“My point is that the next couple weeks are going to suck, and there’s no way you’re going to find someone in Vivian’s Tearoom or at a spa at Blue Lily Vineyard.”
Claire balked. “Hey, some sexy stuff can happen at spas.”
“Not at the kind Astrid frequents.”
“You never know.”
Iris leaned forward. “So you’re telling me that you’d get busy with your masseuse if they were into it? Like”—she flicked her eyes down to Claire’s purportedly neglected nether regions and waggled her eyebrows—“busy.”
“Oh, for sure.”
“Bullshit.”
Claire lifted her hands and let them drop. “Okay, fine, so I’d like to go on a date first. Sue me.”
“I know. You’re not wired for casual, and that’s okay. Hence, a phone number. I know you hate Tinder and Her and Salad Match.”
“I don’t hate them, I just—wait, Salad Match?”
“Find your salad soul mate. It’s a thing.”
“Oh my god.”
“Exactly.”
Claire rubbed her eyes under her glasses. The dating world was terrifying. Not that she’d ventured into it very much. She’d dipped a toe in with Nicole, and that was enough. “I’m raising a kid here, Ris.”
Iris’s eyes went soft, and she reached out and squeezed Claire’s hand. “I know. You’ve worked hard. You’ve sacrificed a lot, and you’ve got a great kid to show for it.”
Claire’s throat went a little thick at the emotion in her friend’s voice. “Ris—”
“Which is all the more reason to enjoy a nice non-self-induced orgasm.”
Claire smiled, and Iris got that gleam in her eyes, the same kind she got whenever she was working on a planner design or bought a brand-new set of Tombow markers. That never say die kind of sparkle.
“Okay.” Claire sat up straight, rolled her shoulders back and her neck from side to side like she was getting ready for a boxing match. “Okay, I can do this.”
“Hell yeah, you can.”
“I’m hot, right?”
“Hot and a badass bitch.”
She shook out her hands. “Just one number. How hard could it be?”
“Easy. Everyone in the whole damn room wants your number.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I would.” Iris reached across the table and slapped Claire on the back, shouting, “Go get ’em, tiger,” over the din, and then sat back to sip on her drink with an excited grin on her face.
Claire turned in her chair and faced the lacquered bar, watching its activity for a few seconds. She looked over her shoulder at Iris. “One number.”
“One number. That’s it. A valid number. As in someone you actually find hot or interesting or whatever floats your mom boat these days.”
Claire stuck out her tongue at her friend.
“Save that for better uses, my love,” Iris said, winking.
Claire laughed. “Fine, fine.” She turned back around with a deep breath. Stella’s was busy tonight. It usually was on the weekends. Or any other night, for that matter. Bright Falls was charming, and she loved it, but with only a handful of shops, most of which closed at six p.m. on the dot, and just a few restaurants, the one bar in town was bound to be packed on a regular basis. She scanned the tables around the bar top, hoping to spot Hannah Li again. She’d definitely feel more comfortable approaching a woman or someone nonbinary. Since coming out as bi when she was a junior in high school, she’d always felt more drawn to other queer people or femmes. Josh being one of the few, albeit huge, exceptions. Still, she knew every queer woman in this town, and half of them were already married or partnered—including Iris, who’d figured out she was bi her sophomore year in college and would always and forever be more sister than potential partner—so the chances of someone single actually hanging out in Stella’s tonight was slim.
And Hannah was nowhere in sight, not at her original table, not at the bar.
Claire started to turn back to Iris, ready to give up, when her eyes snagged on a pair of tight black jeans.
The woman was white and had just reached the bar, a rolling suitcase by her side. Her hair was dark and curly, volume for miles. She had her back to the room, and Claire couldn’t take her eyes off the way she leaned over the bar to give her drink order to Tom, the bartender that night, pressing up onto the toes of her black boots. Tattoos vined down her bare arms. God, Claire loved a good tattooed arm.
And those jeans. Those jeans were nice.
“Attagirl,” Iris said from behind her.
Claire turned. “You don’t even know who I’m looking at.”
“Please.” Iris tipped her glass toward the tattooed woman. “You have a type, and that person is it, all broody and mysterious.”
Claire opened her mouth to protest, but when Iris was right, she was right. She smoothed her hands over her own jeans, made sure the collar of her blouse was lying flat, and adjusted her glasses. Then she stood up and started toward the bar.
Chapter Three
STELLA’S TAVERN SMELLED exactly like it did the last time Delilah was here—booze, sweat, and sawdust from the lumber mill on the outskirts of town that big, burly workers were constantly tracking in on their boots.
She hadn’t exactly planned on stopping by a bar the moment she got out of her Lyft. But it took about fifteen seconds of glancing around the darkened Bright Falls city center to remember that the whole damn place shut down when the sun disappeared, even on a Saturday. The inn where she was going to stay sure as hell didn’t have a liquor license—it was more of a glorified B and B—and there was no way she was dealing with her step-monsters without a little liquid courage.
Once inside, though, she hesitated, her limbs suddenly rubbery as the laughter and music hit her ears. It’d been five years since she was last in Bright Falls. She’d fled New York, fled Jax and her gorgeous lying mouth for this—the coziness of the town, all these faces who’d known one another for lifetimes, this club she’d never quite felt like she belonged to, but felt fascinated by nonetheless. Ever since she and her father had moved here from Seattle when she was eight, a shiny new ring on his left hand, it had been this way, like she was standing outside a warmly lit house in the rain, tapping on the window. And it got even worse after her dad died two years later, leaving Delilah with a stepmother and stepsister who had no idea what to do with her.
Delilah took a deep breath and eyed the bar. It was a short thirty paces from where she stood, a sea of bodies between her and a drink. She was a New Yorker. An artist. A struggling artist, yes, but an artist nonetheless, goddammit. This town, her family, would absolutely not bring her to her knees. Not anymore.