It wasn’t like Isabel mourned her leaving.
Neither did Astrid, as far as Delilah could tell, though every now and then, this would happen. Texts that went ignored and turned into awkward phone calls where Astrid tried to pretend she hadn’t made Delilah’s already lonely childhood a living hell. Delilah had been back to Bright Falls five or six times in the past twelve years—a few Christmases and Thanksgivings, a funeral when her favorite art teacher had died. The last time was five years ago, when Delilah fled New York with a freshly obliterated heart, mistakenly thinking the familiarity of Bright Falls might serve as a balm. It hadn’t, but it had given Delilah an idea for a photo series that had changed her ambition from struggling freelance photographer who barely made rent to successful queer artist with an amazing apartment in Williamsburg.
Which she still hadn’t achieved, but she was trying.
“So . . . are you coming?”
Astrid’s voice cut through her musings, and she blinked Lucinda’s kitchen back into view. “Coming . . .” A dirty joke rested on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back.
“Oh my god,” Astrid said. “Are you serious? Tell me you are not serious.”
“I—”
“Delilah, tell me!”
“I’m trying if you’d shut up for two seconds!”
Astrid blew out a breath so loud, it buzzed in Delilah’s ear. “Okay. Okay, I’m sorry, I’m just stressed. There’s a lot going on.”
“Right,” Delilah said, racking her brain for what the hell was going on. “Um, so—”
“Nope, no, no. You are not canceling on me, Delilah Green. Tell me that is not what you’re doing.”
“Jesus, Ass, take a Xanax, will you?”
“Please don’t call me that and do not cancel on me.”
Delilah let a beat of silence pass. Maybe seeing her own art on actual gallery walls, tiny as they may be, followed by great sex had just addled her brain a little, and whatever the hell Astrid was talking about would come roaring back to clarity. She pulled the phone from her ear and hit the speakerphone button, then checked the date on her calendar app—Saturday, June 2. Wee hours. Friday the first was definitely a date that had been cemented in her mind for months as she prepped for the Fitz show. But there was something else there, something June-ish and Astrid-shaped and—
Oh fuck.
“Your wedding,” Delilah said.
“Yes, my wedding,” Astrid said. “The one I’ve been planning for months and for which Mother insisted I hire you as a photographer.”
“Don’t sound so excited.”
“I have another word for it.”
“You’re not really helping your case here, Ass.”
Astrid huffed into the phone.
“I’m still crushed I’m not a bridesmaid,” Delilah deadpanned, but with the revelation of her stepsister’s impending nuptials to some poor sucker, her heart picked up its pace as both terror and relief flooded her system.
On the one hand, a Parker society wedding in Bright Falls was the absolute last thing she wanted to do right now. Or ever. She’d rubbed elbows with a few agents at the Fitz show and sold one whole piece—granted the patron was currently sleeping in the next room, but Loretta one hundred percent forked over her money before even batting a single lash Delilah’s way. At least, Delilah was pretty sure that’s how it happened, as she was too busy freaking the fuck out that someone traded actual money for something she’d created.
Regardless, now was not the time for Astrid-slash-Isabel bullshit. Delilah felt as though she was on the edge of something, being someone, and Bright Falls was a soul-sucking pit of despair where she was absolutely no one.
On the other hand—the hand that tried to keep Delilah fed and clothed—Isabel Parker-Green had offered her a ridiculous sum of money to photograph Astrid’s wedding and two weeks’ worth of pre-wedding events. As the details from when Astrid first called Delilah about this happy event floated back to her now, there were definitely five figures involved. Low five figures, but still. Pocket change to Isabel Parker-Green and to most Brooklynites, but to Delilah, who could stretch a dollar for days, it was an IV to her dehydrated bank account.
Along with the money, which Astrid almost certainly knew Delilah couldn’t refuse, Astrid had also delivered an oh-so-subtly manipulative, “Mom says your father would’ve wanted you at my wedding.” Delilah still resented her for it, mostly because she knew Isabel was right. While he’d been alive, Andrew Green had been a devoted family man to the point of ridiculousness, insisting on nightly dinners and spring break vacations, Christmas Eve traditions and checking homework and learning how to plait hair just so Delilah wouldn’t be the only girl at the Renaissance Faire field trip without a braid crown.
A wedding would be nonnegotiable. You showed up for family, even if you got paid for it and gritted your teeth the entire time.
“Pre-wedding events start on Sunday,” Astrid said now. “You agreed to be there for all of it, remember? The details I emailed you indicate you’re booked June third through the sixteenth. I signed your contract, agreeing to all of your terms, and—”
“I know, I know, yes,” Delilah said, running a hand over her hair. Shit, she did not want to go back to Bright Falls for two whole weeks. And it was Pride month. She loved Pride in New York City. Who the hell started all this wedding nonsense that far before the actual day anyway? Well, Delilah knew exactly who.
“Astrid—”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“That mouth, Ass. What would Isabel say.”
“She’d say that and a lot worse if you’re about to cancel on her only daughter’s wedding on such short notice.”
Delilah sucked in a breath, even though she tried not to.
Her only daughter.
She wanted to fight the sting, to let the words slide right over her, but she failed. It was a reflex, this feeling, left over from a childhood with two dead parents and a stepmother who never really wanted her in the first place.
“Shit,” Astrid said, her tone regretful and irritated at the same time, as though Delilah had made her forget that Isabel had been Delilah’s sole guardian after her father, Isabel’s second husband, had died of an aneurysm when Delilah was ten years old.
“There’s that mouth again,” Delilah said, laughing through a thick throat. “I think I might like this new stressed-out Astrid.”
Her stepsister didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but the silence was long enough for Delilah to know she’d be on a morning flight out of JFK.