And Now, Back to You — Chapter no 32

CHAPTER 32

DELILAH

I see the Post-it note on my driver’s side door as soon as I leave the station.

A standard-issue pale yellow, the corner of it lifting in the wind that whips through the parking lot. There’s still snow on the ground from the storm, but it’s been packed down by cars and boots in the handful of days since we

got back.

I peel the note off my window.

Lunch? it says, in Jackson’s neat, careful handwriting.

I smile. “Is that a threat or an invitation?”

Jackson hums from behind me, leaning up against the bumper of his Honda with his arms crossed over his chest. “Why is it always one or the other with you?”

I stick the note in my pocket. “Maybe it’s both?”

“Can it be both?”

I shrug. “I’m not even sure what we’re arguing about anymore.”

“Oh. Is this arguing?” He pushes off the back of his car and saunters closer. He stops right in front of me, so close I need to tip my head back to watch his face. He has a subdued smile, his eyes tell the truth. He’s happy to see me. “Hello, Delilah.”

I’m happy to see him too. “Hi, Jackson.”

He spares a quick glance at the station, then shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “How’s your grandpa doing?”

“Better. Thanks. He’s getting discharged this afternoon. I’m going to go

over there and pick him up before the evening report. What about you?

How are the girls?”

A smile lifts one edge of his mouth. “They’re good. Though I’m not convinced spending so much time with Aiden was in their best interest.”

“Oh?”

“Bad influence,” he says. “I can tell you about it at lunch.” He hooks one finger in the opening of my jacket, using it to pull me closer. I didn’t bother zipping it up all the way before I left the station, and his knuckle brushes against the very practical and professional silk blouse I have on underneath.

He releases a sigh that sounds like it’s come from the very center of his being.

Blue eyes find mine. “We aren’t working together anymore,” he says.

“No. We are not.”

I’ve felt his absence like a shadow. I keep almost turning during my weather reports, looking for someone who isn’t there.

Jackson’s face finally loses the tension, his mask slipping. He looks earnest. “Maybe we could—”

“Delilah! Jackson!” Maggie bellows our names across the parking lot, a bucket of ice water over both of our heads. I try to take a step back, but Jackson still has his finger hooked in the front of my jacket.

I arch an eyebrow. He gives me an arch look back and doesn’t let me go.

“What?” he yells over my head.

Maggie is shivering in her patent leather boots, her arms curled around herself. “Can you come inside? I need to talk to both of you.”

Jackson mutters an expletive under his breath. “Is it important?”

“No, Jackson. I want to talk about the weather.” Maggie’s face darkens.

“Do I ask you for unimportant things?”

Another expletive, more emphatic this time. He peers down at me, frustration in the lines of his face. “We don’t have to go in.”

I glance over my shoulder at Maggie, shivering at the entrance of the radio station. “I think we do, actually.”

“We could make a run for it,” he says, wistful. “Get in my car. Drive to the border. Never come back.” He pauses. “Make out.”

“A beautiful dream.” I pat his chest, already turning and tiptoeing my way across the pockets of ice. “You seem to have a Thelma and Louise fixation.”

Jackson grips my elbow and gently helps me over the worst of it. “That’s

not my fixation,” he murmurs.

“What?”

“Never mind.” He sounds so forlorn it makes me laugh. Like his very favorite toy has been ripped away.

We finally manage to make our way over to Maggie, her palm propping open the door to the station. A wave of warmth curls around me, and I sigh gratefully.

“Come on,” she says, angling her head toward the hallway. “Let’s talk in my office.”

We follow dutifully behind her, Jackson’s hand at the small of my back the entire time.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Maggie keeps her face neutral, her hands folded together on top of her exquisitely organized desk. “I’m offering you a job.”

“I have a job,” I point out. “It’s right across the street.”

“You do have a job,” Maggie agrees. “And it’s a shitty one.”

I glance at Jackson. He’s staring at Maggie with his hand under his chin, his elbow on the arm of the chair. He doesn’t look confused, but he does look wary. Hesitant.

“Am I—” He swallows heavily, a quick look cut in my direction. “Am I being fired?”

Maggie is the picture of controlled patience, even though we’ve been asking the same questions in a roundabout loop for the past seven minutes.

“No,” she says. “As I’ve explained, you’re being promoted.”

“To what?

“Production director. But we can discuss specifics in a moment. I want to talk through the Delilah offer first.”

Jackson and I speak in unison. “I don’t understand.”

Maggie’s mouth twists. “Yes, that’s very clear.” She tugs open her top drawer and pulls out a single stick of Big Red gum. “I don’t see a reason to put an end to a good thing. The two of you have amazing chemistry. Your broadcast numbers are some of the strongest we’ve seen since Aiden and Lucie. Delilah, if you come work for us, you’d have your pick of airtime

and segments. Jackson could hop on with you to do the weather, then spend the rest of his time in his much-preferred background role.”

“I am—” Surprised feels like too small of a word. Gobsmacked, maybe?

“How long have you been thinking about this?”

Maggie leans back in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Awhile.”

I let that sink in. “I’m not sure what to say. No one’s ever tried to poach me before.”

Jackson makes a rough sound next to me. When I glance at him, he

shrugs.

“Sorry, but that’s surprising to me.”

“Really? You think people are lining up to hire the girl who face-planted at the horse track?”

Jackson’s gaze is steady. “I find it odd that people aren’t lining up to hire the girl who laughed after she face-planted at the horse track, then delivered a flawless report on race times and track conditions.”

My cheeks warm.

I let myself picture it, for a fraction of a second. Coming to work without anxiety churning in my gut, wondering what clown show I’ll be put on next.

Hoping for the best, but bracing for the worst. A little desk in a little office.

Headphones over my ears and a microphone in front of my face. Jackson.

Right next to me.

It’s a beautiful, tempting solution.

But it won’t work.

“I’m so sorry, Maggie, but I’m going to have to pass.”

The silence is almost a sound. I don’t think Maggie is used to people telling her no.

“I can raise your salary,” Maggie counters, eyes sharp. “I can double your pay. Easy.”

I laugh. I’m not exactly rolling in the Benjamins over at YBAL. “I have no doubt about that.”

“You’ll get to report on the weather. No goose migration. No . . . reproductive habits of bats.”

My smile falters. I forgot about that segment at the Baltimore Zoo. I went immediately home and showered for close to an hour. I swear I still feel their leathery wings flapping in my hair.

Beneath the cover of the desk, Jackson’s hand slips over my knee.

“It’s not about the nature of the work,” I say, feeling like I need to put a stop to this before Maggie starts offering all of the stars in the sky and a lifetime supply of Chaps sandwiches. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to withstand it. “But ultimately, I want my career to be in television. Not radio.”

“You’ll have the same opportunities here,” Maggie counters. “Better, even.”

“I know, it’s just—” I say slowly, feeling like my heart is on a crank and I’m the one twisting the lever, holding it out and hoping that they’re careful with it. “My grandpa set his life around the morning and evening news. I would eat my cereal to the intro music and do my homework to rush-hour traffic. We’d watch the five-day forecast together before he headed down to the docks for his shift.” I tuck my hair behind my ears and fold my hands in my lap. “He still watches YBAL. The habit hasn’t budged in three decades.”

Next to me, Jackson’s attention is firmly fixed on the side of my face. His hand flexes on my knee and I shudder out a breath.

“He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s last year and it’s—it’s progressing faster than we hoped. There are days when he’s confused. When he doesn’t remember who I am.” Where he’ll look at me in confusion and forget every moment we’ve shared together. Every scraped knee. Every bedtime story.

Every haircut and half-burned dinner and teenage disappointment. “But he knows Delilah Stewart, his favorite meteorologist at his favorite news station. He knows my face and he knows my voice, even when he forgets everything else.”

On his very worst days, when everyone is a stranger, he still has me. The friendly weather reporter with the sunshine smile. The habit that’s burrowed so far in his head and in his heart, the disease can’t take it.

“So, while I am grateful for the offer, I can’t give up television. Not when it’s the only thing that’ll keep me connected to my grandfather when things get worse. My hope is that after the success of this partnership, Keith will let me get back to doing what I do best.”

Maggie and Jackson exchange a long, searching look.

“I understand your reasoning, and I’m sorry for what you’re facing, Delilah. Please know there’s no expiration date on this offer. If, in the future, you find yourself looking for new opportunities, I want you to know you’ll always have a home here.”

“I appreciate that.” I bite my lip. “And I hope Jackson still gets the promotion you promised him.”

Maggie barks out a laugh. “Yes, those two things were not conditional upon each other.” She reaches back into her top desk drawer and pulls out an envelope, tossing it across to Jackson. It hits him in the middle of his chest. “Congratulations. You’ve been promoted.”

Aiden suddenly appears in the doorway, wielding a long, narrow tube. He twists the bottom and confetti explodes in the tiny office. A surprised laugh bursts out of me. Jackson flinches so hard he drops his envelope.

“Aiden,” Maggie sighs. “I said no confetti.”

“I never received that email,” he deadpans, tiny bits of colored paper stuck to his hair. With his sharp features and severe expression, the contrast is striking.

“I didn’t send it in an email, I said it to your face. A half hour ago.”

Behind me, Jackson is trying to wipe glitter off his glasses. “Were you standing outside the office this whole time?”

“Sure was. Found the confetti canons in Hughie’s stash of questionable office supplies and thought they’d come in handy.” He reaches behind his back and pulls out another tube. A quick twist of his wrist and more colored paper explodes everywhere. I grin at Jackson as the color swirls around us, hot pink paper stuck in his hair. I am of the firm belief that every meeting should start and end with confetti.

“Well,” Maggie says, sounding thoroughly done with everything. “As fun as this has been, I’d like you all to leave my office now.”

“Happily.” Jackson curls his fingers around my elbow and tries to march me bodily from the room. “Do you still have time for lunch?” he asks, his eyes bordering on desperate.

I grab his hand and twist, glancing at his watch. Disappointment settles like those little flecks of paper. “I have to be in Canton in a half hour.”

“And you”—Aiden pokes at Jackson with an empty cardboard tube —“are due in the booth.”

Jackson frowns at him over my head. “For what?”

“A meeting.”

“Since when?”

Aiden looks like he’s having the time of his life. “Since ten minutes ago.”

Jackson’s sigh is weary. I find his hand and squeeze. “It was easier in the mountains, wasn’t it?” I whisper.

Jackson squeezes back. “For so many reasons.”

It feels like it’s been one obstacle after the other since Jackson crawled into my bed and put his mouth against my skin. I got a taste of him, and now the universe is dangling the promise of it just out of reach.

I’m frustrated. A little bit sad. Confused.

“Walk me out?” I ask, doing my best to pack it away. We’ll have time, I reassure myself. He wants to figure it out too. All of this is still so new. I shouldn’t make assumptions when Jackson has proven time and time again

that he shows up when it’s important.

Jackson nods.

But our escape from the office is delayed by the sudden appearance of an immaculately dressed man in the threshold, one hand curled around the edge of the doorframe. He either doesn’t see us trying to leave, or doesn’t care much about holding us hostage, his attention fixed firmly on Maggie at her desk, still covered with tiny flecks of gold glitter, yellow and pink paper in her blunt bob.

Her face darkens when she sees him. He grins.

“Hello, Margaret.” He glances around the crowded office. “This looks festive.”

His dark hair is combed neatly back, his suit tailored within an inch of its life. He doesn’t look like he belongs in a moderately run-down but delightfully charming local radio station. He looks like he should be smoking a cigar in a dimly lit room. Maybe tying someone to a bedpost.

Sharp, blue eyes. A devious tilt to his mouth. His grin settles into a smirk,

forcing a divot to appear in his cheek.

Jesus.

Maggie’s eyes narrow. If looks could kill, the stranger would be dust in the hallway, floating merrily to the ground like the paper from one of

Aiden’s confetti cannons.

“How did you get in here?”

The other three people in this office might as well not exist. Maggie and the stranger are two sharpshooters in a spaghetti western, staring each other down along an abandoned stretch of roadway.

“I walked through the front door,” he says, thoroughly amused. “Why?

Have you had security installed since the last time I visited your little hovel?” He glances up at the ceiling in distaste. Specifically, at the pieces of confetti that have wedged themselves into one of the air ducts. “Are we

celebrating something? Perhaps you received the sponsorship of that fried chicken place your hosts won’t stop droning on about.” Aiden makes an offended sound. “A new desk chair?”

Maggie’s eyes narrow to slits. “Maybe we’re celebrating your completely accidental and easily explained demise.”

“Woah,” Jackson mutters.

But the man just laughs, rapping his knuckles against the doorframe.

“Lovely as that sounds, it’s not quite time for you to pop the bubbly on that milestone.” He beckons her forward with two fingers. “Come, Margaret.

We have reservations.”

A disbelieving laugh sputters out of her. “I’m not going anywhere with

you.”

“Of course you are.”

“I’m not.”

“You are,” he says again, voice sharpening. “Unless you’d like to explain to your executive team that keeps the power on in this little shack why you turned down a personal invitation to a brainstorming session from Orion.

Six times in a row.” He levels her with a look. “This is what happens when you stop answering your phone, Margaret. I magically appear.”

“Like Beetlejuice,” she mutters.

“Please. I’m much better dressed.” He pushes off the doorway and strides down the hall. “Let’s go,” he shouts over his shoulder.

Maggie seethes silently.

Aiden scratches at his jaw. “Is that—”

“Cooper West? Yes.”

“The acquisitions guy?”

Maggie squeezes her eyes shut. “Yes, the vice president of acquisitions for Orion,” she grinds out. “Fuck my life,” she adds in a whisper. She gives herself another second of silent meditation, then grabs her wool coat and tosses it over her arm. “If I’m not back in an hour, one of us has murdered the other.”

She brushes past us to the hallway. I can hear the click of her heels against the floor. Cooper’s voice, lazily asking— “Should I drive, or shall we humble ourselves with public

transportation?”

“Shut up.”

“I could—”

“I said, shut up.”

A door slams. The walls rattle. Silence descends. Confetti blows across the floor like a multicolored tumbleweed, and the three of us stand unmoving in Maggie’s abandoned office.

“Is it . . . always this exciting over here?”

Aiden tosses his confetti canons into the waste bin. “I’d like to say no, but I think that would be a lie.” He claps Jackson on the shoulder. “Come on. You have a poorly disguised interrogation to attend.”

Jackson gives me a faintly pleading look. I laugh and swipe some of the glitter off his glasses, then abruptly drop my hand. I don’t know what he does and doesn’t want from me when we’re in front of other people.

I tuck my hands behind my back, twist my fingers together, and try not to

feel embarrassed.

Jackson frowns.

“I’ll see you later?” I ask. But I’m already moving toward the door.

“Yeah, of course you will. But, Delilah, listen—”

I slip out of the office before he can finish that sentence, fixing a smile on my face. I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say right now. The more I prolong the conversation where he has to let me down gently, the better.

Just keep smiling, I say to myself as I turn and walk away.

You’re almost there.

A few more minutes.

Just keep smiling.

AIDEN VALENTINE: Would you like to report on the weather?

JACKSON CLARK: It’s not time for me to report on the weather.

AIDEN VALENTINE: Would you like to talk about something else, then?

AIDEN VALENTINE: Maybe a certain brunette weather woman, who was just over here? At our offices?

JACKSON CLARK: That was a work meeting, Aiden.

AIDEN VALENTINE: All work and no play makes Jackson a dull—

JACKSON CLARK: Freezing temperatures will persist for the rest of the week, but chance of snowfall is minimal.

JACKSON CLARK: We’ve officially made it to the other side of the storm, Baltimore.