CHAPTER 10 JACKSON #2
I shift in the squeaky booth seat and decide I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. “They’re excited for a weeklong sleepover with their friend.”
“Probably longer if the snow does what we say it’s going to do,” Delilah muses. She wiggles her fingers and does something ridiculous with her face. “We hold all the power.”
She adjusts the collar of the jacket so it’s back at the base of her throat.
Like the world’s stupidest moth to the world’s prettiest flame, my eyes follow.
I wonder if my jacket will smell like her when she gives it back.
Something fruity and light with a sharp bite.
Dark cherries. Summer peaches dipped in wine.
I drag my eyes up to the ceiling of the diner.
I don’t know when this burgeoning attraction to Delilah went from a passing awareness to a fire poker in my side, but it couldn’t have worse timing.
It’s the last thing I want when we’re going to be more or less handcuffed together for the duration of this storm.
I’m so goddamned irritated. With myself. With the situation. With how easy some of this feels when I thought it would be anything but.
“I think we should talk about work now,” I choke out, about as subtle as a kick to the face. Delilah stops trying to noisily suck up the remnants of her chocolate shake and flicks her gaze up to mine, bemused.
“Okay,” she says slowly. She catches her straw between her teeth. “What work thing would you like to discuss?”
“We have a call with the radio station in an hour. I think they’ve got us coming on during the afternoon news block.”
Delilah nods. I wait for her to say something. She doesn’t.
“What do you want to talk about?” I ask.
Delilah’s smile edges wider, that damned red straw still caught between her teeth. “Well, Jackson. We should probably talk about the weather.”
“I thought maybe we could write a script during lunch. Something for us to stick to so we don’t get side—”
“No,” Delilah interrupts.
The rest of my planned speech crumbles to dust. “No? Why not?”
“Because then we’ll sound wooden and weird. It’s—what? A twenty-second spot? Thirty? Let’s just do it and see how it goes.”
“See how it goes,” I repeat.
“Yup!” She slurps the very last of her milkshake noisily. “I know that’s outside your normal operating sphere, but as we’ve discussed, it might be nice to try something new.”
“I’m not great at that.”
Her face softens. “I know. But you can talk to me and I’ll talk to you and everything will be fine. Just . . . pretend it’s the two of us. Having a conversation. We’re pretty good at that, aren’t we?”
Two turkey sandwiches appear on the table between us. One with French fries, the other with mashed potatoes. I stare blankly down at them, an uncomfortable pulling sensation in the middle of my chest. A thread unspooled. A crack in a stone-hewn wall, formed long ago.
“Everything the way you wanted it?” our waitress asks, still snapping that gum.
No. Nothing is the way I wanted it.
“Yeah,” I answer instead, my tongue thick in my mouth. I clear my throat and manage a smile. “Everything looks great.”
“Should I pull over?”
“I don’t know,” Delilah answers, her voice muffled. “Do you feel like you need to pull over?”
I reach over and curl one hand around her ankle, holding her steady while she does .
. . whatever the hell it is she’s doing in the back seat.
Bent over the center console, she rummages around in her backpack, the curve of her ass a distracting six inches from my face while we hurtle down the highway at seventy miles per hour.
“Delilah,” I grind out, tightening my grip on her when she wobbles precariously to the left. “Get up here and put your seat belt on.”
“One second. I want to get the Wi-Fi connector thing for the call. I thought it was here, but I— Oh!” She shimmies back to the front seat, her hair in her face. She holds up a small black box the size of her fist. “Found it.”
“Great.” I let go of her ankle. “Put your seat belt on.”
She chatters happily about spotty phone connections in the middle of the mountains, pulling the seat belt over her lap while balancing her phone on her knee.
She taps at the screen and connects everything that needs to be connected while I keep my eyes on the road and try to deep breathe through the worst of my showtime jitters.
It was Delilah’s idea to do this while driving. At first I balked, but it’s turned out to be a good idea, back-seat traversing notwithstanding. It helps, I think, to have something to do. With my focus on the road while Delilah dials into the station, I have less mental space to catastrophize.
That is until a familiar voice fills the cab of the van. One I wasn’t expecting to hear. “Hey, you two. How’s the road trip?”
“Aiden?” I ask, glancing quickly at the phone like it’ll summon his corporeal form into the middle seat of the news van. “What are you doing at the station? Are the girls okay? Did something happen?”
Delilah pats my knee lightly.
“Everything’s fine. I came into the station because I thought you could use a friend on the other end. Relax.” Someone murmurs something in the background and Aiden snorts. “Benny is none too pleased to be sharing his airtime, though.”
“This is a serious segment, pretty boy,” a rough voice crackles over the line. Benny, the host of the afternoon news hour program, must have just gotten into the booth. “I don’t like you trying to commandeer my ship.”
“No one is commandeering anything,” Aiden says easily. “I’m here for moral support.”
“I don’t need moral support,” Benny grouches back.
“Not for you, Ben.”
A heavy burst of static explodes over the line and both Delilah and I wince. She lowers the volume, then cradles the phone in her hands.
“Thanks for giving us some of your time, Benny. We’ll keep it short and sweet for you.”
There’s a long pause. “Is that Delilah?” he finally asks.
Delilah grins. “Sure is!”
“I suppose that will be fine, then.”
Aiden snickers into the phone. “I’ve never seen someone over seventy blush before.”
“You’re about to see someone over seventy kick your ass,” Benny snaps, sharp as a whip. Delilah covers her mouth with her palm, her eyes squinting at the corners as she tries not to laugh. I grin at her.
“Watch yourself, Aiden,” I warn.
“Yeah, no kidding,” he mutters. “Okay, are you guys ready? I kind of want to get out of this booth as soon as possible.”
I look at Delilah’s smiling face. Flushed cheeks.
Red lips. She’s looking at me like she believes I can do this, and it makes me think that maybe I can.
Maybe I can flatten the curled-up edges of myself.
Maybe old wounds don’t have to hurt so bad.
Maybe I can move past them into something new, better, different.
“Yeah,” I say. “We’re ready.”
BENNY BARLOW: I’m told there is an update?