Chapter 16
lovelillibet Have you ever taken a night just for yourself? Instead of wasting the precious hours of darkness, make them your own. While the rest of the world is sleeping, awaken to the company of your own thoughts. Who are you, by moonlight? There’s only one way to find out.
Love, Lillibet
Image: A waxing moon casts a shimmering trail on a dark ocean.
#nightmoves #awakenyoursenses #partyofone
The stairs creaked, alerting Jefferson that someone else was awake. He knew it wasn’t Hildy, because she was on or off like a toddler, going full speed until she hit the wall and crashed—as she’d done around eight, worn out from her earlier spat. The footsteps were too light to be her uncle and too slow for Lillibet’s husband, who tended to scamper.
Which left the lady of the house.
Jefferson pushed back his chair. He didn’t want Lillibet to find him sitting in her dark kitchen, staring at the shadow play of branches in the moonlight. Although she might understand his need for quiet, having made the choice not to come home until the rest of them had gone up to their rooms.
The sounds of descent stopped. After a beat of silence, he heard another footfall, fainter this time. The movements were almost furtive, which didn’t make sense for someone walking through their own house, even in the dark. Jefferson looked for something heavy, settling on a shallow wooden dish. Slowly, he eased himself upright and around the table, sticking close to the wall.
Soft steps moved closer. A circle of light crept across the floor, coming to a stop a few feet from his hiding place. As he listened, a door slid open, followed by the crinkle of plastic.
Huh.
Sure enough, there was a tearing sound, then a dry rustle. Jefferson stepped into the open, not surprised to see Lillibet with her arm buried in a bag of snack food.
She jumped into the air, throwing the bag at his face with a strangled, “Hiyah!”
He tried to catch it, instead managing to eject half the contents on its way to the floor.
Libby clutched her chest. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“Sorry.” He set down the wooden platter, belatedly disarming himself.
“No, I’m sorry.” She stepped toward him, plucking a cracker from the inside of his collar. “I shouldn’t have attacked you.”
“I’ll probably survive.”
Lillibet shook her head as she brushed salty powder off the front of his shirt. “Did they get in your clothes?” Her hands froze at a telltale crunch. “Oops.” She poked him, confirming the cracker’s location. “That’s not in your pocket.”
“No,” he agreed, feeling the crumbs work their way into his chest hair.
“I guess it’s better than getting rice crackers in your pants.” She bit her lip as her gaze traveled past his belt buckle. “At least you know how to work the shower now.”
Speaking of showers, the atmosphere in the kitchen seemed to be getting steamier by the second.
“Pretty sure the floor got the worst of it,” Jefferson said, seizing on a safer topic.
She crunched over to the wall and turned on the overhead light. Together they surveyed the mess. Crackers were scattered like confetti.
“I get snacky when I’m writing.” It sounded like an apology. “I didn’t think anyone else would be awake, or I wouldn’t have come down like this.”
She crossed her arms over the front of her thin T-shirt. The neckline was stretched out enough that a bra strap would have been visible if she’d been wearing one. Jefferson made an executive decision to concentrate on her face.
A trio of freckles marked the delicate skin under her right eye. Knowing that tiny detail felt almost as intimate as seeing her in pajamas.
“I have shorts on.” Lillibet hiked up her shirt, offering a glimpse of plaid flannel to reassure him she wasn’t running around in her underwear.
He nodded, acknowledging this important distinction. Even though the shorts were the size of a handkerchief. And she’d inadvertently flashed a few inches of tanned stomach. Jefferson dragged his thoughts in a less dangerous direction. “Where do you keep the dustpan?”
“Um. It’s—around here somewhere.” She opened one cabinet after another, frowning at the contents.
“You don’t always live here?” he guessed.
“No.” She half laughed at that. “I mean, I’d love to. I wasn’t trying to be like, What, this shack? But no.”
Her tone was hard to place. Wistful? Amused, but not really? Maybe she didn’t get a vote on which of their many residences they called home.
“And you have a housekeeper.”
“Right. Hard to know what to do with all that help—aha!” She raised the dustpan in victory before kneeling in the sea of snack food.
“I can do it.”
“It’s my mess.” There was a crunch as her shin made contact with a cracker.
“I think you could claim self-defense,” he said, joining her on the floor. For every cracker he picked up, another was pulverized into dust. “Might be more of a vacuum job.”
“I don’t want to wake anyone up.”
He nodded, less out of consideration for the other people in the house than from a selfish desire to be alone with Lillibet, even if they weren’t doing anything more exciting than cleaning the kitchen. When they finished, he stood first, reaching down to offer Lillibet a hand. She hesitated before letting him pull her to her feet.
“I lav you?” he asked when they were facing each other.
She jerked her hand away, as if she hadn’t realized she was still holding on. “What?”
“Your shirt.” He dipped his chin to indicate the peeling red letters.
“I Lava You. It was a barbecue place. They went out of business,” she added, in case he’d been about to propose a middle-of-the-night excursion. Her fingers twisted the fabric, pulling it taut across her chest.
Jefferson developed a sudden interest in the lines of grout at his feet. “So, Lillibet. What were you writing?”
“Libby.”
He risked a glance at her face.
“That’s what I usually go by, with my friends. Lillibet is for … the public-facing stuff.”
“Libby,” he repeated. It suited her—like that soft-looking shirt. And the blink-and-you’d-miss-them shorts.
“I was trying to finish the story about Keoki’s grandmother.”
Jefferson understood the part she didn’t say out loud: So I can give it to Hildy. “How’s it going?”
Lillibet—Libby—shrugged. “Can’t tell anymore. Hence the snacks.” She tugged on the end of her braid, brushing it against her palm. “Is that why you were down here? I think there’s more papaya in the fridge. Since I noticed you were holding the fruit bowl.”
“I thought you were an intruder.”
“Oh! Ha. No. I’m definitely supposed to be here.” She rubbed the sole of her foot against the opposite leg, no doubt brushing off crumbs. Jefferson wasn’t sure why she seemed to be trying to convince herself.
“I came downstairs to call my sister,” he said. “Meant to do it earlier, but it was hard to find a quiet time.”
“Do you talk every day?”
He shook his head. “It’s my birthday.”
“What?” Her eyes were enormous. “It’s been your birthday this whole day? You should have said something.”
“It’s no big deal. Susan wanted to make sure she got a chance to wish me a happy birthday. And she was up late, so we’re good.”
“The two of you must be really close.”
“Pretty much.”
“And you get along really well?”
“Most of the time.”
“Is that where you would be tonight if you weren’t here? Your sister’s house?”
“Probably. She and the girls like to do it up. Streamers. Trick candles.”
She absorbed this in silence, like she was interviewing a head of state. “Is it just the three of them? No dad in the picture?”
“He took off when the youngest was a baby. That’s why I moved back to Wyoming.”
“To be there for your sister?” Libby blinked rapidly, like her eyes were welling.
“I’m sure Susan could have handled it, but I wanted to be close. Get to see the girls grow up a little.” Jefferson wasn’t sure what had loosened his tongue, but now that he’d started, he couldn’t seem to stop. Maybe he liked that she was interested in his life.
“What does she do? Your sister.”
“She’s a vet. Has her own practice now. That’s why she was still up. There was an emergency call. The dog’s going to be fine,” he added, at Libby’s worried intake of breath.
“So you’re both animal people? I mean, people who like animals. Not like—werewolves.”
He smiled at the distinction. “We used to watch all the nature shows. Hour after hour of Animal Planet. Kind of an obsession. It got to be a competition to see which one of us could absorb more facts about capybaras or blue whales.”
“You would have killed at trivia night.”
“As long as the questions were about vertebrates.” He stopped himself there, worried he’d been talking too much. “Is this going in your next story?”
“Sorry. Am I being nosy? I just think it’s so cool that you knew what you wanted to do when you were a kid and then actually followed through. I wish I’d been that focused.”
“Probably fewer kids’ shows about journalists.”
“That’s true. I didn’t really think about reporting as a job until college, and then … other things happened.” More tugging at her shirt. Jefferson wanted to ask, but could tell she didn’t want to go there.
“Looks like it’s coming together for you now,” he said instead. She shrugged, and he got the impression she didn’t enjoy being the topic of conversation. Odd, for someone who had dedicated a holiday to herself. “Speaking of which, did Hildy find you?”
“Why? Did something happen? Is she upset?”
It surprised him that a person as positivity oriented as Lillibet would leap to catastrophe first. “She’s fine. It’s about tomorrow. She was hoping you could take us someplace where her uncle won’t follow.”
“Oh! I know the perfect spot. You’ll love it.” Her eyes lit. “We could have a do-over birthday celebration. I’ll ask Keoki to bake something.”
“I’d just as soon not make a big deal out of it. Hildy already thinks I have one foot in the grave.”
Her mouth worked like she wanted to ask why his alleged girlfriend didn’t know his birth date. To his relief, she didn’t push it. “We should do something right now, before it’s over. Your birthday, I mean. Not your life.” Libby hurried to the pantry, not giving him a chance to argue.
“The crackers are toast, so that’s a no-go.” She pulled out a lower shelf, sighing in disappointment. “Why so healthy? There should at least be some coconut balls in here.” Closing the pantry door, she crossed to the refrigerator. “Birthday salad would be a crime against humanity. Aha!” She rummaged through the bottom of the produce drawer. “Jackpot. I found the secret stash. He probably thought I’d never look behind the lettuce.”
She sounded so pleased with herself Jefferson couldn’t help smiling. It was the pure triumph of a child winning a board game, nothing like the notice-me superiority he’d expected of Lillibet.
“What is it?”
“It’s a surprise. Go sit over there.” She waved at the table. “It needs to warm up a little. You want to know something terrible?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes I put them in my pockets. If they’ve been in the fridge a long time.”
“When you have pockets.” Maybe he should have made it less obvious how much he’d noticed about her nightwear. To his relief, Lillibet only nodded.
“But you know what would work? A candle!” She pulled open a series of drawers before holding up a slender taper. “Perfect.”
Jefferson watched her grab a plate from an upper cabinet and place something on it, stabbing it a few times with the pointy end of a paring knife before inserting the candle. A wand-style lighter flicked to life in her right hand, and the wick caught right away.
“You’re good at that,” he observed.
“Restaurant work. We light a lot of candles. I mean, lighted. Lit. I used to light candles when I waitressed. A long time ago.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway. Are you ready?”
“I think so.” Or, if not ready, at least willing.
She turned off the overhead light. “Your present is that I’m not going to sing.”
The candle flickered as she approached, casting a soft glow on her face. “I’ll say it instead. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Jefferson.” Her voice faltered, their eyes meeting in the dark. It should have felt more casual to hear her recite it like a poem instead of serenading him, but between the dark kitchen, the candlelight, and her half whisper, the moment shifted into something intoxicatingly intimate. And that was before she called him her dear.
“Happy birthday to you,” she finished in a rush, setting the plate in front of him. “And many more.”
“Should I make a wish, or do I need a shell for that?”
“It’s your birthday. Get crazy.” She pulled out the chair next to his, tucking herself in beside him.
His other wish had already come true, although it wasn’t exactly how he’d imagined meeting her again. Jefferson kept this one simple. More time. Then he blew out the candle.
“Are you going to eat it?” She nudged the plate a little closer.
“What is it?”
“A Maui Caramac. Macadamia nuts and caramel and chocolate. They’re really good. Even if it looks like a little brown lump.”
A brown lump on a plain white plate with a mismatched candle: the presentation didn’t scream “lifestyle guru,” but Jefferson preferred Libby’s late-night ease to Lillibet’s in-your-face extravagance.
“I can share,” he said, more out of politeness than from any expectation that she’d take him up on the offer.
“You don’t mind?” She was already breaking it in half. “Here. Have the big piece.”
“Thanks.”
She watched him take a bite. “It’s good, right? I could eat a whole box of these.”
“It’s perfect.” A birthday he’d never forget.