Page 77 of And Now, Back to You

“Because,” he says, “I’m with you.”

I huff out a laugh. “Well, as current evidence clearly shows, that might not be in your best interest.”

I close my eyes, reaching up and looping my fingers around his wrists. I hold on to him while he holds on to me and I try to calm down the heavy thump, thump, thump of my heart. I feel like I’ve been sliced open. A moment that was meant for me and Jackson was just shared with the entire city.

“What do you want to do?” he asks.

I blink open my eyes. Behind his head, snowflakes float lazily from the sky. I wish I was one of them, drifting away.

“What can we do? Everyone heard. I’m going to be—” The words stick in my throat, thick and heavy. The bridge of my nose burns. “Jackson, I took this assignment because I didn’t want to be a joke anymore.”

And now I’m going to be the weather girl who kissed her partner in the middle of a snowstorm. I’ll never outrun the assumptions people make of me. Silly, whimsical, happy-go-lucky Delilah. I’ve cemented every last one of them into place. Why should anyone ever take me seriously, if I can’t even manage it for myself?

Jackson’s thumbs rub another circuit under my eyes, over the swells of my cheeks. “You’re not going to be a joke. I won’t let it happen.”

“How?”

Tell me what to do, I want to beg. Tell me how to fix this.

Jackson seems to hear everything I don’t say, because his face settles into something determined.

“We aren’t going to say anything.”

“What?” I laugh, thick and disbelieving. “Jackson. The entire city of Baltimore just heard us kissing. Our bosses. God. Their bosses. No one’s going to let us get away with that without an explanation.”

“There are no rules that say we can’t. We haven’t done anything wrong. It’s our business.”

“We can’t just ignore it, Jackson.”

“Then we tell them the truth.” And what, I immediately want to ask, is that? He ducks down a little, meeting my eye. “You were helping me work through my on-air anxiety. Distracting me, right? It doesn’t need to be more than that.”

I bite my lip and stare down at our feet, embarrassed. I don’t know what I thought, but I guess—he had sounded so earnest when he asked for my help. Like he needed it. Like he needed me, specifically.

Maybe I let myself think it was more than it is.

It doesn’t have to be more than that.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Jackson repeats. His fingers press against my cheekbones, urging me to look at him. “Can you repeat it for me?”

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” I warble.

Logically, I know it’s true. A kiss is hardly the end of the world. If anything, we just dangled a giant, scandal-clad carrot in front of our viewers. And if we don’t address it—don’t explain it—people will be watching our every move, trying to decode the thing between us. We’re a piece of the news now. A delicious, enticing question.

I guess I just wish I knew which part of this is the truth and which is the lie.

We decide to do our phone calls separately.

Or it’s what I decide, anyway. Jackson clearly has a problem with that plan, lingering in the open door of our shared room, his palm propped against the door.

“I’m telling Maggie it’s not up for discussion,” he says. “That we’ll continue to report the weather, but we won’t be discussing anything else.”

“Okay,” I agree. We’ve been through these talking points at least twelve times, and every time he repeats those words, it sinks like a stone in my chest. I’ve got a whole collection of pebbles in there, weighing me down. “What about your sisters?”

Jackson sighs and drags his hand through his hair. “I’m going to call them first.”

What will you tell them? What version of the truth will you tell the two people you love most?

But I’m busy sinking deep into a spiral of self-loathing and self-admonishment, so I keep that to myself.