“Please.” Iris tipped her glass toward the tattooed woman. “You have a type, and that person is it, all broody and mysterious.”
Claire opened her mouth to protest, but when Iris was right, she was right. She smoothed her hands over her own jeans, made sure the collar of her blouse was lying flat, and adjusted her glasses. Then she stood up and started toward the bar.
Chapter Three
STELLA’S TAVERN SMELLEDexactly like it did the last time Delilah was here—booze, sweat, and sawdust from the lumber mill on the outskirts of town that big, burly workers were constantly tracking in on their boots.
She hadn’t exactly planned on stopping by a bar the moment she got out of her Lyft. But it took about fifteen seconds of glancing around the darkened Bright Falls city center to remember that the whole damn place shut down when the sun disappeared, even on a Saturday. The inn where she was going to stay sure as hell didn’t have a liquor license—it was more of a glorified B and B—and there was no way she was dealing with her step-monsters without a little liquid courage.
Once inside, though, she hesitated, her limbs suddenly rubbery as the laughter and music hit her ears. It’d been five years since she was last in Bright Falls. She’d fled New York, fled Jax and her gorgeous lying mouth for this—the coziness of the town, all these faces who’d known one another for lifetimes, this club she’d never quite felt like she belonged to, but felt fascinated by nonetheless. Ever since she andher father had moved here from Seattle when she was eight, a shiny new ring on his left hand, it had been this way, like she was standing outside a warmly lit house in the rain, tapping on the window. And it got even worse after her dad died two years later, leaving Delilah with a stepmother and stepsister who had no idea what to do with her.
Delilah took a deep breath and eyed the bar. It was a short thirty paces from where she stood, a sea of bodies between her and a drink. She was a New Yorker. An artist. A struggling artist, yes, but an artist nonetheless, goddammit. This town, herfamily, would absolutely not bring her to her knees. Not anymore.
She took off her gray bomber jacket and slung it over her suitcase. Humid, boozy air oozed over her bare arms, but it was better than suffocating in a coat. Angling her body to touch as few people as possible, she kept her head down and walked swiftly to the bar. Once there, she exhaled in relief, the bartender’s face a stranger instead of some dude she went to high school with who would only end up squinting at her like she was a puzzle he couldn’t solve. She’d been practically invisible in high school, a ghost with a cloud of unruly dark hair and blue eyes she kept on the dingy tile floor, the strange goth, while Astrid sparkled like a star at the ball.
“Bourbon, neat,” she said, setting her suitcase next to a stool and resting her arms on the bar. The guy—Tom, his name tag said—smiled and winked at her, then made a very large show of pouring her liquor into her glass from a height of about two feet.
She simply stared at him, tapped her short gray-painted nails on the shiny bar top.
He set her drink in front of her and leaned in. Floppy hair, trimmed beard, deep brown eyes. Probably cute to someone who appreciated the male form.
“Thanks,” she said, tossing it back. It burned all the way down,lighting her up in a way that made this whole godforsaken wedding seem bearable. She knew it wouldn’t last though.
“You from around here?” he asked.
She fought an eye roll.
“I’m not your type,” she said.
His smile faltered. “No?”
“No.”
“I think you might be.”
She tapped her glass for a refill, and he obliged with even more showmanship than before, flipping the glassandthe bottle in the air. Oh, how she wished he’d drop them. When he gave her the drink, he lingered, eyes on hers expectantly. She sipped her bourbon more slowly this time, staring him down with a look that could blow a hole through the wall, in hopes he’d scamper off.
He didn’t.
She sat down on the stool, knowing this was probably going to have to end with her coming out to a complete stranger, just like she’d done so many times before, which would most likely be followed by some horrible threesome joke this douche nozzle thought was sexy.
As she filtered through her list ofI’m gayscripts in her mind, someone stepped up to the bar next to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it was a white woman—light brown hair up in a messy bun, thick sideswept bangs, dark purple–framed glasses, and a vintage-style coral blouse with white polka dots. Delilah turned her head just a bit more, taking in dark high-waisted jeans that hugged curvy hips, soft arms, and nails painted lavender, chipped at the tips.
The woman turned too, their eyes locking.
Delilah sucked in a quiet breath.
The woman was gorgeous, yeah. Deep brown eyes, long lashes,high cheekbones, and a fire-engine-red mouth with a full bottom lip Delilah immediately wanted to tug between her teeth. She remembered fantasizing about doing that very thing back in high school, every time Claire Sutherland would come to Wisteria House to do whatever the hell Astrid and her coven got up to while Delilah sat alone in her room. Claire was one of the girls who, unbeknownst to her, helped Delilah figure out she was queer. Claire had been curvy and nerdy-sexy, and Delilah could see she still was, her hips and ass a little wider than they were back then. She looked amazing.
And now, twelve years later, judging from the friendly smile gracing Claire’s pretty mouth, she one hundred percent did not recognize Delilah.
At all.
This wasn’t that surprising. Growing up, Delilah had watched Claire and that loud redhead, Iris, hang out with Astrid mostly from afar. After Delilah’s father had died when they were ten, Isabel was completely shut down in her own grief for a while, so Astrid and Delilah had been mostly on their own for that first year. Astrid latched on to her new friends for comfort, and Delilah retreated into the books her father had given her, the fantastical worlds where orphans were heroes and the awkward kid always came out on top. She was curious about Astrid’s friends, particularly as Delilah had never had any. She’d lost her mother at age three, and her father’s own quiet nature meant the two of them fell all too easily into their own world. Delilah was observant, watchful, and her father had always celebrated that. But after he died, everything about Delilah suddenly became strange and unwelcome. She heard the whispers when Iris and Claire came over—Why is your sister so weird? Is that her peeking around the corner? Oh my god, you can’t even see her face she has so much hair.Astrid would shush them, Isabel would say benign things like,Oh, Delilah, don’t you want to watch the movie too?but then the three other girls would go silent, obviously frozen in fear that Delilah would say yes, and Isabel would do nothing to actually enforce her suggestion.
So Delilah kept her distance, only answering questions when asked, which wasn’t all that often. Eventually, the loneliness got so heavy it felt like she might suffocate just sitting in her room by herself. She had nightmares about it, dying and no one realizing it for weeks and weeks.
By the time she and Astrid got to high school, they’d all fallen into a routine. Delilah kept to herself as much as possible, drifting through her own internal world and only interacting with a few kids in her art classes. Isabel enforced family dinners every night and did her charity work and obsessed over Astrid’s success and beauty and status. And Astrid, despite the times Delilah saw her buck up against her increasingly controlling mother, blossomed into the town’s sweetheart, always smiling and surrounded by adoring fans.
