“Okay, let’s call her,” she said.
Iris grinned and pressed her phone to her ear. “Already had her number pulled up.”
Chapter Eighteen
MIRACULOUSLY, ASTRID AGREED to the camping trip. Delilah watched it all unfold while leaning against the kitchen sink. It took three calls and a few text messages before her stepsister answered the phone, but Iris could be damned determined when she wanted to be, and when Claire got on the call, explaining how she needed her friends there to support her, especially since she couldn’t be trusted around Josh, Astrid apparently caved like a hollowed-out cream puff.
I can’t be trusted around Josh, Astrid. You know I can’t.
That’s what Claire had said. Quietly, as though she was loath to admit it, but Delilah still heard it, loud and clear, like a church bell ringing through the town square.
She hadn’t even wanted to come to Claire’s in the first place. At least that’s what she told herself the entire Lyft ride over here. She’d been perfectly content to reply to all of Iris’s annoying-as-hell text messages with random emojis, but the woman had to go and suggest they meet at Claire’s to regroup, and suddenly, a DNA strand emoji just didn’t feel like the right response. Then she’d been the one to cave, agreeing and bolting out of her too-quiet room at the inn before she could even think through what she was doing.
Going to see Claire again, that’s what she was doing.
She didn’t give two shits about Iris’s plan or Astrid and Spencer. But now, standing in Claire’s cozy kitchen with its butcher-block counters and farmhouse sink, watching her pace around her living room, which was covered with books and soft throws and photographs of Ruby all over the mantel, she could admit it.
She’d wanted to see Claire.
Ever since Astrid left her room yesterday, Delilah had felt unsettled. She craved something, something sweet, something she didn’t have to constantly try and maneuver around, figure out, strategize about. And after that kiss with Claire at the vineyard . . . well, Delilah didn’t feel very calculating at all.
She just felt fucking lonely.
And now Claire was telling Astrid how she needed her so she wouldn’t screw her ex on a camping trip.
Okay, maybe Claire wasn’t using those exact words, but the effect was the same, and Delilah couldn’t seem to get rid of this burning sensation in her chest, no matter how many deep breaths she took. It was the same kind of oily dread she’d felt five years ago when she’d unlocked the apartment she’d shared with Jax, moans she didn’t recognize already filtering under the door.
Which was ridiculous. She’d been with Jax for two years. She’d kissed Claire once, hadn’t even slept with her. It wasn’t nearly the same thing.
Still, she went to Claire’s refrigerator and took out a beer. She’d been determined not to drink, to keep a clear head around Claire so she didn’t do anything too terribly stupid, but now, as memories of Jax and Mallory melded with brand-new visions of Claire and Josh humping like rabbits in a tent under the stars, she needed something to calm her nerves.
“Okay,” Claire said, ending the call with Astrid. “It’s done.”
“You should probably tell Josh,” Iris said. “Make sure he reserves enough camping spots.”
“Oh yeah, I probably should.” She handed Iris back her phone, then grabbed her own from the center island. She looked at Delilah, opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Delilah held her gaze this time. She wanted Claire to . . .
To what?
Tell her Josh meant nothing to her?
Invite her to share a sleeping bag?
Kick Iris out and kiss her senseless?
Fuck.
Yes. Yes, Delilah wanted Claire to do all of those things.
She looked away first, taking a long pull of her beer. God, she needed something stronger. She needed . . . to not feel like this. She didn’t do relationships. She did flirting. She did sex. And she did it damn well. So maybe she needed to do what she did so well with Claire, and this hard knot in her stomach would untangle. Perhaps it was just a lust knot. True, she’d never heard of or experienced a lust knot before, but hell, there was a first time for everything.
Claire took her phone and drifted off down the hall while Delilah drank some more. Iris eyed her from where she’d landed on the couch.
And kept eyeing her.
“Can I help you?” Delilah asked.
Iris lifted a brow, but before she could say anything, the doorbell rang.
“That would be our pizza,” Iris said.
“Awesome.” Delilah didn’t budge, even though she was closer to the door. Finally, Iris huffed an annoyed breath, making Delilah smile and feel a bit more like herself, and got up to get the food.
* * *
DELILAH KNEW SHE should probably just go back to the inn, but after the pizza arrived and Ruby came into the kitchen with Claire, positively beaming from the news that they were all going camping together, the girl hooked her arm through Delilah’s and asked her to sit next to her while they ate. There was no way Delilah could tell her no, not with those hazel puppy dog eyes and the “tattoo” she’d apparently inked on the inside of her arm after Delilah had left her room earlier.
“That’s cool,” Delilah said, motioning to a black-penned rose near Ruby’s wrist. It was actually a pretty amazing drawing, the petals detailed, the thorns dripping with dew.
“Oh, um, thanks,” Ruby said as they sat down at one end of Claire’s farmhouse kitchen table. A blush spread into her cheeks.
Claire, who was sitting across from Delilah next to Iris, smiled, but said nothing of her daughter coloring all over her skin. Delilah was glad, and she could tell, by the way Ruby’s shoulders relaxed a little, that Ruby was too.
Delilah took a bite of mushroom spinach pizza. “Do you like to draw?”
Ruby nodded and shrugged at the same time, her chin ducking to her chest. God, Delilah felt the girl’s awkwardness in her bones, a familiar ache of not knowing where or how to fit.
“I should get you to design a tattoo for me,” she said.
Ruby’s head snapped up. “Really?”
“Yeah. You’re good. Do you have any other drawings I could see?”
Ruby blinked at her then leaped up from the table and sprinted toward her room.
“You just made her year,” Claire said, leaning across the table a little.
Delilah swallowed a bit of pizza and shrugged. “I’m not placating her. She’s good.”