Delilah smirked.
“And I get that you’re into casual,” Claire went on. “That’s fine with me. Totally fine. After Astrid’s wedding, you’ll go back to New York and I’ll stay here and that’ll be that. But we’re here now. And I . . . well . . . I want to see you again.”
“You want to fuck me again, you mean,” Delilah said, but she was smiling. This she knew. This she understood. She’d had lovers she’d seen for multiple days, even weeks, before one of them broke it off for some amiable and practical reason.
Pink spilled into Claire’s cheeks. “Okay, fine. Yes. Don’t you?”
“Want to fuck me?”
“Delilah.”
She laughed, then moved their entwined hands around Claire’s waist, pulling the other woman closer. When their mouths touched, she whispered, “Yes. I want to fuck you again.”
Claire smiled against the kiss. “Good. We’re agreed, then.”
“Should we sign something?”
“Like a fuck-buddy pact?”
“Sure.” She slid her mouth down Claire’s neck, nipped at her earlobe. “You don’t want me spilling your dirty little secret, do you?”
Claire stiffened and leaned back so they were eye to eye. “Delilah. It’s not about you being a secret. It’s just—”
“You don’t want people to know about us.”
“Yeah.”
“Which is a secret.”
Claire wiggled out of her embrace. “Are you telling me you actually want Astrid to know?”
Delilah thought about it, the look of shock that would fill Astrid’s eyes, the pure, unadulterated thrill of victory. But then she thought about how Claire was probably right—Astrid would be upset, and with more than just Delilah. She’d be upset with Claire, and then this whole sex thing Delilah and Claire were doing would come to an abrupt end.
And Delilah didn’t want it to end. For the ten more days she had to spend in this soul-sucking town, she actually had a distraction now. A beautiful, sweet, amazing-in-bed distraction.
Who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth?
“No,” she said. “No, I guess I don’t.”
Claire relaxed, but then narrowed her eyes at Delilah, concern creasing her brow. “It’s not because I’m ashamed of you.”
Delilah laughed. “Okay. Sure. The Ghoul of Wisteria House is in your bed. No big deal.”
Claire’s eyes flashed with something that looked like hurt . . . even regret. “Delilah.”
She waved a hand. “Forget I said anything.”
“I don’t want to forget it.”
“Sure you do.”
“Hey.” Claire took her hand, squeezed it. “I’m not ashamed of you. But I’m allowed to have something that’s just mine, aren’t I? I don’t have to tell my best friends everything.”
“But you usually do, right?”
Claire sighed. “You and Astrid . . . It’s complicated.”
Delilah just stared at her.
“Isn’t it?” Claire asked.
In answer, Delilah simply unbuttoned her jeans, peeled them off her legs, and got back into bed. If she was going to talk about this, she definitely needed to be lying down. Claire watched her settle on her back, then followed her, pulling the sheet over both of them and propping her head on her elbow, eyes on Delilah’s face.
“It didn’t feel complicated,” Delilah said. “Growing up with her. It felt extremely simple.”
“What do you mean?”
Delilah stared at the ceiling, like she’d done so many nights before, listening to Claire and Iris and Astrid laughing in Astrid’s room, like she’d done while Isabel hosted dinner parties Delilah knew her stepmother didn’t really want her to attend.
“It was simple,” she said again. “My mother was gone. My father died. Isabel resented that she had to raise me alone. Astrid thought I was too strange to include, too sad, too much on the outside of her perfect world to be part of anything in her life. You were there for most of it. You saw it.”
There. It truly was so simple. Embarrassingly so. She actually couldn’t believe she’d just said all that out loud, admitted her . . . unlovability.
Claire was silent for a beat, and Delilah didn’t dare look at her. An ache started in her throat.
“I did see it,” Claire said. “Astrid . . . she’s a hard person to know. She holds things really close. I think Isabel just drilled into her this idea of never letting them see you sweat, you know? Or cry or show any kind of weakness. Vulnerability is hard for her, but when she does let you in, she’s loyal and strong and would do anything for you. That’s who I saw, and I guess I just . . . never understood why you didn’t.”
Delilah’s chest tightened. “Because she didn’t let me in, Claire. You just said it yourself, she’s a hard person to know and she didn’t give two shits about me knowing her.”
Claire frowned but had nothing to say to that.
“And by default,” Delilah said, “neither did you or Iris.”
“Delilah,” Claire said softly, leaning close to her so that her chin rested on Delilah’s shoulder. Which just made the ache worse. It made this whole thing the opposite of just sex. “I’m sorry.”
Delilah shook her head. “Don’t say that just because we’re screwing. It’s cheap.”
Claire pressed even closer. “I’m not saying it because we’re screwing. I’m saying it because I feel it. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder. I could’ve . . . I don’t know, pushed Astrid to include you more.”
“No one pushes Astrid to do anything.”
“Then I could’ve included you more.”
Delilah scoffed. “No, you couldn’t have. Because you didn’t want to.”
Silence filtered in between them, Claire left with no response in the face of the truth. Delilah waited for the awkwardness of it all to push them finally apart, for Claire to sigh and admit that maybe this was all a big mistake. She even waited to feel some of that old anger flare up, the resentment that had fueled her relationship with anyone in Bright Falls for over two decades.
Instead, she just felt sad, desperate to not feel that way anymore.
Claire reached out and slid a finger down Delilah’s cheek to her mouth before sliding her palm around the back of her neck. Instead of pushing her away, she pulled Delilah closer and pressed her forehead against hers.