If she hoped to make up what looked like a betrayal to Marcella, that meant dealing with Clyde.
Who needed to know where he stood with her.
She yanked an ankle-length, periwinkle blue skirt out of her dresser drawer and dug around for her favorite gold poet shirt with the long, flowing sleeves. When she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above her dresser, she gave herself a critical once-over. She was pale, and her lips had no color to them. Shoving on some of her gold bangle bracelets, she blew into the bathroom to find some blush and the peach lip gloss Marcella had bought her on one of her shopping sprees. It was all natural, with no harsh chemicals and no animal testing, she’d said proudly. Running her finger along the tube, Delaney smiled with the memory.
Her stomach clenched. Who would buy her stupid stuff she hardly ever used if not Marcella? Her fingers trembled as she applied the gloss to her lips, then swiped the blush across her cheekbones, adding mascara as a tribute to her friend.
Better. That was much better. Marcella was right about one thing, sprucing up made her feel more in control, if only on the outside. Dragging a brush through her hair, she grimaced. She had more than her fair share of curly locks, hanging to almost the middle of her back and a shade of auburn Marcella said you couldn’t get out of a bottle. It was unruly and almost impossible to tame with just a brush. She pulled it into a loose knot on top of her head, wrinkling her nose at the stray strands that refused to stay put.
“Delaney?” Clyde’s sharp knock at her bedroom door came with the realization that she had to deal with this, and deal with it now. Kamikaze style.
She strode to the door, peeking around the corner, but she said nothing.
“Is everything all right?”
Yeah. It was shiny. “No. But I have high hopes for the future.”
His blue eyes were rimmed with an emotion she might have labeled concern. Whether real or phony, it made her pause. “Can I ask what happened with you and Marcella and how I got labeled a stupidhead in the process?”
She pushed her way out the door and turned to face him, forcing herself to remember that Clyde was potentially a lost soul. Her job was to help lost souls—not call them names. Yet the dogs clung to his bare calves like he’d been dunked in brown gravy, and she found she still had to fight resentment for the intrusion he’d made in her closely guarded world. Which wasn’t fair to him. “I was pissed. I’m sorry I called you something so childish. It was rude. So now I’m apologizing—bet that’s a nice change of pace.”
“What happened with Marcella?”
She rolled her lower lip to keep it from trembling. “What do you think happened after she found you in my bed?”
He threw up both hands, palms forward. “I’ll say it again, Delaney. I swear I have no idea how I ended up there. I was on the couch last night, with a pile of dogs and I think your ghost dog, Darwin. When I woke up, it was in your bed. I don’t remember getting up. I don’t even remember falling asleep.”
Delaney rolled her head, deciding they had bigger issues to tackle. “I say we just forget that. Nothing’s made much sense since you showed up. Regardless, Marcella seems to think I’ve been swayed to the dark side by your charms, and that freaked her out.”
Clyde smiled.
Which made her bristle. “That’s funny how?”
“If you knew me in life, you’d find the idea of me swaying anything—no less a woman—is about as likely as two right angles in a triangle.”
“I sucked in math.”
“I didn’t.”
“Go fig. Anyway, Marcella thinks we—”
“Dunked, slammed, hooked up, wonked.”
“All of the above, yes, and I didn’t confirm or deny.”
“Because?”
“Because I can’t let her get involved in this. If she knew Satan was out for my blood, she’d do something impetuous and stupid— like hunt his ass and offer to throw down. She’s got a temper to rival an erupting volcano, and when she’s angry, there’s no thinking about anything but taking care of shit and paying for it later.”
Clyde’s eyebrows rose. “I’d have never guessed.”
“So I sent her away and told her not to come back until I said so. I had to. She’s not on Lucifer’s most popular list, if you know what I mean. I can’t take the chance she’d be involved in this hard-on he has for me.”
“So you argued because of my presence here.”
“Basically, and it’s not your fault, and I’m trying to get a grip on that as we speak. If what you say is true, you did me a favor by telling me about this Clyve. But she left without a fight, and that’s not like Marcella. Not even a little. Which means I cut her deep. We’ve been friends a long time. In fact, she’s probably one of my closest friends, because she gets my gift, ya know?”
His silence ticked by, the wheels in his head visibly turning. “I have a question.”