“Are you okay?” Claire asked as Delilah climbed the ladder.
“Never been better.” Delilah wrung out her hair. “Water’s damn refreshing. I might need a change of clothes though.” She glanced at Astrid and grinned. “Got some sweats for your sis?”
Iris snort-laughed before leaning close to Claire and asking, “Is she for real?”
“I think she is.”
Astrid just gaped at her, then grabbed Claire’s relatively full glass of wine and knocked it back in three swallows. She shuddered, handed the empty glass back to Claire, then stomped off toward the house.
“I don’t know why the hell I thought this was a good idea,” she said as she went, Delilah following behind obediently after collecting her things from Claire. Delilah didn’t make any eye contact, but once she was off the dock, she turned her head and looked back, just for a second. It was dark, and Claire couldn’t be sure, but she thought the woman winked.
And not only winked, but winked at her.
Claire felt a laugh bubble up in her chest but managed to push it down.
“Damn,” Iris said as they started toward the house too. “Not that I want our precious BFF to be all pissed off, but that was—”
“Brilliant?” Claire said.
“Yes. Yes, it fucking was.”
Chapter Ten
“I’M SORRY, WHAT?”
Late Tuesday morning, Delilah watched as Astrid’s eyes bulged to insect-like size, her slender fingers gripping the sides of the front desk at Blue Lily Vineyard and Spa. The whole building was like an oasis, all smooth tawny wood inside with white upholstery and sea glass–blue accents, from the jar that held the pens on the concierge desk to the paintings on the walls, images of clear rivers and lilies swaying in the sun. Windows lined the entire main floor, and behind a very terrified receptionist named Hadley, Delilah could see the Willamette Valley stretching out in a swath of green in the distance, neat rows of plumping grapes directly below them.
“Three rooms?” Astrid said. “No, I distinctly remember booking four.”
“Oh shit,” Iris muttered under her breath.
Delilah, for her part, leaned against the counter and kept her face impassive. She was exhausted. Honestly, she could use a massage. The whole drive up here, that’s what she’d focused on—massages, a really good pinot noir, her very own chintz-free room overlooking the vineyard where she could just be, free of Astrid and Bright Falls and all the emotional sludge her visit to Wisteria House last night had left gunking up her veins.
Granted, she was technically here to get some photos of the three BFFs, probably to hang in their cave as they performed their spells for everlasting beauty and power, but she’d take the free massage regardless.
She’d never been so tired as she had been these past two days, and that included her first few months in New York at eighteen, when she first discovered other queer people and bars and didn’t sleep for a week. But so far, this trip to Bright Falls had left her feeling boneless and not in that blissed-out, postorgasmic way. More like she couldn’t find her footing, wobbling all over the place.
The only relief she’d really felt was when she pulled that tosser into the river last night.
God, that was fun.
Astrid didn’t think so, of course, which was an added bonus. As her stepsister had shoved a pair of spare sweats into Delilah’s arms last night, Astrid’s expression held none of the crestfallen hurt Delilah had glimpsed in Wisteria House’s foyer. No, it was all irritation, familiar and life-giving. The gods had gifted Delilah with a brand-new way to get under her stepsister’s skin, and she planned to milk it for all it was worth, which had to be done carefully, artfully, if she was going to keep her job. But thinking of creative ways to piss off Astrid’s beloved just made it all the more fun. Plus, Spencer was a walking golden-haired advertisement for the patriarchy, so it wasn’t like any cleverly disguised insults she could toss his way weren’t justified.
Her determination grew even more as she stood there in the resort’s lobby, fighting to keep her face neutral as it became more and more clear that Astrid hadn’t actually booked four rooms. She’d booked three for herself, Iris, and Claire, and Delilah hadn’t even been an afterthought. She tried not to notice how her heart tripped in her chest, her throat grew a little thicker, a horrible cocktail of anger, annoyance, and hurt.
Claire stepped a little closer to her, and Delilah tried not to notice that either. Her body, however, had other plans, and she felt herself straightening and then leaning toward the other woman, just enough that her shoulder barely brushed Claire’s.