CHAPTER 19 DELILAH
DELILAH
My phone alarm goes off at two a.m.
I roll over to my side beneath the thick quilt and silence the buzzing with a tap of my thumb, wedging a yawn in the crook of my elbow.
When I crack my eyes open, the room is bathed in a warm orange glow from the fire burning low behind the grate, the pillow wall between Jackson and me still miraculously intact.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, I’m sure.
I lie still for one second, two, waiting to see that my alarm didn’t accidentally wake Jackson. Then, when I’m sure Jackson is unaware of my nighttime plans, I slowly slip out of the bed.
Or I try to, anyway. Because as soon as my feet touch the frigid hardwood floor, Jackson’s voice says, “Going somewhere?”
I squeak, twisting quickly, my foot getting tangled in the duvet hanging off the edge of the bed.
Jackson is sitting in front of the fireplace in one of the cozy chairs.
He’s got his left arm slung over the back of it, staring at where I’m trying to untangle myself from the bed.
His knees are tipped wide, his long body clad in black joggers and a black thermal sweatshirt.
There’s a book open against his thigh and a mug at his elbow.
I press my palm to the middle of my chest where it feels like my heart is trying to burst through and fall back into bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling while I try to get control of my breathing.
There’s a rustle of fabric, the snap of a book being closed, and then Jackson appears above me, concerned.
“Delilah?” he asks. I wheeze in response. “You okay?”
“You scared me,” I whisper, still feeling like I want to crawl out of my skin. I wasn’t expecting him. The theme of the trip, I’m starting to realize. I wasn’t expecting Jackson at all. “What are you doing awake?”
“Couldn’t sleep. My mind was running,” he murmurs. Amusement quirks the corners of his mouth. “What are you doing awake?”
“I don’t know. I just woke up.”
“You had an alarm, Delilah.”
I stay stubbornly silent but he arches an eyebrow, waiting for my explanation.
I grunt out a sigh, kicking my feet in agitation.
He grips my ankle to keep me from hitting him, and a lightning rod of sensation rockets up the back of my thigh.
I immediately still, my breath catching for a different reason altogether.
I didn’t realize my ankle was the sensual gateway to the rest of my body, but . . . here we are.
“I have my reasons,” I say tightly.
His thumb traces over the curve of my ankle, almost absently. “Which are . . .”
I blow out a breath. I can’t exactly sneak out with him hovering over me. “I want to go outside.”
Jackson stares at me. “Right now?”
I nod.
“At two in the morning,” he continues.
I nod again.
“In the middle of a—” He lifts his head and looks in the direction of the balcony as a particularly ferocious gust of wind bucks at the windows. “Delilah,” he says, “the winds are hitting forty-eight miles per hour right now. They’ve gotten substantially worse since our broadcast.”
“I know,” I defend petulantly. He’s not the only one looking at projections.
His grip firms on my ankle, trailing up until his palm is against the back of my calf. “Was our kiss that bad?” he asks. “That you’re now sacrificing yourself to the storm gods?”
My stomach flips. “It has nothing to do with our kiss.”
It might have a little bit to do with our kiss.
He squeezes gently, fingers spread wide. “Then why in the hell do you want to go outside?”
I study his face in the flickering shadows. I can see him better now than when I first woke up. His hair is sticking up at odd angles. There are circles beneath his eyes.
I reach up and trace the edge of one of those purple circles, from the corner of his eye to the middle of his nose.
My knuckles brush against the cool metal of his glasses, his breath a warm exhale in the middle of my hand.
I touch him the same way he was touching me, when I tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for all the things I’m feeling.
I make another gentle circuit with my fingers and his eyes go half-mast.
I pull my hand away. “Sorry.”
“No.” He tugs my hand back. “That was nice.”
I carefully reach for him and trace another idle path, trying not to read too much into it.
It’s okay to touch like this, in the hush of the night.
When it feels like we’re the only two people in the world.
It’s okay to kiss him too, but only in tucked-away places where no one can see.
It’s okay to feel something for him, as long as it stays within the boundaries we’ve constructed for it.
None of it has to matter. That’s what he said.
But for me, I’m sort of afraid it does.
“I have trouble sleeping,” he confesses, his eyes closed, lashes dark gold fans across the tops of his cheeks.
“Always? Or just this trip.”
“Always,” he whispers.
On my next pass, I trail my fingers back along the temple of his eyeglasses, over the spot where I snapped them ten days ago. I trace over the curve of his ear. To the hidden place below where his skin is so, so warm.
He releases a deep sigh. Some of his hair falls over his forehead. I push it back, then smile up at him when his eyes crack open. I think Jackson might need another distraction. I think I could use one too.
“Want to come outside with me?” I whisper.
We pull on our snow gear in near silence, nothing but the swish swish swish of our jackets and the quiet sighs of zippers.
Jackson snickers when I start jumping up and down to get my socked feet through the bottom of my cinched snow pants, reaching over and holding me steady with one hand curved against my hip while I wiggle and kick.
“I can’t believe you thought you could sneak out of here,” he says, his fingers holding me tight. Five distinct pressure points that I could probably map into a constellation later. “How were you going to do all this without waking me up?”
“I assumed you were a deep sleeper,” I grunt, blowing my hair out of my face once my feet are through. My socks are mismatched. One of them is bunched at the ankle. In fact, I’m pretty sure one of them is Jackson’s.
“What made you assume that?”
“Your overall disposition? I don’t know, Jackson.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re standing in the lobby of the lodge, staring out the window at the wall of pink-tinged white that’s waiting for us.
“Just to confirm,” he says, “you want to go outside. In that.”
Outside the windows, we can barely see across the parking lot. It’s a wall of white, the very tops of the trees swaying in the wind.
“You don’t have to come.” I tug on my hat, pulling it low over my ears. “You can wait in here.”
“You invited me,” he says, somehow making it sound like an accusation.
“Yes,” I say slowly, “but I’m not holding you at gunpoint. You are free to do as you wish, Jackson, and that includes staying inside and watching from the window.”
He glances down at his legs. “After I put on these snow pants? I don’t think so.”
Jackson’s snow gear is utilitarian black. Sleek and formfitting. He looks like Jack Reacher’s nerdy little brother, snow expedition edition.
I snicker.
His forehead creases. “I really don’t understand your fascination with the pants.”
“They’re just so . . . undercover agent. I didn’t realize we were going on a top-secret mission while in Deep Creek.”
He rolls his eyes. “And I didn’t realize we were making a side trip to Candy Land.” He reaches over and pinches the very top of my snow pants. “How does Mark let you on camera with these?”
“The camera hits from the waist up. You, too, could have had hot pink snow pants, if only you dared to dream big enough.”
“Maybe next time.” In front of us, wind whistles around the door. It’s blisteringly cold, and we’re still inside. Jackson sighs. “Will you finally tell me why you feel the need to do this?”
I avoided the question the first three times he asked, self-conscious. I tuck the edges of my gloves under the sleeves of my jacket. “Because I want to,” I sidestep.
Jackson stares hard at the side of my head. “You want to lose your fingers to frostbite in the middle of the night?”
“Not particularly, no.”
I pull the set of keys I stole from Jackson’s backpack from my pocket. “I need to get something from the van.”
“I brought our bags in.”
“You forgot something.”
“What did I forget?”
“Something.”
Something doughnut-shaped with pink frosting.
Jackson’s gaze narrows, turning suspicious. “Delilah,” he says, “are you getting your sled out of the van?”
I roll my lips together and refuse to answer.
“Oh my god. You’re out here at two in the morning because you want to go sledding.”
“I checked the projections,” I defend. “By the time we wake up tomorrow, the snow will be too deep. I won’t be able to sled at all.”
He plucks the keys out of my hand. “You’re ridiculous.”
Fire lights in my belly. I snatch the keys right back. “Yeah, I’m ridiculous. Silly and absurd and a little bit stupid, too, yeah?”
Jackson rears back. “I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you were thinking it. I’m not an idiot, Jackson.
I know what people think about me.” That I’m some manic pixie dream girl, hell-bent on toxic positivity and crying over cute little dogs in tiny teacups.
That because I wear high-waisted hot pink snow pants, I don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
“This is what I want to do. For me. The last twelve hours have been—” A shit show.
Catastrophic. Completely and totally humiliating.
“It’s been a lot, and I’d like to have this one thing for myself.
I don’t care if you think it’s silly.” I pull my zipper all the way to the base of my throat. “I’m going to do it anyway.”
I tip my chin up and attempt to stroll confidently through the door, but Jackson hooks my elbow and tows me right back.
He manhandles me until both of his hands are heavy on my shoulders, his face ducking down to mine.
He tries to force eye contact, but I stare resolutely at the middle of his nose.
At the two small red marks left behind from his glasses.
“I do think it’s silly,” he says quietly. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it with you.”
I drag my gaze up. “Yeah?”
He nods. “Someone has to make sure you don’t sled yourself into the middle of the lake.”
“I was going to sled on the other side of the parking lot.” I sulk. “There’s a little bunny hill with two bumps at the end.”
“Have you been scouting sledding spots?”
“I brought a sled with me, Jackson.” I cross my arms over my chest. “It’s the practical thing to do.”
I get the distinct pleasure of watching his face soften, bit by bit. I might hide behind the costume other people have dressed me in, but I think Jackson wears some masks of his own.
He lifts his hand and fixes some of my hair that’s tangled under my hat. “I don’t think you’re stupid, Delilah.”
My nose crinkles. “All right.”
“Did you not listen to my lamp speech? I thought I explained it.”
“You did.”
“Not well enough, apparently.” His hands firm over my shoulders and he shakes me a little bit. “Tell me you believe me, or I’ll say it again. Weird metaphor and everything.”
My stomach hollows out, something warm curling low. I try to fight my smile, but it can’t be helped. I grin at him. “Please don’t repeat your weird metaphor. Once was enough.”
A deep groove forms in his cheek as his smile grows. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” I rub my gloved fingers over my nose. “I may have . . . overreacted just then.”
He shakes his head. “You didn’t. Like you said, this day has been . . . unexpected. I think we’re both trying to recalibrate.”
What we’re doing is tiptoeing around the issue instead of addressing it. I shared the high-level notes from my Keith call with Jackson as soon as he got back to the room. I told him Keith said it was fine, as long as we focused on the weather. I didn’t mention anything about being a puff piece.
I scuff my boots against the faded rug in the lobby. “I think I’m carrying around a lot of frustration about how I’m treated.”
“Good.” He nods. “You deserve better. It’s time you start asking for it.”
“And now?” I step closer. “Can I ask for this? You sledding with me?”
He looks patiently amused. “I will watch you sled.”
I shake my head. “Nope, that’s not the deal. If you come outside, you sled.” I dig one finger in the middle of his chest. “Those are the rules.”
He grabs my finger.
“Ah, how can I resist that?” He folds our hands together, holding my palm over his chest. Right over the steady thump thump thump of his heart. He grins at me. “You know how much I love rules.”