Page 108 of Badd B*tch

Delia sighed. "Don't I know it. She's gonna either take over the world or destroy it; I'm not sure which."

"She talks like she's somewhere between three and thirty-three; I'm not sure which."

Delia cackled. "She's the youngest member of the Badd Clan, and none of us talk down to her or do the whole baby talk thing. Plus, she's freakishly, terrifyingly intelligent. I don't know what to do with her, most days."

"Send her to Harvard?"

This got me a laugh. "Thought about it. Unfortunately, they don't offer a boarding school option."

"Seems like an oversight to me."

"Right?" She was quiet a while, then looked at me again. "So, you and Jax."

"Yeah?" I felt wary—I got the sense that Delia was no one to be fucked with.

"I'm really, really happy to see that he's…" She hesitated, as if unsure what to say, or possibly what I knew and didn't know.

"Moved on from Emerson for real?" I suggested.

Delia nodded. "Yeah. I wasn't sure how much you knew."

"Not gonna say everything, but enough. I know he had feelings for her for a very long time that she never returned, and it's caused a lot of problems for him." I, in turn, wasn’t sure how much of Jax's personal feelings on the subject he'd shared with Delia, who wasn’t just his cousin, but the best friend and adopted sister of the subject of his lifelong crush.

She let out a breath. "He held a lot of that inside. I always got the feeling he was kind of embarrassed by the whole thing."

"I'd say that's accurate enough, from my conversations with him."

She regarded me. "I'm the closest thing he has to a sister. Uncle Zane and my dad are closest in age, so we've always been closest to Jax and his brothers because of that, if only because we’re closest in age, too." I waited for the zinger, because I could feel it coming. "Don't hurt him, Tea. Please. If you have any doubts about him, or us as a family, please, please try to figure that out sooner rather than later. I know we're a fucking lot to deal with, especially if you come from a family that's not as… everything…as we are." Another pause. "He's just getting over the thing with Sunni. Now the crash, and the bear? That's all a lot. He couldn't handle having his heart broken on top of all that." She looked at me again, after lifting a bit to scan for and locate her daughter. "I'm not saying anything about you. I just—"

I had to cut in, then. "Delia, I think you underestimate Jax's…fortitude. He's a very strong person. He may not agree with that, because I know for a fact he has a much more negative view of himself over the Emerson thing than any of you probably realize."

"Really?"

I nodded. “Oh, for sure. Anything more than that you'd have to ask him about, though."

She nodded. "Understood."

"That said," I continued, "I…care about him. A lot. I know it all seems super fast, but—"

"Other families might think you guys are jumping into the deep end a little fast," Delia interjected, "but it's par for the course around here."

"He's said something similar more than once."

"I fell in love with Hunter almost immediately. It just took a few weeks for me to admit it to myself. And in our family, those weeks I spent in denial put me at the upper end of the curve, in terms of how long it took for each couple to admit to and accept being in love."

I snorted. "Admit to and accept being in love. There's a statement for you."

"Love is a weakness," she said. "Just objectively speaking. You have to be vulnerable for it to work. You have to show someone all your warts, y'know? That's fucking hard and fucking scary. So yeah, we tend to resist, or at least hesitate."

"You're not lying," I said.

"Oops, I gotta go. Looks like my little terrorist is trying to get her hands on some soda."

"Oh dear, that one on sugar and caffeine?" I said, grinning. "That'd be a challenge."

She faked an eye twitch, or maybe it wasn’t faked. "Yeah. You have no clue. But then, we Badds don't do easy humans."

"Is there such a thing?" I asked.