“I didn’t know I was ignoring you,” Delilah finally said, her voice so soft, Claire almost didn’t hear it. “I thought . . . I thought that’s what you wanted.”
Astrid shook her head, lifting her hands and letting them flop back to her sides. “So you come back to town, conspire behind my back with the only people in my life I really love, steal my best friend, just to what? Get back at me?”
Delilah rubbed her forehead, but she stayed silent.
“Oh,” Astrid said. “I forgot. That’s exactly what you did. You even told me you were going to do it. Didn’t you?”
Delilah’s hand dropped. “What? Astrid, Claire and I—”
“Let me guess. It just happened.”
“Yeah. It did.”
“I’m sure. She came after you, right? She wanted you. You’re irresistible. You had nothing to do with it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Astrid sniffed. “So you didn’t bet me you could get into Claire’s pants before the wedding?”
It took Claire a few seconds to realize what Astrid had said, the words settling around the room like a sudden snow shower in April—quiet and cold and shocking.
Claire turned to look at Delilah. “You . . . you did what?”
Delilah pressed her eyes closed. “That’s not what happened.”
“Hang on, hang on,” Iris said. “Delilah bet you she could sleep with Claire?”
“The morning of the brunch,” Astrid said, gesturing at Claire. “She said you were looking well, and I told her to stay the hell away from you and she just grinned. Like it was a joke. Then she bet me she could get you in her bed in two weeks’ time.”
“And you took it?” Iris said, her mouth gaping.
“No! I told her to go fuck herself.”
“That’s not what happened,” Delilah said again, but her voice sounded frail, unsure.
“So you didn’t try to sleep with Claire just to get under my skin?” Astrid asked.
“You’re twisting it around,” Delilah said.
“Am I?”
“Wait,” Iris said, stepping farther into the room. “This can’t be right. What are we missing?” She frowned at Delilah, hurt furrowing her brow.
And still, Delilah said nothing. Nothing in defense. No explanation. She just stood there, her arms crossed, her eyes on the floor, teeth worrying at her bottom lip like she was trying to think of what to say. But if she even had to think, had to worry, then . . .
Claire couldn’t process this. She turned to look at the woman she’d just begged to be more with her. The woman she couldn’t stop thinking about, couldn’t imagine letting go back to New York without a plan to be in each other’s lives. She knew Delilah was rough around the edges. She knew Delilah was brash and brazen, and she actually loved all that about her. Plus, underneath all that, Delilah was . . . She was soft. And gentle and considerate and brave. She was real. It had all felt so real.
It was real.
Wasn’t it?
But now, the truth of how unfeasible their whole relationship was settled on Claire’s shoulders.
Claire had asked Delilah to stay. To try. To figure it out together.
And Delilah . . . hadn’t said yes. She’d kissed Claire, touched her so gently and tenderly it made Claire’s throat tighten just remembering it, but she hadn’t said yes. Because she couldn’t. Moreover, she didn’t want to. Delilah was always going to leave, just like Josh, just like Claire’s father. Regardless of how this started, no matter what she felt for Delilah or what she had hoped might happen, she couldn’t give her heart to someone else just to have them disappear on her again.
Whatever this was between them—sex, more, nothing—it was over.
Because Delilah Green would never stay in Bright Falls for Claire Sutherland.
“Claire,” Delilah said. “Please, can we—”
But Claire held up her hand, cutting Delilah off. Delilah flinched like she’d been slapped, and that’s what it felt like to Claire too—her palm smarting, fingers shaking, adrenaline rushing through her veins.
Finally, Delilah nodded once, her jaw tight, and walked toward the hallway.
“Go ahead and walk away,” Astrid said quietly. “It’s what you do best.”
Delilah paused in the doorway, her shoulders up around her ears. Claire wanted to scream, no, no, no, this wasn’t right, but it was. It was, because Delilah didn’t turn around, she didn’t stay, she didn’t push.
She just left.
Chapter Thirty
JOSH WAS GONE.
Claire had to admit it now.
It had been two days since she’d heard from him.
It had been two days since a lot of things.
Two days since Astrid called off her wedding, since she’d walked in on Delilah and Claire. Two days since Delilah left Bright Falls. Two days since Astrid had spoken to Claire at all.
Iris had been the reluctant go-between, texting Claire with things she could do to help Astrid cancel the wedding. Since Wednesday, Claire had holed up inside her house, telling her manager Brianne she was sick while, really, she lay on her couch drinking lemon LaCroix until she switched over to wine around five p.m. each day, making phone calls to wedding guests and vendors or whoever Iris commanded via text.
Claire hadn’t talked to Iris either. At least not in person. After Delilah had walked out of Astrid’s room, Claire had tried to talk to Astrid, tell her about her whole thought process since things started up with Delilah, but Astrid hadn’t wanted to hear it. And she was right—this wasn’t the time for Claire to make excuses, no matter how justified Claire felt in her decisions. Astrid had just called off her wedding. She was heartbroken . . . though Claire didn’t think her heartbreak was over Spencer. Not after everything that had passed between Astrid and Delilah.
So Claire’s phone became an endless stream of cold, imperative texts, all of them void of any personal questions.
Call the florist.
Emailed you a list of guests to call.
Cancel the Graydon String Quartet. Here’s their number.
She’d done it all with a thumbs-up emoji and timely execution, completing whatever task she could to help Astrid take care of this mess . . . a mess she’d wanted, a mess she’d planned for with Iris and Delilah. She didn’t have a justification for that, for why she never felt comfortable being honest with Astrid about her feelings toward Spencer, why she always shrank away from confrontation.