“What did your dads say?” I asked.
“Well, they didn’t say I told you so, which made me love them even more. They were furious on my behalf and they let me cry a lot and stare out the window. After a few days of that, they put me to work.”
Delilah actually smiled at that memory.
“Tell me more,” I urged.
“I was a tag-along ranger with them for two months,” she continued. “No running down criminals. No paperwork or bureaucracy. It was a simple job, but hard work. The kind that knocks you out at night so you sleep—makes it hard to lay awake thinking about the mistakes you’ve made.”
“Ah,” I said, “that’s a very specific kind of insomnia I’m familiar with.”
Delilah slid her fingers through my hair.
“What work did you do with your dads?” I asked.
“Checking in campers, cleaning up trails, filing licenses.” She tilted her head. “I saved a baby bear from a trash can.”
“You didn’t,” I teased.
“I did,” she promised. “It’s not uncommon. They get trapped in them all the time. The mama was up in the trees, watching us as I held the can and my dads shimmied her out.”
“Did she bite you?”
“Oh, no.” She grinned. “She was terrified. That day…” She trailed off for a second. “That day was a real turning point for me.”
The fire crackled and roared, bathing us in a comforting heat.
“The week I came back to Philadelphia, I allowed myself five minutes a day to read news about Mark, half-expecting it all to have blown over. It wasn’t. His next steps were painting the entire experience as his dedication to taking out the trash.”
My jaw tightened with anger.
“They promoted him after he rode the coattails of my dismissal. He’s been getting promoted ever since.” Delilah sat back so she could look at me. “I didn’t fight it, Henry, and I could have. I didn’t hire a lawyer. I didn’t call him a liar or find proof of our completely legitimate relationship. I was too stunned to attack. I just…” She held her palms out. “Sat there.”
“You know what I did the night I discovered Bernard,” I said. “Sometimes our mind can’t leap to the right connections in the middle of our world tearing itself in two.”
“That is true,” she murmured. “Although Freya was telling me about this case…”
“What case?”
“It’s nothing.” She shook her head. “Abe and Freya were pretty vital to this whole process too, as much as that day with the bear. When I was interviewing at Codex, I brought up Mark, put it all out there. I mean, any basic Google search would have told him, and I wanted my potential employer to hear my side of the story.” A smile ghosted over her lips. “I’ll always remember Abe telling me that he’d known Mark for years, they often showed up at the same political functions together when Abe was with the FBI.”
I was already smiling. “What did he say?”
“That anyone with half a brain could tell that man was a pathological liar.”
My smile expanded—so did hers. “He said I didn’t have to explain myself at all. It’s why Abe and Freya, it’s why Codex has meant so much to me. When I first started at Codex, I was all fucked up. Doubting myself left and right. But with every case, I feel better. And tonight? Tonight it felt so good to be fucking right. It’s the best I’ve felt in a long, long time.”
“Even with Abe being this angry?” I asked.
She chewed her lip. “I know why he’s angry. And I do feel bad about that. You can probably already tell that Abe is the kind of boss who deserves loyalty and respect. But we made the right decision, Henry. No one can convince me otherwise.”
I pressed our foreheads together until our breathing synced up: inhale, exhale. “I agree with you. And I want you to know how sorry I am that Mark used you like that.” The words felt paltry on my tongue, but her eyes softened and glowed with light.
“It’s nice to feel like I’m not…broken, somehow.”
“Nothing about you is broken, Delilah.” My voice was an urgent plea.
She traced the outline of my cheeks, my jaw, with just her fingertips.
“You know, I would stiletto Bernard in the face too if you wanted,” she said. “Free of charge.” She raised her fists to her face in a flash.
“Slow down, Xena.” I kissed both hands. “Not necessary. Tonight made me believe for the first time in months that justice is coming his way. Maybe Mark’s too.”
“I hope so,” she said. “And I can take Bernard.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and settled herself more firmly onto my lap. I squeezed her ankles, smoothed my hands up to her knees, over her thighs, beneath the sweatshirt. Gripped her slim hips.
Her eyelids drooped as she leaned in to kiss me.
“Delilah,” I said against her mouth, “you’re exhausted.”
“I know,” she said, frustrated. “But you’re too sexy for your own good, newbie.”
I stood straight up, holding her tight around my waist. “You should talk.” I nipped her jaw. “And we both need sleep.”
When I’d wanted to take Delilah to bed, I hadn’t entirely pictured us actually going to bed. But after weeks of sleepless nights and the sudden evaporation of adrenaline from my bloodstream, I felt like a zombie. My warm, soft bed—with Delilah beneath the covers—was suddenly something I craved more than my next breath. I carried her up the stairs like that, and by the time I made it to my bedroom, she was already dozing softly against my neck.
With control, I lowered her into my bed—like I expected, my body reacted strongly to the sight of her there, nestled between my covers. But all of it could wait until the morning.
I reached behind me, pulled off my tee-shirt, and slipped beneath the covers. I wrapped myself around Delilah’s body and inhaled the scent of wildflowers in her hair.
“We got the book back, Henry,” she said drowsily. “Not bad for your first job in the field, huh?”
There was a long silence—and then we were both laughing again, delirious from lack of sleep and waning adrenaline.
“Yeah,” I chuckled, kissing the back of her neck. “It was okay, I guess.”
A warning beat a steady drum in the back of my mind—what are you going to do about all of this tomorrow?
But it was drowned out by the comforting hum of city noise, the soft caress of covers, the perfect fit of Delilah’s body in mine.
“We got the book back,” I repeated.
46
Delilah
I woke up to a wall of solid muscle, to strong arms holding me like a cherished object as I slept.
Henry.
My eyelids fluttered open. The sun was rising over the skyline, shimmers of light beginning to invade Henry’s dark bedroom. I had no idea of the exact time and found I didn’t care. I’d slept so deeply last night my only memory was Henry pulling the covers around us both. The sleepy end of our conversation. And then nothing.