CHAPTER 38 JACKSON
JACKSON
I have immediate concerns about whatever Penelope, Adeline, Gianna, and Maggie are discussing on the couch. There’s a lot of whispering, a lot of snickering, and a frankly disturbing number of hand gestures.
Delilah loops her arms around my waist from behind. “Why do you look terrified?”
I lift her hand and brush a kiss across her knuckles. “Because I am.”
My house has turned into the interim headquarters for Operation Delilah Gets Her Job Back. Pizza boxes, file folders, and Post-it notes litter every square inch of available space.
Aiden, Lucie, and Maya showed up with the pizza and then Maggie, forty minutes later, with her laptop.
The girls brought in the whiteboard from the kitchen, wiping off the week’s menu, ignoring my grumbling about having to rewrite it.
Then Gianna and Mark arrived, stacks and stacks of file folders in hand.
Penelope and Adeline descend into bright, cackling laughter and Delilah sighs behind me. “Nothing illegal, Gianna,” she calls. “I need to convince Ava Monroe I’m capable. She can’t catch me egging Keith’s car.”
“I was going to suggest shaving cream in his exhaust pipe, but whatever.” Gianna flops dramatically back across my couch, her head landing in Mark’s lap.
Mark, who is on his fifth slice of pizza, adding very little to the conversation.
He stares down at her like she’s hung the moon, tucking a loose piece of hair behind her ear.
She flushes red, and Adeline and Penelope burst into more giggles.
“Fine. Maybe we will egg his car,” Aiden offers, appearing over my shoulder, his cheek bulging with a slice of pizza he’s folded in half, no plate or napkin to be found. He swallows. “While you get one-on-one with Ava.”
“We won’t use eggs,” Maya says, rolling her eyes. There are so many people in my house, there is very little space for anyone to move. “We’ll use tree sap. It’s difficult to remove and causes lasting damage.”
Aiden gives a nod of approval, offering her his fist. “Nice.”
Maya grins and bumps his knuckles with hers.
“Nope.” Lucie drifts past, flicking Aiden’s ear, then ruffling Maya’s hair. “Not nice. No vandalism. No juvenile crimes.”
Aiden’s laugh is low. “Just some light blackmail instead, hmm?” He trails after Lucie and plucks the top folder off Gianna’s precarious stack of files. He flips it open and immediately shuts it again, his face pained. “Where did you even find these?” he asks Gianna.
She beams at him. “I’m a researcher.”
Gianna’s research is robust. The centerpiece is a very detailed list of every transgression Keith has ever made as the head of the broadcasting department, dating back to 1994.
But she also brought statements from members of the broadcast and production teams about his behavior toward Delilah, a history of misappropriating station funds for his campaign to get a city road named after him, data from the last three viewer surveys about Delilah’s likability, and the cherry on top—
Maggie reaches forward and peeks at the folder Aiden discarded. Her face blanches and she flings it away.
“Why do you have a picture of Keith in a tutu at—is that a strip club?”
Gianna laughs, collecting the folder and slipping it into the bottom of the pile. “Like I said, I’m a researcher.” She pats her stack. “No stone left unturned.”
We currently have a lot of stones, but no clear direction. I tug at Delilah’s hands until she’s standing in front of me. We’ve spent most of the past few days together, trying to build a plan while existing on Swedish Fish, but she needs to decide how she wants to handle what happens next.
“What do you want to do?” I ask her.
She glances around the room. My people and hers too. Everyone together. For her.
Delilah stares up at me. She’s wearing an oversized hoodie she stole from the back of my closet, the sleeves curled over her fists.
Last night she fell asleep at my kitchen table while updating her résumé (Just in case, okay?), and I carried her upstairs and deposited her in my bed despite her grumblings that she was fine to drive home.
She immediately rolled to my side and burrowed her face into my pillow, muttering something about fancy shampoo.
She wraps her arms around herself. “I don’t think I want to blackmail Keith to get my job back.”
“Yeah, I would agree,” I say, secretly relieved. I think she can get her job back without committing any crimes, but I’d do it. If she wanted me to.
“There’s a lot of information,” she murmurs. “I guess I just don’t know what’s expected of me.”
I slip my hand under her hair and cup the back of her neck, rubbing my thumb up and then down. “Would it help if I told you what I expect?”
She nods.
“I expect you to look at the very extensive evidence stacked on that coffee table and realize that you are not the one who should have left the station. I expect you to understand that his shit behavior doesn’t just impact you, but every person who works at YBAL.
You bore the brunt of it, but other people are struggling too.
And he doesn’t deserve to be in a position of power if he’s using that power to do harm to others.
This job is your dream. Baltimore is your home. Don’t let him take it from you.”
A smile quirks the corners of her mouth. “Demand more,” she whispers.
“Yeah, baby.” I squeeze the back of her neck. “Demand more.”
I can see the determination settle across her pretty features.
She steps out of my grip and wiggles her way between Penelope and Adeline, taking the marker that’s offered.
It does something to me, seeing their heads bent together.
It’s the same feeling I got last night when she curled herself around me in my bed.
A tight fist of longing, right at the base of my throat.
So heavy I can barely swallow around it.
Delilah peeks up at me, brown eyes shining. She tips her head gently to the side, raising both eyebrows. I nod, scraping my palm along my jaw.
“Hey, Adeline?” I call. My sister glances up. She has some dry-erase marker on her cheek. “Can I borrow you in the kitchen for a minute?”
She hops off the couch and dutifully follows me while I collect rogue paper plates and consolidate pizza slices.
In the kitchen, she examines the boxes, plucking some pineapple off one that only Lucie has touched.
She hops up onto the counter, her long legs swinging, socked feet drumming against the cabinets.
I toss the plates in the trash bin, then lean up against the refrigerator with my arms crossed over my chest. “We haven’t had a chance to talk.”
She’s been avoiding me for the better part of the week.
Every time I try to get her alone, she scampers off with her sister.
Or drags Delilah off somewhere to do something with coordinated dance routines and too much laughing.
But she can’t hide in a house full of people, and I’m determined to hash this out.
Her face falls. “You want to talk about it now?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“But—” She looks hopelessly in the direction of the living room. “We’re supposed to be coming up with a master plan.”
“They won’t miss us for a couple of minutes.”
I’m not sure they even realize we’re gone.
Gianna is standing in front of where Delilah sits on the couch, gesturing wildly.
Delilah looks concerned, Penelope looks delighted, and Mark looks like he’d like nothing more than to drag Gianna off to the closest dark room.
No one’s even noticed we’ve disappeared.
Except Delilah. Her eyes find mine and she winks. That fist tightens. Slips lower to the middle of my chest.
I drag my eyes back to my sister. “We need to talk about it, Addie.”
She sucks in a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. “I made a mistake,” she finally says, her voice quiet.
I keep my face carefully neutral. “Which part?”
“All of it,” she sighs. “Mainly the running away on a bus thing, cause I know that freaked you out, but also the stuff with Mom.” I give her the space to find her words.
She clears her throat, and when she speaks again her voice wobbles.
“I had this idea in my head of how it would be. I thought now that we’re older—I thought maybe if I showed her that I’m different, that I need her less, then she’d want to hang around.
But I think—” She drags her hand under her nose with a sniff.
“I think my expectations were too high.”
It’s a pinch against my heart. That she’d ever think she needed to change something about herself to be loved.
But didn’t I think the same? Didn’t I try to clear the overgrown parts of myself so that I could be exactly what they needed?
I cross the room so I’m at her side, leaning until our shoulders are pressed together. “I get it.”
Adeline peeks up at me. “Really?”
“I mean, I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m a little uptight,” I say with a laugh.
I thought I could be more fun, more forgiving, but if these past few weeks have taught me anything, it’s that old habits die hard.
“It feels like I’m still holding on to a lot of .
. . stuff. I thought if I upset my routine, maybe I could start to let it go. Be someone different.”
Her forehead creases.
“But I don’t know. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that I’m the way that I am.
” I have a Rolodex and a whiteboard and Post-it notes in my pocket .
. . but the girls doodle on that whiteboard every morning.
I caught Aiden flipping through the Rolodex for his favorite pizza restaurant he can never remember the number for.
And Delilah loves stealing my Post-it notes.
“I like the way that you are,” she confesses quietly.
“I was worried you didn’t. I was worried you needed something different from me.” I swallow around the knot in my throat. “I was worried you were unhappy.”
Adeline shakes her head, hair swinging back and forth. She grabs my hand with both of hers. “Because I wanted to have a relationship with Mom?”
I squeeze her hand. “Because there are times I’m worried I’m not giving you everything you deserve.
You and your sister.” It’s my turn to clear my throat.
“Things with Camille weren’t always bad.
I worry sometimes that I made a decision for the three of us, and my resentment about my experience has kept you from forming the kind of relationship you need.
From a mother. There were days with Camille that were really, really good. I want you to have that.”
Adeline studies our palms pressed together for a long time.
“We did have good days,” she says slowly.
“But we also had days when she forgot to make us dinner. And our big brother went out to the closest store and bought us pizza, taking none for himself because he wanted us to eat.” She looks up at me.
“Penelope and I have never missed a meal with you. You’ve never missed a doctor’s appointment or parent–teacher conference or dance recital.
Why do I need a mom when I have a Jackson? ”
I have to look away. Tears burn behind my eyes. I thought I needed to shake some part of me loose to give them the things I never had, but I don’t. They want me exactly as I am. Lists and routines and all.
I glance at Delilah on the couch, smiling softly at me with her sweatshirt-clad arms wrapped around her knees.
I wrap my arm around Adeline and press a kiss to the side of her head.
“I love you,” I tell her.
She sniffs. “I love you too.”
“Don’t run away again.”
She snorts a watery laugh. “I won’t.”
“We’re okay?”
She nods. “We’re okay.”
“Good.” She drops her head against my shoulder and we watch the commotion unfold in the living room.
Gianna is drawing frantically across the whiteboard while Delilah nods along.
Aiden leans out of the recliner to point at something in the bottom corner and Penelope shrieks in delight, clapping her hands together.
There’s a focus that wasn’t there before, Delilah quietly directing Gianna, determination settling across her face.
My pulse picks up and Adeline snickers next to me.
“You got it bad,” she whispers.
“So bad,” I agree. “The actual worst.”
Except it’s not the worst at all. It’s shared looks and stolen blankets and a weather map open on her computer.
It’s coffee-stained Post-it notes and candy in my coat pockets.
A laugh pressed against my skin and fingertips tracing along my back.
I always liked the things I could predict best, but it took the one thing I never saw coming to show me how much I was missing.
Delilah and all her colorful chaos. She gathered the broken pieces of me and put them back together into something beautiful. Something better. Something stronger.
Her eyes find mine across the room.
“You got a plan?” I call.
She grins at me. So wide her eyes squint shut. That tiny gap between her front teeth. “I got a plan.”