: Chapter 18

MIRACULOUSLY, ASTRID AGREED to the camping trip. Delilah watched it all unfold while leaning against the kitchen sink. It took three calls and a few text messages before her stepsister answered the phone, but Iris could be damned determined when she wanted to be, and when Claire got on the call, explaining how she needed her friends there to support her, especially since she couldn’t be trusted around Josh, Astrid apparently caved like a hollowed-out cream puff.

I can’t be trusted around Josh, Astrid. You know I can’t.

That’s what Claire had said. Quietly, as though she was loath to admit it, but Delilah still heard it, loud and clear, like a church bell ringing through the town square.

She hadn’t even wanted to come to Claire’s in the first place. At least that’s what she told herself the entire Lyft ride over here. She’d been perfectly content to reply to all of Iris’s annoying-as-hell text messages with random emojis, but the woman had to go and suggest they meet at Claire’s to regroup, and suddenly, a DNA strand emoji just didn’t feel like the right response. Then she’d been the one to cave, agreeing and bolting out of her too-quiet room at the inn before she could even think through what she was doing.

Going to see Claire again, that’s what she was doing.

She didn’t give two shits about Iris’s plan or Astrid and Spencer. But now, standing in Claire’s cozy kitchen with its butcher-block counters and farmhouse sink, watching her pace around her living room, which was covered with books and soft throws and photographs of Ruby all over the mantel, she could admit it.

She’d wanted to see Claire.

Ever since Astrid left her room yesterday, Delilah had felt unsettled. She craved something, something sweet, something she didn’t have to constantly try and maneuver around, figure out, strategize about. And after that kiss with Claire at the vineyard . . . well, Delilah didn’t feel very calculating at all.

She just felt fucking lonely.

And now Claire was telling Astrid how she needed her so she wouldn’t screw her ex on a camping trip.

Okay, maybe Claire wasn’t using those exact words, but the effect was the same, and Delilah couldn’t seem to get rid of this burning sensation in her chest, no matter how many deep breaths she took. It was the same kind of oily dread she’d felt five years ago when she’d unlocked the apartment she’d shared with Jax, moans she didn’t recognize already filtering under the door.

Which was ridiculous. She’d been with Jax for two years. She’d kissed Claire once, hadn’t even slept with her. It wasn’t nearly the same thing.

Still, she went to Claire’s refrigerator and took out a beer. She’d been determined not to drink, to keep a clear head around Claire so she didn’t do anything too terribly stupid, but now, as memories of Jax and Mallory melded with brand-new visions of Claire and Josh humping like rabbits in a tent under the stars, she needed something to calm her nerves.

“Okay,” Claire said, ending the call with Astrid. “It’s done.”

“You should probably tell Josh,” Iris said. “Make sure he reserves enough camping spots.”

“Oh yeah, I probably should.” She handed Iris back her phone, then grabbed her own from the center island. She looked at Delilah, opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Delilah held her gaze this time. She wanted Claire to . . .

To what?

Tell her Josh meant nothing to her?

Invite her to share a sleeping bag?

Kick Iris out and kiss her senseless?

Fuck.

Yes. Yes, Delilah wanted Claire to do all of those things.

She looked away first, taking a long pull of her beer. God, she needed something stronger. She needed . . . to not feel like this. She didn’t do relationships. She did flirting. She did sex. And she did it damn well. So maybe she needed to do what she did so well with Claire, and this hard knot in her stomach would untangle. Perhaps it was just a lust knot. True, she’d never heard of or experienced a lust knot before, but hell, there was a first time for everything.

Claire took her phone and drifted off down the hall while Delilah drank some more. Iris eyed her from where she’d landed on the couch.

And kept eyeing her.

“Can I help you?” Delilah asked.

Iris lifted a brow, but before she could say anything, the doorbell rang.

“That would be our pizza,” Iris said.

“Awesome.” Delilah didn’t budge, even though she was closer to the door. Finally, Iris huffed an annoyed breath, making Delilah smile and feel a bit more like herself, and got up to get the food.

DELILAH KNEW SHE should probably just go back to the inn, but after the pizza arrived and Ruby came into the kitchen with Claire, positively beaming from the news that they were all going camping together, the girl hooked her arm through Delilah’s and asked her to sit next to her while they ate. There was no way Delilah could tell her no, not with those hazel puppy dog eyes and the “tattoo” she’d apparently inked on the inside of her arm after Delilah had left her room earlier.

“That’s cool,” Delilah said, motioning to a black-penned rose near Ruby’s wrist. It was actually a pretty amazing drawing, the petals detailed, the thorns dripping with dew.

“Oh, um, thanks,” Ruby said as they sat down at one end of Claire’s farmhouse kitchen table. A blush spread into her cheeks.

Claire, who was sitting across from Delilah next to Iris, smiled, but said nothing of her daughter coloring all over her skin. Delilah was glad, and she could tell, by the way Ruby’s shoulders relaxed a little, that Ruby was too.

Delilah took a bite of mushroom spinach pizza. “Do you like to draw?”

Ruby nodded and shrugged at the same time, her chin ducking to her chest. God, Delilah felt the girl’s awkwardness in her bones, a familiar ache of not knowing where or how to fit.

“I should get you to design a tattoo for me,” she said.

Ruby’s head snapped up. “Really?”

“Yeah. You’re good. Do you have any other drawings I could see?”

Ruby blinked at her then leaped up from the table and sprinted toward her room.

“You just made her year,” Claire said, leaning across the table a little.

Delilah swallowed a bit of pizza and shrugged. “I’m not placating her. She’s good.”

“I know. And so does she. That’s why you made her year.”

Claire smiled at her, eyes soft behind her glasses, cheeks a little flushed. Something low in Delilah’s belly fluttered, a moth around a light.

“No one would ever suspect you of placating anyone, D,” Iris said, stuffing a whole crust into her mouth.

Delilah flipped her off right before Ruby sailed back into the room, hugging a notebook to her chest. As she sat back down, she kept the book under the table and slowly opened it, shoulders hunched. Delilah didn’t try to take it out of her hands. It was hers, and Delilah knew better than anyone how much the art you did as a kid—whether it be drawings or photographs or songs—felt like spilling the contents of your heart out into the world. Hell, it still felt like that as a grown-up.

She leaned closer to the girl, tilting her head to see the drawings as Ruby flipped the pages in her lap. Black-and-white sketches filled each page. Plants, flowers, tea mugs and stacks of books, candles and cats and planets. Then the faces started—Claire, Josh, Iris, Astrid, younger girls who must’ve been her friends from school, her own face in various expressions, everything from smiling to despairing to distorted, a whole range of emotions and feelings and thoughts.

“These are great,” Delilah said, her voice low and just for Ruby. She nudged her shoulder with her own, coaxing a proud smile out of the girl.

“Thank you,” Ruby said softly, then looked up at Delilah. “Can you teach me about photography?”

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Like, lighting and framing and . . . everything. I love your photos.”

Delilah tilted her head. “You’ve seen my photos?”

The girl’s blush deepened. Delilah shot a glance at Claire, but the other woman just shrugged.

“I . . . um . . .” Ruby said. She looked suddenly scared, more than just nervous.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Delilah said. “Photos are meant to be seen.”

Ruby blew out a breath, nodded. “Well . . . after Aunt Astrid’s brunch, I looked you up on my laptop and I found your Instagram.”

“Ah.”

“Your account is amazing.”

“You have an Instagram?” Iris asked.

Delilah tilted her head at her. “I’m a photographer. Of course I have one.”

A purely evil grin spread over Iris’s mouth, and she picked up her phone.

Oh god. Delilah wasn’t ashamed of her Instagram account. It was pretty much a must for any visual artist these days. She just wasn’t prepared for the whole of Bright Falls to be scrolling through her photos. Some of them were pretty raw, and the last people she’d considered when she posted them were Astrid and her coven. Just the thought of sitting here while Iris Kelly—and inevitably, Claire Sutherland—dug into her art made her want to puke.

“Hey, you know what?” she said to Ruby. “The light outside is perfect right now. Want me to show you a few tips for taking photos with a phone?”

Ruby’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t have a phone yet.”

“But you will,” Claire said, holding her water glass between two hands.

“When?” Ruby said, her posture going straight.

Claire laughed. “Someday.”

“Ugh, you’re the worst.”

“I love you too,” Claire said, eyes shining at her daughter.

“Oh my god,” Iris said, eyes bugging out on her phone. “You have two hundred thousand followers?”

“And that’s our cue,” Delilah said, then waved her own phone at Ruby. “What do you say?”

“Okay, yeah,” Ruby said, grabbing her notebook and leading the way through the living room toward the back porch.

“Holy shit,” Delilah heard Iris say behind her. “Claire, look at this.”

Anxiety spiked in her chest, and she hurried out the door. She wasn’t sure if that was a good holy shit or a bad one, but either way, she didn’t want to hear what Claire had to say about her photos at all.

Outside, the air was cool and damp, the sun just starting to sink, creating a twilight-lavender glow that was perfect for a certain type of photo. Delilah and Ruby went into the backyard, the grass a little long and the flower beds a little weedy, but there was a hammock strung between two maple trees, a strand of colored lights hung along the porch railing that could’ve been left over from Christmas or could’ve been a regular fixture. Either way, the yard was charming. Imperfect. It was lived-in and homey, the kind of backyard Delilah remembered from her and her father’s house in Seattle, but which she’d never had at Wisteria House.

“Okay,” she said to Ruby, once she’d taken a deep breath to calm her stomach. “Look around. See if anything catches your eye.”

Ruby frowned at her. “Like what?”

“Anything. Photography isn’t so different from drawing. When you go to do a sketch, you either see something interesting you want to draw, or you think of something interesting in your mind, right?”

Ruby nodded.

“Same thing with photographs. You see something and you want to capture it in a new way, a way only you can see it, and then show that to the world.”

Ruby’s frown deepened, but it was more a look of curiosity and thought than confusion. She glanced around her yard, then started walking through the grass slowly, her notebook still tucked against her chest. Delilah let her roam, watching the girl search through her tiny world.

“This,” Ruby said, stopping at a stone birdbath in the corner of the yard. It was dingy, full of stagnated water and dead leaves, but right in the center a single white flower floated. Delilah couldn’t tell what flower it was, some sort of weed probably, but the effect of a little life hovering above death . . . well, it was striking.

“Perfect,” Delilah said, smiling at Ruby, then handed the girl her phone, already open to the camera app. “Let’s see what you got.”

Ruby took it and set her notebook in the grass, her expression uncertain, but after a few minutes of staring and head tilting, she got to work. It took a while. The girl was meticulous, careful, experimenting and then shaking her head softly when what she saw in the photo didn’t match what she wanted in her head. Finally, she looked up and handed the phone back to Delilah.

Scrolling through her images, Delilah smiled. “These are good. I like your point of view here.” She held out the phone so Ruby could see the birdbath’s edge, the viewer nearly eye level with the dirty water, the flower the only thing in focus.

“Can you show me how to edit them?” Ruby asked.

Delilah glanced up at the house and saw Claire standing on the back porch, forearms resting on the deck railing like maybe she’d been there for a while.

Iris was nowhere to be seen.

“I should probably go,” Delilah said, her stomach-moths taking flight again.

“What about on the camping trip?” Ruby asked.

Delilah frowned. She hadn’t even thought about going on the trip. When Iris had said we’ll all go, Delilah didn’t take her literally. Plus, there wasn’t another wedding event until next Wednesday, which meant Delilah had a blissful five days ahead of her without a single Parker or Parker-Green lavishing her with their disappointment. She was of half a mind to fly back to New York for the duration, except there was no way she could afford the round-trip ticket.

“Oh, sweetie, I don’t think I’m going on that.”

Ruby’s face fell. “What? You have to!”

“I just think—”

“No, you have to go. You’re fun and I like talking to you.”

Delilah smiled, her chest warming. “Your mom is fun, right? Iris and Astrid?”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “Yeah, they’re about as fun as a bag of rocks.”

Delilah laughed at that, but Ruby was smiling. On the porch, Claire leaned her elbows on the porch railing, the colored lights illuminating her face with blue and green.

“What’s so funny?” she called.

“See?” Ruby said, jutting her thumb toward her mother and lowering her voice. “Rocks.”

Delilah narrowed her eyes at the girl, a smile still on her lips. “We’ll see, okay? About the camping trip. But either way, we’ll work on your photo soon, okay? I promise.”

Ruby’s shoulders sagged, but she nodded.

Then she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Delilah’s middle. For a second, Delilah didn’t move. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged her. Years. Jax was probably the last person, and toward the end of their relationship, it was more mindless screwing than anything else. Stress relief for both of them. Lord knows, that’s all Delilah had done since—thoughtless touches, desperation for skin without any real heart behind it.

This, though. This . . . embrace. From an almost-teenager, no less, and everyone knew almost-teenagers hated everyone. It took the breath out of her. Literally, for a few seconds as Ruby rested her head against Delilah’s chest, arms tight around her waist, she couldn’t find enough air, her eyes stinging with a swell of sudden tears.

But then she moved her arms around Ruby, pressed her cheek to the top of her hair. She exhaled what felt like a decade’s worth of anxiety, and accepted the girl’s love.