CHAPTER 14 JACKSON
JACKSON
Delilah looks like a fuzzy little bear coming out of hibernation when she first wakes up. Heavy eyes. Wild hair. A bewildered, soft expression. They’re details I’m not quite sure what to do with, so I file them away with her preferred brand of road trip snacks and her hate of medieval medicine.
She sits in the middle of the bed in a flannel shirt that’s two sizes too big, one fist digging into her eye, a yawn so wide it cracks her jaw.
I’m drinking my second cup of coffee, trying not to stare.
“You’re already dressed,” she says around a yawn, lifting her arms above her head, giving in to an ambling, stretching groan. I put my cup back in the saucer noisily, the ceramic clinking together. She drops her hands. “How long have you been awake?”
“About an hour or two.”
More like I woke up around two in the morning curled on my side with Delilah’s fingers twisted through mine, our hands buried beneath the pillow wall she made.
I liked it so much I couldn’t fall back to sleep.
I lay there with my thumb tracing the dips and valleys of her knuckles, my breathing slow and even, while my brain spun like a top.
The cyclone of thoughts is always the worst at night, and I did my best to categorize everything into a list:
This assignment and what it means for the station. How I need to do a good job, so everyone else can keep theirs.
The girls and their self-proclaimed “best time ever, ever, ever” with Aiden, Lucie, and Maya.
Their wild laughter and how it felt like they couldn’t get off the phone fast enough.
How it felt good to know they’re happy, but bad too.
Like pressing at the tender edge of a bruise.
That damned insistent voice in the back of my head that sounds suspiciously like my mother, whispering that maybe they need someone who can be more fun without making a damned list.
The text message I received late last night from Camille that said, thinking about hopping on a flight to surprise the girls!!! and my immediate response of, please don’t do that.
And, finally, the biggest distraction of them all:
Delilah, curled on her side beneath the blankets on the other side of a shoddily constructed pillow wall, a soft little snore on every third exhale that I accidentally set my breathing to.
That’s when I finally let go of her hand, sliding quietly out of the bed to stumble into the bathroom.
I took a shower to clear my mind, but just stared at the tiny hot pink loofah hanging from the neck of the showerhead instead.
I’ve been sitting at the table by the fireplace ever since, distracting myself with projections.
“Your hair is wet,” Delilah says groggily from the bed. She’s heavy-eyed and sleep-rumpled in an old set of threadbare pajamas and the combination is more devastating than if she were naked beneath those sheets.
I drag my hand over my face. Somehow manage not to scream into my palm. “Took a shower,” I grunt.
“Oh.” She flips back the comforter and shuffles her way to the edge of the bed, swinging her legs over the side. “Did I sleep too late?”
“No.” I just feel like I’m standing at the very edge of a slippery slope. It’s been one night and I have no idea how I’m going to survive seven more. I’m supposed to be annoyed by you, not whatever this is. I blow out a breath. “Just wanted to shower.”
Delilah’s eyes narrow. “You’re being weird.”
“I’m not. I’m just—” I search for an explanation. “I’m not a morning person.”
She hums. “Is that why you’re showered, dressed, drinking coffee, and pulling together the weather report before”—she glances at the heavy old-fashioned clock sitting in the middle of the mantel—“eight in the morning? Because you’re not a morning person?”
I don’t answer. I am trying very hard not to look at the place where she missed the top button of her shirt. Frankly, I feel like I deserve a medal.
“Whatever,” she grumbles, and she slides the rest of the way off the bed.
She pads closer to the table where I’ve set up all our work stuff, planting one hand by the side of my laptop and leaning over me to get a look at the screen.
She smells like warm skin and flannel. That tart cherry smell again that might be her shampoo or might just be her.
“Projections holding strong?” she asks.
I grumble something in the affirmative. I haven’t retained a single thing happening on this computer screen.
She turns her head and her nose is half an inch from my cheek. I can feel it when she smiles.
“Such a weirdo,” she whispers.
Then she steals my coffee mug and disappears to the bathroom. I glance in her direction briefly, then avert my eyes to the ceiling when I notice the hole in her loose pants, right beneath the curve of her ass.
I let out a sigh of relief as soon as the door shuts, only to feel every muscle in my body tense as soon as I hear the water turn on.
“Fuck,” I bite out under my breath. For some reason it never occurred to me that Delilah would be taking showers.
I imagine her slipping out of that flannel shirt, the smooth arch of her bare shoulder, the heavy flare of her waist. Her pajama bottoms, a puddle on the floor.
Heavy steam and her hair curlier than usual because of it.
Clinging to her shoulders, the back of her neck.
That soft, delicate place where my hand fit so good.
Fingers squeezing, tracing down, down, down.
To the curve of her ass and that spot right where her thigh meets her—
The door swings open and Delilah’s head appears. I drive my knee into the bottom of the table.
“Hey. Can you throw me my makeup bag from the top of my suitcase?”
I feel like I’m moving through syrup while I do it. I flip open her suitcase and am immediately greeted by chaos. Not a single article of clothing is folded, everything shoved in haphazardly like she had ten seconds to pack under the threat of violence before coming on this trip.
I find her pale pink cosmetics bag wrapped halfway in a sweater and wedge it carefully out.
“Your suitcase is a disaster,” I tell her as I hand it over.
She rolls her eyes. “Glad we’ve returned to our equilibrium this morning.”
Then she shuts the door in my face.
Fantasies appropriately sidelined, I pour myself a new cup of coffee from the small dinette at the edge of the dresser and reclaim my seat at the table. The light coming in from the window is shallow and murky, a dense fog sitting low over the lake.
My phone rings with an incoming call, a picture of Penelope at the Peabody Library, her head tipped back as she gaped at the massive shelves lined with books.
I swipe it open and her smiling face appears, approximately half an inch from the camera.
“Woah,” I say, propping her up on the side of my computer. “Jump scare.”
“Hello, big brother,” she singsongs.
“What’s up?”
She’s practically vibrating in her seat, an excited little wiggle she’s been doing since she was five years old and couldn’t quite keep still. “How much snow are we getting today?” she asks.
I smile. “You? None. Me? Probably a lot.”
Adeline joins her in the frame, their cheeks squished together, and that tight, panicky feeling eases. I needed this after our rushed, distracted call last night. Aiden could barely pull them away from their movie with Maya to say good night, and it lit up every one of my insecurities.
But this is better. This is familiar.
“It’s coming our way, right?” Addie asks, just as excited as Pen. “We’re gonna get a lot of snow?”
“Haven’t you been watching the forecasts?” I ask.
“Just the one,” Penelope responds, “and you mainly did a lot of blank staring into the camera.”
“It was also just your floating head, so.” Adeline makes a poorly restrained gleeful face. “We were distracted.”
I sigh. “Fair enough.”
Delilah and I haven’t had a live broadcast since that first one at the studio, but we’re supposed to hit the air today. Twice.
I’m trying not to think too much about it.
“So? Tell us. How many days of school are we going to miss? We have a bet going.”
Pots clank in the background. Maya darts by with a box of pancake mix above her head and Aiden’s hand reaches out, snagging it without turning from the stove.
“Who bet what?” I ask.
“That’s cheating,” Penelope says, chin tilted up. “Just tell us what you know and let the chips fall as they may.”
“Have you finalized those bets?” I ask. “This feels like insider trading.”
Adeline and Penelope immediately descend into a spirited argument about what constitutes cheating and how this is just like that summer three years ago, when we were at the beach, and Adeline thought that the ice-cream place would take ten minutes, but Penelope thought it would take fifteen and—
I zone out a bit. I let their happy chatter fill the space around me and drink the rest of my coffee. I’m content. Relaxed. It’s why I don’t notice my critical mistake until it’s too late.
With the way my phone is propped up, there’s a clear shot of the bathroom door in the background.
The door creaks open and Delilah shuffles out, wrapped in a thick white towel, her hair wet and loose around her shoulders.
Her pajamas are bundled in a ball against her chest, and she tucks some of her hair behind her ear, kicking her suitcase back open.
“I used your shampoo,” Delilah declares, her back to me as she pokes around in her suitcase. I can see the smooth column of her spine where she’s bent over. Pale, pale skin. The stretch of her thighs beneath the terry cloth of the towel.
“It smelled good and I think I forgot mine. Is it sandalwood?” she babbles on as I sit unmoving, my coffee mug raised to my mouth. “Never mind. I don’t know what sandalwood smells like. It was more—oh.” She turns halfway. “Are you on the phone?”
She’s lowered her voice to a whisper, but it’s already too late. On the screen, both of my sisters are open-mouthed. They remain motionless for a beat, and then matching delighted smiles light up their faces.