CHAPTER 23 DELILAH #2
“Did you hear me asking?” He nudges me with the phone again. “C’mon, Delilah. Don’t stop being brave now.”
“But I don’t wanna,” I whine. I’d much rather ride the high of my victory and pretend that Keith doesn’t exist. “Tell him I’ll call him tomorrow.”
Jackson fills the space next to me, propping himself up against the wall with his shoulder. He knocks his boot against the side of mine. A silent show of support.
Mark grunts. “Don’t remember becoming your secretary either. The longer you make him wait, the worse it’ll be. You know that.”
“You have a real gift for motivational speeches,” I mutter, staring hard at the phone.
“So I’ve been told.”
The screen lights up with an incoming call. KEITH flashes across the caller ID. It’s time to pay the overly greased, Mountain Dew–addicted piper, I guess.
“Fine,” I sigh. Mark nods and takes one of the chairs beside the fire. Both he and Jackson stare at me expectantly. “Do you think I could get some privacy for this call?”
“No,” they answer in unison.
“Great. That’s . . . great.” I pace toward the wall of windows, ignoring them both, and raise the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hello, Delilah.”
“Hello, Keith.”
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this polite and cordial greeting.
Usually, when Keith is in the throes of a fit, he’s inconsolable.
Once he hurled a half-full container of caramel macchiato creamer across the newsroom because he thought someone else used it.
It hit one of the interns in the forehead.
Keith tried to sue them for workplace harassment.
“Put it on speaker,” Jackson orders from somewhere behind me. I wave my hand over my shoulder to shush him.
There’s a frustrated sigh and then heavy steps against the carpet behind me.
Jackson lifts the phone out of my hand, taps the speaker button, and leans against the window, holding it just out of reach above my head.
I kick him in the shin, but he doesn’t so much as flinch.
We have a silent argument composed of exaggerated facial expressions, rude gestures, and whispered threats.
Well, one of us does. Jackson just stands there slouched against the window, his face impassive.
“I enjoyed your reporting today,” Keith says, his too-calm voice floating up in the space between us.
Jackson rolls his eyes. I press my entire hand over his face. He swats it away. We have another twenty-second, completely silent argument.
“Um,” I manage while Jackson and I twist around each other. His free hand shoots out and loops around my shoulder, holding me tight against his chest. His thumb edges over the base of my throat to hold me steady. A wheezing noise shudders out of me.
Jackson smirks.
“Thank you?” I say into the phone, hoping for the best.
“My favorite part was when you deliberately ignored my direction.” Keith keeps that steady, easy tone that inches its way under my skin. “That was nice.”
I deflate like a sad little balloon and rip my gloves off, pressing cold fingertips to the middle of my forehead.
I can feel the uncomfortable urge to fight rising within me, Jackson plastered against my back.
To stand up for myself. To demand something better.
Maybe it’s someone else finally bearing witness to the bullshit Keith routinely subjects me to or maybe it’s just the last snip to a string that’s barely holding on, but—
I am so damned tired of being this mediocre man’s punching bag.
Jackson lightly touches my hip and I stare up at him. His mouth quirks at the corners.
Give him hell, that look says. He deserves it.
I deserve it too.
“My favorite part is when you tried to remove me from the broadcast,” I snap. “I really enjoyed the lack of communication.”
Jackson’s eyebrows shoot up. Behind me, Mark lets out a muffled guffaw.
“I wasn’t aware I needed to explain myself to you, Delilah.”
“You do when you send me out into the middle of the mountains for coverage and then don’t let me actually perform that coverage.” Some of my patience slips. “What’s going on here, Keith?”
“A severe lack of professionalism,” he bites out. “Or do I need to remind you about your little slipup?”
My face warms. “No, you don’t need to—”
“I made a decision this morning to go in a different direction with the broadcast and somehow”—Keith continues, infusing his words with a hefty dose of sarcasm—“you’re still reporting the weather.
How is it that you managed to convince everyone to do as you please, Delilah?
Hmm? Did you bat your eyelashes for someone other than the weather boy?
Maybe that Neanderthal of a cameraman? Did you flip open that empty little head and—”
“That’s enough,” Jackson interrupts, his face a thundercloud. His hand grips the phone so tight his knuckles turn white. The arm across the front of my chest tenses. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
“It’s fine,” I say faintly, my throat tight. Keith has always been abrasive, but he’s not usually so cruel. I guess the takeover really did push him over the edge. He’s never handled challenges to his authority well.
Jackson shakes his head, blue eyes flashing. “He doesn’t get to talk to you like that, Delilah.”
Keith stutters over the rest of whatever his sentence was going to be. He laughs awkwardly and then, “It was a joke, of course,” he says.
“I’m not laughing,” Jackson says.
All my fight leaves me in a rush, embarrassment filling the space it left behind.
I want this conversation over. Reality has popped my soap bubble of empowerment, and I’m back to scraping the floor for crumbs of acknowledgment.
I thought this assignment was going to be a fresh start for me, but it’s just more of the same in different packaging.
“Take me off speakerphone,” Keith orders. “This is a private conversation. I do not consent to recording.”
I pluck the phone out of Jackson’s hand before he can argue with me about it, ignoring the way his eyebrows knit together.
“No one is recording you,” I tell Keith, wedging the phone between my shoulder and ear. I slip out of Jackson’s hold. “And if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me. I was the one who came up with the idea. I convinced the rest of the team to do it.”
If anything, that little lie only makes Keith angrier. “I don’t care whose idea it was. They’re supposed to follow my orders. My vision. And that doesn’t include you.”
My lungs feel itchy and tight. I’m not on top of a mountain. I’m underneath it, an unbearable, unending weight on my chest.
“Will it ever include me?” I manage.
Keith goes silent. I hear the squeak of his chair in the background, the low murmur of the newsroom. I imagine him there at the station, gazing out from behind his glass wall like some untouchable warlord, just the way he likes it.
What did I do? I want to ask. What did I do to make you hate me so much?
“Just do your job, Delilah,” he says. “And we’ll see about the rest.”
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,” I try to say, but he’s already hung up, not interested in my answer.
I sigh and lower the phone, letting it hang limply by my side before I offer it back to Mark. “Thanks for bringing that by.”
“I also got an earful, if that makes you feel better.”
In an odd way, it does. I always assumed Mark and I were on opposite sides.
Or, at the very least, I was on one side and Mark was an apathetic third party floating somewhere in the middle—like Switzerland, or one of those dragon paddleboats out in the harbor.
Utterly unbothered. It’s a bit of a trip to have him suddenly, very aggressively standing next to me.
Behind me, Jackson’s phone starts to buzz. I wonder if Keith is making his way down the roster. I turn to watch him over my shoulder, swiping open his phone and answering with a soft, comfortable hello. He’s wearing the smile he reserves for his sisters, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
I turn back to Mark. “I’m sorry you got in trouble.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it.” He gives me an unexpected grin and I find myself smiling back.
If nothing else comes of this trip, it’s nice to know that I have people standing in my corner now.
That I’m not as alone as I thought I was.
“It was nice seeing you stand up for yourself, Delilah. You should do it more often, yeah?”
“We’ll see,” I say. “It kind of sucks.”
Mark laughs and heaves himself out of the chair, slipping out the door with a wave over his shoulder.
I busy myself with the various odds and ends piled up on the desk, trying to contain my mess to one side while Jackson takes his call with his sisters.
I try not to listen but I catch a bit of it, phrases like Addie, calm down and Yeah, I wish I was too and Have Aiden make you a milkshake.
I smile down at the table. A chocolate milkshake sounds really good. Whipped cream and extra sprinkles. I wonder if it would make this hollow feeling go away.
Jackson lightly touches my elbow. I turn to look at him, his phone pressed to his chest and brand-new strain lines at the corners of his eyes. “Adeline needs me. I’m gonna head down to the lobby and talk to her for a bit.”
“You don’t have to leave.” I gesture toward the armchair in front of the fire. “You can take your call here.”
“That’s all right.” He hesitates, eyes searching my face, before he forces a smile that doesn’t quite land. “I won’t be long.”
I nod. “All right, if you’re sure. I’ll be here.”
I wish I knew how to make it easier for him, the way he makes it easier for me. But I’m flying blind, and my usual tendency to rely on sunny optimism and a can-do attitude has gotten me exactly nowhere. I’m bruised and beaten up, and so, so tired.
Still, the idea that he’d rather take his phone call in the lobby is a paper cut that stings.
It’s a silent confirmation of my worst fears.
That he’ll turn to me for things that are fun and easy and bright, but keep everything else tucked away.
I’ll get the version of him he can be here, but not anything else.
Just like the storm, I’m worried we’re going to lose momentum by the time we head back home.
I turn back to the table, picking up notepads and shuffling them into neat piles. Rearranging the Post-its I stole from his jacket pocket.
I listen to his boots against the carpet, the whisper of his jacket as he shoulders it back on, and the heavy pause as he hesitates in front of the door.
My heart lodges in my throat as I wait, hoping he’ll change his mind.
Hoping he’ll give me something heavy to hold for him.
But then the door opens and snicks quietly shut.
His voice murmurs on the other side of the heavy wood, and he’s gone.
I stay standing at the table for a long time before I finally crawl into bed, thoroughly and entirely exhausted.
I close my eyes and try not to think about anything at all.