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.
Chapter Eight
DELILAH STOOD IN the driveway, Wisteria House rising up above her. It was dusk, the air a soft lavender, and it seemed like a few people were already here. She could not—would not—walk into that house with just Isabel and make small talk. Or, in Isabel’s true medium, passive-aggressive talk. She wasn’t even sure she could walk in there regardless, even with it full of other people.
Wisteria House had always been a confusing place for Delilah. On the one hand, she’d lived here with her father for two years, from ages eight to ten. She remembered that time, unlike the foggy, unformed pictures in her mind from her earlier childhood in Seattle. Her mother, dead by the time Delilah turned four, was just a shadow by now, a blur of curly hair and a soft hand on her cheek. But her father, Andrew, she remembered his face perfectly, his dark blue eyes, the way he laughed so loudly, from way deep down in his belly, always causing Delilah to laugh too, even if she didn’t get the joke. Wisteria House was his, built and named for his new family, for his daughter he never got to see grow up.
But Wisteria House was also theirs. Isabel’s. Astrid’s. After Andrew died, Isabel’s grief was heavy, a dark cloak over everything. She’d already lost her first husband to cancer—which was one reason she and Andrew had initially bonded: a shared grief over a horrible disease—and losing another so suddenly nearly killed her. Delilah remembered thinking, through her own sad haze, that Isabel might actually die of a broken heart and then she and Astrid would be left truly alone or maybe even sent away.
But Isabel survived, and as she slowly came back to life, Delilah kept waiting for the mother she needed. The parent. She waited for comfort and assurance. Hell, just a hand squeezing her shoulder in passing would’ve made her heart feel a little bit more at home in her own chest. Astrid sure as hell wasn’t going to give it. But it never came from Isabel either. The woman fed her. Provided her with school supplies. Made sure she did her homework. Bought her Christmas presents. Clothed her with designer labels that Astrid loved and Delilah never cared for, but that was it. Basic needs, leaving love out of the equation altogether. Granted, she wasn’t overly affectionate with Astrid either, but she was involved. Always asking about school projects, Astrid’s friends, going to every single track meet during high school and cheering loudly, pushing Astrid to be better, faster. That was a kind of care, wasn’t it? Astrid lapped up all that attention when they were younger, and then seemed to grow annoyed by it when they got to high school. Still, whenever Delilah sat next to Isabel on those metal bleachers, watching Astrid fly around a track with her blond ponytail flicking behind her, Delilah craved a question, any question, any push to greatness.