Instrumental Emmett
Instrumental
Emmett
In the end, they stay.
It’s Delilah’s idea, and it catches Emmett off guard.
They know she’s been nervous about keeping to her timetable, staying perfectly on schedule to make it back to LA with enough time to finish whatever last-minute work she needs to do.
Emmett has caught her chewing her lip as she studies her maps each morning.
But when she suggests that they make a day of things at the hot springs and reserve a camper spot for the night, her tone is light.
Which is how Emmett knows to be suspicious. “Why the change of plans?”
Delilah leans up to kiss their cheek. “Because the hot water’s doing you good,” she says. “You look more relaxed.”
They feel more relaxed. The aching stiffness in their joints has been getting harder to ignore.
Spending last night in a real bed hadn’t done anything to make it better—if anything, the patches of stone breaking through their skin had only spread farther while they slept, curled naked around Delilah, feeling warm for the first time in days.
“It is helping,” they admit. “But what about—”
Delilah chooses that moment to pull herself out of the pool, and Emmett is momentarily distracted by the way the sunlight glistens against her bare skin, the water running in rivulets over her breasts and the soft curve of her stomach and—
“My eyes are up here.”
Emmett snaps their gaze up, flushing with a mix of embarrassment and shame, only to find Delilah’s lips twitching in amusement. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She grins, twisting her hair into a messy braid and letting it dangle over her shoulder as she picks up her towel.
“This is great for my ego. I’m going to go down and get us a spot and move Roscoe over.
You stay up here.” Emmett opens their mouth to protest, but she reaches down to cover their mouth.
“Shush. It’s good for you. Just put your head back and look at the clouds and enjoy the water and think about all the nice things we can do with an extra night out here. ”
Dressed, she swoops down to replace her hand on Emmett’s mouth with her lips, giving them a quick, almost casual kiss that still sends their head spinning. Then she’s off down the path with her bag over her shoulder before Emmett can even begin to come up with an answer.
They feel, not for the first time, like they’ve been swept up in a cyclone, spun around until they can’t tell up from down, and then put back on the ground with their insides mixed up and everything gone topsy-turvy.
After a lifetime of stern orders and rigid routines, Emmett finds themself leaning into the twisting whirlwind of it, eager to see where they’ll land next.
Where Delilah will take them next, Emmett amends, following instructions almost automatically as they stretch their head back to rest it against the smooth stones lining the edge of the pool.
The place where the water meets the air feels cool and comfortable against their skin, and they close their eyes, relaxing into the sensation.
Thinking of Delilah sends a shiver down their spine, the heat of the water no match for the memory of Delilah’s hands on their skin.
Last night had been different. Still new, still strange, still so impossible Emmett keeps thinking they dreamed it.
Delilah was the same, lovely and eager and responsive.
It was Emmett who’d changed, Emmett who’d felt more daring, more confident than they ever believed they could be.
It was Emmett who had leaned into every new pleasure Delilah offered them, Emmett who had even stretched back through the centuries of memories woven through their soul and their nerves and the cracking stone of their body until they found the knowledge Jacob would have hated for them to ever touch, and then put every bit of it to use.
They’d felt bold. Powerful. Free.
But afraid too. Because the more they let Delilah in, the more secrets they let her uncover, the more she takes each new piece of Emmett and cups it in her hands like a tiny spark she can tend and nurture and coax into a blazing fire, the harder it’s going to be when they have to leave her behind.
And they will. They know it, deep in their bones—or whatever they might have instead.
Delilah is trying, and they’ll love her for that until the moment the breath goes out of them for good, but if there had been anything groundbreaking to be found in Jacob’s journals, Jacob never would have let Emmett take them.
Or maybe he didn’t know, says a hopeful little voice in the back of their mind, sounding suspiciously like Ruth. Maybe he didn’t read deeply enough to find out. Maybe—honestly, Emmett, probably—he didn’t think you’d ever dare to actually look.
Emmett laughs in spite of themself, tilting their head even farther back, letting the water lap against their collarbone.
Possibly the worst part of all of this, they think, is that they’ll never know what Ruth might have done if she’d known sooner.
Or what she could still do if they hadn’t had to leave.
The soft crunch of footsteps on the dirt path shakes them gently out of their thoughts.
Emmett is halfway to reaching back for their shirt before Delilah calls their name, and they relax back into the water as she comes into view.
The sun is a little lower in the sky than it had been, late afternoon just starting to tip toward sunset, and the earliest tints of pink and orange in the sky glint off the subtle highlights in her dark hair.
“Oh, good,” she says, putting her bag down and shimmying back out of her clothes. “I was worried you might have gotten swarmed while I was gone and I’d find you covered in a bunch of new friends.”
“Not likely.” Emmett squints up at her until she laughs and rummages around in her backpack for the spare sunglasses she keeps lending them, bending down to slide them gently onto Emmett’s nose. “Did you get everything organized?”
“Sure did.” Delilah slides back into the water with a shiver of pleasure, scooting closer until she’s pressed herself flush against Emmett’s side. “One campsite, all hooked up. I even folded out the bed for us so it’s ready when we go back down.”
She waggles her eyebrows at them as she says it, and Emmett bites back a smile. “Is that how it is?”
Delilah draws back, uncertainty flickering in her eyes.
“I mean—” She catches their face and pouts.
“Oh, very funny.” She peers down the path, assessing, and then worms her way back into Emmett’s lap.
She slips slightly in the water, and Emmett catches her hips to steady her, only for her grin to make it clear she hadn’t been sliding at all. “Hi.”
“Hello.” Emmett is vaguely aware that they’ve started drawing circles on Delilah’s bare skin with their thumbs, and can’t bring themself to stop.
“What’s on your mind?” She smooths their hair back, and Emmett tilts their head into her palm. “You look thoughtful.”
There are a hundred answers Emmett could probably give her.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never felt anything like this.
I’m afraid of how much I like this. I’m afraid of how much I like you.
I’m afraid of how fast this is happening.
I don’t know what any of this means. I’m hurting so much more than I was before, and I’m scared that we’re running out of time.
I’m afraid you’ll hate me when I go, but I’m too scared you’ll stop trying to save me if I tell you.
I want every minute we can have together.
I wish there could have been more of them.
A hundred possible answers, all of them true enough that they could share them without stumbling.
But only one that matters.
“You,” Emmett says, with perfect truth, and draws her down for a kiss.