Both women froze, humid exhales swirling between them.
That better have been my fucking imagination, Delilah thought. But then another knock echoed through the quiet room, followed by the worst possible sound in the entire world—her stepsister’s voice.
“Claire? Delilah? Are you awake?”
“Oh my god,” Claire whispered, scrambling out from under Delilah like she was on fire. She was out of the bed, straightening her tank top and fixing her hair on top of her head before Delilah had even sat up. “Shit.”
“It’s okay,” Delilah said. “Take a minute.”
“Claire?” Astrid called again, knocking even harder.
“Yeah!” Claire yelled, clicking on the lamp. “Just a sec!”
She stood there with her hands on her hips while Delilah watched. When Claire’s gaze fell on her, her eyes widened.
“Your hair.”
Delilah lifted a hand to her locks, feeling the curls Claire’s fingers had pulled loose from the hair tie. “It’s a mess, huh?”
“It’s sex hair,” Claire said, panic lacing her voice. “Can you fix it?”
Delilah never broke eye contact as she fully released her hair and then pulled it back up into a neat, sexless pile.
“Claire—”
“We can’t tell her,” Claire said, twining her fingers together. “Okay?”
Delilah just stared at her. That something else feeling from before started closing in on her thoughts. This had happened before. A potential partner shutting things down for some reason or another. Delilah always handled it fine. Shit happened. People were complicated. She was disappointed, but she got it, and she’d simply go home and rub one out, and that would be that.
But this . . . didn’t feel like that. This felt different, a hollow feeling expanding in Delilah’s chest, and she wanted to scream. Claire was just another lay. A vengeance lay at that.
But something in Delilah’s face must’ve given her away, because Claire’s shoulders slumped and she took a step closer to where Delilah still sat in the bed. “It’s not . . . It’s just . . . with Spencer and the wedding, we can’t . . . She’d freak out and I—”
“I get it,” Delilah said calmly, but that hole in her chest just kept growing, eating up all her normal. She looked away, inhaling quietly and slowly while she fixed the tangled bedsheets and draped them serenely over her lap. When they were smooth and crisp, when her heart had retreated back to its rightful spot behind her ribs, she looked up at Claire and smiled. “Okay, you can let her in.”
Claire opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Astrid pounded on the door again. Claire straightened her tank top one more time before hurrying toward the door. Astrid swept inside, eyes scanning the room like a mother looking for a teenage boy in the middle of the night.
“Are you okay?” she asked, looking at Claire.
“What?” Claire asked. “Me? Yeah, I’m fine.” She waved a hand through the air, made a psh noise with her mouth, then rested that same hand on her shoulder.
Delilah would’ve bust out laughing if her throat wasn’t doing this weird thick, achey thing.
“What are you two doing?” Astrid asked, turning her gaze on her stepsister.
Delilah tilted her head, the truth right on the edge of her tongue. This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? To prove Astrid wrong about herself and Claire. To win. True, she and Claire hadn’t had sex, but in some ways, what she and Claire had done was even more profound. More intimate, the slow slide of mouths, fingertips shyly ghosting over skin. This was Delilah’s moment, her chance. Sure, Claire had asked her to keep it between them, but what did that have to do with Delilah, really? What did she care what Claire Sutherland wanted of her?
She didn’t.
She couldn’t.
But as her eyes found Claire’s, her lashes thick and wide and pleading around all that deep brown, Delilah couldn’t get the words around that cavern in her chest.
“Nothing,” Delilah said. “Just talking. About to go to sleep, I think.”
“Yep,” Claire said, her eyes still locked on Delilah. “I’m pretty beat.”
Astrid looked between the two of them, frowning. “Well, good thing I caught you, then.”
“Caught us?” Claire said, her cheeks flushed.
“Before you went to sleep,” Astrid said, and Delilah noticed Claire’s shoulders loosen. “There’s a room available. For Delilah.”
Claire squinted at the clock on the bedside table. “At eleven thirty?”
“I told Hadley or whatever her name was to let us know anytime. Apparently, someone just called in and canceled their night’s reservation. Delayed flight or something.”
“Oh,” Claire said.
Delilah couldn’t tell whether Claire was relieved or disappointed, but she wasn’t going to stick around to find out. She needed to get out of here. Now.
“Great,” she said, tossing the covers back and grabbing her camera off the bedside table. She packed it into its bag, then headed into the bathroom to get her toiletries.
“Wait,” Claire said. “I can go. You stay.”
“Oh no,” Delilah said, shaking her head as she came back into the bedroom and tossed her bag into her suitcase. “This is your room. I’ll go.” She zipped up her suitcase and headed for the door. “Room number?”
“Two twelve,” Astrid said, handing her a key card. “I’ll go with you, it’s right next door to mine.”
“Fabulous,” Delilah said, opening the door and hurrying down the hall, suitcase rolling behind her. She heard Astrid tell Claire good night, heard the door close and Astrid’s telltale purposeful footsteps over the hardwood, but she didn’t look back or slow down until she was outside her door.
“Delilah, hang on,” Astrid said.
Delilah pressed her eyes closed as she fumbled the key card into the slot. “What is it?” she said without looking at her stepsister.
Astrid slid up next to her, leaning against the wall while Delilah fought to get the damn red light to go green. “Look, I’m sorry.”
Delilah paused in her battle. “For what?”
“For the room situation.”
Delilah finally looked at her. Her stepsister had her arms crossed over her chest, as usual, and looked extremely uncomfortable with this apology. “Are you?”
Astrid seemed to deflate, shoulders drooping. “Yes. I didn’t leave you out on purpose. When I made the reservation, I wasn’t sure you’d actually show, okay? I was going to call back, and then things just got busy and I’m not used to . . .” She trailed off, but Delilah knew what she was going to say. She wasn’t used to considering Delilah at all. That old, lonely feeling from childhood crept back up on her, piling on top of everything that had just happened with Claire.