Page 56 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
Except it wasn’t.
“You weren’t cold with Nora,” I said. “Her and her guinea pig situation.” I paused. “You were actually—” The wordkindfeltlike it exposed his softer side more than he’d want. “You were good with her.”
He shrugged. “She needed someone to be.”
I found the tablecloth suddenly fascinating.
“What about you?” Martha asked.
I drew in a breath, hating how shaky my exhale sounded. “That I’m …” I traced my finger along the edge of my wine glass. “Too much. I know people think that. Too loud, too intense, too—” I gestured vaguely. ”More than most people want to deal with.” I didn’t often share that about myself with others. I didn’t like being this vulnerable, but the same way it had earlier, I couldn’t stop the words from pouring out of me.
“Whoever thinks that is wrong,” Marc stated simply.
I lifted my head.
Marc watched me. His voice had been completely flat. Unemotional. He stated a fact. The kind that didn’t warrant a discussion.
The back of my throat grew tight.
“He’s right, you know,” Glamma said quietly beside me.
I blinked hard. I was not going to cry at this strange ambush dinner. I was not. My parents loved me—I knew that, I’d always known that—but I learned early on that love didn’t preclude being a lot. You could be loved and still be slightly too much for a room. I’d learned to compact myself. To strategically dim. To lead with sharpness because at least that gave people somewhere to focus the discomfort that my more expansive self seemed to create.
And then there was Marc, at a dinner I hadn’t entirely consented to, telling me flat out that anyone who thought that was wrong.
“You are exactly enough, Delaney. Anyone who’s suggested otherwise can kindly escort themselves off a very short pier.”Glamma patted my arm with the authority of someone who had, in fact, personally escorted people off piers.
My eyes shot up to meet Glamma’s.
“There she is,” she added softly, and something in her expression said she’d been waiting for this version of me to show up all evening.
She clapped her hands together. “Appetizers. Drinks. Those fun mixed ones.” She stood, and the four women rose like a coordinated unit, filing through the far door with the quiet purpose of people who had accomplished exactly what they set out to do.
Martha poked her head back in. “Need anything before we return?”
“No thank you,” I said.
Marc shook his head.
The door swung shut.
The room was suddenly very quiet.
“That felt … invasive,” he said.
“You’re free to leave,” I said dryly.
The corner of his mouth lifted. “No, I’m not. Glamma would hunt me down before I reached the car.”
“You’re not wrong. Maybe slip out the back?” I couldn’t stop a smirk from crossing my face.
He shook his head. “She has resources. Like the FBI.”
“She hasGladys,” I said, and fake shuddered. “Which is worse.”
The almost-smile flashed again. There one second and gone the next, like he remembered he wasn’t supposed to do that around me.
For twenty years, I’d been fighting a version of Marc Kingsley I’d constructed at age ten from the worst possible moment I could remember. I’d maintained that version with considerable dedication. Kept it well-fed and polished.
