Track 6 Delilah
Delilah
They leave the bookstore after Delilah trades an autograph and a selfie for a kiss on the cheek from a tall, willowy trans girl with a wicked smile and a Custom-Made Pussy T-shirt.
She manages to extract a promise from her not to post the photo for a few hours, partly to follow the safety protocols Alex drilled into her and partly to give herself time to come up with an excuse to keep Alex from sending her even more furious text messages.
She also buys about half a dozen poetry books under the ostensible excuse of lyric research and definitely not because she’s got the self-control of a toddler in a candy store.
Despite the commotion, she doesn’t miss Emmett quietly purchasing a book of their own, handing cash across the counter with a small, hesitant smile.
Delilah doesn’t see the title before Emmett slips it into their bag, but she does catch the way the store clerk leans over to kiss Emmett’s cheek as well, though much more gently.
She brushes the faint lipstick mark away from Emmett’s skin in a way she hadn’t with Delilah, and gives Emmett a shy smile as she shoos the both of them out of the store.
“Okay,” Delilah says when they step out into the crisp late afternoon sunshine, feeling a need to say something bright and energetic to break the strange spell of the last few minutes. “Food?”
Emmett hesitates, looking almost dazed as they touch their fingertips to their cheek. Then they clear their throat. “Food,” they agree, and follow Delilah down the street.
Fortunately, an early dinner was already the next item on Delilah’s itinerary.
Within ten minutes, they’re tucked into a booth at the lesbian-owned restaurant Delilah found during her honeymoon planning by scouring every queer tourist guide from the last five years.
Delilah peruses the menu, wondering if she can justify ordering a slice of chocolate peanut butter cake as big as her head while Emmett looks around the room, eyes bright and curious.
Their waitress is a tiny blonde with about seven piercings in each ear, who shamelessly encourages Delilah to order cake as an appetizer and flirts cheerfully with Emmett when they ask what she thinks about the different dinner offerings.
Emmett is pink and stammering by the time the waitress takes off with a wink, promising to be back with their drinks and Delilah’s cake “in a jiffy.”
“You’re like a magnet,” Delilah says, grinning despite herself at the flush clinging stubbornly to Emmett’s face as they chug half their glass of water and pointedly look anywhere but at the waitress’s retreating back. “Have cute girls always flocked to you, or is that new?”
Emmett shoots her the closest thing to a scowl she’s seen from them, and Delilah snickers. “I don’t know,” they say. “Have you always looked at them like they’re going to bite you, or is that new?”
“Ooh,” Delilah says. “Touché, my friend.” She sits back in the booth.
“All right, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
” Emmett makes a go on gesture, and Delilah shrugs.
“I think there’s part of me that never grew out of being the chubby girl at school dances who only got asked to dance on a dare.
I’m always sort of still waiting for the punch line, you know?
” Emmett’s face starts to shift, inching toward sympathy, and she adds, “Plus, I mean, my fan base—if I even have one without Sam—is probably ninety-nine percent queer girls, and I’m supposed to be lying pretty low right now. ”
“So Alex doesn’t hunt you down,” Emmett says, reciting more than asking.
Delilah taps her temple in a two-fingered salute.
“Correct. People don’t really recognize me when I’m out on my own, so maybe I shouldn’t even be worried about it.
But…” She shrugs. “It’s not like I’m at my best right now, and anyone who does recognize me will probably know about…
everything, and I just don’t really want to deal with it. ”
Emmett cocks their head. “You didn’t mind the girl at the store knowing who you were.”
“No,” she admits. Delilah hadn’t loved it either, but for one thing, bookstore girl had been stunning enough that Delilah was almost too busy choking on her own tongue to be anxious, and for another, the first thing she’d said after recognizing Delilah had been, You should know that #TeamDelilah is trending, and I’ll buy the shit out of your next album.
It’s probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said to her.
“All right, chick magnet, your turn,” she says, jumping on the chance to change the subject.
The blush comes back, reddening Emmett’s pale skin.
They look down at their hands, folded together on the table.
“I’ve never really thought about it,” they say.
“At least, I don’t—I’ve never really noticed—I mean, I haven’t looked for…
” They trail off. “I wasn’t really supposed to talk to people outside of the family.
Or the community. There were a few people who I knew were…
” Another moment of hesitation, a twitch of their fingers on the table before they curl them away and tuck them into their lap. “I’m not making sense.”
“That’s okay.” Delilah props her chin in her hand, studying Emmett.
There’s something a little different about them that she can’t quite put her finger on.
It’s almost like that light-bulb moment with the pins and the pronouns has somehow made a physical difference in their face.
Their features are a bit softer, the stubble she’d noticed on their jaw when they’d met is now noticeably lighter, the entire effect stopping just short of looking purely feminine.
It’s as if they used one of Delilah’s itinerary-scheduled bathroom breaks—one of the most important trip-planning lessons her mother had taught her was to map out good bathroom stops in advance, and Delilah only had to pee on the side of the highway at rush hour once before she took that advice to heart—to do some kind of witchcraft with a contour stick.
She knows people can’t just change their faces, but something is definitely different about Emmett. She just wishes she could figure out what. “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”
Emmett relaxes slightly, giving her a small, almost wry smile. “You did,” they say. “But it’s all right.” They shrug. “I guess people have…have looked at me before. But I wasn’t really supposed to notice. And I definitely wasn’t supposed to look back.”
Delilah considers their phrasing. “Did you anyway?”
Their guilty smile is answer enough.
Their waitress comes back with Delilah’s slice of cake and espresso martini—a restaurant special, apparently, made with a secret recipe the waitress refuses to give away no matter how much Delilah turns on what Iris has always called the eyes—along with the fruity mocktail Delilah and the waitress persuaded Emmett to order.
She takes down their dinner orders with a flourish, tells Delilah she inspired the couple a few tables down to order their dessert first too, and gives them a cheerful wave as she heads back to the kitchen.
The cake is amazing. So is the martini. Delilah makes a shamelessly delighted sound at the first sip, coffee and chocolate and liquor and something else she can’t quite identify mingling together on her tongue.
Emmett watches her with amusement. “How much caffeine have you had today anyway?”
“It doesn’t count if it’s mixed with alcohol,” Delilah says, probably too quickly if the way one of Emmett’s brows lifts halfway to their hairline is any indication. She ignores that and pushes the slice of cake to the center of the table. “Try this, it’s amazing.”
“Are you sure?”
Delilah shrugs. “Dinner’s on me anyway,” she says.
“So you might as well.” Emmett opens their mouth, clearly ready to protest, and Delilah clicks her tongue in dismissal.
“Nope, I’m doing it. I already budgeted for all this.
You ditched a way cheaper trip to come on my crazy lady road-trip adventure. ” She pauses. “Gender-neutral.”
Emmett’s lips twitch, but they still don’t look fully convinced. “I have money.”
“Mazel tov,” Delilah says. “Spend it on more books, or souvenirs, or whatever. Not on the stuff I’m dragging you into.”
“You’re not dragging me anywhere,” Emmett protests, then sighs when Delilah just shakes her head and gives the cake another nudge in their direction. “Okay, okay.”
Their reluctance dissipates slightly at the first taste of cake, and Delilah gets to watch their face turn from guilty reluctance to pleased delight, their eyes fluttering closed as they seal their lips around their fork.
Delilah catches herself staring and takes another long sip from her martini.
Absolutely not, she tells herself. Then, just to make sure it sticks, Absolutely. Not.
Dinner shows up a few minutes later, and by unspoken agreement, they shift back to small talk.
Delilah shares random anecdotes about LA and the music industry and the trips she used to take with her mom, and after a bit of gentle coaxing, Emmett tells her a bit about the books they were exploring at the store while Delilah was investigating an employee kiss.
That opens up a conversation about reading in general—Emmett confesses an unexpected love of fantasy novels and makes a face when Delilah reveals a guilty affection for obviously ghostwritten celebrity memoirs.
“Why, though?” they say, clearly bewildered. “I mean—isn’t it strange, when you know they didn’t really even write them?”
“That’s what makes it fun,” Delilah says.
She’s told Emmett a little about her own ghostwriting business, though the ironclad NDAs she’s signed prevent her from mentioning any titles.
“I like trying to figure out who really did write them, honestly. There aren’t really that many of us, and once you read enough of them you start getting a sense of people’s style. ”