17. Delilah
— ? —
Delilah
The wind picks up while I’m curled on the cottage’s worn couch, laptop balanced on my good knee, the glow of my favorite show casting blue light across the small room.
This is my one guilty pleasure - the thing I’ve allowed myself while everything else falls apart.
Mindless television. Characters with problems I can solve by the end of an episode.
The first crack of thunder makes me jump.
Lightning splits the sky outside the window, illuminating the trees in stark white relief. I count the seconds - one, two, three - before thunder rolls again, closer this time. The lights flicker. Once. Twice.
Then darkness.
“Great.” I fumble for my phone on the coffee table, nearly knocking it to the floor before my fingers close around it. The flashlight cuts a weak beam through the black. “Just great.”
The storm howls outside like something alive and angry. Rain lashes against the walls, against the windows, finding every crack and gap in this old cottage. Water drips somewhere - I can hear it, a steady plink plink plink that I’ll have to find in the morning.
If there is a morning. If this storm doesn’t tear the roof right off.
I make my way to the kitchen, hip checking the corner of the couch, cursing under my breath. The flashlight beam sweeps across the counter, the cabinets, the drawer where Rosa keeps-
Candles. Thank God.
I find three of them, dusty and half-used, along with a box of matches that takes four tries to strike.
The first flame catches, and I light them one by one, setting them on the coffee table, the kitchen counter, the windowsill.
The cottage fills with flickering gold, shadows dancing on every surface.
It’s almost romantic. If romance weren’t the last thing on my mind.
I settle back on the couch, pulling the blanket around my shoulders, watching the storm through the window. The rain is coming down in sheets now, visibility reduced to nothing. The trees bend and sway like they’re trying to uproot themselves and run.
A knock on the door.
I freeze.
Who the hell would be out in this?
Another knock, more insistent. Almost desperate.
I grab my phone, flashlight mode still on, and approach the door slowly. My heart hammers against my ribs. It’s probably just - I don’t know. A branch. The wind. Something reasonable.
The knock comes again.
I take a breath. Open the door.
Lucas stands there.
He’s drenched. Absolutely soaked through, like he walked here through a biblical flood.
His hair is plastered to his forehead, water streaming down his face, his shirt clinging to every plane and angle of his body.
He’s shivering - I can see it even in the dim light - his jaw tight against the cold.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I suspected the power would go out.” His voice is rough, barely audible over the wind. “I didn’t want you to be here by yourself.”
“Are you crazy?”
He looks at me then. Really looks at me. And something in his expression - raw, unguarded, desperate - makes my chest clench.
“Yes.” The word comes out like a confession. “I’ve been crazy since you left home.”
The wind howls behind him, driving rain into the doorway, onto my feet, my legs. Water pools on the threshold. He’s still standing there, waiting - for what? For me to slam the door in his face? For me to forgive him?
I stare at him. At this man I’ve loved for nine years. At the water dripping from his chin, his shoulders, the tips of his fingers. He looks lost. He looks broken.
He looks like someone I used to know.
“Oh my God, you’re a fool.” I grab his arm and pull him inside. “The whole house is going to get wet, and you’re going to get sick. Get inside.”
He stumbles over the threshold, leaving wet footprints on the wooden floor. I shove the door closed against the wind, and the sudden quiet - relative quiet, with the storm still raging outside - feels deafening.
I light another candle. Shove a towel into his hands.
“Dry off. Before you catch pneumonia and I have to explain to Allana why her father decided to go for a swim in a thunderstorm.”
He starts toweling his hair, rough movements that make it stand up in all directions. I try not to watch. Try not to notice the way his wet shirt clings to him, the way the fabric pulls across his chest with every movement.
Then - without thinking, apparently - he pulls the shirt off over his head.
The candlelight catches him. All of him. The broad planes of his chest. The defined lines of his abs, still visible even after years of business meetings and desk work. That V-shape at his hips that I’ve always loved, that I used to trace with my tongue on lazy Sunday mornings.
My mouth goes dry.
I force my eyes away. Not fast enough. Definitely not fast enough.
“So you were worried about me getting sick?” I busy myself with the candles, adjusting their positions on the table, on the windowsill, anywhere that keeps my back to him.
“No.” I can hear the smile in his voice. Damn him. “I was more worried about my house getting soaked.”
I turn then, ready to snap something back. But he’s looking at me with that half-smile - the one he used to give me across crowded rooms, the one that always felt like a secret between us - and the retort dies in my throat.
“Sit down.” I gesture toward the couch. “Before you drip all over everything.”
He sits. The couch is small - too small for two people who are supposed to be keeping their distance - and when I take the other end, our knees almost touch.
The storm rages outside. Wind screams against the walls. Rain drums on the roof in a rhythm that sounds almost like hoofbeats.
Neither of us speaks.
I watch the candle flames dance and flicker. Watch the shadows play across the walls. Try not to notice that he’s shirtless three feet away from me, that his skin is still damp from the rain, that I can smell him - not cologne, just him, that familiar scent underneath everything.
“How’s your leg?” His voice breaks the silence.
“Fine.”
“The doctor said-”
“I know what the doctor said.”
Silence again. The kind that used to be comfortable between us. The kind that now feels loaded with everything we’re not saying.
I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders. The cottage isn’t cold, but I need the barrier. Need something between us.
“Allana asked about you today,” he says quietly.
My heart clenches. “She’s five. She doesn’t understand-”
“She understands more than you think. She asked me why you don’t sleep at home anymore. Asked if I did something wrong.”
I don’t respond. What is there to say?
“I told her yes. I told her Daddy made some mistakes and Mommy needed time to think about whether she could forgive him.”
The words hit me somewhere soft. Somewhere I’ve been trying to protect.
“That was… honest of you.”
“She deserves honesty.” He’s looking at his hands now, at the towel crumpled between them. “She deserved better from both of us. From all of this.”
The candles flicker. Outside, thunder rolls, long and low.
“You walked here,” I say. “In this. Through this.”
“Yes.”
“The main house is a half mile away.”
“I know how far it is.”
“You could have called. Texted. Done literally anything else.”
“I could have.” He looks at me then. Those dark eyes that have always seen too much. “But you wouldn’t have answered.”
He’s right. I wouldn’t have.
“So you decided to risk death by lightning instead.”
“The chances of being struck by lightning are-”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “Don’t quote statistics at me right now.”
The ghost of a smile crosses his face. “You hate when I do that.”
“I hate a lot of things you do.”
“I know.”
The words settle between us. Heavy. True.
I watch him - really watch him - for the first time since he walked through the door. The exhaustion written in the lines around his eyes. The tension in his shoulders that never quite releases anymore. The way he holds himself, like he’s bracing for impact.
When did he start looking so tired?
When did I stop noticing?
“You should sleep,” I say finally. “The storm probably won’t let up for hours.”
“You should sleep too.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Delilah-”
“The couch pulls out.” I stand, needing distance. “There are blankets in the closet by the bathroom. Try not to flood the cottage when you move.”
I retreat to the bedroom and lean against the door frame for a long moment, breathing.
He’s here. In my space. My temporary sanctuary.
And I don’t know if I want to scream at him to leave or pull him through this door and-
No. I’m not going there.
I change into sleep clothes, my movements sharp and frustrated. Crawl into the narrow bed. Pull the covers up to my chin.
The storm howls outside. I can hear him moving around in the other room - the creak of the pull-out couch, the rustle of blankets. Then quiet.
I lie awake, staring at the ceiling.
This is the man I married. Somewhere under all the business meetings and investor dinners and growing distance, this is still him. The man who walked through a storm because he couldn’t stand the thought of me alone in the dark.
But is that enough anymore?
Is a single gesture enough to erase months of neglect? Enough to make up for the way he looked at me in that meeting room, like I was a problem to be managed? Enough to balance the scales against every time he chose her over me?
I don’t have an answer.
Sleep comes eventually, pulling me under despite everything. The last thing I hear is the rain. The last thing I think is his name.