Loved either way, p.1
Loved Either Way, page 1
These Valley Days, 2
Bethany-Kris
For my nan who once told me that she dreamed of writing a book about a sexy man who would whisk her away to a cabin in the woods where they’d fall madly in love and fuck like bunnies. Delaney might not be you, nan, but I wrote the book all the same.
CONTENTS
LOVED EITHER WAY
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books
Copyright
Chapter 1
“You’re absolutely sure you want to do this?”
Was that a real question?
“Give me something else to look at in the mirror, Margot. I need it. It’s this or a tattoo of my last name. I’ve considered making the appointment.”
Maybe that would get Delaney out of her own damn head. A late birthday gift since she’d gone on like her twenty-fifth was just another Sunday.
Margot’s nose crinkled in disgust. “Really, you’d want Reed … just somewhere? You’ve got more creativity than that, Delaney.”
“I was going to make it cute,” Delaney tried not to whine.
And failed.
“On three?” Margot asked.
Delaney nodded but kept her gaze on the apartment ceiling overhead instead of the redhead looming over the side of the couch.
“Okay—one, two, breathe.”
She gulped in a lungful of air as Margot plunged the needle straight through Delaney’s left nostril.
“And let it out now,” Margot urged.
Delaney did. The pain came and left faster than she remembered it from the first time she’d had the nose piercing done, but that was years ago. Somebody who didn’t know what they were doing had an earring gun and it took weeks for the swelling to go down. Margot had skill and practice on her side, so the second of pain was over before Delaney had even blinked.
Tears raced down her cheek when she did.
“Jesus Christ,” Delaney muttered under her breath.
Margot’s wild curls bounced with her laughter as she reached over Delaney’s prone form on the couch with gloved hands for something she’d sat on the tray. “It wasn’t that bad, come on.”
“I’m crying!”
“Your eye is watering. It always does.” Her friend laughed. Blue latex came back into Delaney’s view, and Margot said, “Sit tight, and I’ll get this hoop in for you.”
She remained still while Margot finished her work, sliding in a hoop at the end of the long needle that nestled nicely around the shell of Delaney’s nostril. After discarding the needle to the clean tray on the coffee table, Margot wiped the river of tears that had trailed down the side of Delaney’s face.
Margot beamed and lifted her eyebrows high. “Wanna see?”
Laughing, Delaney pushed up into a sitting position on the couch. “Yeah, where’s the mirror?”
Margot pointed next to the tray as she rounded the couch and began cleaning up her supplies. Only a little ache remained around the piercing, but more interesting was how Delaney could feel the thin strip of gold looped along the side of her nose. Every flicker of her facial muscles made her more and more aware of the small piece of jewelry.
She hadn’t even reached for the mirror yet.
Margot noticed. “Yeah, that’ll get better. Give it a couple of hours.”
Delaney wrinkled her nose again. “I don’t remember this from the first time.”
“Yeah, probably because you were lucky they didn’t crush your cartilage and your brain could only focus on one thing—like the pain.”
Fair point.
Delaney gave it to Margot.
“Give me a break, I was seventeen and free,” she mumbled under her breath, picking up the mirror.
Margot shrugged. “True enough, but stupid is still dumb, Delaney.”
Yeah, it was.
She admired the gold hoop framing the left side of her nose and how it added to the delicate swoop of her bridge and button tip. It confirmed what she’d believed all those years ago when she dared to get the piercing despite knowing how her mother would scream at her for it the first time she saw it—the look suited her face.
As for her mother all those years ago? Amanda didn’t stop shrieking until Delaney had backed out of the driveway.
Delaney glanced away from the black-haired, hazel-eyed reflection in the mirror that looked so much like her mother’s, thinking, well, she won’t see it to yell about it now.
“You got quiet over there,” Margot noted.
Of course, her friend would notice. Despite being well-liked and having a lot of friends when she was younger, Delaney always kept her circle small. Those people she truly let see her mask slip to find the human waiting underneath. One didn’t need to wait long in adulthood to figure out that being human in public sucked.
People like Margot knew those quiet moments for Delaney were introspective seconds lost in the maze of her mind and hidden thoughts. Not necessarily a pleasant place to be, for what it was worth. Delaney rarely had a choice, though.
“Yeah, I did get quiet,” Delaney admitted, handing the mirror across the coffee table for Margot to take. Not having something in her hands made her edgier. She’d forced herself to stop picking at the beds of her nails by keeping a manageable length set of gel nails on but as soon as those bitches started to grow out, her urge to pick began. It had become a vicious cycle. A sad by-product of the fact she hadn’t smoked a cigarette in two years.
Once upon a time, all her nervous energy went into flicking ash from the tip of a cigarette and burning lungsful of secret smoke. Until the smell of smoke made her want to puke. She still needed somewhere to put the rest of her anxiety, though.
Her fingers were it.
Nobody said Delaney was perfect.
“I’ve considered taking up smoking again,” Delaney said.
Margot gasped, her attention swinging from packing away her tools to Delaney. “No.”
“Not seriously, Margot. I’m just …”
“Struggling?” her friend asked, as she took the recliner across from the matching blue couch.
“I don’t like that word.”
It implied weakness and Delaney took issue with that. Instead of saying so, because nobody liked to pick at a raw wound, she toyed with one of the many cushions on the couch. The fringe edge gave her fingers something else to do except be there for her to pick.
Like the sofa, the recliner got the same treatment with too many sham pillows with images of various boating objects.
Bexley took decorating way too seriously.
Mostly, because her cousin just didn’t know when to stop. A color started a theme and then it would spread until it took over everything. She even managed to find lamps with large conch shell bases for the space. It was starting to bleed over into the two-bedroom apartment’s tiny kitchen in little ways.
Delaney tried not to notice.
Most of the time.
“Okay, I’m starting to think you don’t like the nose ring,” Margot blurted out worriedly.
Delaney barked out a laugh. “Really?”
Across the way, with studs in both sides of her nose, and one gold hoop next to her right diamond nose ring, Margot shrugged. “I’m used to people telling me by now, and yeah—so you’re a little lost in your head. You do that sometimes. I want to know what you think of your face.”
Margot pointed at her own for effect. It did the job.
Delaney grinned big.
Margot smiled back, and her eyes twinkled. “You okay, hon?”
Delaney sighed.
She got asked that question a lot more than she wanted to admit. Usually by the same few people who took notice of her lack of laughter and smiles—or really, how quickly it died or fell. Delaney had been stuck in this loop of lingering unhappiness for a while, and it was getting harder and harder to climb back out every time she made another trip around Sad-ville.
Population one.
A terrible place for a vacation, anyway.
“Delaney?” Margot pressed the longer she remained silent on the couch.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she lied lamely. Standing up, Delaney rubbed at her forehead and eyed the muted news playing on the television mounted between the living room’s two tall windows. She could pretend like the busy Fredericton street, dusted with blustering snow, gave her something interesting to stare at. Really, she just didn’t want to meet Margot’s gaze. “Some days are better than others, but I’m making it work. Do you want some thing to drink?”
“No, I’m gonna grab tea from Timmies with Leya on the way out,” Margot said.
Delaney saw her shrug out of the corner of her eye.
“Sorry, I did say I couldn’t stay too long,” she added. “The flight’s at seven.”
“No worries.”
I need something to drink, though, Delaney thought. Preferably liquor because something in her gut said it was going to be a long night once Margot headed out to catch her evening flight to Toronto.
Margot said nothing as Delaney cut through the living room to make a beeline for the fridge at the far side of the apartment. She nestled what remained of her red wine from the night before and a clean glass in her arms to make her way back to the couch.
“I have missed you a lot,” Delaney said, focusing on pouring the wine and not spilling it over blue fabric that had never washed well.
“I missed you, too.”
Delaney glanced up over the glass on the coffee table. “But the expo, right?”
Margot laughed at that. “Yeah, the expo was what I really wanted to do.”
A year traveling Canada with a team that put on a beauty expo displaying the talents of artists from all over the country kept Margot moving constantly. From one city to the next. New faces and personalities greeted her at every show. She met amazing people, learned from the best in her field along the way, and made connections that would not have been possible, otherwise. It sucked that she didn’t make it home as often as her friends would like so they could catch up, but a life on the road seemed to suit Margot better.
Not even Delaney could ignore it, and nobody—not even her sorry ass—blamed Margot for running through the door that opened for her. The girlfriend Margot met along the way probably helped, too.
But Leya?
That girl was raised in a cement zoo—she wasn’t cut out for small town, or even rural life. The handful of times Margot did bring her girlfriend home, it was abundantly obvious that the high-energy blonde with her manic energy couldn’t stand remaining in one place for too long. Especially not a small place. Not to mention, Leya didn’t pretend to want to spend real, quality time with Margot’s family and friends.
Margot crossed her legs, always polite even in sweats and an oversized hoodie. “I really thought we’d get a few days together, but …”
She trailed off, leaving Delaney with the option to speak for them both.
How could she explain?
Or apologize?
She hadn’t even been able to do that to herself lately.
“I know, I flaked coming home,” Delaney muttered.
Or rather, she was willing to let her friends make plans to gather for a week in their valley town to catch up after the Christmas season, but Delaney didn’t follow through on any of it. Even her cousin went home to spend time with her sister—one of the only family members left who still spoke to the pair—but she remained three hours away in the city.
Safe in a crowd of faces that didn’t know hers.
Away from familiar streets.
Alone.
Part of her liked that—it made spiraling into a darkness of her own making easier when there weren’t other people around to see her do it. She didn’t have to explain the hollow spot in her chest where her heart used to be that had been eaten away by her ever-constant guilt. A monster she just couldn’t shake.
“Gracen says you haven’t been home in over a year,” Margot noted quietly.
“I’d rather not think about the time I did go home, actually,” Delaney muttered unhappily.
Margot offered her a sympathetic smile that wasn’t returned. Some shit she couldn’t even fake. “You know, they’ve finally got the wood shop up and running on the Flats, now?”
She did know that.
Gracen sent a lot of pictures. It seemed like her best friend had found a creative knack to focus every moment of her spare time when she wasn’t working in the salon Malachi had built onto the house for her.
“She was really hoping you were gonna get to the valley last week, Delaney, but I don’t think she was surprised when you didn’t show up, either. It still hurts, though. It’s disappointing.”
What isn’t when it comes to me?
Nothing came as a shock, now.
Not when it came to Delaney.
“Sometimes, Gracen talks too much,” Delaney replied.
She hoped it did the job to make her lack of interest in the direction of the conversation clear. It wasn’t Margot’s fault, really. Some things just couldn’t be helped.
Instead, Margot challenged her with, “Or is it that she worries about you just enough, Delaney? I mean, come on.”
The sharp comment hit Delaney right in the heart. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, somebody’s got to care about you. It sure as hell seems like you don’t anymore.”
Yeah.
Friends always knew.
*
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Delaney rushed to apologize the second she picked up the ringing cell phone. Almost too late—on the fourth ring, just before her voicemail picked up the call. “I’m sorry, Gracen, I swear I’m not ignoring you, okay?”
“You sure? Kind of seems like it.”
Delaney rolled her eyes as she turned the Jeep off in the parking stall of the large lot in front of the strip mall where she’d worked at a walk-in salon for almost two years. “Come on, I know I didn’t call you back, and you left a message last night, but—”
“I wanted to tell you that I wasn’t mad you didn’t come home to visit,” Gracen interjected before Delaney could get another word out. Not that her friend could hear the woosh of relief that rushed from Delaney’s chest at the news, but the weight was gone. Mostly. “Margot called from the airport last night and said you guys talked. She thought maybe she crossed a line, and I just want you to know it’s okay, Delaney. I get that you’re dealing with stuff you have to work through and that you’re not ready, yet. That’s okay.”
The very last thing Delaney needed to currently do was wipe away tears in the blustery parking lot of her place of employment, but so was her life lately. Mid-January was as harsh of a Canadian climate as one could get in New Brunswick, and with the freezing temps and shitty weather came Delaney’s equally terrible mood.
Seasonal depression could be a real bitch. Especially piled on top of an already struggling mental state. She needed to get herself figured out, and soon.
“Thanks,” Delaney mumbled against the heel of her wet palm.
“Yeah, of course,” Gracen returned on the other end of the call. “Whatever you need, you know that. Margot didn’t mention it because I asked her not to, but—”
“You guys need to stop talking about me when I’m not around to join the conversation,” Delaney interjected.
Gracen scoffed. “Stop it—nobody’s talking about you.”
“Well—”
“Malachi and I got engaged over Christmas. I wanted to share the news with you when you came home so it could be something special … not over the phone, or whatever.”
Like this.
Delaney cursed herself for being selfish. “I’m sorry. Is the ring beautiful?”
“Like I picked it myself. I’ll send you a picture?”
“Please,” Delaney mumbled, trying not to sound totally fucking pitiful. As if she needed more reminders that she had been a trash friend.
“I’ll send a couple,” Gracen assured, still not seeming bothered. “We want to get married in the late spring—here on the Flats.”
Delaney dragged in a shaky breath that she held inside her chest until the air burned in her lungs. Yet, she couldn’t stop herself from letting it all out to say, “I’m definitely going to have to come home for that, huh?”
“I do need a maid of honor.”
Yes, she did. It should be Delaney. Like they’d always planned from the time they were teenagers.
“I’m gonna be home for that,” Delaney said.
“Just … don’t make promises, okay? I understand that coming back here isn’t easy for you, but it’s harder to make sense of it when you say one thing and willingly do another.”
“I get it, Gracen.”
A sigh crackled over the phone before Gracen asked, “You’re just heading into work, right?”
Even from three hours away with only phone calls and texts throughout the week to keep their line of communication open, Gracen fit Delaney into her life in small ways. Like remembering her odd work schedule that wasn’t like the typical salon’s nine-to-five.
