DELILAH LOWERED HER camera and inspected the photo on her screen. Claire had her arm around Ruby, her head turned over her shoulder. Her mouth was open a little, lips pursed slightly, her thank you just released into the air. With her hair up and those nerdy-sexy glasses, her gold heels and that lacy dress swelling over her hips before hitting her calves, she looked incredible.
Classic.
Iconic, even.
And the photo was damn good. The lighting was perfect, the soft glow of the hallway gathering around Claire and Ruby, like it was protecting them.
But what was even better was the expression in Claire’s eyes as she looked right at Delilah. She was grateful, sure. Delilah had clearly helped her avoid some sort of preteen catastrophe, but the gleam in Claire’s gaze was more than that. It was interest.
Delilah smiled down at her screen, enjoying whatever dance the two of them were engaged in. Astrid was dead wrong—Claire was intrigued, at the very least, and Delilah could definitely work with intrigued.
Still, she wasn’t exactly sure why she stepped in to help Ruby with her dress. She’d been covertly snapping photos of Astrid’s argument with Josh—whom Delilah vaguely remembered as a baseball guy from high school—figuring Astrid would love to memorialize how her mouth twisted up and her forehead filled with little wrinkles as she berated him.
But then it all came together: Claire crying, the girl—who couldn’t be more than ten or eleven—looking absolutely miserable as Claire pulled her toward the bathroom with that garment bag. Delilah knew Claire had a kid, that she’d gotten pregnant right after high school and decided to keep the baby. Delilah hadn’t felt anything about the news then—other than maybe a slight morbid glee that Claire’s decision meant she wouldn’t get to attend Berkeley with the rest of the coven.
Before she knew it, Delilah had drifted away from Astrid’s bickering and toward Claire, fascinated with someone her age having an almost-teenager. Or maybe she was more fascinated with how Claire’s dress perfectly clung to her ample chest. Either way, there she was, watching Ruby slowly melting down over a dress.
She had a flash right then, one of Isabel lingering in her doorway with clenched fists while a thirteen-year-old Delilah sat on her bed, ripping up the dress her stepmother had wanted her to wear to a charity event for which she was on the board.
You couldn’t do this one thing for me? Isabel had asked. After everything I’ve done for you?
“Can I see it?” she heard herself asking, and that was that. She and the girl had gone into the bathroom, and once Delilah had asked her what she actually wanted the dress to look like, Ruby chattered nonstop about the boots her mom had gotten her for her birthday this past April and something simple that didn’t make her armpits itch.
Now, as Claire and Ruby wandered back into the tearoom, Astrid cleared her throat.
Delilah lifted her eyes and saw Astrid’s clenched jaw. So, helping Ruby had come with the added bonus of pissing Astrid off. This day was going better than she expected it to. “Yes, dear?”
Astrid’s eyes narrowed. “Really? You just happen to be the one who tears up the dress I gave Ruby?”
“She hated the dress.”
“She—what? She did not.”
Delilah gave her an oh come on look. “Did you see the happy girl who just walked out of the bathroom?”
“Yes, but I—”
“It’s a dress, Ass. Let it go.”
Astrid pressed her mouth flat. “Just take the pictures, okay?”
“Oh, I’ve already got some good ones.” She flipped through the photos on her screen and landed on one of Astrid talking to Josh, her mouth wide open and her nostrils flaring. “See?”
Astrid looked, then lifted her arms before letting them slap back down to her sides, exasperated.
“Damn, you really hate that guy,” Delilah said.
There was a beat of silence before Astrid said, “Well, he’s unreliable and irresponsible and doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself, so yeah.”
Delilah very nearly made a joke about Astrid swearing again—And in Vivian’s! Fetch Isabel’s smelling salts!—but then her stepsister’s words registered, hanging heavy in the air between them, spat with a little more force than Delilah thought the guy was worth. Astrid crossed her arms and stared down at the floor, her teeth working her lower lip.
Something uncomfortable settled in Delilah’s stomach.
“Just get back to work, okay?” Astrid said, already turning away and walking off down the hall. “I’m not paying you to be a goddamn tailor.”
THINGS WENT SOUTH from there.
Delilah did her job, just like Astrid asked. She slinked around the room and snapped photos of a whole lot of dainty nibbling on crustless cucumber sandwiches and delicate sipping of mimosas. Like any event photographer worth their salt, hardly anyone noticed her, while she noticed everyone, everything.
Every laugh.
Every time Isabel put her hand on Astrid’s back or smoothed a hand over her hair.
Every chair filled, not even an extra one in a corner in case Delilah might like a break.
Every I’m so proud her stepmother uttered.
Delilah captured it all, just like she was supposed to.
Still, she felt like she was suffocating. She couldn’t get Astrid’s words out of her head, couldn’t forget the anger and hurt that laced every syllable, like she wasn’t talking about Josh at all. Looking at Astrid now, she seemed fine. Happy. She had everything she needed. Friends, an adoring mother, a fiancé, a beautiful wedding brunch that would bleed into even more beautiful wedding events, culminating in a beautiful wedding. Knowing Astrid like she did, this was everything her stepsister could ever want.
Delilah’s skin itched and her lungs felt tight. She arranged shots, changed lenses, bent and arched to get the right angle, all the while sweat gathered on her upper lip, under her arms, the same sick feeling she remembered so often from her childhood.
The only person who seemed to notice her was Ruby, who kept trying to catch her eye with a funny face, her features all twisted up and adorable. Delilah managed to smile at her—she was a sweet kid—and snapped a few pictures of her silly expressions to humor her.
She got a lot of Claire too. Once or twice, Delilah could’ve sworn that the other woman had been looking at her, had just swung her eyes away right when Delilah’s camera centered on her, but she couldn’t be sure. Either way, she got far more shots of Claire than she probably should have, but what could Delilah say? Claire was a beautiful subject, and focusing on her seemed to calm Delilah’s swirling thoughts. In fact, concentrating on making sure the chandelier’s light reflected on Claire’s shiny hair just right was all that was keeping Delilah from picking up one of those little quiches—whose crust looked just like a goddamn seashell, for Christ’s sake—and yelling at the top of her lungs, What the fuck is this all for?
She remembered events like this while growing up. Remembered them vividly, Delilah stuck in an itchy dress, sitting at one end of Wisteria House’s long dining room table while Isabel and Astrid sat at another, surrounded by adoring townsfolk who thought Isabel was the soul of class and charity.
Isn’t it so amazing how Isabel took in that poor girl after her father died?
Isabel didn’t have to do it, you know.
She is an odd little thing, isn’t she? God bless Isabel.
Delilah had heard it all over the years, praise and adoration, the musings at Delilah’s demeanor, the judgment that her gratitude for Isabel didn’t bubble over like champagne from a fountain.
Despite walking calmly and snapping photos dutifully, her breathing became quicker and more ragged as the minutes passed. She focused on her task, the simple movement of aiming and clicking, but it didn’t help. Then she tried thinking about the Whitney show, but at this moment, New York felt like another planet, three weeks a lifetime away. She could feel Astrid’s eyes on her. Isabel’s. Dyed-blond coif lady, who, if she was Spencer’s mother, would surely know all about Delilah by now, her poor dead parents, how magnanimous Isabel was in taking her in, like she was a fucking lost orphan Isabel found on the streets.
She passed close by the champagne tower, which was just as tall as it had been at the beginning of the event, Vivian’s staff replacing a glass as soon as one was taken. She lifted one off the top again and gulped down the drink, swishing the bubbles around her mouth as she stared at the golden liquid through the expensive glass.
Then, before she could think too much about it, she let her hip bump the table as she turned back around. It was subtle, clearly an accident, but it was enough that the glasses rattled against one another and then . . . toppled.
Gloriously. Horrendously. Like Sauron’s tower finally vanquished, the flutes crashed downward, champagne splattering and glass shards spilling all over the table and marble floor with a triumphant cacophony.
The room fell silent. Delilah lifted her gaze, her expression completely flat, and looked right at Isabel, whose own expression had apparently broken free of its Botox prison—nostrils flaring, skin flushed, barely-there eyebrows so low they dipped into her lashes.
“Oops,” Delilah said, then snapped a picture of the alcohol-and-glass mess at her feet.
DELILAH DIDN’T BOTHER getting any more shots after that. She helped the staff clean up the mess—the least she could do, as this disaster was her fault and one hundred percent worth it. Even better, the accident had brought the brunch to an abrupt close. When the floor was once again pristine, however, she didn’t want to deal with Astrid or Isabel. As guests began to get up from the tables and Isabel pasted on a smile again, Delilah grabbed her camera bag from under the table, packed it up, and all but sprinted out Vivian’s front door, desperate for some non-perfumed air and some liquor.
She spilled outside and sucked in the warm, early-summer breeze. In New York, it was already stifling hot, but here in Oregon, the weather still felt like spring, blue sky peeking between light gray clouds, the piney scent of evergreens. She sped down the sidewalk and headed straight for Stella’s.
Unfortunately, the idyllic spring weather didn’t change the fact that the bar didn’t open until six. She slapped her hand against the rough wooden door and headed back to the Kaleidoscope Inn, where she turned off her phone and took off her pants before ordering a club sandwich from the inn’s kitchen. Snuggled in the huge king-size bed, chintz be damned, she binged six episodes of a show on her laptop about a gay teenager in Georgia.
Eventually, though, when the sky started to go lavender, she got antsy. She was used to nights out on the city streets, waiting tables or keeping her hands busy by working on a piece, going to art events, or just hanging out in a bar until she found someone she liked. It didn’t always end with a hookup—sometimes it was just nice to sit with someone and talk about nothing, anything.
She didn’t like the quiet, the nights alone.
She flipped her laptop shut and slipped her pants and shoes back on. Five minutes later, she was heading down Main Street toward Stella’s, the globed streetlights casting a golden glow over the cobblestone sidewalk. There were a few people out, couples and families, annual vacationers who’d come to stay in one of the few huge houses lining the river. Most of them were white, straight-looking, a weird number of them licking vanilla ice cream cones like they were posing for candids in Good Housekeeping.
Delilah sped up, ready for the noise and activity of Stella’s. She was about halfway there when she spotted a messy bun through a store window, purple glasses catching the soft light. Books filled the window display, lots of colorful paperbacks promising summer sun and romance, a few thick cookbooks featuring lemony grilled chicken and watermelon salad with cayenne pepper on the covers.
River Wild Books, the sign said.
Of course, Delilah knew the store well. As a kid, it was one of the few places she could go in Bright Falls where she could breathe freely, disappearing in a way that felt like a choice rather than being ignored, happily spending hours reading fantasy novels and comic books in the back of the shop.
She paused, stepping closer to the window. Claire stood at the counter next to the register, flipping books into a stack, pausing to type something into the computer every so often. Inside, it was dim, a single Tiffany lamp on the counter and a strand of fairy lights around the store’s perimeter the only light.
Before she could overthink it, Delilah pulled at the door, a relief she couldn’t explain filling her chest when it swung open easily. A little bell chimed.
“Hey, sorry, we’re closed. I meant to lock—”
Claire’s words cut off as soon as she saw Delilah.
“Oh. Hi,” she said, setting down the book in her hand.
Delilah glanced at her phone, the open door resting on her backside. “Closed at seven o’clock?”
Claire’s mouth twitched. “Small town. But we get really wild and stay open until eight on Friday and Saturday.”
“Whoa, edgy. Next thing you know, Stella’s will be putting on a drag show.”
Claire laughed. “If only.”
Delilah laughed too, then they both fell silent. Claire hadn’t told her to get the hell out, so Delilah took that as a good sign and came all the way inside the store, the door closing behind her. The smell hit her first—paper and glue, the faint whiff of something citrusy and fresh. It nearly knocked her back a few steps, the scent of her childhood. But unlike the perfumed aroma of Wisteria House, the store’s clean air reminded her of safety, belonging.
The shop had changed a bit since she was last here. The dark shelves had been lightened to a blond wood and went all the way up to the ceiling now, with extra stock at the top and two matching blond wooden ladders, one on each side of the store, attached to an iron pole. The carpet used to be this thin industrial stuff, the kind you’d find in insurance offices and schools, but now smooth hardwood stretched the entire length of the small space. Fairy lights dangled here and there, and in the middle of the store, nestled between display tables and freestanding shelves, four dark brown leather chairs were arranged facing one another, a book-covered coffee table in the middle. A light fixture hung over the reading space, small round light bulbs hanging amidst glistening silver leaves on chains.
The effect was no small thing, brightening the shop in a way that made Delilah smile.
“This place is gorgeous,” she said, running her hand along the counter where Claire stood. “It didn’t look like this back when we were in high school.”
“Yeah, I know,” Claire said, fiddling with the books at her side. She stacked and then restacked them in a different arrangement, over and over. “When my mom remarried a few years ago, she and her husband wanted to travel, so I took over.”
Delilah leaned her elbows on the counter. She remembered Claire’s mother—Katherine. She had soft brown eyes and round hips, and she had been one of the few adults in this town who had treated Delilah like a normal kid as opposed to a nuisance. There was no Mr. Sutherland. He had taken off when Claire was around nine, right before she and her mother moved to Bright Falls, if Delilah’s memory served.
“You did all this?” she asked.
Claire met her eyes and stared for a few seconds. Delilah wasn’t sure Claire was even aware she was doing it, and she watched Claire’s throat bob in a hard swallow.
“Hello?” Delilah said, tapping the back of Claire’s hand softly, just once before drawing back.
Claire jolted, then cleared her throat and looked down, fiddling with the book stack again. “Um, yeah, I did. I want to do more. Add a café, get some local art on the walls that people can buy, but that takes money.”
“Most things do.” Delilah took the top book off of Claire’s stack and pretended to look at it. In truth, she was just thinking up ways to keep the conversation going, reasons she wouldn’t have to leave. She felt weirdly at ease in here. Plus, she was enjoying the way Claire got all flustered around her a little too much. “Your mom still traveling?”
“Yeah. She’s in”—Claire’s eyes narrowed in thought for a second—“Colorado this month. But she’ll be back for Astrid’s wedding.”
“Ah yes, the joyous occasion.” Delilah turned and rested her hip on the counter.
“Have you met Spencer yet?” Claire asked.
“Haven’t had the pleasure.”
“Oh, it’s a pleasure, all right.” Sarcasm coated Claire’s tone.
“That bad, huh?”
“I don’t know.” Claire waved a hand.
“If I recall correctly, you mentioned last night that you didn’t like him,” Delilah said.
Claire stiffened. “I’d rather not talk about last night, if you don’t mind.”
“ ‘A total douche.’ That’s what you called him.”
Claire sighed, pressed her eyes closed. “I shouldn’t have said that. I thought—”
“That I was someone else.”
“And you knew exactly who I was.”
The words were sharp, ready, like Claire had been holding them in for a while. They looked at each other, the air between them so charged Delilah wondered if they might get a shock. She let the silence settle, let herself maintain eye contact. She had to play this delicately, or Claire would close up like a clam. There wasn’t any denying what happened last night, no way Delilah could feign ignorance.
So she didn’t.
Instead, she leaned into Claire’s space—not too much to crowd her, but enough to notice a stray eyelash on her cheek.
“I did,” Delilah said softly.
Claire’s brows dipped. “So . . . so you just let me make a fool of myself?”
“Fool?” Delilah frowned and tilted her head. “You didn’t make a fool of yourself. But would you have kept talking to me if you knew who I was?”
Claire pressed her mouth together.
“It’s okay. You can say it,” Delilah said.
“Say what?”
“That you would never have approached me if you’d known I was Delilah Green.”
“I . . . That’s not . . . You’re twisting it around.”
“Am I?”
Claire rubbed her forehead. “Okay, fine, no, I probably wouldn’t have come up to you like that if I’d known.”
“Well, there you go.”
“There you go what?”
Delilah leaned just a little closer, whispering her next words. “The reason I didn’t tell you who I was.”
It wasn’t a complete lie. True, Delilah had been a tad devious the night before at Stella’s, letting Claire go on like they were total strangers, reveling in how she’d feel when she found out they weren’t. But Delilah had also been turned on as hell, intrigued by adult, bisexual Claire Sutherland, a Claire who clearly thought adult Delilah was intriguing enough herself to approach in a bar.
The two women stared at each other for a moment before Claire pulled her gaze away and straightened her stack of books one more time.
“So that was quite an event today at Vivian’s,” Claire said.
“It was.”
“Exciting.”
“Ended with quite a bang.”
Claire’s mouth turned up at the corners—she was clearly trying to fight a laugh, which Delilah found completely delightful.
“So how mad was Astrid?” she asked.
“On a scale of one to ten?” Claire said. “Twenty-three.”
Delilah nodded, couldn’t help the smile that settled on her mouth. Claire watched her for a few seconds before clearing her throat.
“Thank you for your help today,” she said. “With Ruby.”
Delilah shrugged. “It was no big deal. She’s a good kid.”
“It was a big deal. We were ten seconds away from a meltdown over a bit of lace and satin in the middle of Vivian’s.”
“Would that have been so bad? Probably the most action that snore fest has seen since it opened.”
Claire laughed. “Until you came along, that is.”
Delilah flourished her hand in agreement.
“Still,” Claire said, “Astrid bought that dress for Ruby. I just didn’t want to add to her stress.”
Delilah chewed on this, thinking back to when she and Ruby went into the bathroom with the dress. The girl had been sweet, yeah, but she’d also talked her ear off, and Delilah had let her. “Honestly, I think Ruby would’ve worn the dress as it was. She just wanted someone to listen to her.”
“I listen to—” But Claire cut herself off, her mouth hanging open as she blinked over and over again. Then she let out a groan and dropped her head into her hands. “Oh my god.”
Delilah laughed softly. “It’s okay.”
Claire looked up. “I’m turning into one of those moms.”
“What kind of moms?”
She flapped her hands around. “The ones, the ones who never listen and think kids are idiots who can’t think for themselves and just want things to be easy and quiet and oh my god.”
“Do you think Ruby’s an idiot who can’t think for herself?”
“No!” Claire’s eyes went soft, along with her voice. “No. She’s so smart. You talked to her, right? She’s a great kid.”
Delilah nodded. “Seems to be.”
“I just . . . I want her . . .” Claire sighed and looked down at her hands. “She hasn’t had it easy. And I think some part of me thinks, the tighter I hold on to her, the more . . . I don’t know, organized I make her life, the safer she’ll feel. And I . . .”
Claire stopped, stood up straight, her posture suddenly rigid. “God, I’m sorry.” She cleared her throat again. “You don’t want to hear about this.”
“Sure I do,” Delilah said. She said it on instinct, the right thing to say to lure Claire into liking her, but as Claire sighed out a little laugh and straightened the books for the hundredth time, Delilah realized it was true. Back in New York, she didn’t have any friends with kids. Everyone in her circle was an artist, aggressively single, and completely absorbed in their work. In fact, Delilah wasn’t even sure she’d actually call any of them friends. They were colleagues, fellow artists, people she met up with at events, occasionally slept with. They were connections, hookups.
Friends?
Delilah didn’t think she’d ever actually had one of those. Not a real one, someone she’d call if she was having a bad night or in trouble. She never went to college, never had a roommate to bond with. Jax had never been her friend—lover, chaos and passion personified, but not her friend.
Now, standing in River Wild with Claire Sutherland, of all people, she found herself leaning in, fascinated by this life Claire led, raising a tiny human, a person all her own. She wanted to ask Claire to go on, even if just to hear her voice, the way it was the littlest bit raspy, but before she could, footsteps clomped over the hardwoods from the back of the store.
“Mom, can we go home yet?” Ruby’s voice called from somewhere among the shelves.
“Yeah, sweetie, I’m almost done,” Claire said. She took the books and slid them to the back counter where there was some sort of gift-wrapping station, thick rolls of brown paper and simple striped ribbons. Then she came back to the register and started to shut the computer down. Delilah watched her, waiting for some eye contact, but Claire never gave it.
“Good, I’m starving,” Ruby said, emerging from between the freestanding bookshelves, still in her lavender dress and boots. When she saw Delilah, her face broke out in a grin. “Hey! You’re here!”
Delilah smiled at her, crossing her ankles as she leaned against the counter. “I am.”
Ruby’s eyes gleamed, her gaze roaming over Delilah’s tattoos. Delilah could see the questions stacking up in the girl’s mind.
“Which do you like the best?” she asked Ruby.
Pink spread over Ruby’s cheeks, like she’d been caught. “Oh. Um . . .”
“It’s okay,” Delilah said. “I want to know.”
“Well . . .” Ruby took a step closer. “I like this one.” She pointed to the rain cloud thundering over the teacup.
“That’s one of my favorites too.”
“What does it mean?”
“It’s a storm in a teacup,” Delilah said.
Ruby furrowed her brow. “Huh?”
Delilah laughed. “It’s an old phrase. It means . . . making a big deal out of something small. I got it to remind myself to have some perspective. That, most times, things aren’t as devastating as they might feel at first.”
The girl nodded, head tilted in thought.
“I like that one too,” Claire said.
Delilah snapped her gaze to the other woman. She let a slow grin spread over her mouth.
Claire smiled and shook her head before kneeling down to grab her bag from under the counter, but Delilah swore she blushed a little.
“Ready?” Claire said to Ruby, coming around the counter.
“Finally!” the girl said, speeding toward the front door.
Delilah followed them both outside, hovering as Claire locked up the store. She looked down the sidewalk toward where Stella’s waited a few blocks down, but the thought of going in there, alone, just to get half drunk at the bar, also alone, suddenly made her feel very tired.
“So . . . have a good night,” Claire said as Ruby headed toward a little silver Prius parked at the end of the street. Delilah wondered where they lived, what their house looked like.
“Yeah, you too.” She slipped her hands in her pockets and started walking backward, her eyes still on Claire.
The other woman opened her mouth once . . . twice . . . before finally asking, “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
Delilah stopped. “Tomorrow?”
“Astrid’s dinner? At your . . . at Isabel’s house.”
Delilah’s tiredness morphed into exhaustion. “Yeah. You’ll see me.”
Claire nodded and fiddled with her keys. “Good. Okay, then.”
“Okay, then.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Except neither woman moved. Delilah wasn’t going to budge; she knew that. She was enjoying this fidgeting, addled Claire. Especially since Delilah was ninety percent positive she was the cause of the addling.
“Mom!” Ruby called from the car.
“Coming!”
Claire looked at Delilah one more time before finally turning her back and speed-walking toward her kid. Delilah stood in the middle of the sidewalk, ice cream lickers angling around her, watching with a smile on her face until Claire drove out of sight.
