Since the night she stayed over, we haven’t done more than make out, even though all I want to do is throw out our no-sex agreement and lock us in the bedroom.
There’s one week left. We both know there’s another week. We talked about it on the four-hour drive up here and we agreed to honor it.
Because it’s working. We haven’t fought. I feel like I know Delilah in ways now that I never could have otherwise, this girl who prefers to draw with charcoal over pastels, who doesn’t think much of Jane Austen but loves Emily Brontë, who feeds wild raccoons but has no mercy at all when it comes to spiders.
It’s never been like this before. Not when I saw her once a year and we barely left the bed. Not when we were dating before, when we were both so young and so clueless and completely wild with lust.
It’s taken us years, but apparently we’ve learned patience.
I lean in, kiss her slow. She slides her arm around my waist, straightens, and I feel like I’m sinking into her, the outside world dim and muffled.
We’re still kissing when there’s a knock on the door, and Delilah jumps, then laughs at herself.
“All right,” she says, softly, and straightens my shirt for me. “You ready for this?”
“Always,” I tell her, dropping a quick kiss on her forehead.
“SETH??” a small voice whispers.
Bree’s standing in the doorway to the room, backlit by the hall light as I peek out from behind a bed.
“SETH, ARE YOU IN HERE?”
I bite my lip so I don’t laugh. Three-year-olds are the least subtle people on the planet.
“Yes,” I whisper back.
“Oh!” she says. Small feet patter. Seconds later, she crashes into me, clearly unable to see in the dark.
“SORRY,” she shout-whispers.
“You all right?” I ask, reaching one hand out to her small shoulder.
“I’M OKAY.”
From the doorway, I can hear Harold’s voice counting very, very slowly: “Teeeeeeen. Eeeeeleeeeeveeeeen. Tweeeeeeeeelve…”
“I think it would work better if we hid separately,” I whisper to Bree.
Not that this is a great hiding spot. This guest room has two beds, and I’m between them, sort of hidden from the door. It’s not exactly Sherlock Holmes’s greatest challenge or anything.
It’s closing in on ten o’clock, way, way past her bedtime, so she’s a little punchy right now. Not to mention all the excitement of getting to drink lots of apple juice at the happy hour, running absolutely amok during dinner, and then getting ahold of the M&Ms while the adults tried to play charades and she guessed dinosaur every single time.
“I WANT TO HIDE WITH YOU,” Bree whispers.
“But if you hide somewhere else, it’ll take your grandpa and Callum longer to find us both,” I explain.
“SHHHHH.”
All right, I guess that settles it: Bree and I are hiding together. Moments later, I hear “Ready or not, here we come!” from the direction of the hallway. Tiny feet run.
“Where should we look first?” Harold asks Callum, Bree’s eighteen-month-old brother.
“That!” he shouts.
Bree claps both her hands over her mouth and stares at me, eyes the size of dinner plates. I know exactly what’s about to happen, so I put one finger to my lips.
A giggle escapes her.
“No laughing,” I whisper.
She giggles harder, unsurprisingly, both hands over her mouth as though that helps at all.
“Stop it,” I whisper at her, mustering all the gravity I can. “Hide and seek is very serious, young lady.”
Bree rolls onto her side, now hysterical with the giggles, and I grin, despite myself. That used to work on Rusty, too, though of course now she’s far too sophisticated.
Moments later, small footsteps pound into the room, and a small, shadowy figure appears. The figure squeals with delight.
“Found us!” I tell Callum.
“Nice work, champ,” says Harold’s voice from the door. “Whose turn is it to count next?”
“MEEEEE!” shouts Bree, popping up.
“Oh! You were back there, too?” says Harold, feigning surprise.
“Yes!” she says with zero irony.
When I stand, one of my knees pops, and I shake it out.
“Any hiding spots with recliners?” I ask Harold, and he laughs.
“I’m counting,” Bree announces. “One. Go hide! GO!”
I obey, and step into the hallway, blinking in the light. I’ve already hidden in all four of the penthouse’s guest bedrooms, in one shower, and out on the balcony, which was the best hiding spot but way too cold.
I turn left for the living room to try my luck. It’s massive, easily twice the size of Delilah’s living room in her condo downstairs, so there’s gotta be something.
As I head in, I can hear Delilah in the kitchen, still drinking wine and talking to her sisters and Vera. I wave at them as I head past, but I don’t think any of them see me. Thad, Chris, and Michael — the husbands — are around here somewhere, probably talking about golf. Or polo. Or using polo horses to golf, I don’t know.
In the living room, I stop and look around. From behind me, I hear Bree shout FIVE!! in what must be the slowest anyone has ever counted to twenty.
The curtains. Floor-length, heavy fabric. Perfect for a hiding spot from a three-year-old, and standing definitely beats kneeling on a hard floor again.
“SIX!” she shouts. I lean against the wall, figuring I may as well settle in. From the kitchen, there’s a gale of laughter, and I smile to myself.
“You were completely certain you’d broken your femur,” Delilah is saying.
“And then you scared the pants off her by telling her that if she had really broken her femur, she would’ve ruptured an artery and died,” Vera says, her tone half-laughing, half-admonishing.
“I wasn’t wrong,” Delilah says.
“But you did convince me that I was going to die at any moment,” Ava says, and Delilah laughs.
“Sorry,” she says.
I wonder if I knew Delilah during the trip they’re talking about, because I can absolutely imagine it: Ava, still a kid, hurt; Delilah, who got really into the macabre as a teenager, telling her all the ways she could be hurt worse.
“Was that the same trip when Nolan took you and I on the black diamond trails?” Olivia’s voice asks.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand at the name. I wish they wouldn’t, but they do.
“Goodness, no, that was years later,” Vera says.
“I remember that day, though,” Winona chimes in. “It was the first time I’d tried a double black diamond, and it was a terrible mistake.”
Everyone laughs.
“You flew on down like it was no big deal, but I was way too scared, and of course at that point there was no way out but through,” she says. “So he spent the next hour guiding me down as slowly as I wanted. Half the time I was sliding on my butt, and he was so sweet and patient the whole time.”
There’s a quick moment of silence. I close my eyes, tilt my head against the wall and hope it’s awkward as fuck in there right now.
“I thought you’d died,” Olivia said, and everyone laughs again. “I got to the bottom and you were nowhere to be seen.”