Delaney James seems to have it all-a successful husband, a stylish Manhattan townhouse, and a thriving career in fashion journalism-until it all falls apart. Her husband leaves her, shattering the perfect life she once knew. Heartbroken and desperat...
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I'm woken up the next morning by high-pitched electric drills, the thunderous buzz of a saw, and hammers pounding. The noise is coming from the backyard and pouring through my open bedroom window. Hurricane season is upon us and North Carolina is experiencing a cool front because of it. A cool front that's making it feel like fall instead of August.
I roll over and grab my phone from my nightstand, groaning when I see it's not even eight o'clock. Who starts manual labor before eight o'clock in the morning? Who starts anything before eight o'clock in the morning?
I throw off my comforter and get out of bed. I might as well be productive and go for a run, considering I haven't even taken so much as a walk since we got home from LA. Greyson has a custom-made mattress, and I want to spend every spare second laying on it. It's the most comfortable thing I've ever slept on and when he leaves for work in the morning and I have the bed to myself, I roll into the middle and let it swallow me up. I wake up with barely enough time to get ready for work, let alone get a run in.
I wash up and pull my hair into a ponytail before I squeeze into a sports bra and black biker shorts, and as I make my way downstairs, I decide I want to have a little fun. Greyson feasted on me like an all-you-can-eat-buffet when we were in LA, and he's barely touched me since. I feel like I'm going to explode.
What I'm about to do is a little childish, but I want to make it clear that he's not the only one who can tease.
I slip out the side door and make my way up the driveway, and when I know I'm in Greyson's view, I turn my back to him and bend over, my ass in the air as I stretch my hamstrings. Slowly, I run my hands down the backs of my legs. I open my feet so they're shoulder width apart, pressing the palms of my hands against the ground as I push for a deeper stretch, and when I look between my legs, Greyson is watching me, arm hanging loosely with a hammer in his hand and the other dragging across his stubbled, slacked jaw. I rise to standing, and when I turn all the way around and place my hands on my hips, a mischievous smirk lifts the corner of his mouth. His eyes travel the length of my body, and when he gestures to my tight sports bra and tiny shorts and gives me two thumbs up, I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from laughing.
He spreads his fingers and holds his hands up to his chest, indicating toward my boobs, and shakes his head in a way I can only assume is a motorboating simulation. A beaming smile brightens his face, and he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth as he points to his groin, then to mine, and starts to enthusiastically hump the air. He doesn't see him coming, but I do, and when my father smacks him on the back of his head, causing his baseball hat to fly off and land on the ground, I cover my mouth to stifle my laughter.
"What are you doing? What the hell are you doing? Are you...are you dry humping the air?" my father asks, glancing between the two of us. "That's my daughter."
"What?" he asks, his cheeks turning a bright red. "No. I would never."
