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“Yeah. These are old episodes.”
A catfight broke out on screen and he scowled. “You find this entertaining?”
“Extremely.”
She snuggled into his side and reveled in the realness of the moment. She’d never done something so normal with him or been so thrilled to simply Netflix and chill.
When the show ended on a cliffhanger, he looked at her expectantly. “Is there more?”
She laughed. “See? You’re already addicted.”
“I feel less intelligent since sitting here, but now I feel pressured to know what Kourtney is going to do.”
“You’ll get sucked in for days. There are so many better options.” She picked up the remote and flicked through the channels, stopping when she saw a movie on Horror Net. “You might like this.”
The credits opened with a quick montage of a house in the woods. Eerie music played as a woman innocently prepared dinner. Then the scene changed. A deranged serial killer chased a young girl through a graveyard. She screamed and tripped. The killer caught up to her and broke her neck, silencing her screams.
Christian bolted to his feet and hissed, scaring a real scream out of Delilah and a reflexive, “What the fuck?”
He looked at the television, but it was back on the woman making supper. “The girl…”
“It’s just a movie, Christian.” She shut it off. “Mental note, no Horror Net for you.”
He lowered to the sofa and retracted his claws. “Perhaps we should sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
She sensed all of this modern technology was wearing him out. “Okay.”
She shut off the television and carried the empty box of pizza to the kitchen. At least he liked that.
A wave of self-consciousness hit her when she led him to her room. Christian had acre upon acre of beautiful countryside to call his own, and she had an eight-by-eight room with a bed and a dresser cramped up against a wall.
She flattened out the worn coverlet and fluffed a pillow that had mascara and hair dye stains on the case. “So, this is my room.”
He looked down at the small platform bed. She couldn’t imagine what he was thinking and she honestly didn’t want to know. As much as she’d begged to come home, now that she was here she was anxious to leave.
This place now felt like a holding spot, a purgatory that occupied her before her life officially found meaning, sort of like a warming station under hot lights in the back of a restaurant. Christian’s life was the three-star dining experience on the other side. The real deal.
She glanced up at him, noting the displeased expression on his face and the tight set of his jaw. He hated it. “We can leave first thing in the—”
“Who was he?”
She paused. “Um, what?”
His hard stare hadn’t lifted from the bed. “Someone else has been in this room. A male. Who?”
“No one’s—”
“Delilah, I smell him.”
What looked like judgment a moment ago now revealed itself as heartbreak. She had to think back to the last time she had company. “No one’s been in here for months.” She’d washed the sheets twenty times since then.
His hands balled into fists at his side. “Then you don’t deny it.”
“No. Why would I—Oh, Christian, you didn’t think…” This was awkward. “You know I wasn’t a virgin when we met, right?”
The hard muscle of his jaw ticked. “I just assumed…”
If it was possible, she became more self-conscious. “Maybe we should sleep on the couch—”
“Did you love him?”
She laughed, and his confused stare snapped to her. This wasn’t a laughing matter to him, so she sobered. “No, I didn’t love him. I told you, I’ve never loved anyone. You were…” She should have never brought him here. “You’re the only person I’ve ever said those words to.”
She didn’t think it was possible, but she missed the farm. The farm felt safe. There was no pressure there, and she could unravel all the confusing feelings inside of her at her own pace. Here, she felt pressure. Pressure to answer for her life. Pressure to own her mistakes. Pressure to be a specific version of herself the world expected. But when it was just her and Christian, she only needed to be herself, and he accepted her. All of her. For that, she loved him in a way she never loved anyone.
But what if this place showed him things he didn’t want to see and his opinion of her lowered? She couldn’t handle the thought, didn’t want him to think less of her. But this was her life and it hadn’t started the day he walked into her world. She had a past and prior boyfriends. She would never be some innocent virgin bride.
Lowering her head, she said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Why haven’t I found this male in your memories?”
She scoffed. “Because he wasn’t memorable. Sometimes people just have meaningless sex to pass the time and break up the monotony. I’m not going to apologize for dating.”
