“He was a shit boot,” Iris said.
“Not helping,” Claire said, but Astrid laughed.
“No, Iris is right. He was a total shit boot.”
“And a shit belt, a shit sock, a shit shirt, a shit—”
“Yes, we get it, Ris,” Claire said, then turned back to Astrid. “I wish you would’ve let us in about him.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking a lot about that too. He made my life look how I was taught it should look. It was easy to just give in to him, knowing it made everyone else around me happy.”
“Not everyone,” Iris said.
“I know,” Astrid said. “But he was everything my mother always told me I wanted, so when he came along, I made myself want him, because what the hell did I really want if it wasn’t him? In the back of my mind, I knew he wouldn’t make me happy, and I knew you two knew that from the beginning, which was why I never talked about him, hardly ever brought him around. I didn’t want to hear it, that he was wrong, that I was wrong.”
“I’m sorry we held back too,” Claire said. “We should’ve just talked to you honestly from the beginning.”
“I didn’t make it easy,” Astrid said.
“No, you sure as hell didn’t,” Iris said.
Astrid rolled her eyes. “Ris, you and I already had this conversation, so can you shut your piehole?”
“Fine, fine,” Iris said, “but really, I just spoke up to hear Astrid Parker say piehole.”
The three women all laughed, and then Astrid pulled Claire into her arms. They sat like that for a long time, Claire reveling in the familiarity of her best friend’s embrace, her chin resting on Astrid’s bony shoulder.
“Whew, okay, now that that’s over with,” Iris said, clapping once when the other two women pulled away, “what are we going to do about your little problem?”
She was looking at Claire as she spoke, and Claire felt herself deflate.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Ruby is devastated, and Josh is—”
“Not that honorary shit boot,” Iris said, holding up a hand. “Because honestly, Josh is gonna Josh, and we’ve got you and Ruby, and we always will.”
Claire frowned. “Then what are you talking about?”
Iris glanced at the ceiling, her mouth moving as though whispering a prayer to the gods for help, before leveling Claire with wide eyes. “Delilah, my darling, lovesick best friend. Delilah Green.”
Claire shook her head. “Nothing. There’s nothing to do about her.”
Iris and Astrid eyed each other over Claire’s head.
“What?” she said. “There’s not. And I’m not lovesick. I’m just . . .” She looked around at her melancholy nest, all the signs of a devastating breakup littering her living room. “It doesn’t matter. Delilah’s gone.”
“Oh, honey,” Iris said. “If you think that woman isn’t completely in love with you, you’re even more clueless than I thought.”
“What?” Claire said. “No. She’s not. It was just sex.”
“Claire, you don’t do just sex,” Astrid said softly. “And you never have.”
“But she does. She made a bet,” Claire said, ignoring Astrid’s observation. “She made a bet that she could sleep with me, you said so yourself, and—”
“No one who’s only out to piss off their stepsister looks at someone they’re already sleeping with the way Delilah looked at you,” Iris said. “On the camping trip? At the vineyard? Hell, even at Vivian’s, she couldn’t take her eyes off you.”
Claire shook her head. “No. No, she doesn’t care about me. She left.”
Astrid sighed. “She left because she doesn’t think anyone here wanted her to stay.”
“I told her,” Claire said, tears finally welling up and spilling over. “I told her to stay.”
Neither of her best friends said anything after that. What was there to say? Delilah was gone; it didn’t matter what Claire felt for her, or what she might have felt for Claire. New York might as well have been a universe away.
Claire knocked back the rest of her wine, but before she could get up to offer everyone another round, her phone exploded in a flurry of text messages.
All of them from Josh.
Hey I’m heading out of town for a few days. I’ll be back on Friday, I promise.
What the hell? What are all these texts from you? Didn’t you get my text?