flatter yourself, de la Cruz. I only came here with cookies to make a peace offering, not because I couldn’t get enough of bumping into you all over Laguna Palms.”
De la Cruz.
She’s warming up to me.
“Don’t act like you don’t love it,” I tease.
Her eyes squint and her nose wrinkles. She’s horrible at pretending she’s mad at me, but I’ll let it go because she’s so fucking adorable looking all scrunch-faced.
“I kind of look forward to it . . . if I’m being honest,” I say.
Our stares catch.
Her expression softens, her lips move, but nothing comes out.
Boom.
That’s how it’s done.
“I just want us to get along.” Her request seems gentler now. “I don’t want to spend my summer worrying about fifty thousand ways to avoid you every time I step outside.”
“Then don’t. Don’t avoid me. Embrace this as what it is.”