Track 18
Delilah
This recently single daughter of a major music industry family may have recently made an unexpected overture to try and win back her ex.
The only problem is that this breakup wasn’t as “mutual” as their reps are saying—and showing some belated chivalry probably won’t make up for how she handled the end of the relationship in the first place.
Allison J
SAM KNIGHT FOR SURE—she did an acoustic set at Largo and closed with “Hey There Delilah”
Nicky
omfg “belated CHIVALRY” i can’t believe i missed that on the first read i’m turning in my gay card
Nicky
…Wait was it a good cover though
SapphicSunshine
Wait but I thought their whole thing was amicable???
Allison J
Ma’am they called off their wedding the MORNING OF and sam is out on what’s basically a “take me back” musical tour less than a week later, does “amicable” mean something else where you come from??
The insistent buzzing of Delilah’s phone wakes her in the morning.
She’s had it set to only let people on her emergency contacts through since the morning of the wedding, which means there are fewer than five people who can be calling.
She digs around under the pillow until her fingers close around it, yanks it out, and squints blearily at the screen until her eyes focus enough to read Alex’s name, and then she declines the call and shoves it back under the pillow.
It goes off again immediately.
Next to her, Emmett mumbles, “Delilah?”
She twists to look at them, and finds them looking back, brow furrowed in concern.
Delilah scrunches her nose, trying to convey without words her displeasure at everything happening so far this morning, and pulls her phone out from under the pillow again.
Groaning, because Alex is going to just keep calling until she caves and picks up, Delilah accepts the call, smushing the phone against her ear.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Two hours later than it is for me, buttercup, so suck it up,” Alex says. “Are your alerts still off?”
“My news alerts? The ones you turned off, and threatened me with dismemberment if I turned them back on? Those news alerts?” Delilah sits up. “Yes. Why?”
“Sam is being Sam.”
Delilah’s stomach twists into a knot. “What did she do?”
“According to the internet, she’s singing you love songs to try and win you back.”
“She’s what?”
Emmett sits up, giving her a curious look.
Delilah shakes her head, and they reach out to squeeze her arm before rolling out of bed.
Delilah blinks after them, but they just wave her off and dig the electric kettle out of the cabinet.
Filling it at the tiny sink, they plug it in before busying themself with measuring instant coffee into mugs.
Now that’s a fucking love song, Delilah thinks, bitchy and bitter, allowing herself the indulgence of both.
“She covered a song with your name in it during a show last night,” Alex says. “And that’s after covering ‘Hallelujah’ on YouTube and getting everyone talking about allegories. Because that’s original.”
Delilah resists the urge to put her head in her hands.
She and Sam had fielded approximately a thousand Sam(son) and Delilah jokes when they’d first gotten together.
She’d thought the press had finally gotten tired of them after all these years, but apparently that was wishful thinking, especially if Sam was going to start feeding the flames.
Especially since in the song and the story, Delilah’s the one who fucks Samson over, not the other way around.
“Why is she even performing? We agreed to take two weeks off after the wedding.”
“You two agreed on a lot of shit she apparently wasn’t interested in sticking to.”
“Gentle and sensitive as always,” Delilah says. “I knew I hired you for your bedside manner.”
“That’s me, Florence Fucking Nightingale. What do you want to do?”
“What do you mean, ‘what do I want to do’?”
A siren echoes through Alex’s end of the line, plaintive and wailing. Delilah can relate. “The recordings dropped online five hours ago, and I’ve already gotten six requests for a comment on the status of your relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship.”
Emmett turns the kettle off just as it starts to steam, then pours the hot water into the mugs.
They stir one and silently pass it to Delilah, keeping a grip on the mug until Delilah musters a smile and nods to let them know she has it.
They squeeze her wrist gently and pick up the other mug, hesitating until Delilah—phone in one hand, coffee in the other—wiggles pointedly to indicate they should come back to sit on the bed with her.
Emmett’s mouth twitches, but they come to join her, moving carefully so as to not jostle Delilah or spill their own coffee.
Thank you, Delilah mouths, and Emmett shakes their head, returning a Don’t worry about it. Delilah takes a breath.
“She’s not actually trying to win me back, Alex,” she says.
Delilah knows it’s true as soon as she says it. Sam likes control, and there’s no chance that she wouldn’t be trying to take the reins of her public image right now. If she wanted Delilah back, she’d be talking to Delilah, not doing passive-aggressive set lists.
“That was my suspicion, yes,” Alex says.
“But I need to know if you want me to say that, or say a nicer and more diplomatic version of that to leave the door open to some potential reconciliation on either the professional or the personal side of this mess, or say a much bitchier version of that to very decisively close the shit out of that door, or to just no comment our way through until they give up.”
Delilah brings the mug to her lips. It’s too hot to drink, but just having the scent of it clears some of the cobwebs out of her brain, making her thoughts feel a little less sluggish and her world a little less like it’s crumbling around her.
She puts the call on speaker—it’s not like Emmett is going to run to the media—and sets it down in her lap so she can curl both hands around her mug, trying to absorb the caffeine via osmosis.
“This is the part where you give me advice, right?”
“Depends. Are you going to listen to it?”
“I always listen to it,” Delilah says. “I just don’t always take it.”
Alex’s sigh crackles through the speakers.
Delilah can picture her, probably lounging back in the desk chair in her home office, either still in her work clothes or in a pair of the shiny satin pajamas Delilah knows she favors.
Any potential sleek sexiness provided by the silhouette of those pajamas is promptly negated by the novelty fabrics she always gets them printed in—cartoon characters and eye-melting colors and patterns Delilah can’t look at for more than a few seconds before getting dizzy.
She’s pretty sure that Alex is pinching her nose in the way she does when she’s fighting off a Delilah-induced migraine.
“My professional advice to you at the moment,” she says, with a patience that suggests she’s speaking through gritted teeth, “is that, as much as I’d love to strangle the woman, we err on the side of making you look very sensitive and heartbroken and careful. ”
“I’m all of those things,” Delilah says. Emmett snorts quietly into their mug. Delilah shoots them a look and then amends, “Maybe not careful.”
“You wouldn’t know careful if it hit you with a truck.”
Delilah files the anecdote about how she met Emmett into a mental save for another ten to twelve months before making jokes folder. “What did you have in mind?”
“Something about you needing time to process and heal from the unexpected end of the relationship, evaluating what’s next personally and professionally, you have all the respect in the world for her as an artist and still love her very deeply—” Delilah scoffs.
“Yeah, I know, I’m gagging as I say it. ‘Still care about her deeply,’ maybe.
Might feel less like we’re lying through our teeth.
” Alex pauses. “I regret asking this, but is there any chance of the two of you getting back together?”
Delilah tenses, glancing at Emmett, but they just cock an eyebrow at her, not a trace of jealousy or concern on their face. She swallows. “It’s been less than a week,” she says. “I don’t—I can’t answer that.”
Alex sounds almost surprised. “That’s a more honest answer than I expected of you.”
Delilah rubs a hand over her face. “Yeah,” she says. “It’s a new thing I’m trying out.”
“And how’s that going?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Well, I’d rather have you experimenting with honesty than—I don’t know, crystal meth or something.
You don’t want to know the shit I’ve had artists getting into after breakups.
” There’s a faint clicking sound, like one of Alex’s manicured nails tapping against the side of her phone, and then a much more delicate clinking, followed by the unmistakable slosh of whiskey hitting a crystal glass. “How’s your little road trip going?”
“Really? That’s what you want to ask me at—” Delilah glances at the clock at the edge of her screen. “Three nineteen in the morning your time?”
“You’ve been screening my calls and leaving half my texts on read,” Alex says flatly. “I’ll take you when I can get you.”
Fair enough. “The trip’s going well. We’re in Iowa now. Which you know because you have my location.”
“Sure do,” Alex says. “And how’s your hitchhiker?”
“They’re fine,” Delilah says. “Say hi, Emmett.”
“Hi,” Emmett says.
“Jesus Christ,” Alex mutters. “Hi, Emmett. If you harm a hair on that girl’s head, no one will ever find your body.”
Emmett looks amused. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Great. Take me off speaker, Delilah, or I’m gonna embarrass the hell out of you in front of your new travel buddy.”
Delilah knows a threat when she hears one and promptly puts the phone back to her ear. “Okay,” she says.
Alex doesn’t mince words. “Are you sleeping with him?”