“You always did have perfect timing,” I mutter, pulling napkins from the dispenser and dabbing at my shirt.
The words are out before I can stop them. I don’t even fully mean them—or maybe I do, but not about the coffee.
Delilah goes very still.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” I keep my eyes on my shirt. “Forget it.”
“No, say it. You clearly have something?—”
“Yikes.” Ellen appears beside us, shaking her head slowly like a disappointed teenager. “That was rough, dude.”
We both turn to look at her.
“What?” She shrugs. “It was. You guys are super bad at this.”
“Ellen.” Hazel materializes behind her daughter, looking frazzled. “What are you—oh.” She takesin the scene. Me, soaked in coffee. Delilah, mortified. The table, a disaster zone. “Oh dear.”
“Miss Delilah spilled her coffee on Mr. Rock Star,” Ellen reports. “And then he said something mean and she got mad. It was very dramatic.”
“I didn’t say something mean,” I protest.
“You kinda did,” Ellen says. “No offense.”
“Ellen, sweetheart, why don’t you go get some napkins from Michelle?” Hazel steers her daughter toward the counter.
“But this is just getting good?—”
“Napkins. Now.”
Ellen trudges off, casting longing looks over her shoulder at the drama she’s being forced to abandon.
“I’m so sorry,” Delilah says again. She’s grabbed a wad of napkins and is dabbing uselessly at the table. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. I’ll pay for your dry cleaning. Or a new shirt. Or whatever you need.”
“It’s fine. Really.”
“It’s obviously not fine. Your notebook is all?—”
“The notebook was empty anyway.” I say it harsher than I mean to, frustration bleeding through. “Nothing worth saving.”
She stops dabbing. Looks at me. “Still blocked?”
“Still blocked.”
Something shifts in her expression. The embarrassment fades, replaced by something almost like sympathy. “That must be hard. For someone who’s made their whole career on writing.”
“It’s not ideal.”
“Have you tried—” She stops herself.
“Tried what?”
“Nothing. It’s not my place.”
“Delilah.”
She sighs. “I was going to say, have you tried not forcing it? Sometimes when I’m stuck on an arrangement, I have to walk away. Do something else. Let my brain work on it in the background.”
