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I find her in the shower. Steam clouds the room and in the background a news podcast about Northam city current events plays.
Call me a nosy, intrusive SOB, but I spend a moment watching her. She hasn’t realized she isn’t alone and seems to be dragging her feet on getting out. The water pressure and heat our shower producescanbe addictive.
But this is something more—as she stands under the hot spray of water and lets it wash away the lather of soap, she seems lost in thought. Her expression is contemplative and her normally warm eyes dimmer than I like.
You’d think I’d be busy admiring the sexy view of her naked in the shower, with only the steam and frosted glass hiding her body. How can I when it’s obvious something’s weighing on her?
Today must’ve been stressful.
The urge to take it away rises up inside me. The desire to find out what went wrong and make it better.
Delphine’s always had a tendency to become obsessive about her career. As teenagers, it was school.
Since she started up her law firm, I’ve had to constantly remind her not to get lost in her work. A frequent habit of hers when she was ADA. If you let her, she’d work twelve, thirteen hour days…
She reaches out and twists off the shower knobs. I meet her at the glass shower door with a clear of my throat and a warm towel. Her eyes light up at the sight of me.
“Jon… I didn’t hear you.”
“How could you over all that singing?” I tease, wrapping the towel around her shoulders and dropping a kiss on her lips. “I knew you sang oldies in the shower.”
“That sounds a lot like projection.”
“You okay? Rough day?”
“You have no idea.”
“So tell me about it. Over dinner. Get dressed.”
Fast forward a half hour later, I’m behind the wheel of my classic cherry-apple red Mustang. Delphine’s in the passenger seat. The top’s down, and the evening wind ruffles our hair. We head miles into downtown just to indulge in the best burgers in the city.
We agreed we deserved a heavy, hearty meal like Lil’ Woody’s grilled burgers and home-cut fries. Delphine even orderslager.
I raise my brows at her and order the same. “Now that I think about it. I don’t think I’ve everseenyou drink beer.”
“I have,” she says with a defensive tilt of her chin. “It’s not my favorite, and I mostly had a can here and there during college and at sports games… but Woody’s burgers feel like the right excuse.”
“Today really must’ve been rough. You gonna tell me what went down?”
She concedes my observation with a soft sigh before glancing around the loud restaurant. Lil’ Woody’s is one of those places that’s packed no matter the night—waitresses rush across the floor to meet demand, and the customers sit stuffing their faces with quarter pound burgers, a roll of paper towels at the center of each table.
The place is a classic American restaurant. All throwback movie posters and music hits from the 80s and 90s blasting from the speakers.
Not the typical environment for deep conversation, but if something’s weighing on Delphine it’ll have to do.
“You won’t like this,” she forewarns.
“There’s lots of shit I don’t like. Crowds. Loud noises. Just about everybody on the planet except for you.”
I’m partially joking, though partially serious too.
Delphine recognizes this with a hint of a smile. It blinks out the next second as her mind returns to whatever it is she wants to say. “Polk visited my office today.”
“What does that dipshit want now? Do I need to pay him a visit in kind?”
“Please don’t. That’s the last thing we should do. Jon, he’s going to be resuming the investigation on you.”
“That’s all? I can handle it. If your father investigating me didn’t faze me, you think I’m going to let a busybody like Polk get to me?”
