Ruby looked up at her. “Really?”
“Absolutely.” She tapped on the Color tab. “You can adjust the temperature here—like cooler and warmer tones—and the vibrancy, which will leach out that color without making it full-on black-and-white.”
Ruby nodded and started fiddling with the app. Delilah sat back, and when she looked up, she saw Claire watching them from the picnic table. She’d tried to appease Josh by offering to help with the chili he planned to cook, so now she was popping open cans of beans and dumping them into a pot while he seared some meat over the firepit. Claire had a little smile on her face, her eyes soft as she watched Ruby create.
Delilah got up, leaving Ruby to do her thing, and sat across from Claire at the table.
“Thank you for that,” Claire said, prying open another can of black beans.
“Nothing to thank me for,” Delilah said. “It was fun. She’s an amazing kid, Claire.”
Claire beamed. “She is.”
“She’s talented.”
“You think so?”
“Hell yes. She draws really well, and she’s got a good eye, good instincts.”
Claire took a deep breath, but then her smile faded as she looked off toward the trail. “Should we be worried that they’re still not back?”
Delilah frowned, picking up Claire’s phone to look at the time. The hikers had been gone awhile. “Did you text Iris?”
Claire nodded. “And Astrid. Three times. But the signal’s not great out here.”
“Maybe they—”
But she was cut off by the sound of voices coming from the trail. The three hikers appeared, all of them scowling, and they looked . . . well, they looked horrible. Spencer was fully clothed and soaking wet, including his leather sneakers, which made a distinct squelching sound as he stomped into view. Iris had twigs sticking out of her hair, and Astrid’s expression was a thunderstorm.
No, a hurricane.
“Uh-oh,” Claire said, wincing. She stood up and started toward her friends, but stopped when Spencer flung his pack down with a loudly yelled “thank fuck that’s over” and then disappeared into his tent.
“What happened?” Claire asked as Astrid took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes.
“Nothing,” she said. “We just got a little lost.”
“Shit,” Josh said, standing up from where he was squatting by the fire. “Are you okay?”
“Obviously,” Astrid said, her voice dripping with disdain.
Josh lifted his hands as though surrendering and went back to cooking, muttering something under his breath Delilah couldn’t decipher.
“We didn’t get lost,” Iris said. “Spencer, oh great wonder of the outback, got us lost.”
“Iris,” Astrid said, sighing. “Just drop it.”
“It’s not my fault your fiancé can’t stick to a trail,” Iris said. “The path is clearly marked, but oh no, he just had to be Daniel Boone out there.”
“He wanted to explore.”
“That’s how people die in the woods, Astrid, which I clearly told him.”
“Well, we didn’t die.”
“No, we just got a million bug bites, saw a fucking black bear, and ran out of water an hour ago. Real good time exploring.”
“Whoa, whoa, you saw a bear?” Claire asked.
“It was far away,” Astrid said, rolling her eyes. “And it didn’t even hear us.”
Delilah grabbed her water bottle and walked it over to Iris, who snatched it out of her hands and gulped it noisily. Claire offered hers to Astrid, who took it with her eyes focused on the ground.
“The only good part was when Spencer Dearest took a little tumble after he decided he could never be a real man unless he forded the great rivers of the earth.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Iris,” Astrid said. “He was trying to fill up his water bottle.”
“Good way to get cholera, that,” Iris said.
Astrid shoved the bottle back into Claire’s hands and stomped off toward her tent without another word.
“Jesus,” Delilah said, fighting a smile. Nothing was more entertaining than an Astrid Parker off her poised game. But when she turned back around to see Iris glaring at Claire and Claire wringing her hands, her joy evaporated.
“You,” Iris said, teeth gritted. “Left. Me.”
“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I thought—”
“You left me alone with them, and you know I can’t keep my mouth shut around that shit loafer.”
“What did you say to him?” Claire asked.
“Which time? When he wouldn’t shut up about his precious Italian leather shoes that he wore into the fucking woods or when he kept telling Astrid that there was no shame in using a walking stick since she was pretty out of shape? Or, no, wait, how about the time he started grilling me about why Grant and I aren’t married and don’t have any kids, even though Astrid asked him to drop it, and then he started waxing poetic about how my eggs were drying up?”
“Holy shit, he said that?” Claire asked.
“He said that. I’m just glad Grant had to work today and wasn’t around to hear it.” Iris’s shoulders slumped, all her breath leaving her lungs as she rubbed her forehead.
Delilah felt as though she was missing something here, something important and best-friend-shaped, but she didn’t know how to ask.
“Honey, I’m so sorry,” Claire said, stepping close to Iris and rubbing her arms. “Josh and I fought and I just—”
“I get it,” Iris said, her voice soft now. “But our plan, I fear, has gone to shit.”
“I don’t know,” Delilah said. “Astrid didn’t look happy.”
“Yeah,” Iris said. “With me.”
Delilah tilted her head. “Maybe a little. But it sounds like Spencer was a real jackass. Maybe she’s partly frustrated with him too.”
Iris looped her arm through Claire’s and rested her head on her friend’s shoulder, her anger clearly forgotten. “Maybe. I did find out that she didn’t ask him to come on the trip.”
“She didn’t?” Claire asked.
“Nope. When we got lost, they started arguing because Astrid wanted to turn back and he thought we should keep going. He snapped at her that the trip was her idea, and she snapped back that she hadn’t asked him to come in the first place. That he just had to tag along because he didn’t think she could brave the woods by herself.”