Page 81 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
Adam snorted. He clearly disagreed, but for the first time ever, kept his mouth shut.
Theo shook his head. He must have arrived while I had my eyes closed. “I have a few other animals I think might be a better fit.”
I nodded once, cataloging the evening in my head. What had worked. What hadn’t. What needed to be different next Friday when we had real participants show up.
Then I looked at Delaney, who stood at the head of the class. She laughed at something Cheryl said before turning her attention to the feedback now flowing from everyone.
Chaos, now unhappy with his new spot, got up and crossed the room to stand next to her.
Delaney reached down without looking and scratched between his ears. He leaned in. I watched her a moment longer than I should have.
We had until Friday to figure this out.
It was all going to be fine.
Chaos bleated and bumped Delaney’s knee.
It was absolutely not going to be fine.
Chapter Fourteen
DELANEY
At eight o’clock in the morning, Matt’s Diner was less of a restaurant and more of a public meeting place that had become very committed to its breakfast cover story.
“I’m so mad at you!” Adele mock-glared at me across the table, setting her coffee cup down with enough force to slosh a tiny wave of it over the rim. “When were you going to tell me you had dinner with Marc Kingsley?”
My soul attempted to leave my body.
“Keep. Your. Voice. Down,” I hissed.
I did a full perimeter scan of the diner to be sure no one had heard Adele’s wildly inaccurate statement. The guys at the counter. The couple by the window. Old Hank in the corner, who was mostly deaf but somehow always managed to hear exactly what you didn’t want him to.
Nobody looked up.
Okay. Okay, we’re fine. We’re totally fine.
In a town this size, one overheard sentence became five rumors by noon and something involving a Vegas elopementand a secret baby by dinner, similar to a bad game of “telephone” where the message started clearly and became more garbled and twisted with each person who told it. I watched it happen to my Great-Aunt Jem’s friend, Linda. She said she liked a guy’struck,and somehow by Sunday she was allegedly pregnant with twins.
“Don’t make it more than it was,” I pleaded with her.
Why I was even trying to deny anything was a mystery to me. This was Adele. My best friend since we were little. My camp bestie. She had this whole quiet, cozy bookstore-owning, cardigan-wearing librarian energy that masked the fact that she was made of pure, unapologetic fire.
She raised one eyebrow. One. Because she knew she only needed one to dismantle me.
“Delaney Hart, as I live and breathe, do not lie to me.” She wrapped her hands around her mug, her satisfied energy flowing off of her in waves. She knew she held the winning hand. “I heard it directly from Penny who heard it fromGrace Kingsleyherself.”
I made a strangled sound that was not an actual word.
Ugh.Ugh.This was the fundamental design flaw of small-town living. There was no such thing as a private moment. None. You couldn’t sneeze without someone asking if you were coming down with a cold, asking if you’d tried elderberry syrup, or pushing some other homemade remedy.
I needed to remember: Small-town living meant no secrets.
“Okay, fine. Yes.” I held up a finger. “But alsono. You’re making it sound as if it was a sexy romantic evening where we hand-fed each other, and it was absolutelynot that.”
I didn’t miss the grin that crossed her face before she could squash it. The little sneak. She’d framed it that way onpurposeso I’d rush to correct her and accidentally confirm everything.
Twenty years of friendship. Of knowing each other’s tells, and she could still play me like a fiddle.
