Oh fuck.
“Your wedding,” Delilah said.
“Yes, my wedding,” Astrid said. “The one I’ve been planning for months and for which Mother insisted I hire you as a photographer.”
“Don’t sound so excited.”
“I have another word for it.”
“You’re not really helping your case here, Ass.”
Astrid huffed into the phone.
“I’m still crushed I’m not a bridesmaid,” Delilah deadpanned, but with the revelation of her stepsister’s impending nuptials to some poor sucker, her heart picked up its pace as both terror and relief flooded her system.
On the one hand, a Parker society wedding in Bright Falls was the absolute last thing she wanted to do right now. Or ever. She’d rubbed elbows with a few agents at the Fitz show and sold one whole piece—granted the patron was currently sleeping in the next room, but Loretta one hundred percent forked over her money before even batting a single lash Delilah’s way. At least, Delilah was pretty sure that’s how it happened, as she was too busy freaking the fuck out that someone traded actual money for something she’d created.
Regardless, now was not the time for Astrid-slash-Isabel bullshit. Delilah felt as though she was on the edge of something, being someone, and Bright Falls was a soul-sucking pit of despair where she was absolutely no one.
On the other hand—the hand that tried to keep Delilah fed and clothed—Isabel Parker-Green had offered her a ridiculous sum of money to photograph Astrid’s wedding and two weeks’ worth of pre-wedding events. As the details from when Astrid first called Delilah about this happy event floated back to her now, there were definitely five figures involved. Low five figures, but still. Pocket change to Isabel Parker-Green and to most Brooklynites, but to Delilah, who could stretch a dollar for days, it was an IV to her dehydrated bank account.
Along with the money, which Astrid almost certainly knew Delilah couldn’t refuse, Astrid had also delivered an oh-so-subtly manipulative, “Mom says your father would’ve wanted you at my wedding.” Delilah still resented her for it, mostly because she knew Isabel was right. While he’d been alive, Andrew Green had been a devoted family man to the point of ridiculousness, insisting on nightly dinners and spring break vacations, Christmas Eve traditions and checking homework and learning how to plait hair just so Delilah wouldn’t be the only girl at the Renaissance Faire field trip without a braid crown.
A wedding would be nonnegotiable. You showed up for family, even if you got paid for it and gritted your teeth the entire time.
“Pre-wedding events start on Sunday,” Astrid said now. “You agreed to be there for all of it, remember? The details I emailed you indicate you’re booked June third through the sixteenth. I signed your contract, agreeing to all of your terms, and—”
“I know, I know, yes,” Delilah said, running a hand over her hair. Shit, she did not want to go back to Bright Falls for two whole weeks. And it was Pride month. She loved Pride in New York City. Who the hell started all this wedding nonsense that far before the actual day anyway? Well, Delilah knew exactly who.
“Astrid—”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“That mouth, Ass. What would Isabel say.”
“She’d say that and a lot worse if you’re about to cancel on her only daughter’s wedding on such short notice.”
Delilah sucked in a breath, even though she tried not to.
Her only daughter.
She wanted to fight the sting, to let the words slide right over her, but she failed. It was a reflex, this feeling, left over from a childhood with two dead parents and a stepmother who never really wanted her in the first place.
“Shit,” Astrid said, her tone regretful and irritated at the same time, as though Delilah had made her forget that Isabel had been Delilah’s sole guardian after her father, Isabel’s second husband, had died of an aneurysm when Delilah was ten years old.
“There’s that mouth again,” Delilah said, laughing through a thick throat. “I think I might like this new stressed-out Astrid.”
Her stepsister didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but the silence was long enough for Delilah to know she’d be on a morning flight out of JFK.
“Just be here, okay?” Astrid said. “It’s too late to find someone decent to replace you.”
Delilah wiped her hand down her face. “Yeah.”
“What was that?”
“Yes,” Delilah practically yelled. “I’ll be there.”