She’d barely noticed any specific designs last night. She’d been too busy trying to act like she wasn’t an exhausted mom of an angsty preteen while she hit on Astrid’s estranged stepsister. And that Delilah had clearly known who she was . . . No, she couldn’t think about that right now. She needed to focus her energies on not committing homicide. She looked away from Delilah just as Vivian’s front door burst open behind her, Josh and Ruby spilling inside and laughing.
“Morning, ladies!” Josh called when he spotted them, pulling his aviator sunglasses down his nose, revealing those twinkling eyes.
Iris growled.
“Joshua,” Astrid said, folding her arms and glaring.
“I hear congrats are in order,” he said, but then he held his hands palms up and moved them up and down like a balance scale. “Or condolences to the groom. Either or.”
“Goodbye, Joshua,” Astrid said.
“What, I’m not invited?” he asked, presenting that panty-dropping grin that had gotten Claire into trouble in the first place.
Astrid said something back, because Astrid could never keep her mouth shut once Josh opened his, but Claire ignored them both. If she talked to Josh right now, she’d claw his face off. She’d learned not to engage with him when she was this mad. She always came out feeling like she was overreacting, like she didn’t know how to relax and whatever Josh had done was actually no big deal.
And lately, nothing pissed her off more.
Claire made her way to her daughter and wrapped her in a hug. “Hi, baby.”
“Hey, Mom.” Ruby was dressed in her usual black jeans and black T-shirt, this one featuring Bush’s album cover for Sixteen Stone.
“Have fun?”
“The funnest. We got donuts, and Dad let me have coffee.”
Claire ignored that last part. “Good, I’m glad. Let’s get changed, okay?” She held out the garment bag and smiled brightly.
Ruby took the bag, but her shoulders slumped. “Do I have to?”
“Honey, we talked about this.”
“I know, but . . . the dress itches. And I hate the color. It’s a little kid’s color.”
“It is not. I wear lavender all the time.”
“Yeah, but you’re my mom.”
She said mom like she might’ve said the word scorpion.
Claire forced a smile and took Ruby by the elbow, walking her over to the hallway that led to the bathrooms. “It’s just for today. I promise.”
“Dad said I didn’t have to wear it.”
Claire gritted her teeth. Kill him. Cook him on a spit. “Dad is not in charge right now. And this is for Aunt Astrid, okay? You love Aunt Astrid.”
“If Aunt Astrid really loved me, she’d let me be myself.”
Claire felt the color drain from her face. She could almost hear exactly how Josh would’ve said those words to Ruby, kindly, gently, like it was the most natural thing in the world to simply do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, consequences and other people be damned.
“Ruby, I . . .”
But she didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know how to combat it. All her mom wisdom flew right out of her head, and she felt a weight settle on her shoulders, that heavy feeling of being unable to win.
“Can I see it?”
Claire’s head snapped up to see Delilah Green standing about five feet away, leaning against the hall entryway with her head tilted at Ruby.
“See what?” Claire asked.
But Delilah wasn’t talking to Claire, apparently. She looked straight at Ruby and asked her question again, nodding toward the garment bag in her arms.
“I . . . I guess?” Ruby said. “Who are you?”
Delilah smiled and walked toward them. “Wicked stepsister.” Then she winked at Ruby, and Claire’s daughter actually broke out in a full-face smile, eyes crinkling and everything.
“Oh, I’ve heard about you,” Ruby said, still grinning.
“Ruby,” Claire said, but Delilah just laughed.
“Have you now?”
Ruby nodded. Claire couldn’t remember ever talking about Delilah around Ruby, but god knows what Iris had said at their house on one of their cocktail nights. After even one drink, she got even more loose-lipped than normal, and Ruby liked to lurk when she was supposed to be in bed. Claire had caught her more than once over the years, sprawled out on her stomach in the hallway just out of sight, her chin propped up on her hands, eyes wide and hungry like she was listening for secrets about buried treasure.
“What have you heard?” Delilah asked, tilting her head.
Ruby opened her mouth, and Claire saw it happen—the realization of whatever she had to relay to Delilah wasn’t necessarily kind. Pink spread over her daughter’s cheeks, and her throat bobbed in a hard swallow.
“Um . . .” Ruby said, and Claire knew she had to step in, do something, say anything. She wracked her brain for a distraction, but then, Delilah’s smile . . . fell.
An unpleasant sensation swooped through Claire’s belly, shame or guilt or embarrassment, she wasn’t sure. She was sure, however, that Delilah also realized that whatever Ruby had heard wasn’t flattering.
“Never mind,” Delilah said, waving a hand, then tugged on the garment bag in Ruby’s arms. “So show me this dress.”
Ruby exhaled heavily. So did Claire, if she was being honest. She definitely didn’t want a reprisal of Iris’s drunken—or in some cases, stone-cold sober—tirades about the Ghoul of Wisteria House. Not that anything that Iris said was necessarily untrue—Delilah had left Bright Falls and Astrid, despite their strange childhood together, and never looked back—but seeing Delilah’s teasing smile plummet, as though a heavy blanket settled on her in the middle of a sweltering summer . . . well, Claire hadn’t been prepared for that.
“It’s horrible,” Ruby said as she unzipped the bag. “Just look.”
Delilah reached out a hand, pulling the lace and satin into view. Claire couldn’t be sure, but it looked as though her fingers shook, just a little, as she touched the dress. Her brow furrowed, mouth dipping downward.
“God, it is,” she said.
Ruby burst out laughing, and just like that, any empathy Claire had vanished.
“Are you serious right now?” she said as quietly as she could. Really, she wanted to scream. She didn’t need this. She just needed Ruby in the dress.
“I wouldn’t lie about something so important,” Delilah said, meeting Claire’s eyes. There was no malice there, no sarcasm. Just . . . well, hell, Claire couldn’t tell what was there. Delilah held her gaze for a beat longer than felt natural, her full mouth tipping up at the corners, just barely. Freckles spilled over her nose and onto her cheeks. Claire hadn’t noticed them last night in Stella’s dim lighting. Now, though, she saw them plain as day, and had a ridiculous desire to trace a pattern with her finger.