“Shit, you okay?” Iris asked, steadying the vase of lilies at the center of the table.
Claire grimaced and nodded, rubbing her leg. “Yeah, sorry. Klutz over here.”
Delilah cracked a smile, which Claire returned, a lovely blush spreading over her cheeks. Watching this beautiful, completely adorable woman under the sinking sun, the whole day suddenly seemed hilarious—the one-room-at-the-inn faux pas, Claire locking herself in the bathroom like a self-conscious teenager, this ridiculous team effort to take Spencer down. As three-fourths of a glass of wine rivered through Delilah’s veins, her smile grew into a laugh she couldn’t hold back.
“What’s so funny?” Astrid asked.
Delilah shook her head, more laughter slipping through her mouth. Next to her, Claire started laughing too, her hand over her face and her shoulders shaking. Iris and Astrid just stared at each other, though Iris wore a tiny knowing smile that made Delilah feel a little less insane. Still, she had to get it together or Astrid would end up pouty and pissed, the opposite of what the three other women were going for.
Well, at least the opposite of what Iris and Claire were going for.
And right now, with the light and the wine and the laughs, all coupled with her own exhaustion, Delilah would give Claire Sutherland just about anything.
“Okay, so,” Delilah said, knocking back another swallow of wine and propping her elbows on the table. She leveled her gaze at Astrid and fluttered her lashes like a school girl at a sleepover. “Tell. Me. Everything.”
Iris choked on her wine, and Claire covered her smile with her hand. Astrid, however, didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes went wide, and she released a nervous laugh.
“What?”
“Spencer,” Delilah said, tearing a piece of bread in half and stuffing it in her mouth.
“Oh,” Astrid said. She picked up her glass and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. It did not escape Delilah’s notice that Astrid’s smile dimmed. Just a little. Just enough.
Apparently, it didn’t escape Claire’s notice either, as her leg nudged Delilah’s once before retreating again. Delilah played along, pressing her thigh back against Claire’s and then decidedly leaving it there. She heard Claire inhale slowly, but the other woman didn’t move.
“We don’t have to talk about him,” Astrid said, waving a hand. “I babble on about him enough.”
“Do you though?” Iris asked.
Delilah rolled her eyes. Iris was about as subtle as a kid on Christmas morning. But then, as Iris seemed to realize her less-than-suave prod and shoved some bread in her big mouth, something occurred to Delilah. A way in. A little gold nugget from her and Astrid’s childhood, one of the few memories she had that wasn’t laced with resentment.
“He’s your Gilbert Blythe, right?” she said, daintily sipping her wine. “Must be a lot to say about him.”
Astrid’s mouth fell open. “Gilbert . . . Gilbert Blythe?”
“Yeah, from . . .” Delilah pretended to be stumped, waving her hand in the air. “What was it?”
“Anne of Green Gables,” Claire said. Her leg twitched against Delilah’s but didn’t move away. Something fluttered in Delilah’s stomach, and she had to force herself to focus on the task at hand.
Delilah snapped her fingers. “Anne of Green Gables.”
“You remember Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables?” Astrid said.
“I remember how much you swooned over him,” Delilah said. And that Anne and Diana were obviously super gay and hot for each other, which was precisely what she’d told Astrid back when she’d first read the books. They were thirteen and Astrid had finished Anne of Green Gables first before leaving it on Delilah’s bed, something she sometimes did without any word of explanation. After reading the first four books in the series, Delilah had presented her Anne-and-Diana-are-queer theory over pizza one night while Isabel was at a charity event. Astrid hadn’t even argued with her, just laughed and said she was probably right and then proceeded to ramble on and on about how much she wanted her own Gilbert Blythe one day.
“Who didn’t swoon over Gilbert Blythe?” Astrid asked, and Claire and Iris both laughed.
Delilah raised her hand. “Gay as hell, remember?”
Astrid gave her a look and leaned forward. “You’re telling me your heart didn’t skip just a little when Gilbert rescued Anne on the river in her sinking skiff when she was pretending to be the Lily Maid or when he turned down the Avonlea teaching position so Anne could have it and stay with Marilla?”
Delilah tapped her chin. “Okay, maybe a little.” Then she held out both of her hands in front of her chest suggestively. “But only if I imagined Gilbert with a nice pair of—”
“Okay, I get the picture,” Astrid said, rolling her eyes.
“My heart did skip a few beats when Anne broke that slate over his head for calling her ‘Carrots,’ ” Delilah went on. “I thought, that’s my kind of woman.”
Iris snorted a laugh.
“Okay, but his proposal was amazing,” Claire said.
“Yes!” Astrid said, swallowing more wine. “Twice he proposed! She shot him down, and then he asked her again years later, telling her she was his dream.” She tipped her glass at Delilah. “Come on, even you have to admit that’s romantic.”
Another leg nudge. “Yep. I sure do have to admit that.”
Claire lowered her head, and Delilah only knew she was silently laughing because her body shook a little.
“So how did Spencer do it, then?” Delilah asked. “Was it as romantic as all that?”
Astrid’s smile dipped again, but she covered it with a sip of wine.
“Oh, come on, I haven’t heard this story,” Delilah said, and immediately knew her voice was way too chipper. She sounded like someone out of a Jane Austen novel. Astrid full-on frowned, and Iris just looked at her like she was on drugs. Only Claire seemed to be enjoying the spectacle, her thigh warm and right there and her mouth pressed flat to keep from laughing. Delilah felt her own laughter trying to bubble up from her chest into her mouth, and she took a large swallow of wine to keep it inside. She felt oddly relaxed though, less edges and more rounded corners, that raw feeling from earlier fading at every stolen glance with Claire.
Or maybe it was just the seventy-dollar bottle of wine.
“We haven’t either,” Iris said after throwing both Delilah and Claire a get your shit together look.
“Yes, you have,” Astrid said.
“No,” Iris said. “At the end of March, you texted us to meet you at Stella’s, and when we got there, you showed us the ring and said he proposed and immediately started babbling about wedding plans. You’d even already set a date by the time we found out.”