Delilah got up, leaving Ruby to do her thing, and sat across from Claire at the table.
“Thank you for that,” Claire said, prying open another can of black beans.
“Nothing to thank me for,” Delilah said. “It was fun. She’s an amazing kid, Claire.”
Claire beamed. “She is.”
“She’s talented.”
“You think so?”
“Hell yes. She draws really well, and she’s got a good eye, good instincts.”
Claire took a deep breath, but then her smile faded as she looked off toward the trail. “Should we be worried that they’re still not back?”
Delilah frowned, picking up Claire’s phone to look at the time. The hikers had been gone awhile. “Did you text Iris?”
Claire nodded. “And Astrid. Three times. But the signal’s not great out here.”
“Maybe they—”
But she was cut off by the sound of voices coming from the trail. The three hikers appeared, all of them scowling, and they looked... well, they looked horrible. Spencer was fully clothed and soaking wet, including his leather sneakers, which made a distinct squelching sound as he stomped into view. Iris had twigs sticking out of her hair, and Astrid’s expression was a thunderstorm.
No, a hurricane.
“Uh-oh,” Claire said, wincing. She stood up and started toward her friends, but stopped when Spencer flung his pack down with a loudly yelled “thank fuck that’s over” and then disappeared into his tent.
“What happened?” Claire asked as Astrid took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes.
“Nothing,” she said. “We just got a little lost.”
“Shit,” Josh said, standing up from where he was squatting by the fire. “Are you okay?”
“Obviously,” Astrid said, her voice dripping with disdain.
Josh lifted his hands as though surrendering and went back to cooking, muttering something under his breath Delilah couldn’t decipher.
“Wedidn’t get lost,” Iris said. “Spencer, oh great wonder of the outback, got us lost.”
“Iris,” Astrid said, sighing. “Just drop it.”
“It’s not my fault your fiancé can’t stick to a trail,” Iris said. “The path is clearly marked, but oh no, he just had to be Daniel Boone out there.”
“He wanted to explore.”
“That’s how people die in the woods, Astrid, which I clearly told him.”
“Well, we didn’t die.”
“No, we just got a million bug bites, saw a fucking black bear, and ran out of water an hour ago. Real good time exploring.”
“Whoa, whoa, you saw abear?” Claire asked.
“It was far away,” Astrid said, rolling her eyes. “And it didn’t even hear us.”
Delilah grabbed her water bottle and walked it over to Iris, who snatched it out of her hands and gulped it noisily. Claire offered hers to Astrid, who took it with her eyes focused on the ground.
“The only good part was when Spencer Dearest took a little tumble after he decided he could never be a real man unless he forded the great rivers of the earth.”
