Discovering Delilah (Harborside Nights, Book 2) (10 page)

“Okay. If you need me, just holler. But you might want to close that door.” He points to the open door
leading to the deck.

Fuck
. If he heard us arguing, how many other people did? That’s when I realize that the band must be taking a break. There’s no music to muffle a damn thing. I pull the door closed, wondering if tonight could get any worse or any more awkward.

After Wyatt leaves, I go to Delilah and open my arms. “Forgive me for being jealous?”

She shakes her head and falls into
my arms. Her conflicting messages have me baffled, but she’s letting me hold her, and that’s all I care about.

She doesn’t need to know that Thursdays have now become my least favorite night of the week.

“I’m sorry I’m such a loser.” I hear her smile, and I press a kiss to the side of her head.

“You’re not a loser.”

She leans back and searches my eyes. There’s so much more I want
to say, that we have to talk about, like the fact that she’s not out and I’m not sure I can deal with living a secret life again. But I don’t push her. I know, or I hope, we’ll have time to figure this out. Even my worst fear—being someone’s dirty little secret—isn’t enough to hold me back from Delilah. She claimed a piece of me the first night we met, and right now there’s only one thing I want
to know for sure. The rest can wait.

“Do you still want to be with me, Dee?”

She nods, but fear lingers in her eyes.

“
Just me
? Do you want to be my girlfriend? Because I don’t want to share. I’m not…I can’t. I can’t be with you and share you in that way with Janessa or anyone else.”

She nods, and when our lips come together, our salty tears seep between them, slippery reminders
of how far we’ve come and how very far we have to go.

~Delilah~

PEOPLE SAY THAT one night can change your whole life. What they don’t tell you is how to deal with those changes. After being with Janessa, I thought the rest would come easily. That once I was certain I liked being intimate with women, I’d have no problem following my feelings. I know our friends will accept me. Tristan is gay, and Brandon is bisexual, and
none of our friends have ever blinked an eye at either of them. But while coming together with Ashley on a physical and emotional level definitely came easily once we were alone in that alcove, the minute we stepped outside of that private space, the rest knocked me off-kilter.

To say that I was disappointed in myself for not walking back into the party holding Ashley’s hand would be the understatement
of the year. I hated myself for walking the opposite way. I hated knowing I was hurting her, hated knowing I was hurting myself, but no matter how much I wanted to walk into that party with her—
And boy did I ever want to
—I couldn’t.

I’ve held her hand a million times in public. I’ve held Cassidy’s hand, walked arm in arm with Brooke—but we weren’t making a statement; we were just friends walking
around Harborside.

Everything changed last night.

I felt like the minute I walked into the backyard, everyone would know what we’d done. I know that’s crazy. Seriously, it’s a party. There are always people making out at parties, and I wasn’t embarrassed to have made out with Ashley. Just the opposite. I could hardly believe I was lucky enough to be with her. It was what happened afterward
that stole my legs right out from under me.

The fear my parents instilled in me about their beliefs.

The fear of being a spectacle.

The disappointment in their eyes when I came out to them.

Right now I hate my parents as much as I hate the term
coming out
.

Waking up this morning and knowing I’m a
girl’s
girlfriend for the first time in my life is a good feeling. Knowing I’m
Ashley’s
girlfriend…? That makes my world spin. I smile, knowing that despite everything my parents instilled in me, I woke up feeling
good
about who I am. That might change in five minutes, or maybe it already has, but at least I had those few seconds before they crept back into my head.

It’s Monday morning and I’m sitting on the back deck in a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt, drinking
coffee and thinking about Ashley—and my parents. My mom used to sit outside and drink coffee in the mornings when we were here. I remember waking up to the smell of coffee, and I’d find my mom sitting out on the deck sipping coffee and reading a novel or the newspaper. My father would be standing down by the water with one hand on his hip, the other shading his eyes, as if he were looking at a faraway
land. Morning after morning. I never knew what he was looking at, but I know my mom liked watching him. She used to smile and reach for my hand when I came outside.
Sit. Watch your father with me
. We’d both look at him, and she’d sigh.
He’s so much more relaxed here, isn’t he?

Sadness tugs at the edges of my mouth, and I look down the beach, away from the place my father used to stand. After
a few minutes I can think beyond them again. Grief is like that. It sneaks up when I’m least expecting it and clings for a while. The times I’m able to disengage from it, I feel thankful, and those times that I can’t, I feel like I’m dying right along with them.

My mind shifts to Ashley. She left sometime after midnight and she texted me early this morning.

Miss you already
.

Three
simple words.

Three simple words that brought last night rushing back to me—the look in her eyes right before she kissed me, like I was the only woman on earth she ever wanted. The first press of her lips against mine, the sensuous feel of her tongue exploring my mouth. I shiver with the memory.

She’s meeting Drake this morning for her first surfing lesson. I was so disappointed when she
agreed to let him teach her to surf, but last night as I was lying in bed thinking about her—because my mind and body have become a sponge and I’m drenched in thoughts of her—I came to understand why she was so hurt that I turned to Janessa instead of her. She wanted to share in my first time, and I get that
now
.

I was so nervous the night I was with Janessa, trying to navigate completely
unfamiliar territory while also trying to enjoy the ride. I think if I had been with Ashley that first time, while I’m sure it would have been amazing, I would have been in student mode, like I was with Janessa. It wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable, and I probably wouldn’t have let myself go like I did with Ash.

Janessa left me thankful for an experience, like I’d taken a class that helped
me with finals. Ashley.
Good Lord, Ashley
. Ashley left me craving more of her touch, her kisses. She has the most tantalizing mouth, like it was made just for me. I don’t want to hide our relationship, but I don’t know how to escape the guilty feelings that come along with it, either.

I sip my coffee, watching a sailboat make its way across the ocean in the distance and wishing there were
a guidebook for my life.
How to Crawl Out From Under My Parents’ Expectations & Leave Guilt Behind.

“Another beautiful morning in Harborside.” Tristan pats my shoulder as he eases into the chair beside me. He runs his hand down his face and scratches his bare chest, then stretches his long, muscular arms and yawns. He does the same thing every morning, like a cat.

“Is there anything but?
Even the rainy mornings are beautiful when you’re looking out at the water.” When my parents were alive, we came to Harborside for the summers, and usually during school breaks, too. I remember when we met Tristan. Wyatt and I were at the beach with our parents. It was a sweltering afternoon, and Wyatt and I were boogie boarding. Tristan was standing on the shore watching us with one hand on his
hip and the other shielding his eyes from the sun, just like my dad used to do. I rode a wave all the way in and couldn’t jump off fast enough, or turn hard enough, and I plowed right into him. We couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, but he scrambled to his feet and reached for me before tending to the bloody cuts on his leg from where he was dragged against a ridge of sharp shells. Harborside
has always been our home away from home, with friends like Tristan and Jesse, Brooke, Brandon, and Charley, but this summer it’s become the only home I want.

 “You can say that again. Where’s Ashley? I assumed she was staying over.” He kicks his bare feet onto a chair and reaches for my coffee, arches a brow, waits for my nod, then takes a sip.

My stomach dips at the mention of Ashley,
and for a minute I wonder if he knows what we did. Ashley’s spent the night before and I never got nervous the way I am now.
This is so stupid
. Even if he did know, of all people, the last person I should be uncomfortable around is Tristan.

“She went home last night.”

He pushes my coffee cup across the table.

“Want to talk about the thing we’re not talking about?” Tristan smiles, but
he doesn’t look at me.

I cross my arms on the table and rest my forehead on them. “I hate you.”

I feel his hand on my arm. Tristan acts like another protective, caring brother, only he’s got a gentler way about him than Wyatt. Wyatt comes to my defense like a bull. Tristan is more like a Transformer. He glides in all sexy and sleek and morphs to aggressive when there’s no other alternative.
I love that about him.

“Hon, I only have an assumption, and it’s a very poor one, based on limited info, since you keep your feelings pretty close to your chest.”

I turn my head and rest my cheek on my arms, peering at him out of one open eye. “What’s your assumption?”

He crosses his arms and doles out a warm smile. “That you’re just realizing you dig girls. Or more specifically, Ashley.”

I turn again, resting my forehead on my arms so I can’t see his face, and I groan.

“Why are we groaning?”

Brandon
.

I hear the chair on my other side drag across the deck and sense Brandon sitting beside me. I peek at him as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“Not my trouble to tell,” Tristan answers.

I sit up straight and sigh. “I feel like I’m on
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
.”

Brandon’s straight dark hair is standing on end. He’s wearing one of his signature black tees and a pair of jeans. He leans back and narrows his dark eyes. “Ah, we’re groaning about the argument last night?”

I feel my cheeks heat up. “Did
everyone
hear us?”

“Nope.” Brandon eyes my coffee, and I nod. He finishes it in one gulp. “Oh, that’s nasty. French vanilla? You should have warned
me.”

“You didn’t give me time. And you owe me a refill.”

“I’m on it. As soon as you tell me what the big deal is. So you hooked up with Ash?” He shrugs, like this isn’t a revelation.

How can it not be news to anyone but me?

“You
know
I hooked up with Ashley?”

Brandon shrugs again. “It was an educated guess. Until now.”

Oh God. I could deny it, but I don’t
want
to deny it.
“So you knew I was into girls this whole time and you never said anything?”

“Definitely not. You said you were dating some dude at college, so I thought you were straight.” Brandon leans across the table and hollers inside the house, “Army, bring out a pot of coffee?”

“Sure,” Wyatt calls from the kitchen.

I mull over what he’s said, and even though Brandon is bisexual, it doesn’t mean
he’d assume I was. “So why would you assume I hooked up with her?”

Brandon throws an arm over the back of his chair and stretches his long legs out to the side. “I’ve seen the way you look at her, and there isn’t anything
straight
about those looks. So I assumed you swing both ways.” Brandon levels a stare at Tristan. “The way it
should
be.”

Tristan rolls his eyes. He’s used to Brandon’s
brash comments. Tristan doesn’t hide the fact that he’s gay, but he doesn’t flaunt his sexuality the way Brandon does. Brandon openly eyes girls and guys like they were put on this earth solely for his taking. He hits on whomever he pleases, and if they turn him down, he simply moves on to the next, while Tristan is all about his heart. He’s selective about the men he goes out with, but he opens
himself up too quickly—and gets hurt too often.

“I definitely
do
not
swing both ways.” I have to fess up to my closest friends and tell them how I have been hiding my sexual identity. It’s embarrassing, and I feel horrible for keeping it from them, but really, I had no choice. My parents watched us like hawks, and if they had gotten wind of me being interested in girls, God only knows what
they would have done.

Someone else might try to lie her way out of coming out to her friends, but I’ve spent enough time lying. I’m trying to shed my lying coat of armor, not figure out how to live within its confines for even longer.

Wyatt comes out from the kitchen with one arm around Cassidy and a pot of coffee in his other hand, which he sets on the table.

“You okay, Dee?” He sits
across from me, and Cassidy sits on his lap and circles his neck with her arms.

No, but I’m trying
. “Yeah. Fine.”

Tristan gets up and retrieves one of our deck chairs from the beach, where we moved them last night before the party.

He sets the chair next to Wyatt. “Here you go, Cass.”

Wyatt tightens his grip on her. “She’s fine where she is.”

Cassidy gathers her long brown
hair over one shoulder and kisses Wyatt’s forehead. “One day he’ll get sick of me. Thanks, Tristan.”

“Never.” Wyatt nuzzles against her neck.

Jealousy claws up my spine. I want what they have. I want to wake up with Ashley and touch her when I feel like it, without guilt or worry or any goddamn bad feeling at all.

It’s never going to be that easy for me.

What I want and what I’m
capable of giving are two different things.

“Aren’t you the one who tells me to keep it behind closed doors?” Brandon asks as he fills my coffee cup.

“
We’re
not having a ménage on the couch.” Wyatt’s tone stops Brandon from saying anything more. His voice softens when he addresses me. “Everything go okay with Ashley last night?”