Delilah nudged Ruby. “Hey, want to show me your room?”
Ruby’s eyes lit up. “Yeah!”
Then she bolted off toward the back of the house while Delilah got up and adjusted her very tight gray jeans. As she passed Claire, she didn’t look at her, not even a smile, but her shoulder brushed against hers, sending Claire’s stomach plunging to her feet. She chugged three swallows of beer.
“Jesus, what is up?” Iris said.
“Nothing.”
“You’re a horrible liar.”
“What gave me away?” Claire deadpanned, knowing she looked like shit and was making very little effort to hide the fact that she felt like shit too. She’d barely slept last night, again, thinking about Josh and then Delilah before switching to Astrid and Spencer, then back to Delilah again. This morning, she hadn’t even done anything with her hair after showering, just piled it all on top of her head.
“Josh?” Iris asked.
Claire nodded. “Camping trip. This weekend. As in the woods, with bears and ravines and rushing river rapids.”
Iris made a yikes face. “You can’t just say no?”
“I can if I want my daughter to despise me.”
Iris sighed. “Oh, honey. What if you went along?”
Claire had considered this, but if she went along, there was a ninety percent chance she and Josh would end up doing something she regretted after Ruby went to sleep.
Delilah flashed in her mind, soft fingers on her skin, the way she’d pulled Claire’s bottom lip between her teeth and—
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Iris reached out and squeezed her hand. “How about I order us all some dinner, huh? You don’t look like you could heat up a Lean Cuisine right now, much less cook for your kid.”
Claire squeezed back. “Yeah, that’d be good. Thanks.”
Iris clicked around on her phone and was done ordering pizza before it even dawned on Claire to ask her what she and Delilah Green were doing at her house.
“I’ve been texting you all day,” Iris said, sipping her beer.
“Oh damn, that’s right. I forgot to look at them.” Claire got out her phone and opened up the OSB thread. There were several unread texts between Iris and Delilah about a plan—mostly Iris demanding one and Delilah responding with nonsensical emojis like a robot and a nineties-era pager. “Sorry. I was caught up texting with Josh all day.”
Iris nodded. “I figured you were busy. Hence our visit.”
“I’m amazed Delilah agreed to come.”
“Oh, she consented rather quickly when I suggested it.”
Claire forced herself to ignore Iris’s tone, and absolutely, one hundred percent, not to look at her friend right now, even while what felt like a huge grin fought to take over her face.
“Ten days left,” Iris said, sipping her beer. “And the next wedding event isn’t until the bachelorette party two days before the rehearsal, which means we probably won’t see or hear from Astrid until next Wednesday while she spins around like a robot in heels.”
Claire groaned. “I don’t know what to do, Iris. She’s barely spoken to either of us since the dinner at the vineyard.”
“Unless it was about wedding shit. She barely shut up the whole ride home.”
“You know what I mean. Like, actually talk to us. I texted her this morning—just a hey, how are you—and she didn’t respond until three in the afternoon, and even then, it was a thumbs-up emoji.”
Iris’s eyes went wide.
“Yeah,” Claire said. “An emoji, from the woman who has to spell out laugh out loud in her texts instead of LOL.”
“I texted her and got nothing back.”
“This isn’t great.”
“This is what I’m saying.”
“We can’t very well get her talking if she won’t talk to us.”
They both took a slug of beer, then fell into a stressful silence. Claire’s thoughts swirled, too many things at once. A smart person would get very drunk right now, but that would only make her a sloppy, gooey mess around Delilah, which would immediately give her away as a sloppy, gooey mess around Delilah.
“So, camping, huh?” Delilah said as she came back into the room, then stopped when she saw Claire and Iris staring despondently at their beer cans. “Shit, what happened?”
“Astrid, the unfeeling ice queen, happened,” Iris said.
Delilah pulled a face and settled onto a barstool next to Claire, one leg pulled to her chest. “And this is a new revelation?”