CHAPTER 21 JACKSON
JACKSON
I stop what I’m doing and stare at Delilah, sitting with her legs tucked beneath her on the floor next to her suitcase.
“That is . . . certainly something.”
“I think what you meant to say is”—she adjusts her ski goggles so they’re over her eyes, tipping her head back to look up at me—“Delilah, baby, you look incredible.”
My stomach pulls and then twists. “‘Baby,’ huh?”
I can’t read her expression with the giant opaque goggles, but I can see the way her mouth parts. The pink that spreads over the tops of her cheeks. I have to clear my throat and look away, studying my backpack like Delilah isn’t basically on her knees next to me.
I came out of the bathroom to find her in her hot pink snow pants again, fluorescent goggles across her forehead. She looks like a bag of Skittles—and now that I’ve kissed her, I know that she tastes like them too.
“Sorry,” she murmurs. “I’m just being silly.”
I stop messing with my zipper. Delilah’s head is angled down toward the floorboards.
I’m not sure where our boundaries stand after last night, but I go with my gut, reaching for her goggles and lifting them gently.
She stares up at me as I rearrange them across her forehead, smoothing her hair carefully out of the way.
“Delilah, baby,” I say, rolling my voice low to let her know I’m teasing. But she makes a small unconscious sound, and it doesn’t feel very much like a joke. “You look incredible.”
The color on her cheeks deepens to a furious red, her eyelashes fluttering as she blinks up at me.
“God,” she says. “My brain knows you’re being sarcastic, but I’m still—” She gestures at her face and sighs. “Really didn’t think that one through.”
There are lines on the bridge of her nose from where the eyewear was cutting into her skin. I rub at one gently, and then the other, trying to walk myself back from the edge I just tiptoed toward.
After Delilah fell asleep last night, I spent a lot of time lying in the space next to her, thinking. She believes this is some sort of personality experiment. I need to prove to her that’s not true.
I can be patient.
I drop my hands from her face. “You look like a cupcake with those pink pants.”
“A cupcake?” Her forehead scrunches. “I don’t want to look like a cupcake.”
“Why not? Cupcakes are sweet.” My eyes flick down to her mouth. “Cupcakes are delicious.”
She shakes her head, laughing. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Both can be true.”
Delilah, despite her hesitations last night, doesn’t seem to be holding it against me this morning.
When I woke up she was already in the shower, a cup of coffee waiting for me next to my glasses.
A Post-it, right next to it, with a smiley face.
I stared at it for a long time while listening to the water run in the bathroom, feeling like a balloon was lodged somewhere in my sternum.
My phone buzzes across the table where our notes are stacked, distracting me from the woman still wrapping herself in winter gear on the floor next to me. I check the ID.
“Maggie is calling,” I tell Delilah. “I’m going to take it in the hall while you finish up. We can go down to the lobby when you’re ready.”
“Oh.” Delilah looks up at me from her knees, elbow deep in her suitcase as she searches blindly for something. “That’s fine.” She holds up a pair of goggles that matches hers. “Do you want me to bring these for you?”
I shake my head. “No, thanks.” I keep my attention firmly fixed at a spot just above her head. My dark thoughts are winning. Honestly, the hot pink pants should be more of a deterrent than they are.
“You sure?” she asks. “You might regret it.”
I shake my head with a tight smile. I think I’d regret looking like the Terminator even more. We’ve given the people of Baltimore enough to talk about without adding matching snow gear to the conversation.
“I’m good. I’ll see you in a minute.”
Eager to be somewhere that isn’t a cozy hotel room with Delilah in the middle of it, I make my escape to the hall and swipe at my phone.
“Hey, Maggie.”
Silence greets me on the other end of the phone, then, “Why are you breathing like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like a caveman.”
I wander down the hall to the window at the end of it, leaning heavily against the frame, my forehead pressed to the thick glass.
All I can see is white, the towering evergreens and the sweeping view of the lake hidden behind a blanket of snow.
The storm slowed just as we were expecting.
Outside the window, Deep Creek is getting absolutely pummeled.
I’m not faring much better.
“I’m breathing the same way I always do.” I dot my finger against the glass, drawing a line in the frost clinging to the edges. “What’s up?”
“We have a problem,” she says.
“Which one?”
“The biggest, most annoying one,” Maggie says. “Keith is turning out to be a giant fucking problem.”
I drag my hand over my forehead, pressing my thumb and index finger against my temples until I see spots. They’re still cold from the window. It’s not as soothing as I want it to be.
“Delilah told me her conversation with him went fine. What’s he doing?”
“What isn’t he doing?” she grumbles.
“Maggie.”
She heaves a long-suffering sigh from her end of the phone. I bet if I stuck my head out this window, I’d hear it all the way from Baltimore.
“The numbers on your segments with Delilah are good. And after your little mishap”—she clears her throat—“they’ve skyrocketed. Aiden almost exclusively got calls about the two of you during Heartstrings last night and—”
“I told you,” I say, voice sharp, “my relationship with Delilah isn’t going to be content.”
“And I told you,” Maggie singsongs back, amused, “that I understand. Trust me, Jackson. You were very clear on that point yesterday.” She hesitates. “But—”
“No,” I immediately say.
“Let me finish.” Maggie laughs. “But I would like to know what’s going on. As your friend.”
So would Aiden. So would the girls.
So would I.
I settle on the one thing I know to be true. “I like her,” I confess quietly. “I like her a lot.”
Maggie hums. “I’ll protect you as best I can, but your little slip has made people voracious, Jackson. You’re going to have to address it.”
“Not if I can help it.” Whatever is happening between Delilah and me is for us. No one else. I’m not going to trot it out underneath the harsh glare of everyone else’s opinions. “What’s going on back home?”
Maggie grumbles under her breath about coming back to this later. “Like I said, the broadcast numbers are good. Really good. The executive team is paying attention. I think we’re making a strong case for keeping us local. And we’ve certainly scared Orion away for the time being.”
“That’s good news.”
“Great news,” Maggie agrees. “Cooper hasn’t harassed me in four days.”
I frown, trying to place the name. “Is Cooper their acquisitions VP?”
“He’s their overlord of corporate greed, yes.” Something slams on her side of the phone. “But I believe his reign is coming to an end.”
“Are you . . . upset about this?”
“I’m thrilled. Everything is going to plan, but for some unfathomable reason, Keith has become unbearable. You have no idea the barrels I’m dodging over here on your behalf, Jackson.”
I think about that hotel across the street. The mysterious stain on the carpet. The . . . thing . . . that was living in the closet. “Trust me. I’ve got an idea.”
Halfway down the hallway, Delilah sticks her head out of our room. She’s still wearing the goggles across the top of her forehead, but she’s added her beanie beneath the band. She gives me a little wave.
I lift my hand back.
“What do you need from me?” I ask.
“Nothing at the moment. I just wanted you to be aware.” She pauses.
“Yesterday he came into my office and bumbled around for fifteen minutes before he very clumsily asked if I had any concerns about your performance.” She scoffs, sounding disgusted.
“The man couldn’t con his way out of a wet paper bag. ”
“What’s his angle?”
Delilah’s face turns interested, the door closing behind her.
She moves down the hallway toward me, her snow pants a bright streak of color against the creams and blues of the lodge hallway.
She hasn’t put on her boots yet and I can see her socks.
They’re mismatched. One of them has little printed strawberries.
The other is a Nike ankle sock, plain black.
I think that one might be mine, actually.
What’s going on? she mouths. I shake my head and angle the phone away from my mouth.
“Keith,” I whisper back.
She rolls her eyes.
“Is Delilah there with you?” Maggie asks. “Put me on speaker.”
I do as she says. Delilah and I tuck our heads together over the phone.
“Hey, Maggie,” Delilah says. “Is Keith giving you trouble?”
“It’s not me I’m worried about. He seems intent on making your life as difficult as possible,” Maggie says. “I think he’s planning something.”
Delilah’s gaze flicks up to mine. She looks tired, defeated.
“Should have known that phone call was too good to be true,” Delilah sighs, frustrated.
“I think he hates how much this city loves you. He’s looking for any opportunity to minimize your credibility. But we’re not going to let that happen. Are we, Jackson?”
I nudge my knuckles under Delilah’s chin. A fierce surge of protectiveness settles across my shoulders, pulling tight beneath my breastbone. This is how I prove it. This is how I show her.
“No,” I say. “We’re not.”
Mark is waiting for us in the lobby, his supplies stacked in a neat pile by the door. Camera. Wires. A large backpack with a transponder inside that will feed our footage back to the station, hundreds of miles away. The one that only works, apparently, when I’m begging Delilah to kiss me.
“I thought you’d be setting up for the shot,” Delilah says, reaching for some of the wires. She hoists them over her shoulder. “Do you need help carrying this stuff out?”