Page 121 of And Now, Back to You

I nod and kick my way out of my pants, keeping just the sweater, crawling to the top of the bed and slipping beneath the blankets with a sigh. I hear the clink of a belt buckle, the slip of leather, the click of his glasses against my bedside table, and then Jackson is behind me. Cold skin pressed to cold skin, his hand a delicious weight against my belly. He tugs at me until I’m cocooned by him, our bodies curled together beneath my mountain of blankets.

“Do you think—” Another tear slips from the corner of my eye. I’m tired and weightless. Already halfway to somewhere else. “Will we still be friends? Now that we’re back home?”

Jackson is quiet for a long time. So long, I think he’s fallen asleep. So long, I’m almost entirely there when he says, “Yeah, baby. We’ll still be friends.”

My heart eases. Another tear chases the first one. “Good, cause I think I’d miss you if we went back to glaring at each other across a parking lot.”

He sighs, then presses a kiss to the back of my head. “Sleep, Delilah.”

I twist my fingers through his, close my eyes, and do exactly as he says.

DELILAH STEWART: You stole the news van.

JACKSON CLARK: Borrowed it.

DELILAH STEWART: That’s fine. I’m more upset you left without saying goodbye.

JACKSON CLARK: I didn’t want to wake you.

DELILAH STEWART: Luckily you did make me coffee before you left.

JACKSON CLARK: Can’t let Dustin have all the glory.

DELILAH STEWART: Thank you.

DELILAH STEWART: For everything.

DELILAH STEWART: I don’t know what I would have done without you.

JACKSON CLARK: No problem, Delilah.

CHAPTER 31

JACKSON

“Did you get a haircut?”

“No.”

“Botox?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Where would I get Botox in the mountai—”

“New glasses?”

“I told you,” I say, scraping scrambled eggs out of the pan and onto the three plates lined up on the kitchen island. “I have made no cosmetic changes in the past week.”

“Then why do you look like someone shoved a glow stick up your ass?” Adeline says, munching the crust off a piece of toast, eyeballing me from her perch on the barstool directly across from me. She’s wearing tie-dye sweatpants and a Heartstrings sweatshirt she stole from my closet.

I stare at her. “I left you with Aiden for too long.”

Her eyes narrow with her grin. “He does have a very interesting vocabulary.”

I woke up in Delilah’s bed this morning to her sprawled across my chest, her cheeks still splotchy from her crying. I traced the bridge of her nose with my thumb while the word friend friend friend trudged a mad loop along my brain stem, then I slid out from beneath her. I debated collecting my car from the corner of the street, but decided on the news van instead, slowly winding my way through the city to Aiden and Lucie’s. I thought the girls might want to stay, but they had both been ecstatic when I knocked on the door.

There had been screaming involved. Hugs. Demands for selfies in the news van.

Now they’ve launched an inquisition in our kitchen while I make our snow day special of scrambled eggs, toast, and chocolate chip pancakes.