Filfthy (20 page)

Z
ane

F
ive calls
. Four texts. Nothing’s going through.

She’s blocked me.

Which means she doesn’t want to talk to me . . .

Which means she’ll never hear the truth . . .

Which means she’ll leave here tomorrow, hurt, because of something she thinks I did.

I slam my phone down and glance out the window in time to see a moving truck back into Rue’s driveway.

Daphne ambles across the drive, motioning for the truck to come a little closer and then telling it when to stop.

My heart races, pounding so hard I can’t think straight. Without hesitating or thinking any of this through, I grab a piece of paper and scribble down a note.

G
orgeous
,

Please take my calls. Please come see me before you leave. It’s not what you think.

I love you.

de la Cruz

I
read
the note and crumple it up. I’m not telling her I love her in a note. That’s fucking lame. We’re not in junior high.

I grab another sheet and write the note again, this time omitting the part where I tell her I love her. Someday, when I get a chance, I’m going to tell her to her face. She’ll get to hear it straight from me.

Slipping on tennis shoes, I run outside before Daphne disappears, ignoring the horrified look on her face when she sees me coming at her.

“Daphne, I swear to you it isn’t what it looked like. What did you tell her?” I hook my hands on my hips, squinting, the letter folded neatly in my left palm.

“I told her what I saw.” Her voice is laced with disgust. This isn’t the Daphne I met a couple of months ago. This Daphne hates my fucking guts. “And you shouldn’t be here. I don’t want my sister seeing you, especially after I spent all morning calming her down.”

“Jesus.” I run my hand through my hair, tugging a small fistful. The last thing I want to do is hurt Delilah. “Daphne, you have to give this to her.”

I slip her the note.

“She’s not taking my calls or texts, and I have to explain everything to her before she leaves tomorrow.”

Daphne cocks her head to the side, examining me. Behind her, one of the movers stands with a clipboard, clearly needing her attention. But I need it more.

“Whatever explanation you’re going to give her, which I’m sure will be some kind of variation of the truth that paints you in some saintly light . . . is it even going to change anything? She’s going back to college in a month and you’re here playing football. You already made it crystal clear to her this summer that she’s nothing more than your own personal sex toy.” Daphne huffs. “You had fun. I get it. But now she’s hurt, and you have the nerve to stand here acting like you deserve another chance?”

“Ma’am?” The driver of the moving truck lifts a finger. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I just have some questions before we get started.”

“Yes. Sorry.” Daphne spins around, ending our discussion before I have the chance to tell her that Delilah was so much more than what I gave her credit for this summer.

In many ways, she saved me.

I watch Daphne shove the note in her side pocket and lead the movers inside the house.

Lingering for a moment, I watch the door on the off chance Delilah might come out, but she never does.

Tonight I’m throwing rocks at her window.

Tonight I’ll do whatever it takes.

I have to see her one last time.

She can’t leave here thinking I didn’t care about her.

She can’t leave here never knowing that I
loved
her.

And that I still do.

D
elilah

T
wo Months Later
. . .

I
close
the lid to my laptop and shut my textbook. I’ve been working on this research paper for five straight hours, and my vision’s beginning to blur from too much screen time.

Taking six whole steps across my studio apartment, I open the window by the kitchenette to let some fresh air in. I watch a few students saunter along the sidewalk, bags slung over their shoulders, laughing and talking. It’s not right being cooped up in this little apartment when it’s autumn in Chicago and the weather is to die for.

I should get some fresh air. Maybe that’ll help me focus. And feel human again.

I grab a water bottle and my sneakers and phone, spotting a missed text message from my older sister, Demi, along with a screenshot of her TV. It’s fuzzy, and I can hardly make out the picture, but it looks like she’s watching ESPN.

Tapping the screen, I call her, and she answers in the middle of the second ring.

“Oh my god, Delilah. Didn’t you use to date Zane de la Cruz?” Demi’s words are hurried and excited.

“We didn’t
date
,” I say. “But what about him?”

“Turn on ESPN,” she says. “There’s a special on hometown heroes or something. I was sitting here with Royal, tuning out Sports Center like I always do, and then I heard them mention his name. Did you know he’s in Chicago now? He plays for the Chicago Thunder.”

I’ve turned to stone, standing here unable to move. The phone slips from my hand, but I manage to catch it before it crashes to the floor.

“Turn your TV on,” Demi urges. “It just started about five minutes ago.”

Palms sweating and heart racing, I toss throw pillows from my futon couch until I find the buried remote. I don’t even know what channel ESPN is or if I even have it, but I’m flipping through the stations like my life depends on it.

Found it.

The camera pans across a football field where men in black and grey are practicing drills, and then it cuts to a head and shoulders shot of Zane being interviewed.

He smiles, his dimples just as prevalent as before, and everything around me fades into the distance. I see him and only him.

I hang up with my sister, and in the span of the next hour, I fall for him all over again. And when it’s over, my heart aches. All the pain and hurt I spent the last two months processing and tucking away have all been dredged up again, brought back to the surface.

The fact that he’s in the same city as me . . .

“It’s good to be home.” His voice fills my apartment as he looks straight at the camera.

I finish the documentary, having watched the entire thing from the edge of my seat in a state of suspended animation, and I collapse back into the throw pillows when the credits begin to roll.

“He’s here,” I whisper out loud, because apparently I need to hear it to actually believe it. All of this feels incredibly surreal.

The day Daphne and I moved Aunt Rue out of her home, she slipped me a piece of paper Zane had apparently hand-delivered. At the time, I was too hurt to look at it, so I tossed it aside, laying it on Rue’s dining room hutch. Later that afternoon, when the movers had left, the letter was gone.

I never had a chance to read it.

And I spent the weeks that followed convincing myself that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

I
was moving.

We
were done.

Whipping out my phone, I do some quick research. There isn’t a lot of detailed information available, but from what I can tell, the Cougars signed some rookie running back out of Texas and then cut Zane from the team shortly after football camp started. At the last minute, the Thunder’s running back tore his ACL in practice and they picked up Zane.

Lying down, I curl up with a pillow and close my eyes, replaying every memory I’ve held onto. The bitter. The sweet. The heartbreaking end I never saw coming.

I felt safe here in Chicago. I thought I was worlds away . . . from him. Now I’m going to be looking over my shoulder everywhere I go, wondering if I’m going to run into him, obsessing over what I might say if we ever come face to face again.

Wallowing in a self-indulgent pool of bittersweet memories, I squeeze my eyes tight and pull up a selfie on my phone. It’s from the night we watched the Fourth of July fireworks from his backyard. We’re smiling, happy, blissfully unaware of what’s to come.

Once upon a time, we were living in the moment.

And I’ll admit, from time to time I did think about the future.

But never in my wildest dreams did I envision going down in flames.

I’m drifting, second by second, into what I hope to be a delicious nap. I need to escape for a bit. Quiet my mind. Still my thoughts. And I’m almost there . . .

Knock, knock, knock.

A quick zing races through me, running down my chest and spreading to my fingertips. I can’t breathe.

Tiptoeing quietly across my tiny apartment, I peek through the peephole . . .

. . . and open the door.

“Hey, Hayden,” I say. “Come on in.”

Z
ane

I
’m standing
outside the expansive purple Victorian, staring up at the third window at the top of the turret where Delilah once claimed to live during the school year.

I don’t know if she still lives there, but tonight, I’m willing to take a chance.

I’ve been back in Chicago over a month now, my days and nights consumed with all things Chicago Thunder, but there hasn’t been a night that’s passed where I haven’t wondered where she is. What she’s doing. If she’s lying in her bed thinking about me too.

Pressing every apartment buzzer outside the entrance, I get a few responses over the intercom and eventually hear the heavy clunk of the door unlocking. I’m not sure how I feel about Delilah living in a “secure” apartment where the tenants blindly buzz strangers in, but I’m in now and that’s all that matters.

Climbing three flights of stairs, I find a long hallway with three apartment doors, pausing for a minute to get my bearings.

North.

The turret is north.

Standing outside a door labeled 3B, I hear voices. Two of them. A man and a woman.

Delilah.

I hear them laugh, their voices muffled by the thick, wooden door. Moving closer, I all but press my ear against it.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you . . .” she says. “I mean it. You’ve been so wonderful. I don’t deserve it.”

There’s another man in there and from the sound of it, Delilah thinks he’s pretty fucking great.

My fists clench and my jaw tightens.

I’m halfway between staying and going when the door opens, leaving me no choice.

A man stands on the other side. He’s clean cut. Well-dressed. Preppy almost. He wears a checkered button down, thick hipster glasses, and his sandy blond hair is combed back on top. He’s lanky and serious. This man is the complete opposite of everything about me.

“Who are you?” he asks.

“Hayden, who is it?” Delilah comes out from behind him, pausing. Her expression pales.

“Hi Delilah,” I say.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

I smirk, besotted all over again at the sight of her. “I came to talk.”

“Is everything okay here?” the hipster nerd asks, waving his pointer finger between us.

Delilah and I lock stares, the seconds before she answers ticking by slowly.

“Yeah,” she says. “Everything’s fine, Hayden.”

“All right, well, I’ll be next door. Pound on the wall if you need me . . .” He squeezes through the doorway past me, disappearing behind a door labeled 3A.

“Can I come in?” I ask.

She stands back, nodding, eyes averted and arms wrapped around her side. We stand in silence after she shuts the door.

“You’re quiet,” I say. “I was prepared for a Delilah Rosewood lashing, but you’re standing here looking like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“I only found out today that you moved to Chicago. And now you’re here. I’m still kind of processing everything.” She takes a step away, keeping a guarded distance.

“Before I say all the things I came here to say,” I begin. “There’s just one thing I want to get out of the way. And I want to say it now, before it gets buried beneath all the things that are going to come out of our mouths once we get started.”

She folds her arms, her eyes snapping to meet mine. “Okay.”

“I love you.” I blurt it out before I have a chance to let that concentrated scowl on her face keep me from doing what I came here to do.

Delilah’s expression softens, her jaw falling. “What?”

“When I first met you, you were a thorn in my side. A real pain in the ass,” I say. “And you were sexy as hell in this little college student sort of way, and I really wanted to get a piece.”

“Nice.” She rolls her eyes.

“I know the arrangement we had, Delilah. I know we both agreed it was just fun and sex . . .” I sigh. “But you have to admit, somewhere along the line, it turned into something more.”

Delilah steps backwards, falling to the edge of her sofa, her arms limp across her knees and dark brown tendrils hanging in her face.

She places a hand up. “That’s great that you moved to Chicago and you’re standing here professing your love for me like you’re in some Nicholas Sparks movie, but it still doesn’t change the fact that you
lied
to me, Zane.”

“I never lied.” My fingers drag over my heart in the shape of a cross. Pulling in a deep breath, I take a seat in the chair across from her. “Carissa cornered me at the gym back in June.”

“It was Carissa?!”

“Let me finish. Every year, her father throws a big party just before camp starts . . .”

I tell Delilah everything, leaving nothing out. I tell her about Carissa blackmailing me, threatening to have me cut from the team, about her promise to leave me alone after the date, about the way she behaved at the party.

Delilah listens, clinging onto my every word and probably trying to read between the lines, but she doesn’t need to. I’ve given her nothing but the truth.

Straight up.

No chaser.

“So I yelled at her,” I say. “In front of the entire party. In front of her father.”

Delilah winces.

“A few days later, I was called into Coach Roberts’ office. Carissa’s father was there.” My mouth forms a hard line. “They told me I’d been cut from the team. They signed some kid from Texas at the last minute. Didn’t need me anymore. I’m sure that was part of it, but I’m sure the real reason had very little to do with that and a lot to do with Carissa’s meddling.”

“And now you’re here.” She picks at a loose thread on the sofa cushion. “Everything worked out for you. Glad you got your happy ending.”

“What makes you think I got my happy ending?”

Her warm eyes lift to meet mine. “Just seems like you got everything you wanted. You had your fun with me, you got signed to a team in your hometown . . . congratulations.”

“Delilah, stop.” I place my hand on hers, and she tenses at my touch.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me about Carissa.” Her tone is louder now, and a storm brews in her dark gaze. “I would have understood.”

“I had no way of knowing that. I was only focused on one thing, and that was keeping our last weeks together as amazing as they could possibly be. I didn’t want you to worry. I didn’t want you to doubt me. I didn’t want this dark cloud hanging over our heads.” I squeeze her hand. “I didn’t want anything to change. And worrying you about Carissa would’ve changed everything.”

She shakes her head. “I disagree.”

“Yeah, well, I did what I thought was right. And I’m sorry. I screwed up. I just kept thinking about how I’d feel if it were the other way around,” I say. “Just the thought of you spending a Saturday night with another man, even if you said it meant nothing, drove me insane.”

“Look,” she says. “We weren’t a couple. You weren’t my boyfriend. You didn’t cheat. It all boiled down to the way I found out. My sister telling me she saw you with another woman, kissing another woman . . . it crushed me in ways I never expected.”

“I hate that you found out the way you did.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

I pause, trying to summon an answer to a question I’ve never once asked myself.

“You weren’t,” she says, her tone dry.

“I never thought that far.” I take my hand off hers, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees as I stare at a flickering candle on her coffee table. “To me, it didn’t seem like a big deal because it didn’t mean anything. It was all work. It wasn’t about her. And if it’s any consolation, all I could think about that night was you. Every time I looked at her, I saw your face. I watched the clock all night, counting down the minutes until I thought I was going to see you again.”

“That’s all sweet and everything,” she tucks a dark tendril behind one ear, “but it doesn’t change anything. The damage is done. That beautiful summer we shared is going to be forever marred by that one night.”

“I never meant to hurt you, gorgeous.” I turn to her. “It was never my intention, and I’m sorry. I’ll spend the rest of my life apologizing for it. Hell, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you let me.”

Her eyes widen.

“I want to try this again.” I clear my throat, locking my gaze with hers. “Let’s start over. New city. Clean slate.”

“No.” She shakes her head, staring away. “I’m really not interested in being fuck buddies again. It was a one-time thing for me, and-”

“No.” I cut her off. “I don’t want your body, Delilah. I want
all
of you.”

Delilah slowly faces me again. I sense her reluctance.

“Zane . . .” She licks her lips, readying herself with resistance, but I won’t allow it.

“I meant what I said. I love you. And I haven’t said that to anyone in a very long time.” I reach for her, pulling her into my lap so we’re face to face. Breathing in her sweet scent, I say, “I hate that we had a misunderstanding. I hate that I hurt you. And I’ll never keep anything from you as long as I live.”

Delilah exhales, her face pinched like she’s deep in thought.

“And I know we spent the summer convincing ourselves that what we had wasn’t a relationship,” I say. “But we were fooling ourselves, Delilah. We had a relationship all along. A real relationship. With real feelings. Mine were real. Were yours?”

Her lips press together, and she nods. “Yeah.”

“Give me another chance. Give
us
another chance.” My hands circle her waist, fingertips teasing the hem of her shirt as her body relaxes and my gaze lands on her full pout.

She makes me wait, each second excruciatingly painful, and then she lifts her hand to my face, trailing the outline of my jaw with her fingertip before running it along my lips.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers. “So. Much.”

“I’ve missed you too, gorgeous.”

“And it still hurts.” Her voice is low, her eyes wincing. “And I want to give you another chance, but I’m having trouble saying yes right now.”

Her words shatter what little hope I’d been hanging on to. I was convinced that if she saw me again, if I could just explain . . . that everything would be back on track.

“Kiss me,” I command.

Her brows meet. “What?”

I don’t waste time explaining that I want her to remember the way we felt when things were different. Instead, I cup her face in my hands and bring her parted lips to mine. And to my relief, her pillow-soft lips accept my kiss.

“You’re not dating anyone, right? Not that plaid-shirted nerd who answered your door a little bit ago?”

“He’s my neighbor,” she says. “And he’s not into girls.”

“Good,” I say, sliding my hands down her hips and cupping her ass. I push her toward me, closer, until our lips are inches apart. “I didn’t want to have to kick his ass for touching my girl.”

Delilah rolls her eyes, fighting a smile. “Who says I’m still your girl?”

“Psh. You’ll always be my girl,” I tease. “Whether you want to be or not.”

“That’s creepy,” she says. “But not as creepy as throwing rocks at my window late at night like some stalker.”

“Whatever. You secretly loved it. And a stalker wouldn’t have thrown rocks. He’d have just looked in your window and watched you.”

“Thank God for curtains.”

She gives me a soft smile for the first time since I arrived, and my hand slides up the underside of her shirt because I’m just a man, and I can only keep myself from touching her for so long.

“What are you doing?” Her voice crawls to a whisper, but she presses her body against mine in some sort of silent invitation.

“I can’t stop touching you.” My teeth drag across my bottom lip. “You’re too damn irresistible, Delilah, and you make me so hot when you try to resist me. Reminds me of the night we first met. You in your pajamas, giving me the evil eye, trying so hard to pretend like you were some kind of hard ass. Fucking adorable.”

“You want to do this?” She throws up a white flag in the form of a sigh, and her hands slick up the nape of my neck. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

Snaking my hands under her shirt, I cup her pert breasts, pressing my lips against hers again, letting our tongues dance. My cock strains against my boxer briefs. There’s too much fabric between the two of us, and I’m going to go insane if that doesn’t change in the very near future.

Delilah, sensing my urgency, yanks her shirt over her head, and I move for her bra before sliding her yoga pants down her curved thighs. Her fingers work the zipper of my jeans with frantic precision, and she climbs on top of me the second I’m freed.

Lowering herself onto me until I’ve fully impaled her, her hips rock back and forth, alternating between rocking and circling, bringing her pink budded breasts to my lips each time she comes up.

“Show me how much you’ve missed me,” I growl, knotting my fingers in her hair as it spills down her back. I direct her face to mine, and she stops grinding on me for a moment. “Fuck me like you never stopped missing me.”

I give her a punishing kiss, and she resumes. My hands slide down her sides, gliding along her feminine S-shaped curves with greedy enthusiasm.

“I can do better than that,” she whispers in my ear, her lips swollen from my kiss. “I’ll fuck you like I never stopped loving you.”