Chapter 15

Jack couldn"t keephis eyes from dropping to the bit of fabric strung between Delia"s hands. Black. Lace. Delia dropped it onto the bed where Jack saw there were more of them. He forced his face to stay neutral, pretending it was completely normal to see women"s lingerie, and opened his mouth to say something like, "Do you need help unpacking?" Instead, he said, "That"s nice."

Delia"s lips parted, and her skin grew splotchy, which he knew she hated. He, on the other hand, quite enjoyed seeing her reactions in real-time. A little too much.

Heat flushed to his middle when he realized the main floor was quiet. The guys had gone home, and he shouldn"t have stayed. He shouldn"t have invited her to his hotel in Toronto, and he definitely should"ve taken Tyler up on the offer to drive him over instead of driving separately.

Staring at Delia again after the week of separation, he knew exactly why he"d done both things. An ache grew low in his belly. He'd missed her. He liked spending time with her. He liked looking at Delia, and he liked talking with Delia.

He didn"t like that he liked any of it, but he couldn"t get himself to stop.

"Thanks." Delia shoved the pile back on the quilt and sat down in front of it. She crossed, then uncrossed her legs. Then crossed them again. "Thanks for bringing in the cavalry to get us moved in. That was quite the welcome."

Jack ran his thumb over a nick in the door frame. "I couldn"t keep them away." He talked himself down. They had a meeting scheduled, that was why he"d driven separately. They needed to talk logistics. Which he could"ve done by waiting down in the living room, but instead he"d listened when that little string tugged on his chest and led him up the stairs.

Delia tried to cover the pile of bras that were already seared to his retinas. "I can"t believe Mary and Tony reached out to you about a location. That was brilliant."

Jack stared hard at the lamp on her dresser. "I was glad they did. This is way better than some of the other options in this part of town."

"Are we close to where you play?"

He nodded. "And close to the studio you"re going to be working at. I think. Mary told me it was kind of a triangle between the Saddledome and here."

Delia"s eyes narrowed. "How often do you talk to Mary?"

The question caught him off guard. "Not often. Probably once a week or so? Is that—sorry, should I not be?"

She laughed. "No, it"s fine, I was just surprised. Mary didn"t tell me about your clandestine communication."

"I can tell you when she reaches out in the future."

"No, please. I"m not your babysitter."

Jack shifted on his feet. "I"m sorry you had to disrupt your life to come out here. I tried to figure out how I could make more trips work, but?—"

Delia waved him off. "It makes a lot more sense for me to be here. I can work at any studio."

"But Finn"s not here." It was bait, and he knew it.

"Finn can work on digital files. I finished all my recording with him. Now it"s just mastering."

It sounded all-business, and the buzzing in his head settled a bit. "Did he work on your other albums with you?" Delia nodded. They had a long history. Jack simply didn't like the dude. He was too smiley. His hair was a little too perfect. And who wore V-necks?

"You don"t like him, do you?"

Jack coughed. "What? No. I don"t have enough experience with him to like or not like him." He answered too fast, and Delia raised an eyebrow.

Jack turned back to the hall and picked up her backpack and guitar case. "I brought these up if . . ."

"Oh, thank you. You can set them wherever." Delia searched for something on her phone as Jack set them down next to the suitcases. He backed up and looked awkwardly around the room. "Here. You can—" She shifted to the side, making room for him on the bed. Jack"s heart hockey stopped.

It was a place to sit, and he was an idiot. Losing his ever-loving shit over a black lace bra or sitting next to a girl on a floral quilt like he was in grade nine trying to tone down his voice cracks. They were grown-ass adults. He was a grown-ass adult.

Jack sat, and the bed creaked. "You hear from Tony?"

Delia shook her head. The movement sent a breath of air that held a hint of cinnamon his direction. It reminded him of his piano teacher's mints, and Jack's jaw tightened.

"I just sent him a text. I'm sure we can meet over Zoom or Google Meet or something if you have to get going."

"No," Jack grunted. He scrubbed his hands on his thighs. "I don't have practice until later tonight."

"What about your day job?"

Jack could've answered that he'd stayed up until past one in the morning to get all of his proposals submitted and emails responded to so he could be at the bed and breakfast when she arrived. He hadn't worked into the night on purpose, he simply hadn't been able to wind down. That was becoming more common as of late.

Understandable, though. When Ange died, his therapist reiterated how brains tried to deal with change. After something traumatic, his human lizard-instincts screamed warning messages to every cell in his body. We aren't safe. Landing a spot in the NHL, having people recognize him in the street, and sitting next to a national superstar who had a pile of dangerously sexy bras behind her sent his subconscious into an equally confusing frenzy. Add in the guilt that dragged him down like an anchor every time he thought about Delia and not Ange, and his body was a chemical soup eating him from the inside out. Strange that he couldn't relax and get some shut-eye.

Jack looked up to find Delia watching him, a half smile on her lips. He froze. "What?"

She shrugged. "Nothing, I've just never seen it happen to someone else like that."

His brow furrowed. "You've never seen what happen?"

She twirled her finger in the air and whistled. "You spiralled."

"No, I didn't."

Delia stood, her eyes locking onto him in challenge. "How long do you think it's been since I asked about your day job?"

Jack blinked. He'd forgotten entirely about the question. "A few seconds."

Her smile widened until creases formed at the corners of her eyes. "Yeah. It feels like that." She opened the top drawer of the dresser, then began folding the tiny, delicate articles of clothing on top of the quilt and dropping them in.

Jack didn't even pretend not to watch that time. Grown. Ass. Adult.

"Has it been a while?" Delia's eyes flicked to his.

Jack's blood felt like it was pumping through a crazy straw. "Hmm?"

"Since you've played hooky?"

Jack licked his lips. His day job. Right. "Yeah. No." He ran a hand through his hair and turned so she couldn't see the shape of his jeans rapidly changing. "My schedule's been strange since I started with the Blizzard. My boss is a good guy. He's fine with me holding irregular hours as long as I get the work done."

"Which company do you work for again?"

"Big Rick."

She paused, her hands halfway to the drawer. "Did you tell me that before? I don't think you did because I would've remembered that. I always wanted a Big Rick coat when I was a kid."

"Did you get one?"

She shook her head. "Well, that's not totally true. One time, this guy in high school—he was two years older than me, only by grade, we were really a year and a half apart but his birthday was in the summer and mine was in the fall, so it wasn't that weird that he was into me. Not weird because of age, but totally weird because he was on the curling team and everyone knows they only date incestuously. Did you know people on the curling team?"

Jack shook his head, trying to keep up.

"They're basically the same as jazz band kids, though they at least open up their dating pool to ROTC and theatre kids. But this guy, Antoine, heard me talking about how I wanted a Big Rick coat and said he would sell me his because his dad was buying him a new one for Christmas, and he liked the idea of seeing me in his coat every day at school."

"Okay. Creepy."

"No—yes, totally creepy in hindsight—but at the time, it was completely hot because he was a year and a half older than me, and when I tried on the coat, it smelled like Axe body spray and was way too big for me."

"That's a good thing?"

She paused with a pair of white satin panties in her hand. "Yeah. It made me feel tiny."

He swallowed. "You didn't buy it, did you?"

"I definitely bought it. It made me feel petite and wanted. Which, it turned out, were the exact two things I was struggling with in grade nine."

"Feeling small?"

"No, wanting to feel small. I took up too much space."

Jack frowned. "But you are small."

She laughed and dropped another three pairs of underwear in the drawer. He knew there were three because he was watching the colours and counting. "I'm small compared to you, but I'm not small compared to other women."

"Why does that matter?"

"It matters."

"I would hate feeling small."

"Well, la-dee-da mister beat the shit out of them."

Jack laughed. "That might be the worst story I've ever heard." Lies. It was the best story he'd ever heard. He felt like he'd jumped on a merry-go-round and was still clinging to the bars because it wasn't slowing down.

She sighed. "I know. I ramble when I tell stories. That's why I stick to poetry."

Jack regretted his statement. He wanted all the rambling.

"I was kidding, by the way." Delia arranged something in the drawer.

"About which part?"

"You're not one of those asshole hockey players I knew growing up." She glanced down and realized the clothes were all gone from the bed, then leaned over and picked up another pile from her suitcase. Socks this time. Jack didn't try to hide his disappointment. "I guess I don't know for sure, for sure, but you've always been nice when I'm around."

"Guys are usually nice when women are around."

"That. Is false." She dropped the socks into the right side of the drawer. "I was once on a date with a guy who called our waitress a ‘paper bagger.'"

Jack's eyes widened. "People still say that?"

"Apparently. Yes." She put her hands on her hips and scanned the half-empty suitcase, then stepped over it to slide open the closet doors. "Perfect." She grabbed a handful of hangers from the bar.

"Here, let me help." Jack reached out and she handed him a few, then stacked a few blouses on the bed next to him.

"See? You're nice."

"I'm bored."

"Right." Delia hesitated, and Jack grabbed a shirt.

"You better not be thinking about how your room isn't clean or whether you should find a way to entertain me."

Delia's eyes shot to his. "I wasn't."

Jack grinned and slipped the sleeves of a pale-blue blouse onto the hangers, allowing his thumb and forefinger to linger on the fabric. "Why are women's clothes always softer than men's?"

"I don't think they are."

"Feel this." Jack held out his arm and Delia slipped her fingers on either side of the sleeve of his shirt without hesitation. Bad idea. Her thumb grazed his arm, right over his owl feathers. His skin tingled like he'd licked his finger and jammed it in a live outlet.

Delia pulled back with a jerk. "It's soft."

"But compared to this?" His voice was unsteady as he held out her now-hanging blouse.

She assessed, careful to avoid his outstretched hand. "I think those are in two totally different genres."

"Genres?"

"Yeah. Like categories." She turned back to her pile.

"You think of everything in musical terms?"

Delia nodded and took the shirt, then leaned over to hang it in the closet. "I think you could find soft men's clothing if you looked for it."

"If I paid more than twenty bucks for a T-shirt."

She smiled. "You're in the NHL now. Don't you need game day fits or whatever?"

He chuckled. "That's not a thing."

"I think it's a thing. Ooh!" She lit up. "Maybe that could be something we do together? I could take you shopping?"

Jack slipped a button-up shirt onto a hanger. "I'd rather go curling."

Delia shot him a look. "But then you'd have to sleep with other curlers."

"You said there were options. Plus, if I would've known that was all I had to do to get laid, I would've bought a push broom years ago."

Delia put a hand on her hip. "You keep saying BS like that, and it's completely unbelievable, you know that, right?"

"How so?"

She grabbed more hangers and traded them for the full ones he had in his hands. "There is no way in hell you couldn't walk out that door and bring home any girl you happened to run into out there. I see the way women look at you."

"Oh yeah?"

"Stop answering with questions, Jack Harrison." She drew out his name, and it sent a shiver down his spine. "It's like you're playing this part. Like you should be this cocky athlete, but you can't quite bring yourself to do that, so you pretend you're just unlucky in love, but that doesn't work either." Delia slowed her hands and lifted her chin. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that to sound?—"

"No, it's fine." His brows knitted together as he put the last shirt on the hanger. "It's probably true." It was true. Exactly true. Something swirled inside him, and he felt unsteady on his feet.

She took the hanger from him and smoothed out the collar of the cream shirt that zipped up the back. It looked like it would drape over her hips and cut low down her chest. Maybe he did like V-necks after all.

"It's her, isn't it?" Delia didn't meet his eyes.

The air sucked out of the room. Jack's hand started to shake. Not because he was upset by her question. He wasn't. He couldn't think of the word for what he was until the lyrics from Delia's song ran through his head like he'd flicked on the faucet. She'd sung them in French, but he'd looked them up multiple times in English since. He'd listened to her sing it on TikTok, along with all the other songs she'd posted there before IndieLake.

With relief and regret. Nobody ever talked about Angie with him besides Clara. She was the only one who was willing to bring her up, and even though his ribs cinched, it was a relief. To have someone else validate that she was real—that his pain was real. The regret came second. Without exception.

Now this girl he barely knew, who he'd told once about what happened, had just read him like a damn book. Twice. And had the balls to call the shot.

Jack struggled to draw in a breath. "What happened to the coat?"

Delia looked at him, assessing. "Big Rick? I wore it every day until I heard some guys joking that I was Antoine's property. Then I gave it away in a coat drive."

Jack's heart beat like a kick drum. "You never bought a new one?"

She shook her head, then set her jaw. "Have you slept with anyone since Angie died?"

Jack shook his head. He didn't even try to sugar coat it. Three years. "It's been a long time since I played hooky." He hadn't told anyone that. Not his teammates. Definitely not Clara.

Delia didn't blink. She didn't look away, and the intensity of her focus made him feel like a moth with its wings pinned to a corkboard. That invisible string tugged with such force, Jack nearly leaped up from the bed and reached for her.

Instead, it was Delia who jumped when her phone ringer punctured the silence. She nearly tripped over her suitcase, and Jack reached out a hand to keep her from falling into his lap. As she righted herself, her hand left a trail of heat across his forearm.

"Hey! Tony!" Delia's tone was too bright, and she was out of breath even though she'd been standing perfectly still in front of him. "Mmhmm, we're both here. A link? I haven't checked my email, but I'm sure it's there."

The skin on her neck had turned two different colours. Jack had zero memory of anything she said to Tony after he noticed that.