And Now, Back to You — Chapter no 13

CHAPTER 13

DELILAH

We stand together in the small entryway of the room, unmoving, staring at the bed smack-dab in the center of it. It’s massive, with a plush velvet headboard and hand-carved posts, layered with pillows and blankets and a thick plaid comforter. It’s indulgent. Cozy. It’s so far from the bed across

the street, it’s laughable.

There is, however, an issue.

There’s only one.

“It could be worse,” Jackson says, wandering to the foot of the bed and dropping the duffel slung over his shoulder. He stretches his neck, one side and then the other. “It could be bunk beds.”

“Joke’s on you. I always wanted bunk beds.” I place my bag next to his.

“You’re being surprisingly calm about this.”

He shrugs. “I figured there’d only be one bed in the junior one-bedroom suite.” He drags his hand through his hair, then leans up against the foot of the bed, his long legs extended. Crossed at the ankles. “I asked Lottie to bring up a cot.”

I scan his six-foot-three frame and imagine him trying to wedge himself on a cot that probably folds up and is kept in a closet somewhere.

“Or—” I raise both eyebrows, staring at him.

He blinks once, slow and heavy. His glasses are the slightest bit crooked,

and it makes him look younger. Boyish.

“Or?” he asks.

I glance at the bed. We could fit roughly seventeen Delilahs on this bed,

stacked in a row.

“Or we could share.”

“Share,” he repeats.

“Mm-hmm.” I hop up so I’m sitting on the edge and toe off my boots. I let out a happy sigh and flop backward, the blankets rising around me like a cloud. I have to bite my tongue against a moan.

“Jackson, I cannot in good conscience allow you to sleep on a cot when this bed feels like this.” I reach out, one arm extended, and pat the space

next to me. “Try it.”

“I don’t need—”

I sit up, grip his arm, and pull. “Try it,” I say again.

He allows me to tug him down onto the bed, falling gracelessly next to me with a huff. He’s a tangle of limbs, his head tipped against my shoulder and his hip pressed to mine. He moves around with a grumble, adjusting his long legs, but then he settles, sinking into the bed with an utterly indecent sound. Something deep and rough and delicious.

I grin at the top of his head. “Right?”

“Oh my god,” he moans, and my belly flips. A sharp twist, right in the

middle of me. “Okay, yeah. No cot.”

“You’re not going to argue with me?”

“Delilah, I can’t.” He rocks his head back and forth against the blankets, letting his body go heavy and limp. I hear two thumps as he toes off his boots and then he tilts his head back, peering up at me, his hair rustling against the fabric. He smiles and it’s so soft, so sweet, that I have to curl my hand into the blankets to keep myself from reaching for him. From tracing that little groove between his eyebrows.

Finally, I think. This is who you are beneath everything else. This is who you are when you let go of all that weight.

Heavy blue eyes. A gentle curve of his mouth that feels like something just for me.

“Maybe we can find something to argue about tomorrow,” he murmurs.

“To make up for it.”

I smile. “Maybe.”

It should be more awkward than it is, sitting with our backs against the headboard, our shoulders pressed together, staring at the weather projection open on his laptop. But either we reached a new level of understanding, or Lottie spikes her hot chocolate, because it’s been distractingly easy since we decided we can be two adults who share a bed.

“You see this?” Jackson trails one finger along the edge of the giant red blob slowly moving across his screen. That’s distracting, too, and I thrust my hand into my bag of Swedish Fish. I am demolishing my stash of emotional support candy, and it’s only day one. “It’s slowing down,” he explains.

I blink and lean closer, my chin hovering over his shoulder. “I thought you hit a slower speed on the playback.”

He shakes his head. “No. The storm is slowing to a crawl as it creeps over the mountains. And see this?” He points to another part of the map, a graceful sweep of his pointer finger down and then up again. “The winds are—”

“Changing,” I finish for him with a little laugh. He minimizes the map he was on (the European model, thank you very much) and pulls up another.

The projections are almost in perfect sync. “Holy crap. We’re about to get dumped on. What do you think? Did we just upgrade from a winter storm to a blizzard?”

Jackson nods, dragging the palm of his hand along his jaw. “We’ll have to confirm with the National Weather Service, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

I’ll text Maggie and let her know. We can mention it when we do our call-in tomorrow.”

I stare hard at his jaw. He has a brand-new layer of scruff, a darker blond than the hair on his head. His hand makes a delicious scraping sound as he

drags it down his face.

I grab another handful of Swedish Fish.

It’s not that I wasn’t attracted to Jackson before. It was just outweighed by everything else. But now I know what he’s really like. He’s kind. Funny in a dry, droll sort of way. Sweet. Caring.

And we’re sharing a room together for the next week with only one large, obscenely comfortable bed for the both of us. It’s like my brain has found the section where I’ve been harboring a stealthy appreciation for his bone structure and decided to throw a firework right in the middle of it. I can’t stop looking at him.

Be professional, Delilah, I remind myself. This is your chance to have everyone take you seriously. You don’t have to be a joke anymore.

It’s the reminder I need. I’m not going to fumble this assignment because I’m distracted by a mussed-looking Jackson, showing me weather diagrams.

I firm my resolve.

“Is it weird I’m sort of excited about all of this?” I gesture at the map on the computer. “This is the biggest weather event I’ve ever gotten to cover.”

I laugh a little bit. “We’re going to be right in the middle of it.”

“My guess is it’ll be on top of us in a day or two.” His blue eyes are bright, framed with a thick fringe of honey blond lashes. “Being here, where we can actually see the cloud formations starting over the mountains, it’s—” He shakes his head, in awe. “I never thought I’d get to do something like this.”

“I’m buzzing. I feel like I could run down to the lake and back.”

“That’s probably the sugar talking.” He snaps his laptop shut and sets it to the side. “You’ve consumed a metric ton today.”

I reach into my gas station gallon-sized bag for another cherry red fish, popping it into my mouth. “Nuh-uh. The candy keeps me sweet.”

“Oh yeah?” He’s so close I can see the red indents on his nose from his glasses. The slight smudge on the left lens from his thumb. I extend the bag toward him and my hand bumps against his chest. He steadies it, his fingers

looped around my wrist.

“Want one?” I rasp.

His gaze drags down my face and lingers on my mouth. My hand

clenches the bag with a loud crinkle.

“No, thank you.”

“Okay,” I whisper back. “You’re missing out, but fine.”

He doesn’t move. “I’m sure I am.”

“More for me,” I say airily, feeling like I’ve just dropped down an elevator shaft. Or maybe had one of those dreams where I’m falling only to wake up abruptly with my heart in my throat.

We sit there against the headboard, staring at each other. It would be so easy to close the space between us. See how our mouths fit together. Suck at his full bottom lip until he made another rough sound, deep in his throat.

Feel the scrape of his scruff against my cheek. My jaw. The soft, delicate place between my breasts.

But those are not colleague-friendly thoughts. They’re not even friend-

friendly thoughts. I’ve launched myself right over the neat little lines Jackson painted for us, into dangerous territory.

And we’re sharing a bed.

At my insistence.

I crawl off the bed, putting space between us. These feelings are probably just due to the proximity and having been saved from the alternative, atrocious sleeping arrangement. I’m feeling grateful and tired and wildly overwhelmed. And Jackson is nice to look at and knows about cloud formations. Delilah catnip, basically.

“Okay, well, I’m feeling a little tired, so—” I hitch a thumb over my shoulder at my suitcase, lying in the exact place I dropped it. I am absolutely not tired. I’m riding an intense sugar high and I can’t be trusted.

These . . . horny feelings cannot be trusted. I back up a step. “I think I’m going to get ready for bed. To—to sleep.”

Jackson nods, a bemused look on his stupid, handsome face. “Okay.”

I suck in a deep breath through my nose and let it out slowly. I need to get it together.

“All right,” I say. I take another step back, clutching my candy to my chest. “I’m just going to—”

My foot catches against the broken wheel of my suitcase. I lose my balance, slip slightly, and lurch forward, the hand with the candy flying out.

Swedish Fish pelt the wall like gummy raindrops while my knee buckles and I hit the carpet. I’m all twisted up, kneeling on the floor and my face— My face smack-dab in the middle of Jackson’s thigh.

He sighs somewhere above me. “You really do have a gift for this sort of thing.”

I groan, my eyes clenched shut. At least I didn’t land with my face in his lap. This could have been so much worse.

“I lost my fish,” I whine.

He hesitates, then eases his palm over the back of my head. “I’ll buy you some more.”

“I got them from a gas station, like, one thousand miles away.”

He exhales a short laugh. “I’m sure we’ll find something.” His hand sifts under my hair and squeezes at the back of my neck. I shiver. “Do you need

help getting up?”

“No, I’m fine.”

I don’t move. Another laugh shakes his chest. “You sure?”

I finally pull back, smiling ruefully. My knee is throbbing, but my ego hurts more. Jackson’s hand moves from the back of my neck to the place just between my shoulders, fingers spread wide. The way he’s hovering over me is really not helping things.

“Good?” he asks again, ducking his head closer to mine.

“M’fine,” I mumble. I tug myself out of his grip and—very carefully— pick my way back to my side of the room. My poor Swedish Fish. They’re littered over the carpet like tiny red land mines.

I flip open my suitcase and pull out my flannel pajamas. They’re oversized and well loved, with a hole in the thigh. I thought I’d be wearing them in a room by myself, not in the minuscule space I’ll be sharing with Jackson for the foreseeable future.

I grab my toiletry bag too. “Do you mind if I go first? I won’t be long.”

He shakes his head. “I’m going to call my sisters. I’ll be out on the

balcony. Give you some privacy.”

“It’s ten degrees out there.”

“I’ll be fine.” He gives me a half smile. “I’ll turn on the fireplace when I come back in.”

That’s right. The best feature of this room. A gas fireplace that takes up the length of one of the walls, two cozy armchairs on either side of it. I can’t wait until snow is falling outside the massive window that anchors the other side of the room. Sitting in that armchair in front of the fire while I tap away on my computer sounds like an actual dream.

I glance at it, sighing happily. “Based on the room alone, I think this might be my favorite assignment ever.”

When I turn back to him, he’s still looking right at me. “Yeah. Me too.”

Despite what I told Jackson, I take my time once I’m in the bathroom. I spend an obnoxious thirty-eight minutes underneath the rainfall showerhead. I shampoo and condition. I wrap myself in a fluffy towel and unpack my toiletries, careful to keep to my side of the sink, trying not to be nosy and pick through Jackson’s stuff that he’s already set up and organized. But the bad voices win.

I peer inside the leather pouch sitting next to an electric toothbrush. He’s got a tin of breath mints in there. A travel-sized bottle of aftershave. A

utilitarian razor and a small, worn, folded-up piece of paper. I squint at it and bend closer, trying to see what’s written on it.

Something in crayon? Maybe?

I brush my teeth and rinse my face, eyeballing his case the entire time. It wouldn’t hurt to take a little peek. Not if he never knows.

Except I’ve never been stealthy a day in my life, and when I’m reaching for the bag, I knock it off the side of the sink. The contents spill across the floor, a kaleidoscope of tiny blue mints and razor heads. The small piece of folded-up paper taunts me, and I reach for it last after I collect the rest of his things.

It’s a small greeting card with one of the edges missing, the other folded and creased so many times it looks like it’s an intentional part of the design.

BEST DAD BIG BROTHER EVER, the front says. It’s a repurposed Father’s Day card with three stick figures drawn at the bottom, right above a date from almost a decade ago. I slide it carefully back into place, my heart in my throat.

Jackson knocks at the door and I almost fumble the bag again.

“Everything okay in there? I heard something fall.”

I toss his toiletry bag on the counter like it’s on fire. “Everything is fine!”

I make sure my shirt is buttoned, then crack open the door. “Everything is fine,” I repeat.

Jackson is propped up against the doorframe, his forearm just above my head, his body one long slouch. He studies my face in the muted light, then raises his eyes to look behind me. I wait for him to say something about the half-open leather bag, but he doesn’t.

“All right.” He pushes off the door, still watching me carefully. He shakes his head, a little rueful smile. “I got distracted with work emails, but I’m going to give the girls a call now. Need anything?”

“I’m okay.”

He taps the frame and a second later, I hear the balcony door slide open.

A burst of cold wind swirls around the room before it snicks shut again, the heavy floor-to-ceiling drapes in front of the windows rustling.

Relieved I wasn’t caught snooping, I finish up in the bathroom and slip out.

The room is mostly dark, nothing but the glow of the fire behind the grate and the dimmed nightstand light on Jackson’s side. Everything is soft and

glowing orange, a hazy warmth that curls around me like a blanket. I notice the candy has been picked up off the floor.

I climb under the heavy quilt and reach for the massive stack of pillows at the top of the bed, arranging a divide down the center of the mattress. I don’t want to assume Jackson’s comfort, and I don’t want to wake up splayed over the top of him like a starfish. Satisfied with my pillow stack, I sink into the mattress and curl up in a ball, watching Jackson’s shadow pace back and forth through the frost-edged window, his phone at his ear.

His laugh sinks through the thick glass and I smile, letting my eyes fall closed. The fire cracks and pops in the hearth. The wind whistles at the window. Jackson’s low, muted voice weaves between it all and I let myself be wrapped in the comfort of it.

When I was a kid, my grandpa used to have poker nights every other week. He and his buddies would sit in the living room at an old card table that listed to the left, drinking cheap whiskey and telling the same stories over and over. I’d lie curled up in my bed and watch the light under my door and hear the clinking of glass and the low sound of voices and feel so safe. It was like being tucked in with their happiness. I never felt alone.

I feel that way now, listening to Jackson talk on the phone, his voice so low his words are indecipherable. But his presence is there. The heavy fall of his boots. The swish swish of his coat. I let it ease me into sleep like a lullaby, my mind caught somewhere between sleeping and awake when he finally comes back inside.

The balcony door opens and closes quickly, a whispered shit under his breath when he fumbles with the handle. I smile into the pillow but don’t open my eyes.

I listen to these new sounds instead. His jacket sliding off his shoulders.

The click of the hanger as he puts it back in the narrow wardrobe. His boots on the plush carpet and then the softer sound as he toes them off, down to his socks.

The snick of the bathroom door. The zip of his leather pouch. The rustle of something soft that tells me he’s changing out of his clothes.

All of it intimate in a way I’ve never experienced before. It feels important, a whispering thought just out of reach. It feels special, though that might be the exhaustion talking.

His nightstand light clicks off and then it’s just our breathing in the dark.

I slip a little bit farther, my body heavy beneath the blankets.

“Delilah?” he asks sometime later, and I’m not sure if I’m dreaming or

awake.

“Mmph,” I answer back.

I hear the rustle of bedsheets and imagine Jackson turning over on his side. One arm under the pillow, his glasses folded neatly on the nightstand.

Neat, neat, neat.

Always so neat.

“I know you were looking through my stuff,” he whispers.

I snicker into my pillow, sleep drunk and unashamed. “Do you want me to apologize?” I whisper back.

“No,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. Sheets rustle again, his long body stretching out. “Find anything interesting?”

“Just pieces of you,” I answer lazily.

He laughs. “Not interesting at all, then.”

I shake my head, frustrated with that. Frustrated that he keeps putting himself down. Frustrated he’s only letting me see this side of him now, when it could have been like this the entire time.

I could have had a friend.

“I think you hide all of your best parts in tiny, little pouches, Jackson Clark.”

And then I finally slip into unconsciousness.

SIMONE LEEDS: And tomorrow, we’ll have an update from Delilah Stewart on the winter storm heading our way.

DAVID GARCIA: I’m looking forward to that. It’s nice to see Delilah reporting on the weather.

SIMONE LEEDS: It is, isn’t it?

DAVID GARCIA: She should do it more often.

SIMONE LEEDS: She certainly should.