Blind Love (Sulfur Heights Series) (20 page)

“Oh
, my word! Delilah, you look like an actual pinup girl. Look!” She shoves the phone in my face and I see she is right. I barely recognize myself. I look so confident and sexy, something I’ve never felt in my skin. “Emerson is going to shit a brick when he sees this. You’ll definitely win him back with this picture.” I smile in return, knowing it’s not Emerson who will see this picture.

I start a new
email message to Jake just as the auction is about to begin.

Then I attach the photo and hit send. My nerves skyrocket. I haven’t felt this nervous since I drove in the drag race earlier this summer.
Jake is going to die, and I wish I could see his face when he opens the picture. It will be classic, I’m sure.

Jake

I’ve been in a
pissy mood since Delilah left. All of my excitement over spending the summer with her again and thinking of all the things we could do—including going back to the lake—has been for nothing. Selfishly, I wish she would have stayed with us, but I know she’s where she needs to be.

All I do lately is drink and randomly hook up, but
even that doesn’t do it for me anymore. I just do it because there’s nothing better to do with my time.

Jeremy and I have yet to finish the conversation we started in the bar the night Presley overdosed. He’s still absent from our lives, only coming around when he knows I can
’t confront him. It’s frustrating that he’s pushing me away from his life. I love my brother. From the time we’ve been able to walk, we’ve always been together and the separation is almost killing me.

Drake’s been pretty high strung since Presley left. He moved back in
to the house a couple of weeks ago and I don’t blame him. He’s had nothing but horrible memories since living there. He and Mia need a fresh start, a happy home. Moving all their shit out has been a bitch, but we’ve managed to get it all, and what didn’t fit in the house, Drake has put out on the curb with a sign stating
Free
. He wants nothing to do with the past and that apartment, the furniture included. It only took a couple of hours before the hoarders of Sulfur Heights took the opportunity to snatch it up.

Between Reggie, Dar
cie, and myself we all take turns watching Mia when she’s not at Mrs. Fields.

Drake busts his ass to pay for Presley’s rehab and all of Mia’s needs. If he has to maintain two jobs to keep himself a float
, he’ll do it. I’ve tried to get him into the hustle game, showing him the fast cash he could make, but he wants nothing of it. He only wants to make a living the honest way, not taking advantage of idiots the way Jeremy and I do. He’s such a little Reggie sometimes, but he seems to forget Reggie is who taught Jeremy and I. He was and still is the ultimate hustler.

My Friday night
starts off pretty crappy as I make my way to
The Slab
. I’m still pissed over my brother, but more so because Delilah has left and my entire world is being flipped upside down since she’s stormed into my life. I don’t go a single hour of every day without thinking about her. She’s on my mind constantly and it’s annoying. I’m Jake freaking Evans. I have girls dreaming of me, not the other way around.

I’m reading the closed captioning on the flat screen
, trying to see if my team has won, when my phone vibrates in my pocket, letting me know I’ve received a new email. I swipe my finger across the screen and see the message is from Delilah. Ugh! I’m not sure I want to read this right now. I’m trying to get her out of my brain, but it’s no use. When it comes to that woman, I buckle every single time. She’s got this invisible hold over me and I’m recognizing I’ll do anything for her. Scary.

I start reading he
r email and smile.

Hi
Jakey!

Ugh,
I’m doing the charity grind for my mother. First, they auction off the prizes, then us women. The things I put up with from this woman. Anyway, I’m sitting at my assigned table, listening to a James Dean look-alike starting the events, and I can’t help but think of you. The benefit has you written all over it. Right down to my outfit and the 1957 Chevy Bel Air.

See you in a couple of weeks,

D

Ooohh
, she’s got my interest now. The 1957 Chevy Bel Air is a car I’ve dreamt of having some day. It’s sleek, fast and tattooed on my arm. Then I notice her words right before the Bel Air distracted me. Outfit… interesting? I click on the attachment and wait for my phone to pull up the image.

When I look at the image on the screen
, I nearly fall out of my seat. I could have died right then and there. And, man, it would’ve been a great way to go. Delilah, the sexiest woman I’ve ever met, is dressed as a 1950’s pinup girl. She wears the innocence of Betty Grable and oozes sex like Marilyn Monroe with a modern day edge—I am speechless.

I look over my shoulder, not wanting to share her photo with anyone and then move to the backroom to study every curve of her body. Her hourglass figure
is dressed in a tight, red corset, black underwear-looking shorts, and a garter belt with fish-net stockings. She has dangerously high red heels on and the look on her face—yeah, it nearly kills me. Behind her is the Bel Air, the perfect accessory for such a hot fucking babe.

I dial her phone. I need to talk to her
… now! She has to know what she’s done to me. What she’s doing to me. I don’t know what I’m going to say when she answers, but I have to hear her voice.

When t
he phone rings two more times and sends me to voicemail, I decide this time to leave a message. “Holy. Shit, D! You can’t send me a picture like that and not answer your phone. Fuck, if we weren’t best friends before, we sure as hell are now! Call me as soon as you get this message.”

I leave the bar as the craziest idea to date comes to my mind. I pick up my phone again, but this time it’s to make an appointment that’s long overdue.

Delilah

The benefit is moving at a snail’s pace as they walk through each and every item donated. I find myself hoping my dad will buy the car, but he doesn’t even look at it twice and it ends up going to an older gentleman who’s made his money in oil before retiring to Memphis years ago.

I’m picking at my fingernails, trying to suppress a yawn
, when the potential dates are ushered onto the stage for the last part of the auction. We are herded like cattle as the twelve girls
—
oddly, half of them are dressed like me
—are
ushered onto the stage. The bid starts with an older lady who goes for a meager one hundred dollars and I feel sorry for her. Clearly people bidding have money, but they haven’t deemed her worth the extra funds. Sad, just sad.

All the other
girls have been sold when my turn finally comes. I move out to the front of the stage as the auctioneer runs down my social resume. I really don’t hear anything he’s saying because most of it is extremely exaggerated by my mother.

“Okay
, gentlemen, we’ll open the bid at one hundred dollars,” the auctioneer announces.

“Two hundred
,” an older man shouts from the front. Gross.

“Two hundred fifty,” my daddy bids. He’s too sweet.

“Okay, two hundred fifty. Do I hear three hundred?” The auctioneer is looking amongst the crowd for the next bid when the gross guy pipes in again.

“Five hundred!”
He licks his lips and sucks in a breath. Lord, please don’t let him win.

“Wow, Miss Delilah is popular tonight. Do I hear six hundred?”

“One thousand dollars!” I can barely see him, but Emerson Knox strolls from the shadows.

I
haven’t seen him all night, and now that I do, a smile stretches across my face. It’s been two months since I’ve seen him. We’ve talked from the time of my return to Memphis and now he’s looking as perfect as he always does, wearing a fifties lettermen’s jacket, khaki pants and loafers with his sandy blonde hair combed neatly. Always put together and appropriate, Emerson hasn’t changed. There’s a small part of my heart aching because I really have missed him.

“One thousand dollars going once…
twice… Sold to Mr. Knox for one thousand dollars!” The auctioneer is grinning from ear to ear, happy as a lark for all the money we’ve raised in the last few hours.

I
’m walking to the stairs of the stage to meet Emerson when he beats me to it, meeting me up on stage. He’s takes the microphone from the auctioneer and addresses the crowd. “Hi, folks. Sorry for breaking up your evening, but I wanted to ask this special lady a question.” Emerson moves to me and my heart drops to the floor.

Please
, don’t do this, Emerson. The only time a guy announces he’s going to ask a certain lady a question is when he’s proposing.

“I’ve had the
privilege of knowing Miss Delilah for many years now, but none more important than in the last two. She’s a beauty and the perfect southern lady.” Emerson moves down to one knee while pulling a black box from his pocket.

Sweet baby Jesus, what am I supposed to do? Do I love Emerson
? Sure, I loved him once, but do I love him now? I will never want for anything if I say yes. Emerson will be happy, my mother and father will be happy. I will do what I’m expected to do. Why am I so hesitant? Why don’t I want this to happen?

Jake.

The very thought of him brings passion to my body, but poison to my heart. I’ve grown feelings for Jake I’ve never known existed, however when the light shines on our relationship the next day, it’s not what I should have. Jake Evans is dangerous for my mind, body and soul. He will end up damaging me one way or another if I cross that line with him. If I tell him my true feelings, he won’t change. He’s said it a million times; whiskey and women are how he lives his life. I can’t tolerate that, not if I’ve chosen him over Emerson.

Looking at Emerson on one knee,
holding that black box filled with a huge diamond ring, I begin to cry. Tears streak my cheeks and mascara starts to merge with the water as I let the tears fall.

“So,
Miss Delilah, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

The question is
stagnant in the air, suffocating me. My heart is dying, knowing I don’t want him, but my mind has made the decision. With Emerson, I will have a future I can rely on.

I look into his blue eyes and reply, “Yes.”

He picks me up, swinging me around in the air, planting a kiss to my cheek and then my lips. I’m soon whisked off stage, only to be greeted by my mother and father, happy as the day I was born.

Panic strikes me
instantly. Oh, God, what did I just do?

Chapter 13

Jake

Two days later
, I’m lying in Becky’s chair as she runs the needle along my arm, filling, outlining and shading. I can’t wipe the stupid smile from my face. Becky has told me what an idiot I am to get another woman tattooed on my body, meaning a woman I actually know. She says that if it isn’t your mama, then it has no business being permanently inked on your skin. Little does she know, I hate my mom and would never put anything resembling her on my body—not ever.

Whenever I’m getting a tattoo, we always
reminisce on how we met. The story always makes us laugh because we were both ridiculous.

It was a month after
high school graduation and Jeremy had just gotten done cleaning house at the races. We were excited about his win and the fat stack of cash we’d won. We felt a little celebrating was in order, so after I took a few shots of whiskey, I spied Becky and her cousin Lydia checking us out. Jeremy took Lydia for a drive in the Challenger, which is code for he’s getting laid, and I proceeded to plow Becky in the back of her mom’s Tahoe. Apparently, I was commenting about her huge tits and hard ass while she proceeded to leave bite marks on my chest. It was a drunken night for both of us, and three days later, when I went to get my first tattoo, there was Becky. She turned as red as a tomato.

Three hours later, my tattoo
is done. It’s a perfect replica of the photo Delilah has sent me in her pinup girl costume. The detail is unbelievable. It really looks like I am looking at the photo. Becky made it blend perfectly with my sleeve already tattooed on my arm, which makes it now complete.

Delilah completed me. Hmmm…
that’s a strange thought.

I shake off my foreign feelings and pay Becky. I can’t wait to show Delilah my new tattoo. I know she’ll flip out at first, but soon
, she’ll love it. How could she not? It’s perfect. It’s Delilah.

Delilah

“I can’t believe you’re getting married,” Darcie says from the other end of the phone.

We’ve been talking almost every day since I left Sulfur Heights. As horrible of a situation as it was, we bonded the day Presley overdosed. Now, instead of fighting like childish girls, we’re embracing our friendship like grown women.

“Have you told Jake yet?” The question is lingering, strangling me
, and I want to answer, yet somehow I can’t. “I know Jake pretty well and I can assure you he hates being broad sided. It makes him crazy angry.”