And Now, Back to You — Chapter no 20

CHAPTER 20

DELILAH

Jackson was right about the wind surges. Each gust rolls into the next, making me feel like I’m standing in front of a turbine. I’ve never felt wind like this before. The kind that burrows in between any crack it can find, stinging at my cheeks and stealing my breath. It whips at us where we’re huddled together on my little bunny hill before howling through the trees, a dull roar that builds and builds the longer we’re out here. The sky feels alive, heavy clouds hiding the moon and all the stars but holding their light, seeming to glow.

And right next to me is Jackson, his big body wedged in the middle of a doughnut inner tube.

I can’t stop laughing long enough to get a good grip on the handle, bent in half behind him as the storm twists around us.

“Pull yourself together,” Jackson yells, his head angled back so he can see me. His eyes are unreal out here beneath a sky that’s not truly dark.

Snowflakes spin wild out of the endless, yawning sky above us, falling in

thick clumps.

Jackson’s patience is wearing thin.

And I’m having the time of my life.

“Okay, okay.” I grip the handle with both hands and take a bracing breath, snickering at the look on his face. I had to do some coaxing to get him into the sled, but not as much as anticipated. I took three solo trips

down the hill before he finally agreed, reluctantly climbing into the center of it with his knees tucked to his chest.

I wish I brought my phone. I want this as my wallpaper.

“Delilah!” Jackson snaps again.

“All right!” I rock back and then use the momentum to push forward, moving him approximately two inches. “Are you ready?”

“I’ve been ready. You’re the one back there having a moment.”

The wind howls, the snow screams, and I smile so wide my face hurts.

“On the count of three, okay?” Jackson gives a single, sharp nod. “One, two, th—”

I mean to push him over the edge that leads to the shallow slope, but I lose my footing right as I shout “three!” I fall forward with a shriek, my knees digging into the back of the tube, my arms across Jackson’s shoulders. He immediately grips both of my forearms as the added weight and sudden momentum move us forward, and together we go rocketing down the hill; me shrieking in delight in Jackson’s ear, him holding on for dear life.

With both of us on the sled, we go so much faster. We barrel down the hill on the side of the parking lot and everything blurs around us. Snow, sky, snow, sky. I curl my arms around Jackson’s shoulders as we go bumping along and burrow my face in his neck, laughing like a madwoman with every rough bounce of the sled.

With my other attempts, I slowed to an anticlimactic stop at the bottom of the hill. With Jackson’s added weight, we skid right past my previous finish line and over the two smaller hills at the bottom. At the crest of the first, I go airborne, landing with another scream directly in Jackson’s ear, my knees hugging his sides. At the second, Jackson loses his grip and we both go flying off.

Jackson does his best to take the brunt of it as we hit the ground, but we’re going too fast and our position is too awkward. We land and roll, the force of it crushing at my lungs, a dull pain somewhere near my hip.

Jackson’s fuck is low and rough in my ear and then we’re still, my body splayed above his in the snow.

We lie there, silent, two victims in a horrible doughnut sled accident.

“Are you okay?” I wheeze, patting at his chest where I can reach, one hand still fisted in the material of his jacket, the other wedged somewhere

under his ass. I don’t know what it says about me that in a crisis, I immediately reached for his very solid backside.

I suppose subconsciously, I was looking for support.

Jackson’s chest trembles under my cheek and I go still. My god, I’ve killed him. I forced him outside in the middle of a storm, forced him into the sled, forced him down the hill, and now I’ve killed him.

Or possibly maimed him for life. It’s not clear.

I try to leverage myself up on my elbows to get a good look at him, but we’re pressed together neck to knee and my legs keep slipping in the snow.

Two hands grip my hips and squeeze.

“Delilah,” Jackson grunts, his voice thin. He can barely manage my name. “Stop moving.”

“Are you okay?” I ask again, feeling frantic. I don’t want him hurt. I don’t want to be the reason he hurts. His hands on my hips lift and pull, setting me firmly across his body. He holds me still.

“Delilah,” he says again.

Jackson is splayed out in the snow, his hat gone, his blond hair a mess against the fluffy white behind him. There are snowflakes on his coat, across his crooked glasses that I think I might have broken for a second

time, and he’s— He’s laughing.

Jackson is laughing so hard his eyes are scrunched shut, his body

trembling beneath mine.

I stare at him, stupefied.

He lifts his head and cracks one eye open. He sees the look on my face and laughs harder.

My heart turns over in my chest. Like this, he looks so much younger.

Happier. Unburdened by all the weight he carries around with him.

I cup his face in my hands, wanting to hold on to this moment. On to him.

His laughter slows but his smile stays, settling into something heartbreakingly tender while his head drops back in the snow. I rub my thumbs over his cheeks and feel the rush of it. The magic. Snow and sky and us smack-dab in the middle of it, cold slipping through the tops of my boots and prickling at my skin. Jackson looking at me like maybe it feels like magic for him too.

Another gust of wind torpedoes around us and I burrow closer. My lips are numb, my fingertips tingling in my gloves. Jackson’s gaze slips over my

face, settling on my mouth and holding there. That boundless, weightless feeling in my chest amplifies. Like hitting that second hill but wilder.

Unrestrained.

The storm, and the snow, and Jackson. Jackson. Always looking right at me.

“You feel it, right?” he asks, his eyes searching mine. “Whatever this is.

You feel it?”

I need to be careful with this. Jackson wants a vacation from who he is in the real world. He wants to prove to himself that he can let go of all the rigid structures that hold him in place. Nothing good comes from pretending to be someone else for a little while.

But I nod, because I do feel it. This boundless, yearning impossible thing.

Glowing, glowing, glowing like all the hidden stars behind the clouds.

I can’t lie. Not about this. Not to him.

His hand slips to the back of my neck.

“Kiss me,” he rasps.

I want to. I want to so bad. But I can’t.

I shake my head and try to slip off of him.

But Jackson holds me tighter, his other hand rising to tuck against the small of my back. He’s a brick of warmth beneath me, watching me patiently, his head haloed in white.

“Tell me,” he whispers, his voice cracking down the middle. He looks confused. Worse, he looks hurt. My heart pounds, a zip of awareness up my spine. “If you feel it, too, then tell me why. It’s only us here.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer, Delilah.”

“It is to me.”

His hands tighten. “Don’t hide,” he says, still with all his impossible patience. Ever since we were caught in that tiny alcove, he’s been the calm one. He’s been the one with the plan. It’s infuriating. “Is it because of what

happened?”

“No, it’s—”

“You said Keith didn’t give you a hard time.”

“He didn’t, but—”

“Are you embarrassed?” His mouth twists down at the corners. “Did I

embarrass you?” he asks, softer this time, and oh. My breath splinters. A

sharp, tingling ache.

I shake my head, throat thick.

“Then what is it?”

The truth rattles out of me. “You need to do it,” I blurt. “You need to be the brave one. If that’s what you want, then you need to kiss me. I can’t always be the one taking charge, Jackson. I need to know it’s—”

His mouth is on mine before I finish my sentence, bruising and certain.

He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t go slow. It’s an exclamation point at the end of a sentence.

He shifts his hand until he’s cupping my face, his thumb under my chin, the rest of his fingers spread wide against my jaw.

We’ve done this before. Our mouths pressed together, exchanging easy breaths. But Jackson so quickly drags us into something darker, more ferocious, his mouth urging mine to keep up. I asked him to show me he wants it, and he does. With every rough slant of his mouth against mine.

With his fingers pressed tight at the base of my skull. He adjusts me just the way he needs to kiss me best, then bites down against my bottom lip with a

pained groan.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Delilah.”

I kiss him again and settle my weight more firmly against him, letting myself go pliant, my hands inching up to press over his shoulders. We’re wearing too many layers. This is a kiss meant for barely lit hotel rooms and fireplaces, not the bottom of a snow-covered hill edging an abandoned parking lot. But I can’t stop. I want everything that Jackson keeps buttoned up and tucked away.

I shimmy up his body until my knees are at his hips. He makes another rough sound, scooping me closer, kissing me harder. He licks into my mouth and I meet him there, my hands pushing up to his snow-damp hair, jostling his fogged-up glasses.

“Delilah,” he says between our panting mouths, and I hold on to him

tighter. “Next time, just tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

I’m mindless, selfish. A heavy drumbeat of desire. I want so many things, but I want him most of all. This silly, ridiculous man who kisses me like I’m something precious. Like he’s snapped all the strings holding him back.

“What you want from me.” He nudges my nose with his. “I’ll give you

whatever you want.”

My stomach twists. “That’s not how it’s been between us,” I whisper.

He stares up at me, his eyes so blue they look black. “That’s how it’s going to be,” he promises.

He kisses me again, ending the argument. Conversation. Whatever this thing we do with each other is. We kiss and kiss and kiss each other, my hands scrabbling for purchase, the most delicious sounds rumbling from his chest to mine.

He drops his head back with a grunt, his cheeks a bright pink, his glasses crooked on his nose. “Inside,” he says, chest heaving where I’m spread over the top of it. “I need to get you inside.”

I reluctantly peel myself off him and Jackson follows, slower, pressing up to his knees and then his feet while he brushes snow off his coat. I try to help but I only manage three lazy swipes across his torso before he catches my wrist, towing me into him, bending me backward as he kisses me again.

I sigh into his mouth, warmth pulsing through my body.

He kisses me so good.

It’s all so good.

I wrench my mouth away, panting into the warm skin of his neck.

“We need to stop.” I laugh a little bit. “I can’t feel my nose.”

Somewhere above me, he nods, then grabs my hand with his.

Jackson tugs us back through the parking lot and into the lobby, the door slamming shut behind us, making me flinch. He steers me to the corner by the elevator and deposits me there, my body more than content to let him

lead.

“Be right back,” he says.

I reach for him, hooking one hand in the pocket of his coat. “Where are you going?”

He steps back to me, thumbing gently at my cheek. A reassurance, apparently, that I desperately need.

“Your sled,” he says. “We left it outside. I’ll be right back.”

He leans forward and gives me a quick peck on my nose before striding across the lobby, yanking open the door, and disappearing outside.

The silence is jarring after the roar of the storm, my face and my hands prickling with feeling as the warmth slowly returns. It feels like my brain is doing that too. Sharp, painful bursts of awareness.

You shouldn’t have done that, my brain whispers. You’re sinking deeper

into a mess you won’t be able to find your way out of.

Professionally. Personally. Emotionally. There’s no guarantee that any of this works out in my favor.

And isn’t that what I came out here to do? To put myself first, finally. To

make the right choices.

Oh god. What have I done?

Jackson reappears, dusted in snow. Hardly a handful of seconds, but enough to have reality creeping in.

“I put it in the van,” he tells me. “Your doughnut is safe.”

“Thanks,” I mutter, distracted. My head is busy doing the calculations, trying to figure out what this means. Putting together the pieces of the equation and coming up with an answer I don’t really like.

He holds out his hand and I slip my palm against his, inexplicably feeling like I want to cry as he tugs us to the elevator. I stare at his shoulders as I walk behind him, then the toes of his boots as we stand awkwardly inside.

I have feelings for Jackson. Real ones.

And Jackson is not an impulsive man. He’s rational. A planner. I’m worried our kisses have tumbled into some sort of . . . exposure therapy for him. If this is another distraction for him while he figures out how fun he can be in the mountains, I’m not sure I want to be a part of it.

He presses the button for our floor, and we don’t say a word to each other. He seems to understand I’m working through something, the only concession the light bump of his thumb over my knuckles. He watches the red numbers slowly tick up and I stare at our blurry reflections in the mirror.

It’s the most unbearable three minutes of my life.

The bell dings and I follow numbly after Jackson, my gloved hand in his.

Jackson fumbles with the key card to our room and I try to push away the intrusive thoughts that rise like angry bees.

I have a lifetime of being forced into other people’s too-small boxes. I have scars and bruises across my heart from every time I’ve been underestimated, undervalued. And I’ve made it so easy for Jackson to do the same.

The door clicks quietly shut behind us. Then it’s just us, exactly how we started. Standing too close together in a room we’re not meant to be sharing.

Jackson hovers in the dark in front of me, his body silhouetted by the

fireplace behind him, his face unreadable. Tension rolls off him in waves as I stare hard at the line of his jaw as it clenches then releases.

“You regret it,” he sighs.

I shake my head. That’s the problem. I don’t regret it at all. I want more.

I just don’t want to be made to look like a fool when I’m the one with my

heart in my hands.

“No,” I say, just as quiet. “I don’t.”

He lifts his hand and bites at the middle finger of his glove, yanking it free, impatient, tossing it across the room before repeating the same process with the other. Then his hands are there, cold, against the back of my neck.

Tangling in all my snowflake-dusted hair, angling my face to his.

“Then what is it? What’s got this look on your face?” he murmurs, and I could cry. I almost do. He reads me so well and I’m so scared I’m somewhere he won’t let himself be.

“I like you,” I whisper, my throat thick.

His thumb finds the curve of my jaw, tracing up to the hollow beneath my ear. “I like you too.”

“I just—” I hesitate. Swallow hard. He keeps tracing that gentle circuit, over and over again. I loop my fingers around his wrist and hold on. It feels easier, when I’m touching him like this. “I don’t want you to confuse proximity with affection. I don’t want—I don’t want you to kiss me and not mean it.”

Jackson is quiet for a long time. “You think I don’t mean it?”

That’s what he said, isn’t it? It doesn’t have to be more than that.

He dropped me in the category of distraction, and I let myself occupy that space.

He slips his hands from my face and I have to bite my cheek against the

words that want to bubble out of me.

No, I want to say. Come back.

“I think,” I say carefully, looking at the floor by our feet, “today has been an overwhelming day.”

His hand lifts and he rubs his thumb over the thick material at the bottom of my coat. Then he drops it with a sigh. “I know there’s something here, Delilah.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “There is.” The burning behind my eyes gets more intense, spreading across the bridge of my nose. I sniffle. “But maybe there shouldn’t be? I don’t know, Jackson. I feel like I’m taking all the wrong

steps. I don’t want—” I suck in a wobbly breath. “I don’t want to ruin anything.”

Jackson watches me carefully. He palms the side of his jaw. “I don’t know how I can keep myself from kissing you.”

“Jackson—”

“I like how I feel when I’m with you,” he says, his face earnest. He steps closer, his big body curling over mine. “I don’t want to stop.”

And that’s what I’m worried about. That Jackson likes who he gets to be here. But when we return home to our routines and responsibilities, he’ll be the man who glared at me from across a parking lot. I’m not sure I could take it.

“It’s just this trip,” I explain. “We’re on our own up here. I think it’s possible we got caught up in the moment.”

“So? Why can’t we have more moments? As many as we want.”

“What are you suggesting?”

In the flickering light of the fireplace, I can just barely make out the curve of his mouth. The way his jaw bunches and then releases. He’s frustrated, but so am I.

“I don’t want to kiss you as an excuse for something else,” he says

quietly. “I just want to kiss you.”

I look away.

“I don’t know,” I say slowly. “I just—I don’t know, Jackson.”

I’m too mixed-up. I’m leading with my heart, and my heart has only ever gotten me in trouble. I need to take some time to decide. Any choice I make tonight won’t be a good one.

Jackson seems to realize it at the same moment I do. His face settles into calm resignation. “All right,” he agrees softly.

And that makes it harder. A thousand times harder. How well he seems to realize what I need in this moment. That space is the very best gift he could possibly give me.

“I’m going to get ready for bed now, I think,” I say quietly. I tug my hat off and twist it between my fingers. It’s damp from the snow. I’m sure my hair is bearing the brunt of the natural forces outside. I smooth it back self- consciously. “We have an early broadcast tomorrow.”

Jackson nods, studying his feet. “Yeah.”

“I’ll just—” I hike my thumb over my shoulder, pointing at . . . something. I really don’t know. I feel like I’ve fallen through the

floorboards into an alternate universe. When did I become the person that weighs the consequences?

Maybe we’re both different people out here in the mountains.

I move around Jackson and fumble with the zipper of my coat, cursing under my breath when it gets jammed halfway. I yank at it and then yank again, frustrated tears burning behind my eyes when it doesn’t budge.

“You stupid piece of—” I grunt and yank again, my hands shaking.

“Come on.”

Hands cover mine.

“Let me,” Jackson says quietly.

“You don’t have to—”

“Delilah,” he says. “Let me.”

I let go of the zipper, my arms dangling loose at my sides. He bends his head to get a better look, then plucks the small tab between thumb and forefinger, tinkering. He tugs it one way, then the other, his glasses slipping down as he investigates my jacket. Then he does some sort of twisting motion and it’s free, tugging slowly down, the release of each metal clasp loud in the otherwise quiet room. Jackson pushes the material off my shoulders without a word, the jacket landing with a heavy thump at our feet.

He stares at me in the dark, his breathing slow and steady. He’s waiting, I realize, for me to stay stop. To push him away. But I don’t want to do either of those things.

He slips two fingers into my bulky pink snow pants and tugs at the little elastic cord, loosening them. He goes down to his knees in front of me, urging my snow pants off my legs. I stare hard at the top of his head and suck in a sharp breath. When is the last time someone touched me like this?

When has someone ever been this careful with me?

I stumble when he gets to my ankle. His hand reaches up, guiding mine to his shoulder.

“Here,” he says, head still bowed. His forehead brushes against my thigh.

“Hold on to me while I get your boots.”

He works at the laces and tugs them off my feet. One and then the other, my hot pink snow pants following until I’m standing in front of him in my slightly damp sweats. Jackson stays on his knees, his palms coasting up the back of my calves. He squeezes, then sighs and leverages himself back up.

He’s reassuring me in the way he knows best.

Not with words, or empty statements that go around and around. But by

taking care of me.

My eyes go prickly and hot.

“Thank you,” I manage, my voice tight.

He nods, already moving over to his suitcase, discarding his own layers with efficiency. He picks up my jacket and drapes it over the back of the armchair with his, and I stare at the material folded together while I grab dry pajamas to change into.

We’re silent as we climb into bed, just the rustle of blankets and the click of the light on the nightstand. It doesn’t escape my notice that Jackson waits until I’m settled to flick it off, the room in shadows and warm, golden light from the fireplace. Twenty minutes ago we were standing curled together in the middle of a storm and now we’re in bed, a perfectly polite three feet of space between us. I pull the quilt over my shoulder and tuck my face into my pillow.

I’m almost asleep when his rough whisper carries across the space

between us.

“Delilah?”

I jolt beneath the blankets and stare blearily across the pillows. He shifts them until I can see his face, then tosses them off the bed. Out of reach.

He’s curled on his side with one bare arm wedged under his pillow. Smooth,

easy lines. A half-moon to match mine.

“Yeah?” I rasp.

He shifts, getting comfortable.

“It was a good kiss,” he tells me.

“Yeah,” I agree with a smile, a heavy thrum of something good and warm tightening low in my belly. “Yeah, it really was.”

PENELOPE CLARK: Should we add Delilah to the family chat?

JACKSON CLARK: No.

ADELINE CLARK: You sure?

JACKSON CLARK: Yes.

JACKSON CLARK: I don’t need to expose her to you two.

PENELOPE CLARK: Rude.

ADELINE CLARK: But, like.

ADELINE CLARK: DECKSON is happening, right?

JACKSON CLARK: What is DECKSON?

PENELOPE CLARK: DELILAH + JACKSON. DECKSON. There’s a whole thing on Reddit.

PENELOPE CLARK: And since you INSIST on acting like the whole world didn’t catch you swapping spit with the cute weather lady, everyone is feral for details.

PENELOPE CLARK: We can see you typing and deleting it, Jackie.

JACKSON CLARK: We’re not adding her to the family chat.

JACKSON CLARK: Not yet.