STELLA’S TAVERN SMELLED exactly like it did the last time Delilah was here—booze, sweat, and sawdust from the lumber mill on the outskirts of town that big, burly workers were constantly tracking in on their boots.
She hadn’t exactly planned on stopping by a bar the moment she got out of her Lyft. But it took about fifteen seconds of glancing around the darkened Bright Falls city center to remember that the whole damn place shut down when the sun disappeared, even on a Saturday. The inn where she was going to stay sure as hell didn’t have a liquor license—it was more of a glorified B and B—and there was no way she was dealing with her step-monsters without a little liquid courage.
Once inside, though, she hesitated, her limbs suddenly rubbery as the laughter and music hit her ears. It’d been five years since she was last in Bright Falls. She’d fled New York, fled Jax and her gorgeous lying mouth for this—the coziness of the town, all these faces who’d known one another for lifetimes, this club she’d never quite felt like she belonged to, but felt fascinated by nonetheless. Ever since she and her father had moved here from Seattle when she was eight, a shiny new ring on his left hand, it had been this way, like she was standing outside a warmly lit house in the rain, tapping on the window. And it got even worse after her dad died two years later, leaving Delilah with a stepmother and stepsister who had no idea what to do with her.
Delilah took a deep breath and eyed the bar. It was a short thirty paces from where she stood, a sea of bodies between her and a drink. She was a New Yorker. An artist. A struggling artist, yes, but an artist nonetheless, goddammit. This town, her family, would absolutely not bring her to her knees. Not anymore.
She took off her gray bomber jacket and slung it over her suitcase. Humid, boozy air oozed over her bare arms, but it was better than suffocating in a coat. Angling her body to touch as few people as possible, she kept her head down and walked swiftly to the bar. Once there, she exhaled in relief, the bartender’s face a stranger instead of some dude she went to high school with who would only end up squinting at her like she was a puzzle he couldn’t solve. She’d been practically invisible in high school, a ghost with a cloud of unruly dark hair and blue eyes she kept on the dingy tile floor, the strange goth, while Astrid sparkled like a star at the ball.
“Bourbon, neat,” she said, setting her suitcase next to a stool and resting her arms on the bar. The guy—Tom, his name tag said—smiled and winked at her, then made a very large show of pouring her liquor into her glass from a height of about two feet.
She simply stared at him, tapped her short gray-painted nails on the shiny bar top.
He set her drink in front of her and leaned in. Floppy hair, trimmed beard, deep brown eyes. Probably cute to someone who appreciated the male form.
“Thanks,” she said, tossing it back. It burned all the way down, lighting her up in a way that made this whole godforsaken wedding seem bearable. She knew it wouldn’t last though.
“You from around here?” he asked.
She fought an eye roll.
“I’m not your type,” she said.
His smile faltered. “No?”
“No.”
“I think you might be.”
She tapped her glass for a refill, and he obliged with even more showmanship than before, flipping the glass and the bottle in the air. Oh, how she wished he’d drop them. When he gave her the drink, he lingered, eyes on hers expectantly. She sipped her bourbon more slowly this time, staring him down with a look that could blow a hole through the wall, in hopes he’d scamper off.
He didn’t.
She sat down on the stool, knowing this was probably going to have to end with her coming out to a complete stranger, just like she’d done so many times before, which would most likely be followed by some horrible threesome joke this douche nozzle thought was sexy.
As she filtered through her list of I’m gay scripts in her mind, someone stepped up to the bar next to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it was a white woman—light brown hair up in a messy bun, thick sideswept bangs, dark purple–framed glasses, and a vintage-style coral blouse with white polka dots. Delilah turned her head just a bit more, taking in dark high-waisted jeans that hugged curvy hips, soft arms, and nails painted lavender, chipped at the tips.
The woman turned too, their eyes locking.
Delilah sucked in a quiet breath.
The woman was gorgeous, yeah. Deep brown eyes, long lashes, high cheekbones, and a fire-engine-red mouth with a full bottom lip Delilah immediately wanted to tug between her teeth. She remembered fantasizing about doing that very thing back in high school, every time Claire Sutherland would come to Wisteria House to do whatever the hell Astrid and her coven got up to while Delilah sat alone in her room. Claire was one of the girls who, unbeknownst to her, helped Delilah figure out she was queer. Claire had been curvy and nerdy-sexy, and Delilah could see she still was, her hips and ass a little wider than they were back then. She looked amazing.
And now, twelve years later, judging from the friendly smile gracing Claire’s pretty mouth, she one hundred percent did not recognize Delilah.
At all.
This wasn’t that surprising. Growing up, Delilah had watched Claire and that loud redhead, Iris, hang out with Astrid mostly from afar. After Delilah’s father had died when they were ten, Isabel was completely shut down in her own grief for a while, so Astrid and Delilah had been mostly on their own for that first year. Astrid latched on to her new friends for comfort, and Delilah retreated into the books her father had given her, the fantastical worlds where orphans were heroes and the awkward kid always came out on top. She was curious about Astrid’s friends, particularly as Delilah had never had any. She’d lost her mother at age three, and her father’s own quiet nature meant the two of them fell all too easily into their own world. Delilah was observant, watchful, and her father had always celebrated that. But after he died, everything about Delilah suddenly became strange and unwelcome. She heard the whispers when Iris and Claire came over—Why is your sister so weird? Is that her peeking around the corner? Oh my god, you can’t even see her face she has so much hair. Astrid would shush them, Isabel would say benign things like, Oh, Delilah, don’t you want to watch the movie too? but then the three other girls would go silent, obviously frozen in fear that Delilah would say yes, and Isabel would do nothing to actually enforce her suggestion.
So Delilah kept her distance, only answering questions when asked, which wasn’t all that often. Eventually, the loneliness got so heavy it felt like she might suffocate just sitting in her room by herself. She had nightmares about it, dying and no one realizing it for weeks and weeks.
By the time she and Astrid got to high school, they’d all fallen into a routine. Delilah kept to herself as much as possible, drifting through her own internal world and only interacting with a few kids in her art classes. Isabel enforced family dinners every night and did her charity work and obsessed over Astrid’s success and beauty and status. And Astrid, despite the times Delilah saw her buck up against her increasingly controlling mother, blossomed into the town’s sweetheart, always smiling and surrounded by adoring fans.
Including Claire Sutherland. So of course she didn’t recognize Delilah now. Plus, Delilah’s late twenties had been kind to her. She finally figured out what to do with her curly hair, how to make it look more like, well, hair, as opposed to a bird’s nest, and every tattoo that now spiraled up and down her arms she’d gotten in the last five years. She knew she looked different than she had as a teenager, as a twenty-five-year-old the last time she was here. Less makeup, better-fitting clothes.
Still, the blankness in Claire’s eyes stung like a slap.
“Hi,” Claire said, then lowered her eyes, lashes fanning her cheeks, lips curving into the tiniest of smiles. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and took a deep breath.
Delilah lifted a brow. Was she . . . ? Yeah, she was. Claire Sutherland was blushing, pink blooming on her round cheeks as though she’d been out in the wind. She took in the way Claire was standing—one knee bent, her hip popped out slightly, her forearms resting on the bar just close enough to Delilah’s that she could almost feel the little hairs along Claire’s skin. She glanced up at Delilah, smiled and turned even pinker, and glanced back down.
Claire Sutherland was hitting on her.
Her. Delilah Green, the Ghoul of Wisteria House. That’s what Astrid and Claire and Iris had said about her one time. They were all fourteen or so and were in the kitchen—the kitchen Delilah’s father had designed—and Delilah slipped in to grab an apple. The three girls had been talking, laughing, making a total mess while they baked snickerdoodles or oatmeal butterscotch-chip cookies or some shit. But the conversation, the motion, it all stopped dead when Delilah entered the room. Her cheeks burned—she remembered that, the fire that felt like it would consume her anytime Astrid’s friends were over. She could never tell if it was from embarrassment or anger or desperation to belong.
“Hi, Delilah,” Claire had said then.
Delilah remembered that too. Claire often said hello, but again, she could never figure out why. Delilah lifted her hand in greeting, the stiff, awkward gesture of a lonely fourteen-year-old girl, grabbed one of the six-dollar organic Honeycrisp apples Isabel insisted on buying from the bowl on the kitchen’s island, and fled.
“God,” she heard Iris say as she left. “Why does she always skulk around like that?”
“Iris,” Claire had said, but laughter edged her voice.
“What? She’s like a ghost, haunting the hallways of Wisteria House. No, wait, she’s like a ghoul.”
“What’s the difference?” Astrid asked.
“I don’t know. Ghouls are creepier?”
Then Iris made a wobbly wooooo noise and all three girls dissolved back into laughter. Upstairs, Delilah closed herself in her bedroom and bit into her apple, crunching so hard she remembered worrying she might crack a tooth.
And now, here she was, the Ghoul of Wisteria House sitting in Stella’s Tavern while a very cute Claire Sutherland smiled at her.
“Hi, there,” Delilah said, spinning on her stool so she could face Claire. This also gave Claire a full view of her face, which, come on, hadn’t changed all that much since high school. Sure, her naturally thick eyebrows were a bit more under control and she’d learned how to go easy on the eyeliner, but still.
She tilted her head at Claire, giving her every chance to figure it out.
Claire just tilted her head too, the tiniest smile on her lips.
“What are you drinking?” Claire asked.
Delilah watched her for a beat. She could tell her. She should tell her. She should open her mouth right now and say, Hey, remember me?
Or.
She could flirt with this gorgeous woman—maybe even more than flirt, fulfilling every daydream teenage Delilah had about Claire Sutherland—and see what happened. Claire was clearly attracted to her. She wouldn’t be standing here right now, lashes fluttering, if she wasn’t. A warm and fuzzy feeling filled Delilah’s chest, thinking about waking up in bed next to Astrid’s mean girl BFF . . . and then telling her.
Added bonus? Astrid would be so pissed.
“Bourbon,” Delilah said.
Claire motioned to Tom for the same, leaning over the bar as she waited. Once the glass slid between her fingers—Tom frowning at Delilah as he very unceremoniously poured the drink—Delilah noticed Claire’s hands were shaking.
“Cold?” Delilah asked, motioning to her bourbon.
Claire laughed. “No. I think . . . I think I’m nervous.”
Delilah nearly cackled. This was too perfect.
“About?”
Claire took a sip of her drink and then turned to face her. Delilah spread her knees, just a little, just enough that Claire was almost between them. She expected another blush, but Claire simply looked down and lifted a brow.
“Or maybe I don’t have any reason to be nervous,” she said.
“Maybe not,” Delilah said.
Claire’s eyes narrowed, and Delilah wondered if she was putting the pieces together.
“It’s always a risk,” Claire said, “talking to another woman in a bar. Not that I do this all that often.”
“A risk?”
Claire nodded. “You could be straight as an arrow.”
Delilah laughed but gave nothing away. “And you’re not?”
“Oh.” And the blush was back. “No, not at all.”
Delilah remembered when Claire came out as bi in high school. It was a glorious day, a beautiful, rainbow-hued day. Not that Delilah had any delusions that Claire would ever go for her back then, but Delilah had figured out she liked girls in the seventh grade, and the fact that Claire Sutherland was a baby queer too? Young Delilah savored the knowledge, tucked it away, used it to give her confidence when she got to New York, when her ghoulish Bright Falls days were far behind her and she realized she was pretty damn charming and could flirt like hell, that other queer women and enbys actually liked her.
“Hmm,” Delilah said, resting her chin in her palm. “That’s quite the predicament.”
Claire laughed again. It was a nice sound. Completely without pretense. She wasn’t playing a game here. She was just . . . cute. “You’re not going to help me out?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well, I’d appreciate you throwing me a bone. I’m not very good at this.”
“Good at what?”
“Flirting.”
Delilah made her eyes dramatically wide. “This is you flirting?”
“Oh god,” Claire said, dropping her head into her hands.
“I’m kidding,” Delilah said, taking a sip of her bourbon. “I know exactly what’s going on here. You’re trying to recruit me for a cult. I get it.”
Claire lifted her head and laughed, eyes sparkling behind her glasses. “You got me. I’ve got the Prophet out back ready to shave your head and brand a unicorn on your ass.”
“A unicorn?”
“It’s a queer cult.”
This time Delilah laughed. “Well, in that case, sign me up.”
Claire’s lips parted, just a little. “Really? So you’re . . .”
She trailed off, waiting for Delilah to fill in the rest. Delilah leaned in until her mouth was right next to Claire’s ear, her knees brushing Claire’s hips. She smelled like a meadow, like fresh air, some delicate flower just underneath. Delilah made a show of breathing her in. Or maybe it wasn’t even a show. This woman was funny and sexy and adorably unsure of herself, and for a split second, Delilah forgot who she actually was.
“I’m very, very queer,” Delilah whispered, releasing the words slowly while her bottom lip brushed the shell of Claire’s ear. The other woman inhaled softly, the sound fluttering low in Delilah’s stomach.
Claire pulled back, her dark eyes all pupil. “That’s very good to know.”
“Isn’t it?” Delilah said.
They watched each other for a few moments while Delilah thought about how she was going to play this. The What’s your name? question was coming any moment, and she was having too much fun to ruin it with the truth. But before she could make a decision, a familiar voice cut through the country song twanging from the jukebox.
“. . . where’s Claire? Tell me she did not get hung up babysitting Josh.”
At the sound of her name, both Claire’s and Delilah’s heads swung toward the voice. Astrid stood about ten feet away, shucking off her raincoat, no doubt Lululemon or some shit, her mouth running a mile a minute to a redhead—Iris Kelly, the final member of Astrid’s triad—who was already sitting and drinking some clear liquor.
“Oh, there’s my friend,” Claire said. Delilah just hummed, watching her stepsister pour the rest of a bottle of Syrah into what must’ve been Claire’s glass, filling it nearly to the brim.
“Easy, killer,” Delilah heard Iris say.
“She’s a little stressed,” Claire said. “She’s getting married in two weeks.”
Delilah turned to look at Claire, who was still beautifully oblivious. “Is she now?”
Claire nodded, then leaned in and whispered, “To a total douche.”
Delilah’s brows shot up. She hadn’t met Steven . . . Spencer? No, Simon. It was definitely Simon. She hadn’t even laid eyes on him, but this little tidbit of information, coming from one of Astrid’s posse, was . . . interesting.
“Really?” she asked. “How so?”
Claire shrugged. “Spencer’s just”—dammit, it was Spencer—“demanding.”
“Sounds like a match made in heaven, then.”
The words slipped out, and Claire frowned, eyes narrowing softly. Her mouth opened, but before she could say anything, Astrid’s voice split between them again.
“You will not believe what my sister did,” Astrid said, taking a long pull of wine. “Well, almost did, but still, it’s just like her to—”
Her tirade cut off as her eyes landed on Delilah.
“Wait . . .” Claire said, leaning back. Delilah watched her, could see the pieces coming together. Her pretty mouth dropped open, and her eyes went wide behind her glasses. “Oh my—”
“Delilah?” Astrid said. She stood up, wineglass still in hand. She was dressed in dark skinny jeans, a fitted white T-shirt, and a tailored black blazer that probably cost more than Delilah’s whole closet. Her blond hair was shoulder-length, shaggy bangs brushing her brows. Gold hoops hung from her ears, and a huge-ass diamond sparkled on her left hand.
“Hey, sis,” Delilah said, then lifted her glass in salute before knocking back the rest of the liquor. She was going to need it.
