She sniffles before getting back up, her nerves getting the best of her. “Enough touchy-feely. I’m going to get coffee.”
“You do that,” I laugh, listening to her grumble about not being a baby as she walks out of the room.
Falling back onto the couch again, I rub my temples. As if I didn’t have enough stress with the truck issue, now I have this.
Looking around the place we’ve lived in for a year now, it suddenly feels less like home than it did ten minutes ago, and it didn’t feel particularly home-like then. With Delaney gone, it’ll be even worse.
A bout of loneliness creeps in to my stomach as I try to figure out what I’m going to do. Stay here? A place I know really no one but Delaney and a couple of her friends and a couple of guys I’ve seen here and there? Or go back to Savannah and feel like a failure for landing back there again?
What do I do with Boutique Designs? Can I run it on my own? Can I do the things I want to do as a one-woman show?
I bury my head in my hands.
“You’re okay with this?” Delaney asks, coming in and handing me a mug of coffee.
“I understand you wanting to help your family. Of course,” I tell her. “I hope someday you figure out how to follow your dreams in the process, but I get it. Truly.”
“Will you stay here or go back to Georgia?”
“I don’t know,” I say, sipping the brew. “That’s the beauty of our company, I guess. I can do it from anywhere.”
“I’d go back. There are all those sexy-as-hell brothers of yours.”
“Brothers, Delaney. They’re my brothers. They’re gross.”
I attempt a snarl, but it doesn’t come out that way. As gross as they are, I love them so much. Despite their overbearing and ridiculous antics, they are the best brothers in the world and have taught me so much.
Delaney smiles over the brim of her mug. “So stay here.”
“Probably not,” I laugh. “I’m definitely going somewhere warmer. Somewhere . . . inspiring.”
“You know what I find inspiring?” she asks, wiggling her eyebrows. “We should go to the bakery over in Linton and get a donut and see if we can bump into anyone.”
The tension in my shoulders evaporates as the notes of her giggle work through the room and I see right through her plan. “Yeah, I’m sure the guys from the bar are having a croissant there this morning, Delaney,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Highly unlikely.”
“Probably not. But we might run into them at the gas station. Or . . .”
“We are not stalking random guys on a Sunday morning,” I laugh. “Even if they were totally cute.”
“Cute? They aren’t puppies, Sienna. They were stallions.”
“You’ve officially lost it.”
She grins, plopping down her coffee mug and tucking her legs up under her. The lightheartedness slips from her face as she clears her throat. “What are you going to do about the truck?”
The flip of my stomach at his smirk turns into a crazy knotted mess at the memory of last night.
Everything about last night was an epic fail.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do about it,” I sigh. “I’ve been thinking about it all morning. I don’t even think I said I’m sorry.”
“In your defense, none of us were prepared to be accosted by three men that good-looking at midnight in Linton of all places.”
“What do they put in the water over there?”
“Sex appeal. Straight into the pipeline,” she says, pumping a fist in celebration of our luck.
The lust dampens as my conscience takes over and guilt swamps me. “Now that I’ve had a second to clear my mind, I’m kind of embarrassed, Delaney.”
“It was an accident.”
“I know. But I messed up his truck,” I wince. “And I probably came across as an unapologetic brat.”
“No one uses the word ‘brat’ unless they’re eighty,” she teases. “And you are the least bratty person I’ve ever met.”
“That doesn’t mean he knows that.”
She considers this. “Okay. I see your point and I have a suggestion.”
Groaning, I set my mug on the coffee table. “I’m not sure I even want to hear this.”
“Sure you do!” she says, her eyes dancing. “Go over there on Monday and offer up a night with you in exchange for the damage.”
“I will do no such thing,” I say, shaking my head. But two nights . . .
“But you want to. I know you do.”
“That doesn’t matter,” I laugh. “I’m going over there on Monday to apologize and offer again to pay for the damage—with money. It’s the least I can do. And hopefully he won’t file a police report.”
“He’s not going to do that,” she tsks.
“We don’t know anything about them other than they’re cute. They could be total assholes, Delaney. I can’t risk it. Can you imagine Graham’s reaction? Or my father’s?” My eyes squeeze shut so hard my temple pulses. “I can hear them now. It would be a nightmare.”