by Hilary Dartt
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Thank you for reading
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER ONE
The moments where life seems perfect (or at least, perfectly mediocre) usually signify things are about to go awry. Maybe even Very Awry. Like an opalescent bubble, the illusion can burst in an instant.
Delaney Collins had just arrived at that realization. At thirty-four, just when her life should be taking shape, it had instead come to an abrupt halt.
“Fail-proof! It was supposed to be fail-proof!”
Delaney shook the last few drops of her Guinness into her mouth. She set the empty bottle down with more force than she meant to and flinched, although she figured no one else in Rowdy’s Saloon noticed. The laughter, the cheering and the twinkling colored lights directly contrasted and probably amplified Delaney’s sour mood, but they served as decent camouflage for her outburst.
“Nothing’s fail-proof,” said her best friends Summer Gray and Josie Garcia.
Summer shrugged one shoulder and added, “Except abstinence.”
“Which Summer has obviously not been practicing,” Josie said.
Summer elbowed Josie, amusement making her nose crinkle. “Funny. Four kids is a nice, even number.”
The girls, assembled at Rowdy’s for their weekly Happy Hour meeting, sat around their usual high-top table. Josie traced the rim of her glass with a fingertip and narrowed her eyes at Delaney. “Seriously, though. Nothing’s fail-proof. Especially when it comes to your dating life. Did you really think any dating system you created would be fail-proof?”
“Ouch. Please tell me this isn’t how you talk to your third graders,” Delaney said. “I need another beer.”
She looked around Rowdy’s for the server but he was busy passing out flaming shots to a group of sales sharks in loose ties. She put her head on the table and sighed. If her life was so obviously on the wrong track, why hadn’t Summer and Josie said something before?
“How could this have happened?”
She didn’t realize she’d spoken out loud until Josie answered. “We’ve known you for twenty years, Dee,” she said. She popped an ice cube into her mouth. “And I have to say, how could it not have happened? It’s no real surprise you’ve just been dumped by three–count ’em: uno, dos, tres–guys in two days.”
No surprise? What is that supposed to mean?
With growing embarrassment, Delaney resisted the urge to either bang her forehead on the table or hide under it and cry. She sat back up and looked first at Summer, then at Josie.
“Wait. Are you saying it’s me?” She didn’t wait for a response. “You are, aren’t you?”
Summer and Josie exchanged a look. Summer’s attention snapped to the ice cubes floating in her glass. Josie stared at Delaney without answering.
The answer rolled through Delaney’s awareness like lava.
Finally, Summer spoke. “Delaney Collins,” she said. “You know it’s you.”
“You’re the common denominator,” Josie said. She smiled in a way that was more knowing than friendly.
Delaney was half-joking when she asked, “What does that mean again, Mrs. Garcia?” but Josie’s answer stung.
“It means you’re the one thing all three of your boyfriends have in common,” Josie said.
“They’re not my boyfriends,” Delaney said.
“They’re just guys I’m dating,” Summer and Josie said in unison, their tone mocking.
Delaney flinched. She could hear herself saying these same words over and over during the past several months. Years, maybe.
“It’s semantics,” Josie said. “You know what I mean. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with you, exactly, it’s—”
“Can we talk about something else?” Delaney said. She hated the defensiveness in her own voice and tried to soften it. “Summer? Any good yoga classes lately? Josie? Have you been shoe shopping?”
“You’re not getting out of this conversation,” Summer said. “What Josie’s trying to say is that you always choose the wrong guys. To be honest, I’m not even sure I know what your system is. Was. Whatever. What is it?”
“It’s an informal system.”
“Are you talking to us or the table?” Josie asked.
“The table. You guys are bitches.”
The girls laughed, which broke the tension enough that Delaney responded.
“It’s a system that allows me to select between three and five men, each of whom fulfill a different need. I.E. a sex god, a philosopher and an adventure hound.”
Summer rolled her eyes and Delaney continued. “This system ensures I have a constant flow of social engagements and, more importantly, at least two backup men if something, you know, fails to work out with one of the men.”
Summer nodded. “So tell us what happened, exactly. How’d you end up single for the first time in years?”
“Hasn’t she always been single?” Josie said.
“Josie! Seriously!” Delaney felt herself spluttering.
Is it true? Delaney dug into her memory. Yes, she was always dating someone … but no, she was never truly with a man. A tiny voice piped up inside her head: Maybe you do have issues! She silenced it. Who were Summer and Josie to have such strong opinions on her dating life? They’d both been off the dating scene for years.
“Well, you have,” Josie said. “When is the last time you were in a committed relationship you actually cared about?”
“And speaking of that,” Summer said, “have you ever really thought about the future? I mean, do you plan to just keep dating several men at once, perpetually?”
Instead of answering, Delaney picked up her Guinness bottle again. Still empty. Her last real relationship had been a long time ago. At the time, she thought they were committed to each other and she thought of nothing other than their future. That turned out to be a complete waste of energy. Not to mention the heartache involved.
“Yep, your beer’s still empty,” Josie said. “Hey, you work here. Go get another one so we can finish this conversation. You can’t even remember your last actual relationship, can you?
”
“Josie,” Summer said in an exasperated voice Delaney had heard her use on her kids. “Of course she can remember. It was that guy, what was his name? The one who always wore his hat slightly off-kilter and didn’t tie his shoes. Tom? Travis? Tyler?”
“Oh yeah,” Josie said. “But does that even count? He totally cheated on her.”
“Of course it counts,” Summer said. “I mean, he put a ring on her finger, didn’t he?”
Yes. Matt (not Tom, Travis or Tyler) had cheated on Delaney. Heart in a scramble, mortified beyond belief, Delaney had vowed then that she’d never again put all her dating eggs into one faulty man basket. Even a man basket who somehow managed to swing a two-carat diamond ring. Because he bought one for his other fiancée, too, even while Delaney was selecting tiger lilies and oysters for their upcoming wedding. And he ended up marrying that Other Girl, while Delaney spent what should have been her own wedding day in mourning. Now, five years later, she still felt the sting. And while her friends meant well, their dismissal of her heartbreak as insignificant hurt her feelings.
“Which, may I remind you ladies,” she said, holding up her pointer finger, “is exactly why I created this fail-proof system.”
“Right,” Josie said, relentless. “But it failed. Why don’t you tell us about that?”
Delaney propped her chin on her hand, hoping the casual pose did something to conceal the depression that had started to sneak in. “Mark—”
“Steamy Mark Cortez?”
“Yes, Josie. Steamy Mark Cortez. He’s totally changed. Which I don’t want to talk about. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” her friends said.
“Changed, like, swore off sex? Or changed, like, morphed into The Beast or something?”
“Summer. He changed, like, he wants to get married.”
For the briefest of moments, Delaney’s best friends sat in stunned silence.
“Whoa, crickets,” Delaney said. “Did you not think anyone would ever want to marry me?”
“It’s not that.” Summer said. “You’re better than a strawberry shake.”
Delaney grinned, remembering the moment they’d come up with the little compliment. It happened in eighth grade, when Delaney gave her crush a note asking if he wanted to go out with her. A week passed, and Joe Jansen had yet to respond. Dejected, Delaney pouted all day Friday. To cheer her up, Summer suggested the three of them go out for milkshakes. While they sat around the table at the ice cream shop, Delaney wondered aloud what was wrong with her, and Summer responded, “Nothing’s wrong with you. You’re better than a strawberry shake.”
The three of them had used that phrase as a pick-me-up hundreds of times since.
“It’s not that,” Summer said again. “It’s just that we can’t believe you let him believe that was possible.”
What the hell is wrong with my friends? Delaney rolled her eyes and plowed on. “Zachary is philosophically superior. Which you probably already knew. He’s always spouting off about some stupid paper or another and–”
“—and Xander?” Summer said.
Delaney put her forehead down on the table. “Sexually unsatisfied. And I need to be more honest with myself.”
“Are you kidding?” Josie threw her hands up in mock exasperation, but her eyes twinkled with mischief and something else. “Dios mío! He said you need to be honest with yourself?!”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not,” Delaney said, pouting into her empty bottle.
Joe Jansen had finally answered her note, telling their entire pre-algebra class she was a dumb dumb dork for writing it in the first place. He’d written NO WAY in response to her, Would you like to go to the movies with me? and waved the note around for the whole class to see.
More than ready to think about something else, Delaney pointed to a black and white photo on the wall. In it, a cowboy, arm stretched above his head, rode a bull whose feet hung high above the ground in a twisting jump.
“That’s Mark,” she said. Then, pointing to a placid donkey standing in the background, she said, “That’s Xander. It’s no wonder we broke up.”
She looked up just in time to see Josie nod at Summer, who nodded back and took a deep breath.
“Delaney,” she said. “We have a … proposal for you to consider.”
***
“Well, it’s not up for consideration, exactly,” Josie said. “It’s more like a requirement for your love life.”
“You’ve talked about this!” Delaney said. “You guys have been discussing my love life!”
“Of course we have,” Summer said, placing a hand over Delaney’s on the table.
“And not just your love life,” Josie said. “Your whole life.”
Summer added, “We’ve been discussing each other’s lives, love or otherwise, since we were what? Fourteen?”
“That’s true,” Josie said. “Remember when you guys made me that little quiz to help me decide whether I should kiss Elijah Parker behind our seventh grade homeroom?”
“Minus one point for the pimple on his nose. Add one for his cute smile,” Josie said.
“He sealed the deal when he offered to carry your lunch to the cafeteria,” Summer said.
“Three points,” Delaney said. “Pushed him right into the ‘definitely should kiss him’ category.”
“Ah, those were the days,” Josie said.
“Anyway, Delaney,” Summer said, anxious to return to the subject at hand, “your love life is like our love life.”
Delaney looked at Summer and raised her eyebrows. Both Summer and Josie were married and Summer had a handful of kids. More than a handful. Their love lives were as much like Delaney’s as a Fairmont is like a Motel 6.
“Well, okay,” Summer said. “It’s not. Not exactly. But that’s what we want to talk about.”
Josie cleared her throat. “We want to try an experiment.”
“An experiment?” Delaney repeated.
“Yes,” Summer said, drawing out the word.
Josie inhaled deeply.
“Um, okay,” Delaney said. Was she actually feeling nervous? After the conversation they’d just had, it was no surprise. “What is it?”
“For the next six weeks,” Josie said, her dark eyes boring into Delaney’s, “you relinquish control of your dating life. Summer and I make all the decisions. You make none.”
“Wait. What? I make none of the decisions?”
“Well, you can decide what to eat for breakfast.”
CHAPTER TWO
It happened on Tuesday. The morning after Mark Monday. Delaney marched down the freshly salted sidewalk, relief and disappointment wielding swords at each other in her mind as angry tears blurred what should have been a picturesque snow-covered downtown Juniper.
Not twelve minutes earlier, she’d been cocooned in satin sheets and post-coital steam in Mark Cortez’s apartment.
“Oh, Delaney,” Mark said.
His caramel skin still warm from sex, he stretched his lithe, supple body alongside Delaney’s and ran a hand up her side to her shoulder. They’d woken up to the bright silence of snow. It was undoubtedly the last storm of the season, and through the window, the world sparkled.
The perfect setting for romance. Or, at least, great sex.
It was the sort of morning Delaney loved, the kind where she could lounge around for several hours before allowing responsibilities of the unpleasant kind to sneak in. In fact, eleven a.m. had just ticked by, which meant Mark still had time to make coffee and bring it to her in bed before showering. They’d just sneaked in one more round of luxurious lovemaking. Her two favorite things: coffee and sex with Mark. Beyond blissful, she thought.
“Hmmm,” Delaney responded, her eyes closed.
“You’re delicious.”
She chuckled.
“Look at me,” he said.
She turned over, forced her eyes open and was surprised by the intensity of his expression.
“Wow. You’ve neve
r looked so serious in the whole seven months we’ve been together,” she murmured, although the warm and fuzzy sleepiness was quickly replaced by something she vaguely recognized as alarm.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “Well, this is a serious topic. And for serious topics, I need a serious face.”
Alarm gave way to panic, which set in with a swiftness that reminded Delaney of an avalanche—massive chunks of snow thundering down a mountainside. Her heart pumped adrenaline-spiked blood through her body. Her fingers tingled. She braced herself for disaster.
“Oh?” she managed. “Coffee? We haven’t even had coffee, yet.”
“I need to ask you something,” he said.
Her eyes flickered down to his bare chest, his muscular stomach.
He can’t do this. We agreed it wasn’t going to be serious. Is he really about to do this? She wondered if he had a ring stashed somewhere. She hadn’t felt it on the bed any time during the past nine hours, since she arrived breathless with anticipation just after two a.m., having received Mark’s mouthwatering text.
I am waiting for you.
At the time, the message shot a surge of heat right down to her center. Her carnal side looked forward to Monday nights more than any other night of the week. She almost always stopped by Mark’s house on her way home from work for a steamy session (or two) of healthy ravishing.
But this? Had he planned to pop the question all along? If she’d known, she probably would have skipped last night. She had to get out. Delaney scrambled to her hands and knees, looking for her underwear.
“It’s on the blue chair,” Mark said, pointing to the side chair, which sat at least fifteen feet away in the living area of his studio apartment. Ah. There it was. She shivered, remembering what he’d done last night as he peeled it off and flung it aside.
“Just settle. I want to ask you something.”
She put her hands over her face.
“Hear me out, Delaney,” he said. “Sit still.”
“Fine.” She sat down on her knees. “What is it?”
“Don’t you think it’s time we both moved on?”
The sound of a record screeching to a halt.
Moved on? Does he mean move on together or apart?