: Chapter 14

GOD, THIS WOMAN was adorable.

Delilah finished wrapping her hair, all the while keeping her eyes on Claire as her light pink blush burgeoned into a deeper red. The other woman didn’t say anything else about the admittedly very large battery-operated dildo in her suitcase, so Delilah didn’t either. Which was fine, because watching Claire fight a laugh when Delilah threw the toy back into the suitcase, then proceed to be simultaneously embarrassed, was . . .

Well, it was just about the cutest fucking thing Delilah had ever seen.

Her stomach suddenly felt a little unsettled, fluttery, like it did before the Fitz show or every time she approached an agent at an event or hit send on an email. She hadn’t felt this belly-churning sensation over a woman since Jax, and she wasn’t a fan. But, she supposed, Claire wasn’t just some woman Delilah had met at an event or in a bar. She was Astrid’s BFF, had known Delilah as an awkward teenager. It was a different context, that was all.

At least, that’s what Delilah told herself as she tried to calm what felt like a million bees flying around in her stomach and grabbed her digital camera out of its bag. Her hands needed something to do as she approached the bed, something to focus on when she pulled the covers back.

A king mattress was like an ocean, but still. Claire was right there, and Delilah suddenly forgot how to make her limbs get into a bed like a normal person. She slid her knee in first, but then realized she’d be sitting on her legs, so she kicked her foot out from underneath her, which made her very nearly topple over on one elbow since her camera was still in her other hand.

Graciously, Claire ignored the awkwardness and picked up her phone, staring at the screen, but Delilah swore one corner of her mouth lifted a little. Delilah finally got settled in the cool sheets and flicked her camera to life. She began scrolling through the images she’d taken so far from the other wedding events, cringing at some bad lighting and then grinning at how, sometimes, that bad lighting made Isabel look like a crypt keeper.

“Have you gotten some good photos?” Claire asked, dropping her phone into her lap.

Delilah kept her eyes on her camera. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Can I look at some? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photograph of yours.”

Delilah glanced her way. Glasses, makeup-free face, hair in a pile on top of her head with her bangs brushing her eyelashes. One strap of her tank top had slid a little down her shoulder, and Delilah fought the urge to put it back in place.

Or slide it down even farther.

She cleared her throat and focused back on her screen.

“Sure,” she said, but then those damn bees were back, their wings filling her stomach to the edges. She flipped backward to the brunch images, looking for something special, something beautiful. She wasn’t sure why she cared what Claire thought about her photography skills, only knew that she did.

Finally, she landed on the perfect one.

She handed over the camera, which Claire took carefully, like she was handling a precious jewel—which she sort of was for what Delilah had paid for the thing—and then watched Claire’s face as she reacted to the image.

First her mouth parted, eyes widening, but then everything softened.

“Delilah,” she said. That was all. One word, but it was part voice, part sigh, and it was enough to make Delilah’s arms break out in goose bumps, which she tried to hide by curling them around her knees.

“I thought you’d like that one,” she said.

Claire nodded, eyes still glued to the black-and-white image of her and Ruby, sitting side by side at their table in Vivian’s. Ruby was looking down, her long lashes on her cheek and the smallest smile lifting the corners of her mouth, while Claire had her arm wrapped around her daughter’s shoulder, her nose pressed against Ruby’s hair. Claire, too, wore a little smile. Delilah had managed to zoom in on their faces while preserving the light, cutting out most of the plates and glasses in front of them on the table.

The photo was just them.

Mother and daughter.

“I love it,” Claire said, eyes still roaming over the screen. Finally, she lifted her gaze to Delilah. “You’re good.”

Delilah laughed and took back the camera. “You sound surprised.”

Claire shook her head. “Not surprised. Just . . . impressed.”

“The Ghoul of Wisteria House has talent, as it turns out.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Claire immediately stiffened, the air between them growing tense, but Delilah wouldn’t take it back even if she could. The bees had stilled their wings, and she needed to get her control back. She hadn’t lost her shit over a woman in five years, and she didn’t plan on starting now.

But then Claire said, “Delilah,” and goddamn if that one word, her name on this woman’s tongue, didn’t stir up the whole hive again.

Delilah waved a hand and set her camera on the nightstand. “We should probably get some rest.”

She flicked off the lamp and burrowed down into the sheets, her back to Claire. Next to her, she could tell the other woman hadn’t moved.

“How . . . how did you get into it?” Claire asked. “Photography?”

Delilah didn’t answer at first. But as her eyes adjusted to the dark, moonlight drifting in through the sheer curtains and silvering up the room, she found herself turning over, tucking her hands under her cheek, and arching her neck upward to see Claire’s face.

Claire looked down at her, a safe distance away, but then she shifted. She slid down, fluffing her pillow once and then settling on her side too, her hands underneath her own cheek, a mirror image of Delilah. Her movements had pushed her a little closer to Delilah, only about a foot of space between them. The air changed again, thickened with something close and new.

“You really want to know?” Delilah asked, keeping her voice low and quiet. Too loud and this whole spell might break, and she hadn’t decided yet if she wanted it to or not.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re a nice person. Nice people ask questions sometimes just because they think they should, not because they really give a shit.”

Claire’s brows pulled together. “I give a shit, okay?”

Delilah knew she should shut this down. She wanted to sleep with this woman, not bond over origin stories and childhood grievances, and this whole day had sent her off-balance. Between Astrid just plain forgetting to book her a room, Claire offering her own, and the sudden camaraderie she felt tonight with Claire and Iris—a feeling she wasn’t sure she’d ever experienced with women she wasn’t screwing—her heart felt larger in her chest, more tender, like a sunburn that screamed at the slightest touch. The words were all right there, the how and why of her life since Bright Falls, and she wanted to release them. Let them go. Let someone else carry them for a while. Or at least know. It had been so long since she told anyone her secrets. Just thinking about it now, all this solitary knowing, suddenly made her so tired.

All the more reason to turn back over, just say good night. But as she locked eyes with Claire, who was staring at her like she really did give a shit, Delilah simply didn’t want to.

“It started in high school,” she said. At those few words, Claire seemed to relax, sink into the bed a little, like she’d been holding her breath. And so Delilah kept talking, telling her about her fascination with still images, freezing moments in time. She’d saved up money from doing odd jobs for Ms. Goldstein—her art teacher and the only adult in her life who ever seemed to give her a second look—and bought a Polaroid, just to see what it did. She walked around her cavernous house, echoes of Astrid’s and Iris’s and Claire’s laughter pinging off the walls, and snapped pictures of anything she thought was interesting. A kitchen cabinet knob. A sliver of stained glass in the library. The molding on the fireplace. Expressions when no one knew she was watching. She’d caught Astrid’s coven in so many unflattering poses—mouths hanging wide open, eyes squeezed shut, tongues lolling out to lick the edge of a dripping Dr Pepper can.

Not that she mentioned those specific details to Claire right now. “I took a few pictures of Astrid too, just here and there” is what came out of her mouth, and she left it at that. But she remembered how she hoarded all of her photographs of the girls away, studying them for clues of what made them so acceptable and her such an odd duck. Other than a little bit of makeup and clothes from Nordstrom, she could never figure it out.

“I taught myself the photography basics in high school,” she said. “Ms. Goldstein helped. Then, once I left Bright Falls, I knew I wanted to make it my life.”

Claire nodded, eyes wide and dark as Delilah went on to tell her how she worked nine-hour shifts six days a week at a diner down on Grand Street just to afford her shitty apartment, but on her day off, she would wander the city, memorializing its sensuality, its passion, its queerness. All the things she’d been missing in her life. All the things she’d never had, never even dreamed were possible. It all came tumbling out in a rush of vulnerability and truth.

“And you started doing weddings?” Claire asked, still miraculously interested.

Delilah nodded. “Weddings, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, anniversary parties, birthday parties. Anything I could get, really. I still waited tables—I still do, actually—but events pay pretty well, especially after I got some references. I’ve only been really trying to do the artist thing for the past few years.”

“What do you mean the artist thing?”

“Photographic art, pieces I can sell, series, getting an agent to help navigate the art world. It’s hard to break into though. Really hard.”

Then her show at the Whitney fluttered into her mind, the relief and excitement associated with it. She told Claire about it, how it could be her big break.

“That’s great,” Claire said. “I wish . . .” But the other woman trailed off, brows lowering as she swallowed. Delilah didn’t press her, and soon Claire was moving on.

“How did you know you wanted to make art?” she asked.

Delilah hesitated. The truth was . . . sensitive. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to go there with Claire tonight or ever. There was no reason for her to know. None at all, other than the simple fact that Delilah wanted her to. Still, she wasn’t sure how Claire would react.

But as she hesitated, Claire scooted a little closer and said, “Come on, I want to know.”

So she told her.

“I got my heart broken,” she said.

Claire’s brows popped into her bangs. “You did?”

Delilah nodded, her throat thickening, but the words just kept coming. “I’ve only had one girlfriend. Her name was Jacqueline—Jax—and we met at a wedding I was working. She . . . she was the maid of honor.”

Claire’s mouth parted, and the irony here wasn’t lost on Delilah, the fact that she was spilling her guts to another maid of honor she couldn’t seem to shut up around.

“We moved in together, dated exclusively for two years.”

“What happened?” Claire asked.

Delilah took a breath, wrapped her mind around the words she’d never said to anyone. After she and Jax broke up, there was no one else in her life to tell. Plus it was just embarrassing as hell, the fact that she hadn’t been enough.

The words rushed out anyway.

“I caught her cheating on me.”

“Oh god.”

“With her ex. Whom, apparently, she’d never gotten over.”

Claire covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh god.”

Delilah nodded. “I was out of town for another wedding I was shooting. But the wedding got canceled—groom’s cold feet—so I came home early and found her . . . well, she was in our bed and she wasn’t alone.”

The memory was still fresh and bright, like a high-res photograph. Jax—the only woman she’d ever loved and actually thought about marrying someday, creating the kind of family Delilah always dreamed about but never had—in the apartment they shared with her head between Mallory Prescott’s legs. Delilah still remembered the vision of Mallory’s blond head tossed back, her mouth open, and her aqua-painted nails curling around Delilah’s own fucking pillow as she came.

“Apparently, it wasn’t the first time,” Delilah said. “She’d been cheating for months, trying to figure out how to dump me, and I just couldn’t see it.”

“Jesus,” Claire said.

“Anyway,” Delilah said, desperately wanting to get the conversation back on track. “I needed to get out of the city for a while, so I came back to Bright Falls. I thought . . . I don’t know.” She hadn’t felt like being alone. That’s what it had been, and she stupidly imagined the familiarity of Bright Falls, the family she had there, however odd and distant, might soothe some need in her she couldn’t articulate. It hadn’t. Astrid had been busy with her own life, and Isabel . . . well, Isabel was obviously very put out about finding Delilah on her doorstep, blaming some Junior League event she was hosting for why Delilah just couldn’t possibly stay at her own house. It was the first time Delilah had had to check into a hotel in her hometown.

Turns out, it wasn’t the last.

“I just needed a change of scenery,” she said. “Brought my camera, walked around town hoping for some . . . I don’t know. Inspiration, I guess.”

“Did you find it?”

Delilah smiled and paused, because honestly, this was the part she was worried about. Not her heartbreak, though that was humiliating enough. But this, her art’s origin story. Delilah hadn’t done anything wrong, but still . . . it could come off as weird, and Delilah was already weird enough in Claire’s eyes. But again, some gut instinct, some need, pushed her forward.

“I did,” she said. “I found you.”

Claire visibly flinched, head jerking back a little. “Me?”

Delilah nodded and told her how she’d been in town for about a week and she was walking along the riverbank, trying to work up the courage to go back to New York. And then suddenly, there was Claire, wading into Bright River up to her knees, fully clothed in a dove-gray dress with a lace overlay, shivering in the cold March wind. She’d started screaming. At the sky, the water, the evergreens on the other bank. Delilah lifted her camera and began snapping. She got at least a hundred shots, and Claire never saw her, never noticed her shifting behind her, lying on the sandy bank to get different angles.

Back in New York, she worked for hours editing the photos. Days. And it was from these images, Claire, beautiful and in pain in the river, that Delilah got the idea for a series that would define her style, her whole career.

Queer women, turmoil, and water.

She watched Claire take all of this in, looking for subtle shifts in her expression—shock, disgust, horror—but in the silver light, all she saw was . . . awe. A little sadness. Claire’s brown eyes like bottomless depths as they stayed locked on Delilah in silence. She stayed silent for so long, in fact, Delilah began to panic—her heart, which had already crept into her throat, now felt like a tiny, trapped hummingbird, wings whirring.

“Are you . . . Is that . . . I mean, does that freak you out?” Delilah asked. “I never used the photos. I wouldn’t do that.” And she hadn’t. She’d wanted to. Claire was gorgeous in them—sad and despairing and just fucking angry, something Delilah could relate to. But no way was Delilah going to have her sign a waiver, no way she was ever going to admit to Claire five years ago that she’d fascinated Delilah that much, that Delilah had captured what might have been one of the most painful moments in her life, immortalizing it forever.

And now, she’d admitted it all to her secret subject. The woman who, for all intents and purposes, had been Delilah’s muse.

Claire just kept watching her, brows dipping a little in thought, for what felt like forever.

“Claire, I’m—”

“I remember that day,” she said. Then she took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Josh had just left again. I’d just slept with him again. And my six-year-old daughter was at home with my mother, crying her eyes out for her dad. Again. The one thing I’ve never been able to fix for her, just like my mom could never fix it for me.”

Delilah sucked in a breath. She knew whatever had driven Claire down to the banks that day wouldn’t be a happy story. Of course not. But this, the pain in Claire’s voice even now as she talked about it, the image of a littler, even more vulnerable Ruby confused and hurt, it clawed at Delilah’s own heart. And then there was the slept with him again comment that stirred up something totally different—something hot and angry, something that felt a lot like jealousy. Delilah shoved it aside and focused on Claire, searching for the right thing to say.

“Ruby’s lucky to have you” was the only thing she could think of. And it was true. A mom like Claire, always thinking of her daughter, always trying to protect her, always, always, always. She was every kid’s dream, wasn’t she? At least, that was what kids like Delilah dreamed about, the kids who knew the alternative, the void where a loving parent should be.

“I can’t believe you were there that day,” Claire said.

Delilah swallowed thickly. “I’m sorry. I know it was a private moment, and I—”

But her words were cut off when Claire pressed a finger to her lips. Soft, feathery light.

Delilah heard herself inhale sharply, her mouth parting as Claire’s hand slid down, pulling on her bottom lip just a little, her forefinger settling on Delilah’s chin.

She left it there, and Delilah couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Her heartbeat was everywhere—in her throat, her chest, her fingertips, between her thighs. Their breaths filled the room, soft and shallow and shaky. Claire’s gaze searched her own, then flicked down to her mouth before returning to her eyes, over and over, a dance that made Delilah want to laugh or cry or . . .

Claire shifted. Closer. The finger on Delilah’s chin slid to her jaw, then Claire’s whole hand skated across her face, to her neck, and around to her nape. Delilah’s eyes fluttered closed, every inch of her skin covered in goose bumps. This was what she wanted—Claire, wanting her—but she thought she would feel triumphant, laying out a plan and succeeding. Instead, her entire body felt like it was coming apart and knitting itself back together.

When she opened her eyes again, Claire was inches away, gaze searching her own, fingertips soft on Delilah’s neck.

Delilah realized she was waiting for permission, waiting for Delilah to say she wanted this too. She forced her head to move, offering a single nod before she bridged the space between them and touched Claire’s mouth with her own. She kissed her, soft and slow, her mouth closing around Claire’s bottom lip. The other woman inhaled sharply, then seemed to let go, gently pressing back.

It was nothing like Delilah’s normal first kisses. Usually, by this point, things were frenzied, desperate, wild and alcohol-infused, nothing but sensation and skin, and Delilah loved every minute of it.

But this. The way Claire exhaled into her mouth, fingers sinking into Delilah’s hair, sliding her body closer so that every part of them aligned, everything slow and electric . . . this wasn’t like any first kiss Delilah had ever had. Not even with Jax.

She cupped Claire’s cheek and deepened the kiss, sucking on her bottom lip for a moment before turning her head for a new angle. Claire tasted like mint, a trace of wine, and something else totally different, totally Claire. The other woman released a tiny moan, and the sound shot straight to Delilah’s center, made her feel wild even as the two women continued to move like they were underwater. She slid her hand to Claire’s neck, then to her shoulder, gliding down her bare arm to rest at the swell of her hip. Claire shifted even closer, both hands now buried in Delilah’s hair and opening her mouth more and letting her tongue tangle with Delilah’s.

That was all it took to send Delilah over the edge. Soft was nice—beautiful even—but god, this woman. Delilah needed more, closer, harder. Fuck soft. Fuck everything but Claire and the way her breath hitched when Delilah slid a leg between her thighs. Now that—that raspy, desperate sound—was goddamn beautiful. Claire’s own hands roamed down Delilah’s shoulders to her hips, then dipped under her T-shirt before skating over the bare skin of her lower back.

“Is . . . is that okay?” Claire asked against Delilah’s mouth.

“Hell yes,” Delilah said, the breathy nature of her own voice surprising her. “Is this?” She lifted Claire’s tank, fingertips ghosting over the supple skin of her stomach. Claire nodded, keeping her eyes open as Delilah’s hands went higher . . . then higher still. Delilah could feel the imperfections in Claire’s skin, soft ridges that felt like stretch marks, and they all seemed like heaven to her, sexy and curvy and perfect.

She wanted to move her hand higher, feel all of her, but she wanted this to last. Hell, she could’ve kissed Claire all night, nothing else, and been totally happy. The thought was so strange, so unlike her, she pulled her mouth back from Claire’s, staring down at her for a few seconds. Claire stared back, her body shaky and needy. Her leg curled around Delilah’s calf and her brows dipped.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Delilah swallowed. She wasn’t sure. She was . . . god, she was nervous and turned on as hell and wanted nothing more than to eat Claire for dessert right now, but under that simmering layer of lust was something else, something she couldn’t put a finger on. She shook her head, trying to push it out of her mind. She’d done this dozens of times before. She knew how to fuck a woman. Knew how to make her cry out, knew how to make sure she herself had a good time, knew how to think of nothing but skin and mouths and coming.

Delilah crushed her mouth to Claire’s. Tongues, hands, thighs.

Claire met her, touch for touch, shuddering when Delilah’s fingers reached the lower curve of her breast. Delilah paused, but Claire pressed their mouths into another kiss, pushed her hips against Delilah’s in clear acquiescence, so Delilah kept going and let her thumb sweep over Claire’s hardened nipple.

Claire ripped her mouth from Delilah’s, her chest rising and falling so rapidly Delilah was almost worried she was going to hyperventilate.

“You okay?” she asked.

Claire nodded.

Delilah grinned, then tugged Claire’s bottom lip between her teeth, which pulled a groan from deep in Claire’s throat so fucking sexy, Delilah had to release her own.

This. This was what she understood. Pure animal need. She knew her underwear was soaked and was pretty positive Claire’s was too, but god, she wanted to know for sure. She squeezed Claire’s nipple gently before soothing it with one more sweep of her thumb, then let her hand drift southward. Claire’s hips undulated against hers and her own hand drifted down to the top of Delilah’s ass, covered only by her royal-blue cheekies.

Delilah’s fingertips had just dipped under the band of Claire’s sleep shorts, her mouth on Claire’s neck and the most perfect whispered sounds falling from Claire’s lips, when someone knocked on the door.

Both women froze, humid exhales swirling between them.

That better have been my fucking imagination, Delilah thought. But then another knock echoed through the quiet room, followed by the worst possible sound in the entire world—her stepsister’s voice.

“Claire? Delilah? Are you awake?”

“Oh my god,” Claire whispered, scrambling out from under Delilah like she was on fire. She was out of the bed, straightening her tank top and fixing her hair on top of her head before Delilah had even sat up. “Shit.”

“It’s okay,” Delilah said. “Take a minute.”

“Claire?” Astrid called again, knocking even harder.

“Yeah!” Claire yelled, clicking on the lamp. “Just a sec!”

She stood there with her hands on her hips while Delilah watched. When Claire’s gaze fell on her, her eyes widened.

“Your hair.”

Delilah lifted a hand to her locks, feeling the curls Claire’s fingers had pulled loose from the hair tie. “It’s a mess, huh?”

“It’s sex hair,” Claire said, panic lacing her voice. “Can you fix it?”

Delilah never broke eye contact as she fully released her hair and then pulled it back up into a neat, sexless pile.

“Claire—”

“We can’t tell her,” Claire said, twining her fingers together. “Okay?”

Delilah just stared at her. That something else feeling from before started closing in on her thoughts. This had happened before. A potential partner shutting things down for some reason or another. Delilah always handled it fine. Shit happened. People were complicated. She was disappointed, but she got it, and she’d simply go home and rub one out, and that would be that.

But this . . . didn’t feel like that. This felt different, a hollow feeling expanding in Delilah’s chest, and she wanted to scream. Claire was just another lay. A vengeance lay at that.

But something in Delilah’s face must’ve given her away, because Claire’s shoulders slumped and she took a step closer to where Delilah still sat in the bed. “It’s not . . . It’s just . . . with Spencer and the wedding, we can’t . . . She’d freak out and I—”

“I get it,” Delilah said calmly, but that hole in her chest just kept growing, eating up all her normal. She looked away, inhaling quietly and slowly while she fixed the tangled bedsheets and draped them serenely over her lap. When they were smooth and crisp, when her heart had retreated back to its rightful spot behind her ribs, she looked up at Claire and smiled. “Okay, you can let her in.”

Claire opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Astrid pounded on the door again. Claire straightened her tank top one more time before hurrying toward the door. Astrid swept inside, eyes scanning the room like a mother looking for a teenage boy in the middle of the night.

“Are you okay?” she asked, looking at Claire.

“What?” Claire asked. “Me? Yeah, I’m fine.” She waved a hand through the air, made a psh noise with her mouth, then rested that same hand on her shoulder.

Delilah would’ve bust out laughing if her throat wasn’t doing this weird thick, achey thing.

“What are you two doing?” Astrid asked, turning her gaze on her stepsister.

Delilah tilted her head, the truth right on the edge of her tongue. This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? To prove Astrid wrong about herself and Claire. To win. True, she and Claire hadn’t had sex, but in some ways, what she and Claire had done was even more profound. More intimate, the slow slide of mouths, fingertips shyly ghosting over skin. This was Delilah’s moment, her chance. Sure, Claire had asked her to keep it between them, but what did that have to do with Delilah, really? What did she care what Claire Sutherland wanted of her?

She didn’t.

She couldn’t.

But as her eyes found Claire’s, her lashes thick and wide and pleading around all that deep brown, Delilah couldn’t get the words around that cavern in her chest.

“Nothing,” Delilah said. “Just talking. About to go to sleep, I think.”

“Yep,” Claire said, her eyes still locked on Delilah. “I’m pretty beat.”

Astrid looked between the two of them, frowning. “Well, good thing I caught you, then.”

“Caught us?” Claire said, her cheeks flushed.

“Before you went to sleep,” Astrid said, and Delilah noticed Claire’s shoulders loosen. “There’s a room available. For Delilah.”

Claire squinted at the clock on the bedside table. “At eleven thirty?”

“I told Hadley or whatever her name was to let us know anytime. Apparently, someone just called in and canceled their night’s reservation. Delayed flight or something.”

“Oh,” Claire said.

Delilah couldn’t tell whether Claire was relieved or disappointed, but she wasn’t going to stick around to find out. She needed to get out of here. Now.

“Great,” she said, tossing the covers back and grabbing her camera off the bedside table. She packed it into its bag, then headed into the bathroom to get her toiletries.

“Wait,” Claire said. “I can go. You stay.”

“Oh no,” Delilah said, shaking her head as she came back into the bedroom and tossed her bag into her suitcase. “This is your room. I’ll go.” She zipped up her suitcase and headed for the door. “Room number?”

“Two twelve,” Astrid said, handing her a key card. “I’ll go with you, it’s right next door to mine.”

“Fabulous,” Delilah said, opening the door and hurrying down the hall, suitcase rolling behind her. She heard Astrid tell Claire good night, heard the door close and Astrid’s telltale purposeful footsteps over the hardwood, but she didn’t look back or slow down until she was outside her door.

“Delilah, hang on,” Astrid said.

Delilah pressed her eyes closed as she fumbled the key card into the slot. “What is it?” she said without looking at her stepsister.

Astrid slid up next to her, leaning against the wall while Delilah fought to get the damn red light to go green. “Look, I’m sorry.”

Delilah paused in her battle. “For what?”

“For the room situation.”

Delilah finally looked at her. Her stepsister had her arms crossed over her chest, as usual, and looked extremely uncomfortable with this apology. “Are you?”

Astrid seemed to deflate, shoulders drooping. “Yes. I didn’t leave you out on purpose. When I made the reservation, I wasn’t sure you’d actually show, okay? I was going to call back, and then things just got busy and I’m not used to . . .” She trailed off, but Delilah knew what she was going to say. She wasn’t used to considering Delilah at all. That old, lonely feeling from childhood crept back up on her, piling on top of everything that had just happened with Claire.

“I get it,” Delilah said. “It’s fine.”

“I just—”

“It’s fine,” Delilah said again. Her tone was so sharp, Astrid flinched, but she didn’t want to talk about this right now. Not with her breath stuck in her chest like this, her legs still wobbly from having Claire’s mouth on her neck.

The damn light finally blinked green. Delilah opened her door and disappeared inside before either of them could say another word.