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SCOTT wasn't asleep despite the late hour. No, he'd only just gotten a shower and was now staring up at the ceiling of his room. He had been right about his uncle's reaction to him choosing a dog over his job.
Riggs hadn't even waited for them to get alone — he tore into him while Javi was watching, a sympathetic frown on his face the whole time. And Scott just took it all, knowing that every single word that left his uncle's mouth was right.
He was pathetic and ungrateful for the opportunities Riggs had given him.
And yet Scott didn't regret it. It had all been worth it just to see Daisy okay and Delilah-Jane with that relieved look on her sweet face. And god, she'd hugged him.
Frustration coursed through him like a river, unable to take his mind off the thought of her trembling body pressed up against his. Of how she pressed her cold nose to his chest — she wasn't even tall enough to reach his neck. She had stared up at him like he'd saved her life, not just Daisy's.
Maybe if her looming brother hadn't been there, she'd have stood on her toes and tried to kiss his cheek — he was convinced that she wouldn't be able to reach. And he'd wrap his arms around her waist, lifting her up so that she—
With a loud groan, Scott shook his head and rolled over, hiding his face in the pillow.
God, he was yearning and pining like some pathetic teenager.
It was worse, he was convinced, than the sinful way he'd thought of her in the shower just fifteen minutes ago. Because at least when he had his hands wrapped around himself, his head thrown back against the shower wall as he pictured the way her soaked green sundress clung to her perfect body, his heart wasn't aching for her. It had been pure lust and nothing more.
But now that he was alone with his actual thoughts — the deep ones he tried to bury all day — it was so much more than that. It was—
He almost didn't hear the timid knock on his door, too busy wallowing in his thoughts of Delilah-Jane. Figuring it was Javi there to ask him how he was doing after his uncle tore into him, he rolled his eyes but got up nonetheless.
"Javi, I don't want to talk about—"
Scott shut his mouth instantly when he saw Delilah-Jane on the other side of the door, looking up at him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. She wasn't in a soaking wet sundress anymore — just another of her brother's t-shirts that hung off her shoulders and a pair of shorts.
And hell, whatever nervous thought DJ had been thinking instantly flew out of her mind when she saw Scott. Because he wasn't in that dorky Storm PAR uniform anymore.
He was in a black t-shirt, and it was so tight, hugging biceps she couldn't believe he kept hidden away beneath that baggy button down he was in every day. Her eyes trailed down his long body, seeing him in grey sweatpants that hung low on his hips, and she swore she could see the outline of his—
