The thought felt like a warm spring rain on a cool afternoon. It opened up a space inside Claire’s chest, made her walk over to the kitchen island and pick up her glass, take a long gulp.
“Does it feel like all we ever do is drink around each other?” Delilah asked.
Claire laughed. “Yeah, a little bit. But, you know, wedding.”
Delilah nodded. “Wedding.”
“And diabolical plans.”
“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 meantthat. Not that she wasn’t thinking aboutthat, 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 cardsher 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 Brontë?”
“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 thatWuthering Heightsis the least romantic book in the history of Victorian romances, butJane 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. Brontë 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 beyondstand by your manis 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 cardsfeaturing 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.
