: Chapter 20

A BUZZING ON the nightstand woke Delilah. She lifted her head, the room unrecognizable for a split second before the entire night flooded back to her.

Claire.

She was at Claire’s.

In her bed.

With Claire wrapped around her like a pretzel, her face pressed to Delilah’s neck and breathing soft, sleepy breaths. She was totally zonked out, which wasn’t any wonder. By the time the two women had fallen asleep after midnight, exhausted and boneless, they’d both come two more times and Delilah had discovered that Claire had an extremely talented mouth.

Now, Delilah had no idea what time it was, but it was still dark outside, and Claire’s phone was making a hell of a racket on the nightstand.

“Claire.” She shook her gently.

“Hmm.” Claire just burrowed in deeper, her arm flopping over Delilah’s waist.

“Claire, your phone. Hey.” She moved the other woman’s hair out of her face, moonlight filtering in through the gauzy curtains and silvering her skin.

Fuck, this woman was gorgeous.

Bzzz.

Delilah reached over and grabbed the phone, an unfamiliar name flashing across the screen.

“Claire, it’s Maria.” Whoever the hell that was.

“What?” That got her attention. Claire sat up, blinking, the sheet falling down to her waist. “Where?”

“On the phone?” Delilah handed it over, and Claire scrambled out of the bed, naked and perfect, before she grabbed her robe from a chair by the window. She slipped on her glasses and then pressed the phone to her ear. “Maria? Is Ruby okay? Oh no. Yes, put her on, absolutely.” She turned to face Delilah, worrying her thumbnail in her mouth. “Ruby? What’s wrong, honey? Okay . . . sweetie, calm down. Take a deep breath for me . . . You sure you can’t just go to sleep and . . . Okay . . . Yes, of course you can come home. Tell Tess’s mom I’ll meet you on the sidewalk . . . Okay, honey. It’ll be all right.”

Then she hung up, sloughing off her robe and pulling on a pair of yoga pants and a tank top.

“Everything okay?” Delilah asked.

“Yeah, yeah, that was Tess’s mom. Tess and Ruby had a fight, and she wants to come home. Says she can’t sleep.”

“Oh.”

“They’ve been arguing a lot lately.” Claire shook her head and rubbed her eyes, her hair a total mess and falling around her shoulders. “I’ll be right back.”

“Sure.”

Claire paused at the door. “Um . . . stay in here, okay? I’ll get Ruby to bed fast. She’s probably exhausted. Just . . .” She trailed off, her eyes uncertain as she bit her lip.

Delilah understood what she was saying. Please don’t let my eleven-year-old know we’re sharing a bed. Delilah got it, but still, her chest sort of tightened up, and she suddenly very much wished she was wearing clothes.

“I should probably just go,” she said. She rarely stayed overnight after sex anyway. Why should this time be any different? Still, she couldn’t seem to move her ass off the mattress.

“No, don’t,” Claire said. “Just give me ten minutes, okay?”

Delilah nodded and then Claire was gone. Delilah heard the front door open and close, and she exhaled into the empty room. She really should go. She’d had sex with Claire, scratched the itch, and now she was done. Satisfied. And she’d definitely proven Astrid completely fucking wrong with her whole Claire would never go for you proclamation.

Yeah, this was over. Claire didn’t want her here with Ruby in the house anyway. Delilah shoved the covers back, located her bra and underwear, her jeans, but her shirt was nowhere to be found, because it was still in the middle of the kitchen floor.

“Shit.”

She went to the door, but before she could open it to try and sneak out, reclaim her clothing, and possibly bolt out the back door like a teenage boy running from a dad with a shotgun, she heard the front door open and shut again, Claire’s and Ruby’s voices mingling as they neared the hall.

“I . . . just . . . she’s . . . so . . . mean . . .”

Ruby was crying, words falling out in stuttering breaths.

“Honey, shh. Let’s just go to sleep, okay?” Claire said. “We can talk tomorrow and figure it all out. I promise.”

“Can . . . can I sleep with you?” Ruby asked.

Delilah stiffened. She looked around the room, wondering if she needed to dive into the closet or jump out the window.

This was ridiculous.

She was two seconds from crawling under the bed when Claire spoke.

“Oh, honey, I think you’ll sleep better in your own bed. But remember, we’re going camping tomorrow, and you can share your tent with whoever you want, okay?”

Ruby said something in response, but Delilah couldn’t hear the words as their voices faded down the hall. She slumped back onto the mattress, her head in her hands. Had she seriously been about to hide under the bed?

Yes. Yes, she absolutely had been.

The door opened and Claire slipped inside. “Hey.”

Delilah sighed. “Hey.”

“Sorry. She’s in bed now. Do you—”

“I should go.”

Claire froze, her mouth open. She stepped closer to Delilah, twisting her fingers together. “Yeah, I guess you probably should.”

Except neither of them moved, and Delilah didn’t know what to say. Sex had never made things so . . . awkward before. And she sure as hell had never been a secret. Attached women occasionally came on to her in bars, one too many glasses of Chablis running through their veins, but Delilah had a strict policy that she never slept with anyone else’s monogamous partner. She knew what it was like to be on the other end of that raw deal, and no orgasm was worth inflicting that kind of pain.

That overwhelming feeling of not being enough.

She rubbed her forehead, that same feeling—from all her years in Wisteria House and again from Jax—creeping up on her now. How the fuck had this happened?

“You can stay for a few more hours if you want,” Claire said. “Get some sleep.”

“But be gone by first light, right?” Delilah looked up at her, a bitter smile on her mouth.

“Delilah. That’s not fair.”

“No, I guess it’s not.”

“I’m careful about who I bring around Ruby, that’s all. The last person I dated, she never even met Ruby. Not once. And I dated her for over a month.”

“But I’m already around her.”

“Not like this.” Claire motioned to Delilah’s topless state, the bed in disarray. “Not like someone who means—” She cut herself off and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her voice was quiet, low. “Again, why do you care? This is just sex, isn’t it?”

Delilah frowned at her. She’d never told Claire it was just sex. She’d never hinted that she was only looking for a hookup, even though she absolutely was. It couldn’t be more than that. They lived three thousand miles away from each other, she had the Whitney and her art, and hell if Delilah was ever going to put herself in the position again to be heartbroken by a woman who wasn’t over her ex. She didn’t know what Josh meant to Claire, but he had to mean something. He was the father of her kid. He was hot. And he’d always be in her life.

“Yeah,” Delilah said, standing and starting for the door. “It is.”

Claire blocked her path. “Okay, then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Something is. I can tell.”

“You can’t tell shit, Claire. You don’t know anything about me. You want to stuff me in a closet—”

“A closet? What?”

“—and oh, I assume I’ve got to keep all this sex a secret from Astrid, right? Wouldn’t want to upset Princess Perfect. Now, if you’d kindly move, I need to get my shirt and go back to my floral hell of a hotel room.”

Claire didn’t budge. In fact, she seemed to dig in, brow furrowing as she reached out and grabbed Delilah’s arms.

“Hey. Stop for a second, okay? Just slow down.”

Delilah chewed on her bottom lip, but she stopped. Her chest was tight, and pressure built behind her eyes, like they needed to release something. God, she hadn’t felt like this in so long, like she was shrinking, like everyone around her was more important than she was. She was just tired. Exhausted and tired and, okay, maybe a little overwhelmed by the fact that she may have just had the greatest sex of her life. One didn’t just walk away from the greatest sex of one’s life.

“I don’t want you to go,” Claire said. “Okay?”

“Why not?”

Claire’s eyes searched hers. She searched back.

“Because I need this,” Claire finally said, sliding her hands down Delilah’s arms to tangle with her fingers. “And it was . . . fun.”

Delilah smirked.

“And I get that you’re into casual,” Claire went on. “That’s fine with me. Totally fine. After Astrid’s wedding, you’ll go back to New York and I’ll stay here and that’ll be that. But we’re here now. And I . . . well . . . I want to see you again.”

“You want to fuck me again, you mean,” Delilah said, but she was smiling. This she knew. This she understood. She’d had lovers she’d seen for multiple days, even weeks, before one of them broke it off for some amiable and practical reason.

Pink spilled into Claire’s cheeks. “Okay, fine. Yes. Don’t you?”

“Want to fuck me?”

“Delilah.”

She laughed, then moved their entwined hands around Claire’s waist, pulling the other woman closer. When their mouths touched, she whispered, “Yes. I want to fuck you again.”

Claire smiled against the kiss. “Good. We’re agreed, then.”

“Should we sign something?”

“Like a fuck-buddy pact?”

“Sure.” She slid her mouth down Claire’s neck, nipped at her earlobe. “You don’t want me spilling your dirty little secret, do you?”

Claire stiffened and leaned back so they were eye to eye. “Delilah. It’s not about you being a secret. It’s just—”

“You don’t want people to know about us.”

“Yeah.”

“Which is a secret.”

Claire wiggled out of her embrace. “Are you telling me you actually want Astrid to know?”

Delilah thought about it, the look of shock that would fill Astrid’s eyes, the pure, unadulterated thrill of victory. But then she thought about how Claire was probably right—Astrid would be upset, and with more than just Delilah. She’d be upset with Claire, and then this whole sex thing Delilah and Claire were doing would come to an abrupt end.

And Delilah didn’t want it to end. For the ten more days she had to spend in this soul-sucking town, she actually had a distraction now. A beautiful, sweet, amazing-in-bed distraction.

Who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth?

“No,” she said. “No, I guess I don’t.”

Claire relaxed, but then narrowed her eyes at Delilah, concern creasing her brow. “It’s not because I’m ashamed of you.”

Delilah laughed. “Okay. Sure. The Ghoul of Wisteria House is in your bed. No big deal.”

Claire’s eyes flashed with something that looked like hurt . . . even regret. “Delilah.”

She waved a hand. “Forget I said anything.”

“I don’t want to forget it.”

“Sure you do.”

“Hey.” Claire took her hand, squeezed it. “I’m not ashamed of you. But I’m allowed to have something that’s just mine, aren’t I? I don’t have to tell my best friends everything.”

“But you usually do, right?”

Claire sighed. “You and Astrid . . . It’s complicated.”

Delilah just stared at her.

“Isn’t it?” Claire asked.

In answer, Delilah simply unbuttoned her jeans, peeled them off her legs, and got back into bed. If she was going to talk about this, she definitely needed to be lying down. Claire watched her settle on her back, then followed her, pulling the sheet over both of them and propping her head on her elbow, eyes on Delilah’s face.

“It didn’t feel complicated,” Delilah said. “Growing up with her. It felt extremely simple.”

“What do you mean?”

Delilah stared at the ceiling, like she’d done so many nights before, listening to Claire and Iris and Astrid laughing in Astrid’s room, like she’d done while Isabel hosted dinner parties Delilah knew her stepmother didn’t really want her to attend.

“It was simple,” she said again. “My mother was gone. My father died. Isabel resented that she had to raise me alone. Astrid thought I was too strange to include, too sad, too much on the outside of her perfect world to be part of anything in her life. You were there for most of it. You saw it.”

There. It truly was so simple. Embarrassingly so. She actually couldn’t believe she’d just said all that out loud, admitted her . . . unlovability.

Claire was silent for a beat, and Delilah didn’t dare look at her. An ache started in her throat.

“I did see it,” Claire said. “Astrid . . . she’s a hard person to know. She holds things really close. I think Isabel just drilled into her this idea of never letting them see you sweat, you know? Or cry or show any kind of weakness. Vulnerability is hard for her, but when she does let you in, she’s loyal and strong and would do anything for you. That’s who I saw, and I guess I just . . . never understood why you didn’t.”

Delilah’s chest tightened. “Because she didn’t let me in, Claire. You just said it yourself, she’s a hard person to know and she didn’t give two shits about me knowing her.”

Claire frowned but had nothing to say to that.

“And by default,” Delilah said, “neither did you or Iris.”

“Delilah,” Claire said softly, leaning close to her so that her chin rested on Delilah’s shoulder. Which just made the ache worse. It made this whole thing the opposite of just sex. “I’m sorry.”

Delilah shook her head. “Don’t say that just because we’re screwing. It’s cheap.”

Claire pressed even closer. “I’m not saying it because we’re screwing. I’m saying it because I feel it. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder. I could’ve . . . I don’t know, pushed Astrid to include you more.”

“No one pushes Astrid to do anything.”

“Then I could’ve included you more.”

Delilah scoffed. “No, you couldn’t have. Because you didn’t want to.”

Silence filtered in between them, Claire left with no response in the face of the truth. Delilah waited for the awkwardness of it all to push them finally apart, for Claire to sigh and admit that maybe this was all a big mistake. She even waited to feel some of that old anger flare up, the resentment that had fueled her relationship with anyone in Bright Falls for over two decades.

Instead, she just felt sad, desperate to not feel that way anymore.

Claire reached out and slid a finger down Delilah’s cheek to her mouth before sliding her palm around the back of her neck. Instead of pushing her away, she pulled Delilah closer and pressed her forehead against hers.

“I want to now,” Claire said, then pressed her mouth to hers, gentle and slow.

Too gentle and slow.

Delilah hadn’t meant for the conversation to turn this direction. It’s not like it mattered. She didn’t want or need Claire’s apology. She didn’t want to hear excuses for whatever Isabel did to Astrid to fuck her up proper. Delilah was fucked up enough herself. She rolled over on top of Claire, settling between her thighs, and turned all that gentle and slow into hard and fast. She didn’t let either of them come up for air for the next hour.

Later, as they both lingered in that place between awake and asleep, the first touches of lavender light trickling through the window, Claire entwined her fingers with Delilah’s.

“Come camping with us,” she said softly. “Ruby wants you there.”

Claire’s eyes were free of her glasses and hazy with sex and sleep. Delilah brushed her bangs off her forehead with her other hand.

“Ruby wants me there, huh?” she said.

Claire smiled. “Yep. Just Ruby.”