“Those too.”
“So . . . maybe we should do something else, then,” Claire said.
Delilah’s eyebrows lifted, a little smile tilting the corners of her mouth. Claire felt blood rush into her cheeks. God, she was the opposite of smooth. She hadn’t even meant that. Not that she wasn’t thinking about that, constantly and fervently ever since their kiss, but in this moment, all she wanted was to not think at all. Not worry. Not wonder.
Not need.
Before she could think through it, she grabbed the oracle cards her mother had just sent and held them up. “Want to try these out with me?”
Delilah took the box and looked at the front, which featured a woman with dark hair parted down the middle. “Is that . . . Emily Bront??”
“Very nice, you know your female Victorian authors.”
“More like I was forced to suffer through them during senior English.”
Claire placed a hand on her chest, gasping dramatically. “Suffer?”
“Suffer.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that Wuthering Heights is the least romantic book in the history of Victorian romances, but Jane Eyre?”
“Is that the one where the douchebag hid his wife away in the attic and then lied about it to the girl he wanted to bang who was, like, half his age?”
Claire winced. “Well, when you put it like that.”
“I didn’t put it like that. Bront? put it like that.”
“Okay, fine, yes, Victorian literature was a little messed up.”
“Poor Jane,” Delilah said, sipping her wine. “She deserved better.”
“Let’s see how she’s been immortalized, shall we?” Claire wiggled the box.
“She better damn well have some wisdom beyond stand by your man is all I’m saying,” Delilah said as she grabbed the wine bottle and followed Claire to the couch. Claire settled into one corner, and she definitely did not notice how Delilah sat close enough to her that their knees touched, even though it was a full-size sofa and there was plenty of room to spread out.
Nope, she didn’t notice that at all.
“Okay, how does this work?” Claire said, removing the plastic wrap around the box. Inside was a small coral-colored guide book and a hefty stack of smooth, thick cards. There were thirty cards featuring female writers and forty cards that depicted what the creators called “witch’s materials.”
“Have you ever had a reading done?” Delilah asked. “Tarot or anything?”
Claire tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Does my amateur mother count?”
“Depends. How’d the reading go?”
“I think true love and great wealth were mentioned more than once.”
“Well, damn, let’s put these babies to work,” Delilah said, grabbing a card from the top of the pile. She frowned at it. “It’s . . . a praying mantis.” She turned the card so Claire could see it—indeed, against a cream background, was a solitary praying mantis.
Claire laughed. “Oh my god, are you going to bite my head off later?”
Delilah’s brows went up again, though it took Claire a second to realize what she’d said.
Praying mantises only bit off their lovers’ heads.
“I hadn’t planned on it,” Delilah said, her voice low and a little growly.
Heat pooled into Claire’s cheeks—as well as a few other places—and she flipped through the guidebook until she found the praying mantis.
“Actually,” she said very formally, “the praying mantis symbolizes wit, manipulation, and fun.”
Delilah blinked.
“So . . .” Claire went on, “you’re going to use your unsurpassed wit to manipulate someone for the hell of it.”
“Shit, I sound like a real piece of work.”
The two women stared at each other for a second, all seriousness, until Claire finally broke and both of them dissolved into laughter. Delilah’s shoulder brushed hers, the scent of summer and blueberries swirling between them like a drug.
“I don’t think we’re doing this right,” Claire said when they recovered. She flipped to the directions, reading all about shuffling and intentions and splitting the deck into three intuitive stacks. They went through the ritual, then Claire chose a card off the top.
It was a praying mantis.
Both women immediately started cackling. Claire laughed so hard, tears bloomed into her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had this much fun, felt this . . . carefree. Praying mantis notwithstanding.