Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(87)

As tired as I am, and as comfortable as I am, spooned into him, I take longer to fall asleep than I expect.

I imagine how tonight probably bruised me emotionally in ways I won’t realize until I wake up tomorrow, like after a hard day of some strenuous physical activity your body isn’t used to.

I ponder the promise I made my parents and the wisdom of leaving behind a small but sure thing for an uncertain future.

I picture Delia, driving back alone in the dark, having had either the best night of her life or the worst. There’s no way it was anywhere in between. And I consider what I’m going to have to tell her.

And I think about the boy whose warm, strong, hard-yet-welcoming body I’m nestled into. The one currently being a perfect gentleman about his obvious raging boner. The one who stood quietly by my side through every moment of a difficult night. The one who casually risked death in battle for me. The one who literally carried me on his back. The one who has taken me completely by surprise in so many ways.





I try to be absolutely silent entering the hotel room, because Josie and Lawson are probably asleep. I fumble around by the light of my phone.

Josie raises her head, squinting. “DeeDee?” she whispers, in a voice thick with sleep. Lawson doesn’t stir.

“Yeah,” I whisper.

“How’d it go?”

I shake my head, trying not to start crying again. “Sucky. How’d it go with you guys?”

“I’m so out of it. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

I can tell from her tone that she doesn’t want to tell me tonight, and if it were good news, she’d want to tell me, because I’m sure she can sense that I’m having one of the worst nights of my life and I want it to be over more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

???

All night I have dreams where my encounter with my dad ends differently. The worst dreams are the ones where it ends up well, and then I wake up for a few seconds and realize it was just a dream.

We finally stir around 11:30. We basically have time to roll out of bed and brush our teeth before checkout.

Outside, we squint against the howling sun; the air feels like stepping into a hot mouth. I still have a headache from crying. Or maybe it’s a fun new headache. Whichever it is, my head pounds as if someone bonked me repeatedly with a comically large cartoon sledgehammer. I can feel leftover tear tracks on my face that escaped my hurried preparation to leave.

My stomach growls. I can hear everyone else’s doing likewise—a gastrointestinal symphony. But we’ve made an unspoken agreement to just hit the road. Get the hell out of here.

The worst part is the silence in the car. It’s got the same quality as the silence when you’re gossiping about someone and they walk up and go, Hey, guys, what’re you talking about? and you’re like, Uhhhh…youuuunicorns? Nothing! What?

Josie drives, her left elbow propped on her open window, her head resting on her palm. I slump to the right, my head against the window. The palpable stench of defeat hangs yellow-green in the air, like an open container of baked beans, forgotten in the back of the fridge, that now smell like they’ve already made their way through someone.

It’s forty-five minutes before anyone speaks. It’s me: “So. Jack Divine?”

“Jack Divine,” Josie mutters, shaking her head.

“Didn’t go well?”

Josie chuckles sourly. “No ho ho ho. Yeah, no, it went poorly, I daresay.”

“It did not go great,” Lawson murmurs.

“He’s—”

Josie finishes for me. “A delusional narcissistic psychopath who would probably get us all murdered if we worked with him? Yes.”

“So he’s not—”

“Nope. He’s not gonna help us. He’s not gonna make us better. He’s not gonna give us any opportunities. He’s interested in bleeding us dry to pay off the Russian mob. Long story.”

“Well. That sucks. Would it have made a difference if I were there?”

Josie sighs. “Yeah. It does suck. It really does. And no, no difference.”

“We traveled a long way.”

“That we did.”

I feel like a giant wad of toilet paper being flushed. I thought I might be able to at least go one for two on this trip. What a silly thing to think. I don’t win. I’m not lucky. Life is gonna dick me around time and again.

We drive several more miles without speaking.

“So. Your dad?” Josie asks.

“My dad.”

“Didn’t go great?”

“No, I daresay it went rather poorly.”

“I’m so sorry, DeeDee.”

“Me too.”

“You feel like talking about it?”

“Not really.”

More driving. More demoralized quiet.

“Well,” I say finally. “We made our show without Jack Divine, and we can go on without him. We’ll take ourselves to the next level. We can always—”

Josie just nods in this oddly tentative way.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“What?”

She shakes her head and raises her hand. “DeeDee, just—”

“Why are you being weird?”

“I’m not.”