“Awesome.” Delilah didn’t budge, even though she was closer to the door. Finally, Iris huffed an annoyed breath, making Delilah smile and feel a bit more like herself, and got up to get the food.
* * *
DELILAH KNEW SHE should probably just go back to the inn, but after the pizza arrived and Ruby came into the kitchen with Claire, positively beaming from the news that they were all going camping together, the girl hooked her arm through Delilah’s and asked her to sit next to her while they ate. There was no way Delilah could tell her no, not with those hazel puppy dog eyes and the “tattoo” she’d apparently inked on the inside of her arm after Delilah had left her room earlier.
“That’s cool,” Delilah said, motioning to a black-penned rose near Ruby’s wrist. It was actually a pretty amazing drawing, the petals detailed, the thorns dripping with dew.
“Oh, um, thanks,” Ruby said as they sat down at one end of Claire’s farmhouse kitchen table. A blush spread into her cheeks.
Claire, who was sitting across from Delilah next to Iris, smiled, but said nothing of her daughter coloring all over her skin. Delilah was glad, and she could tell, by the way Ruby’s shoulders relaxed a little, that Ruby was too.
Delilah took a bite of mushroom spinach pizza. “Do you like to draw?”
Ruby nodded and shrugged at the same time, her chin ducking to her chest. God, Delilah felt the girl’s awkwardness in her bones, a familiar ache of not knowing where or how to fit.
“I should get you to design a tattoo for me,” she said.
Ruby’s head snapped up. “Really?”
“Yeah. You’re good. Do you have any other drawings I could see?”
Ruby blinked at her then leaped up from the table and sprinted toward her room.
“You just made her year,” Claire said, leaning across the table a little.
Delilah swallowed a bit of pizza and shrugged. “I’m not placating her. She’s good.”
“I know. And so does she. That’s why you made her year.”
Claire smiled at her, eyes soft behind her glasses, cheeks a little flushed. Something low in Delilah’s belly fluttered, a moth around a light.
“No one would ever suspect you of placating anyone, D,” Iris said, stuffing a whole crust into her mouth.
Delilah flipped her off right before Ruby sailed back into the room, hugging a notebook to her chest. As she sat back down, she kept the book under the table and slowly opened it, shoulders hunched. Delilah didn’t try to take it out of her hands. It was hers, and Delilah knew better than anyone how much the art you did as a kid—whether it be drawings or photographs or songs—felt like spilling the contents of your heart out into the world. Hell, it still felt like that as a grown-up.
She leaned closer to the girl, tilting her head to see the drawings as Ruby flipped the pages in her lap. Black-and-white sketches filled each page. Plants, flowers, tea mugs and stacks of books, candles and cats and planets. Then the faces started—Claire, Josh, Iris, Astrid, younger girls who must’ve been her friends from school, her own face in various expressions, everything from smiling to despairing to distorted, a whole range of emotions and feelings and thoughts.
“These are great,” Delilah said, her voice low and just for Ruby. She nudged her shoulder with her own, coaxing a proud smile out of the girl.
“Thank you,” Ruby said softly, then looked up at Delilah. “Can you teach me about photography?”
“Sure. What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Like, lighting and framing and . . . everything. I love your photos.”
Delilah tilted her head. “You’ve seen my photos?”
The girl’s blush deepened. Delilah shot a glance at Claire, but the other woman just shrugged.
“I . . . um . . .” Ruby said. She looked suddenly scared, more than just nervous.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Delilah said. “Photos are meant to be seen.”
Ruby blew out a breath, nodded. “Well . . . after Aunt Astrid’s brunch, I looked you up on my laptop and I found your Instagram.”
“Ah.”
“Your account is amazing.”
“You have an Instagram?” Iris asked.
Delilah tilted her head at her. “I’m a photographer. Of course I have one.”
A purely evil grin spread over Iris’s mouth, and she picked up her phone.
Oh god. Delilah wasn’t ashamed of her Instagram account. It was pretty much a must for any visual artist these days. She just wasn’t prepared for the whole of Bright Falls to be scrolling through her photos. Some of them were pretty raw, and the last people she’d considered when she posted them were Astrid and her coven. Just the thought of sitting here while Iris Kelly—and inevitably, Claire Sutherland—dug into her art made her want to puke.