Page 32 of And Now, Back to You

“It sounds like you’re dying.”

“I’m not dying.” It sort of feels like I might be dying.

Her eyes brighten. “Have you killed a man?”

My mouth is so dry, I’m unable to summon the appropriate words.

“Oh god,” she says, her smile slipping off her face. She leans closer. “Have you killed a man?”

“No, nothing like that.” I glance at the door to the station, the cracked pavement beneath our feet, the sky. I wish for one of these things to swallow me whole. “I have a problem.”

“Okay.”

“I have a problem, specifically, with speaking.”

Delilah’s nose scrunches in her confusion. “You’re speaking right now.”

“No, I mean, on the radio.”

She stares at me. “I’m not really following what’s happening right now. You’re a radio weatherman, Jackson. Speaking on the radio is your job.”

“I know.” I pull in a deep breath through my nose, then release it in a cloud of white. Like an emotionally destitute dragon. “I have trouble with stuff that’s not the weather.”

“Ah. Are you talking about that cute thing you do where you ramble?”

I frown. “It’s not cute.”

“You did it the last time you had to cover Heartstrings. You went on about snow lightning for, like, twenty minutes.”

I did and then I emerged from the booth on wobbly legs, sweating like I just ran back-to-back Ultraman marathons.

“You’re very passionate about weather phenomena, Jackson. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

She tries to move past me toward the door, but I hook her arm again and reel her back. She tilts her head to look at me. “You’re serious about this.”

“I am. I think we should consider the possibility that Keith’s big setup was asking you to do this with me.”

Maybe Keith partnered Delilah with me because he knows I’m the disaster. Maybe he’s counting on me to mess up the broadcast and drag Delilah down with me.

Delilah pauses, turning the idea over. I flex my fingers and roll my wrists, trying to get the prickly, uncomfortable sensation vibrating just beneath my skin to disappear.

“No, I don’t think so,” she finally says. “Keith isn’t that observant. Or clever. To be honest, I doubt he’s ever noticed your weather rambles. Or listened to your station.”

“Weather rambles?”

Her head tips to the side. Some chocolate-colored waves slip over her shoulder. “What would you like to call it?”

“What’s it called when someone drives their car directly into a ravine?”

Delilah laughs and some of my cotton-ball-feeling clears. “Thelma and Louise? Are you going to Louise us into a canyon, Jackson?”

“It was Thelma’s idea to drive off that cliff.”

Delilah snorts. “Remind me not to let you drive during our road trip.” She curls her fingers around my wrist and tugs. “Come on. Inside we go.”

I resist. “I’m not sure I want to.”

Like I summoned her with my reluctance, Maggie appears, banging through the door of the station. She sticks her head out and bellows across the parking lot, “Jackson! Delilah! You’re on in twenty minutes!”