Where the Waves Whisper

Chapter Sixty-Three

March

"Babe, if you come tonight I promise I'll make it worth your while," he says, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

I look up from my laptop and glare at him. "I already told you I can't. I'm way too busy. I just got that sponsorship from Thrive Cosmetics, and Mindy Mae's Market sent me a bunch of clothes in a haul, so I have a million videos to record. I have a blog post that should have gone up yesterday and I have a quickly approaching deadline with Vogue. So, I'm sorry, but there's no way I can go out tonight."

He presses his thin lips together and crosses his long, toned arms against his broad, well-defined chest. His impeccably styled, golden-blonde hair falls over his forehead as he looks down at me, but his light brown eyes are soft and understanding. He's been begging to take me out for weeks, but I've turned him down once again and he's disappointed in me. I hate when he's disappointed in me, but even though I've been at Vogue for seven months now, and my boss loves me, I'm still new. I can't afford to make any mistakes, especially one that includes missing a deadline.

I'll only disappoint him more if I agree to go out with him and spend the night with my face in my phone – like last time.

"Delaney, I know your transition here hasn't been easy, but I'm not gonna lie, I'm starting to get frustrated," he says. "You've been back for months and you've left this apartment a total of what, five times? And I'm not talking about the mornings you go to work or the one time a month you go to the pharmacy to pick up your birth control pills, which let's call a spade a spade, is kind of pointless these days." He flops his long body onto the couch next to me. "What can we do to get you out of this funk, sprout?"

I'd like so badly to argue with him, but unfortunately I can't, because he's right.

Things moved pretty fast once I returned to New York and accepted the job at Vogue. I met with Savannah and forty-eight hours later, I was setting up my office and telling my intern – who I promised I'd always treat with the utmost respect – how I like my coffee in the morning. After it was determined I'd be leaving South Grove and moving back to the city, I called Nico and asked him if I could stay with him and Sloan until I found my own apartment. He agreed with gusto, but as for my temporary ask – he denied my request. He said the only way I could stay with them is if I moved in permanently.

I was more than grateful, to say the least.

Once Will conceded and stopped fighting every move our lawyers made, the divorce settled pretty quickly. My name wasn't on the deed to the house, but Will was kind enough to give me half of what he made on it after it was sold, so between that and what I got from his 401K, pension plan and the spousal support the judge ordered him to pay, on top of my salary at Vogue, I was able to give my parents the money they loaned me last summer, put a sizable amount into a savings account and pay Nico rent – which he still fights me on.

Living with them was an adjustment at first. Sloan and I are more similar in our daily routine and at home behaviors, but Nico, not so much. He'd come in at all hours of the night – waking me from the sleep that had taken hours for me to reach – and start making noise. He'd bring a guy home, sometimes two, and after a brief dance party in the living room, they'd go to his room and continue the party. Sloan's bedroom is on the far end of the apartment, and not only does she sleep with a box fan on every night, she also sleeps like a hibernating bear. It just so happens Nico and I share a wall, and I heard every moan, groan and bed squeak of those after parties. I couldn't tell him to stop going out, and honestly, I wouldn't. It's his apartment and I'm a guest.