Claire turned to her friend. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Iris gritted her teeth. “I’m talking about how I’m going to need a really damn good lawyer in about two point four seconds, because I’m going to murder that shit boot.” She waved her glass toward Spencer, who was chatting with his friends, teeth shining in the dark.
“Shit boot?” Claire cracked a smile.
“An Iris original,” Grant said.
The three of them laughed, but Claire still felt uneasy, helpless. It was true that Astrid hadn’t brought Spencer around them all that much since they’d been together. A dinner here and there. Mostly, though, she was either only with Iris and Claire or only with Spencer.
Now, Claire was starting to see the reason for Astrid’s little boxes, especially with Seattle in the mix. Astrid knew her friends would cause more than a fuss over some guy dragging her off like a caveman to a town she loathed.
“Take these.”
Claire startled to see Delilah suddenly right in front of her, holding out her phone and camera. “What?”
“Just hang on to them, okay?”
But before Claire could answer, Delilah closed Claire’s fingers around the phone and looped her camera around Claire’s neck before sauntering farther down the dock, wineglass held lazily in one hand, hips swaying. More than one of Spencer’s friends checked out her ass as she passed, which, for some reason, made Claire clench her teeth together.
“Well, if it isn’t the wicked stepsister,” Spencer said as she approached. He stood at the dock’s edge, dark water lapping underneath.
“Only I get to call myself that,” Delilah said, but Claire could tell she was smiling. “So tell me about yourself, Spence,” she went on, voice like maple sugar as she reached out to squeeze his arm.
But then she seemed to . . . wobble. Her heel caught on one of the rough wooden planks, and she stumbled into Spencer.
“Shit,” she said, latching on to his shoulders as he grabbed her arms to steady her.
“Whoa, easy,” he said, but her body just kept moving forward like a ball down a hill. She twisted, wineglass clanking unbroken to the ground as she tried to get her balance.
“Oh my god,” Iris said. “Are they going to—”
But she cut herself off, because yes, yes they were.
Spencer and Delilah tumbled into the river in a twist of limbs and profanity.
“Dude, you okay?” one of Spencer’s friends said, and they all crowded to the end of the dock. Claire rushed over too, Iris and Grant close behind. She elbowed her way through the frat boys to see Delilah and Spencer spluttering in the inky water, both of them completely drenched and looking like drowned rats.
“What the fuck?” Spencer said as he swiped his wet hair back and found his footing. The water wasn’t that deep, but even standing, it still came up to his chest.
“I’m so sorry,” Delilah said, her voice measured and calm. “I don’t know what happened.”
She treaded water as Spencer’s friends all leaned down to help him out of the river. His silky shirt was ruined, his leather shoes waterlogged, and his expression looked like a thundercloud.
“Oh my god, Spencer, what happened?” Astrid said, coming up behind them all with a green can of bug spray.
“Nothing,” he growled, shaking off his friends and moving past her. “I need to go change.” And then he stomped off down the dock and into the grass, heading up toward the house.
Everyone was silent for a few seconds, but then . . . a snort of laughter.
“Holy shit,” one of Spencer’s friends said—Peter or Patrick or something. “He loved that shirt.”
“And those shoes,” another one said.
“Need some help?” Peter/Patrick asked Delilah, who was still in the water.
“I’m fine, thank you so much,” she said, voice still dripping in sugar.
He shrugged, and the guys all moved off toward the lawn, leaving Claire, Iris, Astrid, and Grant alone on the dock.
And Delilah in the water.
“What happened?” Astrid asked, glaring down at her stepsister.
“I tripped,” Delilah said, making her eyes almost comically wide. “It was an accident.”
If Claire didn’t know better . . . Well, the fact was she actually didn’t know better. She didn’t know Delilah at all. But with the woman’s phone and camera strategically in her possession and Delilah swimming slowly toward the ladder at the end of the dock, she was pretty sure this whole thing was orchestrated.