Better Than You: part 8

8.

 

“Stop smiling. I’m a shameless slut.”

 

Regina’s eyes rolled as she popped another French fry in her mouth. “Puh-lease. You need to chill the hell out, girl. You went out with a hot guy, you got laid. You aren’t married – you can do stuff like that. Besides,” she reached for another fry, “when was the last time you did anything just for the fun of it?”

 

“If we all went through life doing things ‘for the fun of it’, it’d be anarchy.”

 

Regina’s look said really? Way to be a spoilsport.

 

Sighing to herself, Delta glanced through the big plate glass window of the diner where her friend had demanded she meet her for a full explanation of the night before. All hopes that Regina would be too preoccupied with her man candy to dwell on Delta’s early departure from Aces had been dashed when Delta had finally dragged herself out of bed and checked her phone. Four of her five voice mails had been from Regina – “We have got to meet for lunch. Call me!” – and the other had been from Greg – “I think we need to talk.”

 

“Greg was there,” she said as she watched cars jockey in the parking lot. “It’s like I rubbed his nose in the fact that I’m cheating on him.”

 

“Hey, did he ever say you guys were exclusive? Does he even call you his girlfriend?”

 

“Well…”

 

“Meanwhile this Mike guy is all-out fighting for you, and telling Greg to get his shit and go…that is hot, Delt. I mean, hot.”

 

She sighed again, out loud this time.

 

“And he was good, wasn’t he?” Regina prompted. “Better than Greg?”

 

Delta made a face at her barely-there reflection in the glass. Her salad sat untouched in front of her and her eyebrows seemed permanently fused together. “Much better than Greg,” she admitted.

 

“Then what,” Regina slapped a palm against the table top in clear exasperation, “is the problem?”

 

“Don’t make it sound so simple.”

 

“It is simple.”

 

“No it’s not,” Delta raked her hair back off her face and suppressed a growl. “I had a good thing going,” she pegged Regina with a look that told her she didn’t expect to be interrupted. “Greg is a good guy – he’s the right kind of guy. He’s successful and stable and my parents love him. He golfs and reads and…” she ran out of steam and her friend pounced.

 

“And all of those things are great,” Regina said, “but they’re just general. It doesn’t matter if he’s ‘the right kind of guy’ if he’s not the right kind of guy for you.”

 

Delta picked up her fork and stabbed a cucumber.

 

“And doesn’t Mike have a Beemer you said? So he’s successful, right? What’s he do?”

 

“He’s in accounting at this big corporate insurance brokerage just down the street from the mall.”

 

“Okay, so that crosses success off the list.”

 

“’Gina,” Delta sighed. “I just…” She just what? She didn’t know. Her head hurt and the sun coming through the window was too bright and she’d awakened that morning feeling supremely lonely in a way she hadn’t experienced in a long time.

 

“Honey,” Regina became serious as she brushed the salt off her fingers and leaned her elbows onto the table. “I don’t know this guy, but I think it’s safe to say he’s got the major hots for you. Even if things don’t work out, you’re not a slut or a disappointment to anyone if you give it a shot and finally, for once in your life, go out with a guy you really like. ‘Cause you’re all twisted up about him and that spells like.”

 

“I don’t like being twisted up.”

 

“I know. You’re a tightass.”

 

With a frown, she forked a bite of salad into her mouth. One of the reasons Mike was wrecking her head so effortlessly was his similarity to Regina: both of them liked picking at her.

 

“Okay, so, I want details. All the details.”

 

**

 

“No. You’re lying.”

 

Mike pushed up the sleeve of his sweatshirt and showed the inside of his forearm, and the telltale red crescents left behind by fingernails, to Tam and Jordan.

 

Tam still looked unconvinced, head wagging as he leaned back in his chair and hooked a leg over the arm. “You gave those to yourself.”

 

“Like your vacuum hickey freshman year,” Jordan reminded with a smile.

 

“You losers are jealous.” Mike was in a good mood, almost as good as if Delta hadn’t kicked him out of bed just after three that morning. He had never in his life been pushed out of bed by a woman.

 

“I don’t care what she looks like,” Tam said, “she’s not worth however much begging you had to do.”

 

“Hey, I beg for no one.”

 

“You were too busy pissing her off for that,” Jordan said.

 

“Jealous,” Mike insisted, but his head flopped back against the plush leather of his living room couch and he choked down the urge to tell both of them to shove it. So what if Delta still acted like she hated his damn guts? The key word was act, because he still had a shot and he was convinced she’d almost caved that morning. What the hell did Tam and Jordan know anyway? They were neck-and-neck in a race to see who could offend the most women.

 

Most Sundays, beer and football put him to sleep and the three of them woke sometime after dark, covered in spilled Cheetos and hungry for ordered-in pizza. But he was restless today, even if he should have been passed out by now given he’d been awake since three.

 

He fished his phone out of his pocket and shoved to his feet.

 

“Oh, Mikey,” Jordan said in a breathy falsetto, “I’m so glad you called. I couldn’t wait to tell you what a douchebag you are again.”

 

Mike popped his little brother in the shoulder as he rounded the arm of the couch and slipped into his galley kitchen. As he dialed, he glanced through the half-wall into the living room and saw Jordan rubbing the place where he’d been punched, grimacing. Served him right.

 

Delta picked up on the third ring. “Hi,” she said, and if nothing else, it was better than last night’s hello.

 

“Hey, dollface,” he greeted, and waited for the verbal slap.

 

It didn’t come, though, not directly at least. “You called,” there was a clear note of surprise in her voice and he could envision the smooth arches of her brows going up her forehead.

 

“I said I would.”

 

“I know…but people say a lot of things.”

 

Mike grinned. He was so still in the running. “How’s your day going?”

 

“Good.” But she wasn’t enthusiastic about that statement.

 

“You wishing you’d let me stay?”

 

There was the briefest of pauses that meant yes. “No.”

 

“What are you doing tonight?”

 

She was somewhere quiet because he couldn’t hear even the softest murmur of background noise. Probably at home; he called up a fast mental picture of her champagne and cream bedroom, the dainty chair in the corner, and could see sunlight pouring in through the window across her face, her brows eyes toffee and chocolate. “You want to go out again?”

 

“I want to see you again,” he corrected. “I’m having some friends over for pizza and to watch the game if you wanna come.”

 

She made him wait. “Where do you live?”

 

“Like three miles from you. I’ll text you the address and gate code.”

 

“I don’t know. What time?”

 

“You’re being difficult again.”

 

“What time?”

 

“Six.”

 

“Then text away and maybe I’ll drop by.”

 

**

 

If Delta had learned anything about Mike Walker in the past four days, it was that when he did casual, he was pretty damn casual. She wasn’t wasting a good dress on pizza and friends, especially not when he already knew what was underneath. But as she stepped into skinny jeans and plucked her favorite red sweater out of the drawer in her closet, a ripple of nervous energy moved through her.

 

After the night before, her anticipation should have been back to zero, but for some reason, she had the jitters, and the sudden knock on her door as she arranged the V neck of her sweater didn’t help.

 

“Coming!” she called as she gave herself one last check in her dressing table mirror and snatched up her ankle boots on the way out the door. The knock sounded again, louder and more insistent. It was probably Regina; she’d threatened to stop by and harass her into calling Mike if she hadn’t already. “Coming, coming,” she repeated, and stood up on her tiptoes to check the peephole.

 

Big-headed, elongated and distorted by the glass, it was Greg who stood frowning with his hands jammed in his coat pockets, and not Regina.

 

“Oh, shit,” she breathed as she sat back on her heels, dread slamming into her. Dread – that was a harsh realization to think that she’d rather sit through a root canal than open the door to her boyfriend.

 

“Your car’s here, I know you’re home, Delta,” she jumped when his muffled voice came seeping in around the cracks. “Unless,” his tone became nasty, “whoever you’re screwing drove.”

 

With a sigh, she flipped the deadbolt and swung the door wide, feet braced apart in the threshold; she’d already decided against inviting him in. “Hi,” she forced a tight smile, “nice to see you too.”

 

On a good day, Greg was as charming as dry wheat toast. Tonight, he was pissed, but in a cold, flat, disinterested way. His brows were pulled together and a frown tugged at one corner of his mouth, but otherwise, he still had the dry wheat toast thing going on. “Don’t try to be cute,” he said. “Are you going to tell me that guy last night was your long lost cousin or something?”

 

“He’s a friend.” She reached back and caught the sleeve of her wool coat, managed to flick the whole heavy thing down without leaving her post and dragged it up into her arms.

 

“A friend you’re screwing.”

 

“Don’t say ‘screwing’,” she made a face as she slid her arms through the sleeves and flipped her hair out over the collar. “It makes you sound jealous and we both know you aren’t.”

 

“I’m not?” he took a step toward her that she ignored, meeting his gaze without flinching. “You think you can run around on me and I won’t mind?”

 

Guilt pricked at her, but she wasn’t going to let him see it. “We never agreed that we were exclusive -,”

 

“We’re out every weekend, Delta!” she’d never heard him raise his voice before and it startled her. “Do you think I’m spending hundreds of dollars on dinners and flowers for some other woman?”

 

“I -,”

 

“Did you think about me at all before you threw yourself at some asshole? Or should I say several?”

 

In a gesture that reminded her, horrifically, of her mother, she stabbed a forefinger at him through the space between them. “Don’t you paint me like that! I am not like that, Greg!” And that was exactly the problem: she wasn’t like that. She was careful and precise and she weighed the long term effects of every little thing she ever did; she wasn’t the person who had grabbed a double handful of Mike Walker’s shirt and pulled him down into bed with her. She wasn’t.

 

“Then what do you call last night?” he was in danger of yelling as a vein popped out along his temple and his face started to color. “You-you duck out on me and you…sneak around and…bring some guy home with you,” she’d never seen him so flustered and it tied her stomach in knots. “What the hell? You can’t even break up with me? You have to keep me hanging around like some poor stupid bastard in case you change your mind and want me to stick around?”

 

“It wasn’t like that.”

 

“Then explain it to me!”

 

Delta opened her mouth…and nothing came out. She couldn’t even explain it to herself; she didn’t have a chance of helping him to understand. After her own stupid teenage mistakes, she’d come to think that nothing ever “just happened” – she rolled her eyes whenever someone used it as an excuse – and was so sure that everything that “happened” to her was something she’d asked for. School, work – she got what she strove for. But Mike wasn’t anything she’d planned or hoped. At least he didn’t feel that way – really, her incessant guilt was the product of thinking she’d led him on somehow, that she’d secretly wanted this to happen.

 

Greg raked a hand back through his tidy dark hair, smile false and grim. “I’m good to you, Delta. I don’t deserve this.”

 

“I know you don’t. You -,”

 

“And I’m not some overly macho dickhead who’s going to fight over you. If you don’t respect yourself, how can I respect you?”

 

He might as well have called her a slut. She swallowed hard, feeling the insult all the way down to her bones. “Respect?” she hissed through her teeth. “You don’t even know me well enough to know that I hate steak. And I hate badly written porn novels. And that there’s a difference between Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio!”

 

He blinked.

 

“You don’t know me at all, Greg, so don’t act like you respected me or even liked me beyond what I could do for you at parties as your arm candy,” she ground out the last and snatched her purse up off the side table in her front hall. Her ankle boots went on in an angry rush; she stomped them into place. “Excuse me,” she said as she locked her door and stepped around him. “I’ve gotta go screw a guy.”