Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
DELILAH
Iwake up smiling.
This is suspicious. I am not a morning person. Most mornings, I emerge from sleep like a cave creature, squinting at the sunlight and growling at anyone who speaks to me before coffee.
But today I’m grinning at my ceiling like it just told me a joke.
Ruffy lifts his head from the foot of the bed.
“I kissed Levi last night,” I tell him.
His tail thumps once. He was there. He saw.
“Under the pecan tree. It was disgustingly romantic.”
Another thump. My mother narrated the whole thing to him. He’s aware.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, and I grab it fast enough to pull a muscle.
Good morning. Last night was perfect. Can I take you to dinner tonight? A real date. The kind where I pick you up and you wear something nice and I spend the whole meal trying not to stare at you.
I read it twice. Three times. Then I screenshot it because apparently I’m sixteen years old now.
I would love that, I type back. Pick me up at seven?
His response is immediate: I’ll be there. Wear whatever you want. You could show up in a garbage bag and I’d still think you were beautiful.
I bury my face in my pillow and make a sound that Ruffy finds deeply concerning.
This is happening. This is actually happening.
The shop is busy all morning, which keeps me productively distracted.
I sell three bouquets, take an order for a birthday arrangement, and successfully talk a nervous man out of buying his wife carnations for their anniversary. (“Trust me. Peonies. She’ll cry happy tears instead of confused tears.”)
By noon, I’m feeling almost calm about tonight.
Then Jo walks through the door, followed by Michelle, Amber, and Jessica.
“We heard,” Jo announces.
“Your mother called,” Michelle adds.
“I don’t need—”
“You absolutely need.” Amber is already flipping the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. “We have six hours. Let’s move.”
What follows is controlled chaos. Amber has brought three dress options, Jessica handles accessories, and Michelle provides snacks and commentary. Jo supervises everything while pretending she’s not emotionally invested, which fools no one.
Hazel’s daughter Kira shows up around four to handle hair, wielding a curling iron with the confidence of a surgeon.
“Stop scrunching your face,” she tells me.
“I’m not.”
“You are. It’s giving you forehead lines.”
“I’m thirty-seven. I already have those.”
“Not on my watch.” She attacks my hair with renewed determination. “My consultation fee is twenty dollars and a promise you won’t mess this up.”
“Mess what up?”
“The whole thing—the romance, the happily ever after.” She catches my eye in the mirror. “Even I know this is a big deal, and I think love is mostly a social construct designed to sell greeting cards.”
“That’s...cynical.”
“I’m sixteen. I’m allowed.” She finishes a curl and steps back to assess her work. “But for the record? The way that guy looks at you isn’t a social construct. That’s real.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just sit there while she finishes making me look like a person who has her life together.
Levi arrives at 6:58 holding a small bouquet of forget-me-nots and white roses.
“These are for you.” He holds them out, then pauses. “The forget-me-nots are a callback. To the time capsule. In case that wasn’t obvious. I’m not great at subtle.”
“I noticed.” I take the flowers. “They’re beautiful.”
He’s staring at me with an expression that makes my heart skip. “You look incredible.”
“Amber picked the dress. Kira did the hair. I had very little to do with it.”
“I doubt that.”
From upstairs comes a muffled “aww” followed by aggressive shushing.
Levi glances up. “You have an audience.”
“I have a book club. Same thing.”
“Hi, Levi!” Jo’s voice carries down the stairs. “Have her home by midnight!”
“It’s a Tuesday,” I yell back. “I’m an adult.”
“And yet you still need supervision!”
I grab my purse and pull Levi toward the door. “Let’s go before they start taking photos.”
He opens the car door for me, and I slide in feeling like I’m starring in a movie about someone else’s life. Someone who gets the guy and keeps him.
The restaurant is in Beaufort—thirty minutes down the coast, small and quiet, with candles on the tables and a view of the water.
“Dean recommended it,” Levi says as we’re seated. “He brought Jo here for their six-month anniversary.”
“That’s unexpectedly romantic of Dean.”
“His exact words were ‘the crab cakes are not terrible,’ which is high praise in Dean-speak.”
We order the crab cakes and wine. The waiter disappears, and suddenly it’s just us, the ocean a dark ribbon beyond the windows.
He looks different in candlelight. Not younger, exactly — more like a version of himself I never got to see.
The Levi I knew wore ripped jeans and played open mic nights at bars that smelled like spilled beer.
This Levi wears a button-down that fits him properly and orders wine without checking the price.
LA polished him. Success gave him a steadiness he didn’t have at twenty-seven, when everything about him vibrated with nervous energy and want.
But his hands are the same. I keep staring at them — the calluses on his fingertips from guitar strings, the way he turns his water glass in slow quarter-rotations when he’s thinking. Some things ten years can’t touch.
“This is surreal,” I admit.
“Good surreal or bad surreal?”
“Good. Definitely good.” I fiddle with my napkin. “The last time we had dinner together, we were twenty-seven and splitting nachos at that dive bar on the boardwalk.”
“I remember. You ate all the ones with extra cheese.”
“I have a system.”
“Your system is cheese theft.”
“It’s served me well for two decades.”
He laughs, and the sound loosens something in my chest. This is still Levi, the boy who wrote me love songs and waited years for me to come back. The fancy restaurant doesn’t change that.
But something fragile hums underneath the ease.
Like we’re both being very careful with this, holding it the way you hold a glass ornament, aware of how little force it would take to shatter.
I catch myself memorizing details: the flicker of the candle reflected in his eyes, the exact curve of his smile, the low warmth in his voice when he says my name.
As if some part of me is already preparing for the moment I won’t have this anymore.
Which is ridiculous. I’m sitting across from a man who kissed me under a pecan tree last night and texted me poetry this morning. I should be happy.
I am happy. That’s what scares me.
Happy has never lasted. Not for the women in my family. We fall hard and then we lose, to distance, to ambition, to the slow erosion of choosing different lives. My mother loved my father with everything she had, and it still wasn’t enough to keep him.
I push the thought down and focus on Levi’s face.
“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” I say. “From the last ten years.”
He considers. “I have a tattoo.”
“You do not.”
“I do. Got it in LA about five years ago. I was celebrating a record deal. It’s deeply embarrassing.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“You can’t bring up a secret tattoo and then refuse to elaborate.”
“Sure I can. It adds to my mystique.”
“You don’t have mystique. You have flannel shirts and a subscription to Songwriters Monthly.”
“How do you know about my subscription?”
“You mentioned it in an interview in 2019. Rolling Stone.”
He stares at me. “You read my interviews?”
“I may have…kept track of you. Occasionally.” I take a sip of wine to avoid his eyes. “I also went to seven of your concerts. In disguise. I always left before the encore so I wouldn’t run into anyone.”
The silence stretches. When I look up, his face has gone soft. Open.
“You came to my shows?”
“I couldn’t stay away, even when I was trying to.” I shrug, aiming for casual and missing by a mile. “The songs were about us. I knew that. And I kept listening, though it hurt.”
“They were always about you.” His voice is quiet. “Every single one.”
“Even ‘Kitchen Floor at 3 AM’?”
“Especially that one.”
“That one’s about eating cold pizza alone after a breakup.”
“I wrote it the week after you left. The pizza was real, and so was the loneliness.” He reaches across the table and takes my hand. “Missing you was all I had left.”
The waiter arrives with our crab cakes, and we separate reluctantly.
The food is excellent—Dean was right—and we settle into easier conversation.
He tells me about a disastrous interview where the host kept calling him “Lenny.” I counter with the bride who demanded blue roses and then accused me of ruining her wedding when I explained they don’t exist naturally.
For a while, it all feels right.
Then his phone buzzes.
He glances at it, frowns, and silences it.
“Problem?”
“Just my manager. She can wait.”
Five minutes later, it buzzes again. He ignores it.
Ten minutes after that, it buzzes a third time. His jaw tightens, and he pulls it out.
“I’m sorry. I need to take this. One minute.”
He squeezes my hand and steps outside. Through the window, I watch him pace on the sidewalk, phone pressed to his ear, free hand running through his hair. He’s stressed—shoulders tight, gestures sharp.
I try not to read into it. Managers call. It’s part of his job. It doesn’t mean anything.
He comes back looking apologetic. “That was Diane.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing major. Just some scheduling stuff.” He picks up his fork, but he’s not looking at me. “The label wants to know when I’m coming back. There’s a meeting about the next album. They want me there in person.”
“When?”
“Next week.”
My stomach drops. “That’s soon.”
“I told them I’m not ready. I just got back—just got you back.” He meets my eyes. “I’m not leaving.”
But all I hear is the echo of what he said a decade ago.
I can’t leave. Not when I finally have her.
That’s what he told me then. And I left because I couldn’t stand being the anchor around his neck.
“You should go,” I hear myself say. “If it’s important—”
“It’s not more important than this.”
“Levi—”
“Delilah.” His hand covers mine. “I spent ten years building a career because I didn’t have you. Now I have you. The career can wait.”
I want to argue, to tell him not to put his life on hold for me, not again. But his eyes are so sure, so steady, that I let it go.
“Okay,” I say.
He smiles, and we go back to our food, and I pretend the knot in my stomach isn’t tightening with every passing minute.
We’re finishing dinner when I hear it.
“Well, bless your heart.”
Penelope Waters materializes beside our table like she was summoned by negative energy. The Mayor trails behind her, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“Penelope,” I say. “Hi.”
“Delilah.” Her gaze slides between me and Levi, sharp and assessing. “I heard you two were reconnecting. I didn’t realize it had progressed to candlelit dinners in Beaufort.”
“We’re just having dinner,” Levi says. Polite but cool.
“Of course you are. How sweet.” Penelope tilts her head, considering me like I’m a bug under glass. “It’s so nice to see you settling down, Delilah. Finally. After all these years of…well. Moving around.”
There’s poison underneath the words. I can feel it seeping in.
“We should let them eat, honey,” the Mayor says, tugging at her arm.
“I’m just being friendly.” Penelope’s smile widens, all teeth. “Enjoy your evening. Both of you.” She pauses, her voice dropping low enough that only I can hear. “While it lasts.”
She glides away. The Mayor mouths “sorry” as he follows.
Levi watches them go. “She has too much time on her hands.”
“It’s fine.” I pick up my wine glass and drain the last of it. “Really. She just likes getting under people’s skin.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he lets it drop.
The rest of dinner passes pleasantly enough, but Penelope’s words are stuck in my head like a splinter. No matter how hard I try to focus on Levi—his laugh, his stories, the way he looks at me like I’m the only person in the room—I can’t shake them.
While it lasts.
Like she knows something and is just waiting for me to do what I always do.
He drives me home with his hand in mine.
At the door, he kisses me—soft and slow, the kind of kiss that promises more to come. His hands cup my face, and I lean into him, trying to stay in this moment instead of spinning out into the future.
“Best first date I’ve ever had,” he murmurs against my lips.
“We’ve known each other for twenty years. Does it still count as a first date?”
“It counts.” He pulls back just enough to look at me. “Can I see you tomorrow?”
“You want to see me two days in a row?”
“I want to see you every day. I meant what I said, Delilah. I’m not going anywhere.”
I nod and kiss him again, then watch him drive away.
Then I go inside, past Mom’s knowing smile and Ruffy’s wagging tail, up to my room.
I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, and all I can think about is the meeting he’s missing and the career he’s putting on hold. The manager who called three times during dinner because something is happening that he’s not telling me.
While it lasts.
My mother chose to stay in Twin Waves. She chose this town over everything else. And my father never forgave her for it.
What happens when Levi realizes what he’s giving up? When he looks at me and sees the woman who kept him from his dreams—again?
I pick up my phone. His last text glows on the screen: Tonight was everything. You’re everything. See you tomorrow.
I want to believe it, to trust that this time will be different.
But there’s an old familiar itch in my chest. The one that says go, that says leave before you get left—the one that’s kept me running since I was seventeen.
I set the phone down and close my eyes.
I’m not going to run. I promised.
But the doubt is there now, curled up in the corner of my mind, waiting.
Sleep doesn’t come for a long time.