CHAPTER 30 DELILAH
DELILAH
A lovely nurse named Charlene with bright red hair and a booming laugh lets me stay forty-five minutes past visiting hours, until Grandpa Gus is snoring like a runaway train. She hands me a small piece of paper with a few numbers on it and ushers me into the elevator.
“These are the only cab companies that will drive in the snow, sweetheart.” She leans in and presses the button for the lobby. “It’s getting pretty dicey out there.”
She’s right. The big windows that line the atrium are walls of white by the time the elevator doors chime open.
I rub the sleeve of Jackson’s sweater under my nose and sigh forlornly at the list in my hand.
I am a collection of tired muscles, wandering thoughts, and a bruised heart.
Waiting for a cab is the last thing I want to do.
“Ma’am.” The same security guard from earlier is inside now, still wrapped in her snowflake blanket.
She’s added a lavender scarf and matching gloves.
Despite her whimsical choice in accessories, her face is set in stern, unyielding lines.
“Please make sure to collect your things before leaving hospital property.”
I glance at the bag over my shoulder. “Um. I think I have everything?”
She raises an eyebrow and points to the corner.
The corner, where Jackson is slumped in a chair with his head tipped back, arms crossed over his chest and his long legs splayed out in front of him.
For someone who claims to struggle with sleep, he seems to have had no issue falling asleep in the lobby of the University of Maryland Medical Center.
“I believe that belongs to you,” the security guard says.
I grin, my heart feeling two sizes too big for my chest. He’s still wearing his glasses, and he’s using the sweatshirt I left in the car as a makeshift blanket. He’s the only one in the lobby.
I wander closer, biting my lip against a smile when his face tips in my direction, still asleep.
“Jackson,” I whisper, and he shifts, his head rolling from one shoulder to the other. I reach forward and scratch my fingers through his hair, trying to wake him gently.
He leans into my touch with a low grumble, then jolts forward, half launching himself from the chair.
“I’m not leav— Oh. Hey, Delilah.” A massive yawn splinters across his face.
His drowsy eyes dart quickly to the security guard behind me, then back again.
I get the distinct impression I’ve wandered into the middle of a feud.
“Is everything all right?” He pushes his glasses up and rubs at his eyes. “Is your grandpa okay?”
“Yeah, he’s doing well. He’s in good hands and he was—he was able to communicate.” I pause. Jackson blinks blearily at me from what must be a horribly uncomfortable chair, his hands against his thighs. “You’re still here.”
He nods. “Yeah. I’m still here.”
Except he says it like a question. Like he’s not sure where here is, but he’s happy to see me regardless.
A throat clears behind us and Jackson scowls. “People are allowed to wait in the waiting part of the lobby,” he says, his voice carrying.
“Not when it’s past visiting hours,” the security guard calls back.
Jackson rolls his eyes to the ceiling. I hold out my hands for him to take, a hum of warmth spilling over when he grabs them without hesitation.
He steps into me, gathering me in his arms and lifting, holding me so tight I can barely take a breath. It’s exactly what I need. My feet dangle at his shins and I tuck my face into his neck. He smells like snow and spice. The sheets we were tangled in when we woke up this morning.
God. This morning feels like a lifetime ago.
If I had the capacity to think about it before we left the lodge, I would have worried how this might go.
How it would be for us, back here. So much of our time in the mountains felt like a bubble.
Now reality is pressing at the edges, threatening to burst this fragile thing we’ve found with each other.
“Thank you for waiting,” I whisper.
He hums and rocks me a little bit. “Will you let me take you home now?”
“Please.”
The walk to the news van is slippery and cold, Jackson’s hand firm in mine as we manage the pedestrian bridge that leads to the garage.
I don’t know why, but the snow almost seems more treacherous here in Baltimore.
Something about the ice and the wind and the glow of the streetlights.
The shadows of the buildings, towering around us as the wind howls. The city itself, silent and watchful.
Jackson opens my door and helps me in with his hands at my waist, hesitating as I buckle my seat belt.
“What is it?” I ask, shivering at the icy wind that licks through the crack in the door. Jackson shifts his body so he’s taking the brunt of it, his forearms braced against the top of the van. He reaches into his pocket, then drops three boxes of off-brand candy fish in my lap.
“Found these in the gift shop while I was waiting.” He pushes off the door. “Thought they might make you feel better.”
He shuts my door without another word and jogs to his side, jamming the key into the ignition with a muffled curse. I clutch the candy to my chest and try not to cry.
The drive to my house in Hampden takes three times longer than it’s supposed to, both of us shivering as the shitty heater creaks and groans and tries to keep up with the plummeting temperatures outside.
By the time we pull up in front of my white picket fence, my shoulders are in my ears and I’m daydreaming about the flannel sheets on my bed.
Jackson keeps the engine rumbling.
“I think I’ll drive this home,” he muses, peering out the windshield at the pink-dappled sky. “I doubt my Honda could make it and I don’t want to give Denise another reason to see me again tonight.”
“Denise?”
“Our very patient friend from the hospital lobby.” His blue eyes are searching from the driver’s side of the van. “I think this is where we go our separate ways.”
I knit my fingers together in my lap, running my thumb along the edge of one of my candy boxes. “That’s right. I guess this is officially the end of us working together. Our assignment is over. We made it.”
“Completely intact, no less.”
I don’t know about all that. It feels like I’ve carved a piece of myself out and handed it over, trusting him to keep it safe.
There are a million questions buzzing around in my brain—Do you feel it too?
Do you want to see what this could be?—but for once, I silence them.
I’m too tired and too soft, my shell cracked open.
I’m afraid of the things that might come tumbling out if I let them.
There will be time to discuss the important things. But it’s not right now. Right now, I think I just want one more night of ignoring the logistics and the labels.
“I don’t want you to take the van.”
Jackson’s eyes spark in interest before mellowing into a patient sort of caution. “I’m not going to intentionally destroy station property, Delilah. The van is safe with me.”
I snicker. “I know that, but—” I glance toward my house. Imagine my flannel sheets with Jackson in between them. My belly gives a happy little swoop. “Come inside. Stay with me.”
His hands flex on the wheel. “You’re tired.”
“So are you.” I saw my teeth against my bottom lip and unbuckle my seat belt. “We take care of each other,” I remind him. “Come inside with me. Get some rest.” A thought occurs. “Unless you want to be back with the girls tonight, then—”
He shakes his head. “With how quickly we left this morning, I haven’t told them I’m back yet.
Besides, they were excited about doing snow things with Maya.
I’d break their heart if I brought them home early.
” He reaches across the console and cups my jaw, fingers fanned wide across the side of my face. “You’re sure?” he whispers.
I nod. “Very.”
The engine cuts out. It feels like I can hear each individual snowflake land against the windshield. I get a glimpse of the clock on the dash. 10:02 p.m. God. It feels like it should be two in the morning. A hundred years from now.
Jackson creaks open his door. “Wait there.”
“For wha—” I start to ask, but his door is already closed, shaking the cab of the van. I watch through the windshield as he crosses in front of the hood, and then Jackson is in the frame of the passenger-side door, gripping my knees, turning my body, handling me like I’m some precious thing.
“You didn’t put on your snow boots before we left,” he says in explanation, walking backward over the small patch of grass to the sidewalk while he holds my waist, keeping me levitating two inches off the ground.
He reaches back into the van and grabs my bag, easing it over his shoulder, all while he keeps me snug against his body with his other arm. “I don’t want you to fall.”
“Very efficient.” I loop my arms around his neck, punch-drunk. “I should make you carry me like this everywhere.”
“I’m sure no one would have questions.”
He turns toward my house with one hand braced under my ass to hold me steady, slow as he navigates the stairs. I rest my chin against his shoulder and hold on to him, hanging like—
“What are those fish called?” I rub my nose against his neck. “The ones that dangle off the bellies of sharks and whales?”
“You’re delirious, baby,” he huffs against my temple, brushing his lips there once. He sounds amused. “And those fish are called remoras. They have a modified dorsal fin that acts like a suction cup.”
I grin. “I knew you’d know that.”
“Where are your keys?”
“In my pocket.”
His hand slides over the curve of my ass, feeling across my back pockets. I snicker into his ear.
“My jacket pocket, Jackson.”
He jostles me slightly as he reaches into my jacket pocket instead, pulling out a key ring with a tiny fuzzy bunny on it. He laughs, low and soft, before pressing the key into the lock.
My house is warm and quiet and I feel myself slipping further into exhaustion as familiarity curls around me.
Jackson toes off his boots then tugs at mine, leaving both of our jackets in a discarded heap on the floor.
He navigates silently through my house while I stay wrapped around him, my nose in his throat and my hands clasped behind his neck.
“Where’s your bedroom?”
“Second door,” I slur. “Mm, that’s the one.”
I’m grateful I cleaned before I left, the sheets on my bed soft as Jackson sets me down on the edge.
He stays in front of me, his body between my knees, his hands cradling my face in the dark.
I close my eyes and lean into his touch as he traces his thumbs under my eyes. The same way I did to him at the lodge.
His thumb catches a tear, and a sigh rattles out of him.
“Baby,” he whispers, sounding so impossibly sad. “Don’t cry.”
“Just a long day, you know?” I sniff, feeling everything like a boulder strapped across my shoulders. “He’s okay, I know that, but I’m just—I’m having some trouble with—”
I don’t know what’s going to happen with my grandpa. I don’t know what’s going to happen with my job. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Jackson. All of it twists and braids together until a knot sits heavy over my heart.
Jackson hushes me, his hands pushing through my hair.
“You’re all right,” he says, voice low, and I nod because yes, I am.
With him here, everything feels manageable.
I don’t have to hold it alone. He’s here to help.
He squeezes my neck and tilts my face back, eyes searching in the dark. “Let’s get you to sleep.”
I nod and kick my way out of my pants, keeping just the sweater, crawling to the top of the bed and slipping beneath the blankets with a sigh.
I hear the clink of a belt buckle, the slip of leather, the click of his glasses against my bedside table, and then Jackson is behind me.
Cold skin pressed to cold skin, his hand a delicious weight against my belly.
He tugs at me until I’m cocooned by him, our bodies curled together beneath my mountain of blankets.
“Do you think—” Another tear slips from the corner of my eye. I’m tired and weightless. Already halfway to somewhere else. “Will we still be friends? Now that we’re back home?”
Jackson is quiet for a long time. So long, I think he’s fallen asleep. So long, I’m almost entirely there when he says, “Yeah, baby. We’ll still be friends.”
My heart eases. Another tear chases the first one. “Good, cause I think I’d miss you if we went back to glaring at each other across a parking lot.”
He sighs, then presses a kiss to the back of my head. “Sleep, Delilah.”
I twist my fingers through his, close my eyes, and do exactly as he says.