“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.