Page 104 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
I was learning the shape of her. The parts she usually kept tucked away. Every new piece of information seemed to sew another invisible thread between us.
A loud bang from the back door interrupted whatever she’d been about to say next.
“What the hell?” She half rose from her seat.
It came again.
I set down my wine glass. I didn’t even have to look. “Chaos.”
She gasped. “How does something so small sound like that?”
I pushed away from the table and stalked to the back entrance before he could take another run at it. I opened the door. Chaos had one hoof on the doorframe and was chewing something that had not come from the barn. He did not stop chewing. In fact, he didn’t look remotely surprised to see me, and I realized I’d played right into his hands.
“We had an agreement you’d stay in the barn tonight,” I told him.
His answering bleat suggested we did not.
Delaney laughed—and Chaos immediately swung his head toward the sound like a compass finding north. He trotted over to her and butted his head against her hand, demanding her attention.
“Oh, does the sweet baby want some pets?” she asked, scratching between his ears as he leaned into it shamelessly. “He’s so soft.”
“He is,” I agreed. “But I don’t know if ‘sweet baby’ is the best way to describe him,” I grumbled. “He tried destroying the loveseat in my office this morning.”
“He didn’t.” She looked delighted, like it was his first milestone. She pulled him closer by the scruff of his neck and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.
We cleared the table together—Chaos underfoot the whole time—and somewhere in the middle of it, the last of the night’sformality dissolved entirely. Delaney even stole a fried caper from the serving dish. I caught her doing it, and she held my eye contact while she ate it, then two more.
I coaxed Chaos into the small downstairs guestroom with the promise of snacks. It held the crate with the elevated platform bed, a small litter box, and a television already loaded with cartoons. Then I rejoined Delaney in the kitchen.
“He has a room?”
I ran my hand over the back of my neck. “Yeah. Self-preservation measures.”
“That is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”
She’d started the dishes while I was gone. I came to stand beside her at the sink, and the space between us shifted without ceremony into something closer—a few inches of heat, the occasional brush of an arm when one of us reached across the other.
“I usually clean as I cook, but I was nervous tonight,” I admitted.
Her hands stilled in the soapy water. She turned to fully face me, her eyes wide. “You were nervous?”
I nodded.
She gave me a small, tentative smile as she picked up a towel and dried her hands. “Come here,” she said. “You’ve got something—” She reached up, pressing a wet paper towel gently to my cheekbone, the back of her hand grazing my jaw as she worked at whatever I’d managed to get on my face. She was close. Concentrating. Her lower lip caught between her teeth. The furrow between her brows. The way her wrist turned as she worked, careful and unhurried, as though she was taking her time, gauging what it felt like to touch me like this.
I’d spent most of the evening pretending to be unaffected. Every glance I’d deflected, every accidental touch I’d absorbedand moved past, every time I told myself to leave well enough alone. She agreed to a date. Nothing more.
Until now. With her fingers on my skin, the pretense collapsed.
I stepped forward. Her back met the edge of the island with a soft thud, and her breath caught; her eyes wide and dark, jumping up to mine. I braced one hand on the counter beside her.
We were close enough now that I could see the slight unevenness of her breathing.
Mine wasn’t doing much better.
I brought my free hand up, curling my fingers gently beneath her chin, tilting her face up. “Delaney.”
“Yes?” Her voice came out in a breathy whisper.
