3. Delilah

Chapter 3

Delilah

" I can't even believe you went and tried to teach yourself how to swim today… God, anything could have happened to you." My younger sister, Aurelia sighs, pauses, and then starts up again, spitting crumbs all over my sofa as she shoves another cookie in her mouth."Run me through what happened again."

Bypassing the embarrassing details, well, I think all of its embarrassing, but still, I repeat the part Aurelia wants to hear most.

"He handed me a piece of paper and said, ‘if you'd like to learn how to swim in a safer environment with a proper instructor'."

"Do you think he means him?" Aurelia questions, squinting her eyes at me.

I smooth out the flesh around her eyes with my thumb, once an older sister, always an older sister, and then sigh. "I-I don't know."

"Well, what does it say on this pamphlet thingy?"

I shrug, staring straight ahead at the latest weather forecast playing across the TV so I can't be scrutinised any further by my own sister. We're in for a week of sun, sun, rain and then some more sun apparently.

Aurelia prods the top of my arm with her scarily sharp fingernail. "Go get it!"

"I'm supposed to be resting, remember? I'm the one who might have a concussion!"

"Concussion my arse… go and get it!"

Grumbling under my breath, I heave myself off the sofa, snatch the piece of paper from out of the mesh pocket of my gym bag, and place it into her waiting hand.

She licks the majority of the melted chocolate chips from the cookie off her fingers before unfolding the leaflet, but still, I wince ever so slightly to see two smudges beneath her thumb and forefinger.

I leave her to it as she skims the page, busying myself by tidying the almost spotless kitchen. I haven't been in the apartment much this week, what with the launch of a new book title from one of bestselling authors we work with at the publishing firm. It's kept me out of the apartment, up to my eyeballs in document sheets, ink, and a swanky cocktail party to celebrate. But still, I find something to do in the kitchen. I have to. It's the only way to keep my mind from spiralling about today's events and from glancing into my open plan living room in an attempt to try and telepathically gauge Aurelia's thoughts.

"Delilah?" she calls after a minute or two, and when I don't answer straight away, "Delilah?!"

This time there's something audibly… off in her tone.

"Yeah?"

A loud pattering of bare feet on my linoleum floor is the only warning I get before my sister is throwing herself onto my back, wrapping her legs around my waist like a spider monkey and audibly crushing the pamphlet in her grasp. She shoves it so far into my face the words become blurry, and I swear I can taste the ink on my tongue.

"He wrote his number! The-the lifeguard! What's his name again?!"

"Grey," I mutter on autopilot. "What—"

Aurelia squeals right in my ear. "He wrote his fucking number!"

She moves the pamphlet back enough for me to actually read it, and there, beneath the professional, impersonal typed out words, is a messy scrawl of eleven numbers and his name.

As if I could forget it.

"It'll just be… it'll just be so I can ring to book for the swimming lessons," I hear myself say out loud, even though my mind is setting off at a million miles an hour.

"Yeah, but it's his mobile number!" Small hands grip my shoulder tightly, shaking me. "You have to ring it. You have to, you have to, you have to!"

"I-I'm not sure, Aura."

She widens her eyes. "Won't you even think about it?"

My answer catches in the back of my throat. I glance down at Grey's number again.

What the fuck was he thinking when he scribbled his number down?

"Maybe, but—"

"But, what?" Aura questions. "He obviously—"

"You know I don't do things spontaneously, Aura," I sigh. "I-I need time to think."

She scoffs. "Think about what ?"

I don't reply because the truth is I need to think about everything, down to every little detail. If not I'm sure to go in unprepared and that's the worst thing I could possibly be. Why on earth would Grey do such a thing? What is his motive?

"Is he attractive?" Aura asks suddenly, breaking my slew of thoughts.

I purposefully press my lips together to stop my answer from escaping.

"Delilah—"

"I said I'll think on it, Aura. Just leave it." I turn and set the kettle to boil, ending our conversation. The sound of the water begins to heat up, drowning out my racing thoughts.

I can feel Aura's eyes on me, but I keep my back to her, filling two mugs with sugar, a teabag each and then the water once it's boiled over. When I hand it to her, Aura takes her mug from me without another word, and heads back into the living room, leaving the pamphlet, face up, to sit on my kitchen counter temptingly.

I peel open my eyes the next morning, the sound of an unfamiliar alarm tone vibrating through my brain.

One by one I register the feel of an arm slung over my waist, a foot pressed up against my bare shin, the shampoo smell of the hair splayed over my pillow, before I turn to see the gaping mouth of my adorable sister as she starfishes over all of my king-sized bed, lips parted to catch the flies as our mum would say.

The annoying, unfamiliar ringtone catches my attention again.

"Aurelia?" I whisper, poking her shoulder in an attempt to wake her. "Aurelia?" Nothing. "Aurelia!"

"I'm up!" she slurs, sitting bolt upright in my bed, pulling the covers off me even further.

"Can you hear that noise?"

"Work alarm." She offers me no other explanation before practically sliding out of bed, dragging herself across my plush carpeted floor and over to the vanity where she'd dumped her handbag last night.

"Time is it?" I ask, tongue thick, head fuzzy. I need another few hours or a giant flat white coffee in a vat with extra, extra, extra caramel sauce drizzled upon the foam.

"Eight oh two," she answers huskily, stopping the god awful alarm noise in its tracks, only to bring the phone up to her ear.

"Hi," Aurelia's entire voice changes – telephone voice activated. I have to stifle my laugh with the bedcover. Her perfectly clipped voice isn't matching the sight of her still in my pyjamas, the ones she's stolen for her own, with one pant leg halfway up her leg, drool dried on the side of her mouth, hair coming loose from her bedraggled plait. "Can I speak to Michelle please?"

"What are you doing?" I mouth, ignoring the silent swat of her hand telling me to shut up.

"Hi, Michelle, I'm really sorry but I don't think I can come in today… yes, I know it's a Saturday… my sister bumped her head yesterday and she's got a suspected concussion. I'm the only one who can… No, she doesn't have a boyfriend to look after her—"

Ouch.

"I am really sorry it's short notice… Yeah, I'll be able to cover her shift to make up for it, no problem. Okay, thanks Michelle, thank you."

"What was that all about?" I question as soon as Aurelia hangs up, shimmying back into the warmth of my bed and forcing me to lie back down too with a loop of forearm around my neck.

"Got us a Saturday off," Aurelia mumbles in my hair.

"But—"

"Shhh… close your eyes."

"But—"

"Shhh."

"But I don't even think I have a concussion so—"

"I'll give you one myself if you don't close your eyes and let me sleep for another hour."

Ah. Sisterly love.

" I still think you shouldn't have cancelled work, Aura. I'm perfectly fine."

From across the table of our favourite cafe on Kings Road, my sister gives me a deadpan stare. "I work in a retail job selling lingerie. It's really not that big a deal."

I take a sip of my perfectly blended mimosa. "It will be if they fire you."

Aurelia scoffs. "I'm the best saleswoman they've got. They're not going to be firing me any time soon."

Pinching at the dainty gold hoop adorning my earlobe, I gaze out at the other cafe customers. Pretty much every seat is taken, not a surprise seeing as it's a sunny Saturday in the heart of London. Men in suits congregate together, expensive laptops out, cups of steaming coffee placed precariously beside the keyboard. Groups of girls and women sit together too, a collection of cocktails already growing, a myriad of different sized shopping bags, each extravagantly stamped with a brand name, sitting at their heeled feet.

A group of friends sitting in the corner, their drinks untouched, even seemed to be filming for some sort of TV show, what with the boom mic hanging over them recording their every conversation.

"What should we do with the rest of our day then? Seeing as how I'm not actually concussed, no thanks to your threats, we—"

"That's debatable."

"What?"

"I said ‘that's debatable'." Aurelia repeats, picking up her own bloody Mary cocktail. "You've actively not mentioned it all day… but I can't stop thinking about it. If you're not jumping at the first chance to ring your sexy lifeguard, after he wrote his number down and everything… well then, I think there might be something wrong with your brain after all, Delilah."

"I should have known you weren't going to let this lie." I can't help but scoff. "How did this conversation—"

"Are you, or are you not, going to ring him?"

Fucking hell.

I toss back the rest of my mimosa, feeling my left eye twitch at the hit of pure champagne sitting in the bottom of the flute.

"I've decided I'm not going to ring him, Aura, it was a mistake, I don't even need to learn how to swim because—"

"You don't have to ring him to ask him to teach you how to swim! You could ring him up and ask for—"

"Please don't finish that sentence."

To my surprise, Aurelia falls silent, the loud chattering of the cafe falling back into place behind us.

"Look," I attempt to compromise. "I'll have another think about it, okay? But until then, let's have a nice day out. I saw a new independent jewellery store open up on the corner, we could have a mooch round? See if anything sparkly catches our eyes?"

Aurelia bobs her head in silent agreement.

"Finish the rest of your cocktail while I pop to the loo and we'll get going, alright?"

When I get back to the table, bladder emptied, hands freshly washed and moisturised thanks to the complimentary lotion provided in the bathroom, it's simply the look on my sister's face which tells me something's up.

She's fucking done something. I can sense it.

"Aurelia—"

Crunch.

Aurelia bites down on the stick of celery, which was once protruding from her bloody Mary cocktail, chewing obnoxiously, while pushing my mobile phone across the table with the tips of her fingers.

"What have you—"

On cue, my phone vibrates with an incoming notification.

Grey: I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, Delilah x

Shock fizzes thickly through my veins with a shot of anger.

"What the fuck , Aurelia?" I spit out, practically frothing. I can feel it, all of it, everything. A knot of sheer fear lands in the pit of my stomach. My palms are suddenly wet with sweat, fingertips tingling uncomfortably, and my brain and my heart have decided they're in a competition with one another to see which can race the fastest, until I'm spiralling out of control.

I'm out of control. I'm so out of control.

I can see Aurelia's lips moving, but I can't register anything beyond that. Blood rushes through my ears as if I'm stuck underwater. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. Heat pools in my cheeks, leaving them rosy red and hot to the touch.

My sister wraps her fingers around my wrist. "Delilah, listen. Take a deep breath and listen to me. Please."

I inhale raggedly. God, I'm lightheaded.

"If you're really that terrified, you don't have to show up, okay?" she says, eyes wide and imploring. "But I – and please don't be upset with me when I say this – but I think this could be good for you, Delilah. Sometimes I think… you're too in your comfort zone, and I get it, you like it there. It's familiar. But what happens if this is a chance to see what happens when you step out of that comfort zone for a little bit?"

"Why do you want me to go so bad?" I murmur.

"Because… I'm seeing this as a chance to learn something new. You love learning new things! To try something new, not to prove a point, but to empower yourself, Delilah. You've got the opportunity, why not take it? It's something away from working all the time, someplace you don't have to be in competition with yourself twenty-four seven. I want you to be happy, I want you to do something for yourself, nobody else. Live a little and see what happens!"

"And if I hate it, Aura? What then? If I don't feel in control, because—"

"You are in control." Aura squeezes my hand tightly. "If you hate it, you can walk straight out and never go back!"

My heart is still racing, mouth dry, but I don't feel quite so sick, and the babbling of the cafe is returning behind me.

Aurelia searches my face. "You okay?"

"I will be. What did you–what did you text him in the first place?"

"I kinda, might have, pretended to be you," Aurelia says sheepishly, screwing her face up apologetically. "Will it make the situation any better if I tell you he replied straight away? As if he was waiting for you—"

"He wasn't waiting for me."

"Okay, he wasn't waiting for you." Aura's eyes roll good naturedly. "But he did reply quickly."

"And?" I can't believe I'm even daring to ask, to even entertain the bloody thought.

"And…" Aurelia nibbles at her watery vegetable stick some more. "He's expecting you to show up on Wednesday."

"Just like that?"

She nods. "Just like that. It's all on you now to decide whether or not to show up, Delilah."