Delaney

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Tyler stands in my sliver of a hallway, his eyes closed.

I run my fingers lightly through his lush brown locks, savoring the soft feel of his thick hair. I could do this for a while. But we have a party to go to.

“Ready?”

“Absolutely.”

His eyes are closed. The hairstyle I picked for him is a surprise. I slide the banana-blond wig over his skull, tucking his brown hair into the wig cap. He smirks and smiles the whole time. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, per my instructions.

I adjust the wig, then I tell him to stand still as I grab a red-checked bandana from the coffee table. I tie that around his forehead, tucking it under the bright bangs. He wiggles his eyebrows as I do that.

Next, I grab some leather wristbands and snap them on his right arm.

“I’m going to look so hot,” he says.

I drop a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Even like this, yes, you are.” I step back, appraising my handiwork. Technically, Gigi’s fete isn’t a costume party so I didn’t plan to go full-on dress-up, but I couldn’t help myself once I saw the wig. I had no choice but to accessorize it.

I put my hands on his shoulders and walk him to the mirror. “Open your eyes.”

He does as told, and his laughter starts with a trickle, then small little burst. Then, like a dam unleashed, it becomes a waterfall of belly laughs.

He shakes his head at his reflection and turns to me. “I’m your Axl Rose, angel. You got me a mullet.”

A grin spreads. “And no one has ever rocked a mullet like you have.”

“You do have a big thing for hair bands.” He runs a palm over the too-bright blond hair that’s spiky on top and long on the sides.

I hope he knows it’s a compliment that I picked this look for him. Sure, it’s ironic, but it’s also a nod to one of my guilty pleasures. “You do know I had a huge crush on Axl Rose back in the day?”

He runs the back of his fingers over my cheek. “I am one hundred percent aware of that crush, and I couldn’t be more honored to rock the look. And will you be wearing a Joan Jett rocker-chick ’do?” He presses his hands together in prayer. “Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.”

I laugh and drag a hand down his chest, enjoying the feel of his hard muscles through the fabric of his T-shirt. “Just you wait.”

I head to my bedroom and shut the door. I won’t be playing Joan Jett or Belinda Carlisle tonight. But I think he’ll like my look anyway, even though I didn’t pick it for him. I picked it for me. It’s fun, playful, and bold. It’s the opposite of the more muted looks I wear to work.

But more than anything, the wig I picked makes me happy. I twist my hair up, tuck it into a nylon cap, and then pull on a sapphire blue wig. The fake hair hits me just below the chin in a cute bob. I kick off my jeans and slip on a white dress.

For the pièce de résistance, I grab a pair of boots from my closet. Nicole tracked them down for me. She hoofed it all over the city in hot pursuit of the sexiest pair of size-ten flipper-feet ankle boots she could find. When she presented these gray beauties to me last night over happy hour drinks, she said, “A peace offering.”

I arched a brow. “There’s no need for an olive branch when you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Nicole shook her head. “I do need to make peace. Because I want you to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’m here for you. I support you. When you go on your date tomorrow night, I want you to know I’m behind you.” She squeezed my hand, and her green eyes teared up. “I mean it, hon. All I want is for you to be happy. If this man makes you happy, then you should go for it, and you should have the hottest pair of boots in existence to match your little go-go outfit.” She smiled and threw her arms around me. “You’re going to look like Katy Perry.”

But after I slip on the boots, which jack me up by three inches, it’s not the pop star I look like. It’s a kids’ TV star. When I return to the hallway where Tyler’s leaning against the wall, his eyes roam my figure from head to toe. His jaw falls in slow motion like a crank is winding it wide open, as he takes me in. “You . . .”

He doesn’t say anything more. I think he might be speechless. He licks his lips and tries again. “You look . . .”

I smile and jut out a hip, giving him a sexy little pose.

He detaches himself from the wall, strides over to me, and sets his hands on my hips, clasping me tight. “I can’t believe you have just given me Smurf fantasies. But you have. You are the sexiest fucking woman I’ve ever seen, my Smurfette.”

I’ll take that over a pop star anyway, considering what he does next.

He slams his mouth to mine. He sweeps his tongue over my lips, then insistently pushes inside my mouth. He kisses me roughly, with hunger. His stubble scratches my chin, and the whiskery burn sends a rush of heat down my chest and straight between my legs.

Already I’m hot for him, needy for him. He bends me back, demanding more from my lips, wanting all of my mouth, kissing me like it’s the only thing on earth left to do.

Kiss and crush and devour.

I moan into his mouth, and he swallows all my sounds then kisses me impossibly harder. My head goes fuzzy, my brain turning into a haze of heat.

And I know as he marks my lips, and takes what he needs from my mouth, that my quip about ninety days is going to be pretty goddamn funny later. The joke will be on me. Like 89.5 days sooner.

When he kisses me like this, and he touches me like that, I fall harder for him.

That’s what I’ve been doing all week, with the dates, and the coffee, and the breakfast, and the office visit, and the walking and talking and kissing, and the running. Through it all, I’ve been falling for this man again.

My heart hammers with the realization. It crashes against my sternum, demanding attention. And I absolutely notice it. I feel everything—the pounding against my ribcage, the flush over my skin as it turns hot, the blood speeding through the freeways in my body. Most of all, I pay attention to how every molecule in me wants to get closer to him.

These feelings scared me in the past.

They scare me again now.

But not as much, and not as deeply, and not enough to stop me. I didn’t expect to fall again so quickly, but here it is. I’m in his arms, and I know this is where I belong.

At some point, we come up for air. His eyes are fiery. Blazing with need.

He licks his lips then shakes his head like he’s clearing his thoughts. He pulls me up and cups my cheeks in his big hands. “I’m crazy for you, my Smurf.”

“Oh Tyler,” I say with a happy murmur. “I’m so crazy for you.” Then I add, with a little wink, “Axl.”

That earns me yet another kiss.

As we leave, with his hand in mind, my heart stutters. For a moment, it feels like a skipped beat. Like fear. How have I let myself fall under his spell again so easily? But then, as I loop an arm around his shoulder and absently rub, kneading the knots as he moans his approval, the answer is clear.

I believe in healing. It’s my job, but it’s also my mantra.

I try to repair ailments for a living. I like to think I’ve healed the wounds inside me.

Through forgiveness. Through moving on. Through letting go.

Now, I’m letting go in a whole new way as I fall again and more wildly for this daring, cocky, funny, caring man with a mullet, a big mouth, and a heart of gold.

I’m not sure I ever forgave my father for leaving us. But he’s my dad. He was supposed to stay.

With Tyler, I have a chance to forgive in a way I never could with my dad. To move beyond the past. Looking back, I can see I made mistakes, too. I didn’t always open my heart when I should have. Sometimes, I kept my fears too close to the vest. I put up walls from time to time.

And just as he has a new chance with me, I have a new chance to be the person I want to be. As we walk through the New York evening, hand in hand on our way to a wig party, I thread my fingers more tightly through his.

I take a breath.

Shore up my heart.

Prepare to say something I haven’t told a soul. Not Penny, not Nicole, and certainly not my mom. “I’m trying to find my dad.”

My chest pinches and my throat squeezes.

Tyler slows his pace and meets my gaze. “Yeah? How’s that going?”

His tone is so normal, so measured, so wonderfully calm, that it eases the pain of some of the shards and splinters inside me. “I hired a private detective. I wanted to see where he is. If he’s still married. If he has more kids.”

“What did you find out?”

“He’s in Canada.” With each sentence I utter out loud, I feel lighter and freer. As the sounds of the New York evening clatter around us, from cabs screeching by, to buses slogging fumes, to the click-clack of harried New Yorkers, I enter my happy zone.

It’s a little bubble with this man who adored me once upon a time and seems to yet again. He makes me feel like all my heart is safe with him—the happy parts, and the scarred parts, and the ones that are still healing, too.

“He’s still married.” I add, “But I’m waiting for more info.”

“What will you do when you get it?”

We stop at the crosswalk as the light turns red. I turn to him and shrug. “I honestly don’t know. Contact him, I suppose? See how he’s doing? What he’s up to?”

Tyler nods and bends to dust a soft kiss on my forehead. “Let me help you when you get the info.”

I pull back to meet his gaze. “Help me?”

“Anything you need,” he says, the look in his eyes so earnest and caring. “There’s nothing I want more than to be there for you if you need me. If you need a shoulder to lean on before, during, or after that call, you know where to find me.”

And I float.

My sexy ankle boots are hoverboards, and I rise up and up and up on a cloud of sweetness and bliss. I don’t know what’s going to happen with my dad, but this man wants to be by my side. And that means something to me—something real and true.

Soon we make it to Gigi’s home, and she throws open the door, inviting us into a swirl of music and laughter and appetizers and delicious culinary scents. Her home is awash in brightly colored heads, too. She’s donned a rainbow-striped wig herself, which she affectionately calls her Rainbow Dash hair, after one of the My Little Ponies. She introduces us to several of the friends and family stuffed inside her brownstone off Amsterdam Avenue.

There are women with Afros, some with 80s perms, and one with a green wig that looks as bright as the Emerald City. A man wears a woman’s strawberry-blond TV anchor cut, and another man has a 1970s Anchorman-style mop top. This party is a festival of color and style and lots and lots of locks. It’s an homage to survival and to life.

We nibble on appetizers, and we drink champagne, and we toast with Gigi to kicking cancer’s ass. Soon, Tyler and I find ourselves in a little nook of the kitchen.

“I won an awesome new deal at work,” he says, then tells me about one of his clients and how he pulled off a big contract.

I raise my glass. “You’re amazing. You take these chances and they pay off.”

He nods. “My cousin calls me Bungee Jump Tyler. I’m owning the nickname. Carving out my niche as one helluva daring attorney.”

Something occurs to me. Something I haven’t thought much about before, but now I’ve got to know. “If we’d stayed together before, do you think you’d be one helluva daring attorney?”

He tilts his head. “Why do you ask?”

I lean in closer to him as an idea takes hold. “I just wonder—if we’d stayed together would we be doing what we’re doing right now? Maybe we wouldn’t be.”

He raises an eyebrow and nods, as if considering it. “You think so?”

I hold my hands out wide. “Who knows? Maybe you wouldn’t have gone into entertainment law. You love what you do, but maybe if we’d stuck to the path we mapped out, maybe we’d be on those same paths still. Maybe we wouldn’t have taken the chance to diverge and try new things?”

“Like a new branch of law for me and a whole new career for you?”

I bounce on my toes, energy coursing through me. “Look, I didn’t like our breakup, but maybe we were supposed to break up so we could become the people we are. I’m so damn happy to not be a lawyer and instead do massage for a living and run my own business. And you—you’re practicing a type of law you didn’t even plan to go into.”

“And our split let us come back together as the people we are today. Like, this is how we’re supposed to be with each other?”

“And with ourselves, too. Maybe we needed to be pulled apart to become our better selves.”

He sets down his champagne glass, loops his arm around my waist, and tugs me close. “Delaney,” he says, his voice raspy, “what you just said is another reason why I’m not just crazy for you.”

He takes a beat, and I study his face, trying to understand what he meant. “Not just crazy for me?”

“I’m not,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s way more than that, angel. It’s so much deeper. I’m in love with you all over again.”

I melt into his touch and breathe out words I haven’t said since him. “I’m so in love with you, too.”