Page 2 of Delilah Green Doesn't Care

Astrid’s velvety voice filtered through the phone. Like an American Cate Blanchett, except more stick-up-your-ass and less queen-of-bisexuals. Exactly the kind of voice Delilah always knew adult-Astrid would have.

“Yeah,” Delilah said, then cleared her throat. Her own voice was somewhere between six-cocktails-parched and years-of-sleep-deprivation-raspy.

“Took you long enough to answer.”

Delilah sighed. “It’s late.”

“It’s only eleven in Oregon. Plus, I figured this was the best time to catch you. Don’t you turn into a bat after midnight?”

Delilah snorted. “I do. Now if you’ll excuse me I’d like to get back to my cave.”

Astrid didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Long seconds that made Delilah wonder if she was still there, but she wasn’t going to be the one to crack. They’d only spoken on the phone a dozen or so times since Delilah left Bright Falls the day after high school graduation, hopping a bus to Seattle with herBright Falls Highduffel bag on her shoulder, while Astrid took off for a postgrad trip to France with all of her horrible BFFs. Isabel, Astrid’s mom and Delilah’s wicked stepmother, had armed both girls with enough cash to keep them out of her hair for two weeks. The only difference being, Astrid came back, prepared for college at Berkeley like the dutiful daughter, while Delilah flew to New York and rented a one-bedroom dump on the Lower East Side. She was a legal adult, and there was no way in hell she was going to stay in that house one second longer than she needed to.

It wasn’t like Isabel mourned her leaving.

Neither did Astrid, as far as Delilah could tell, though every now and then, this would happen. Texts that went ignored and turned into awkward phone calls where Astrid tried to pretend she hadn’t made Delilah’s already lonely childhood a living hell. Delilah had been back to Bright Falls five or six times in the past twelve years—a few Christmases and Thanksgivings, a funeral when her favorite art teacher had died. The last time was five years ago, when Delilah fled New York with a freshly obliterated heart, mistakenly thinking the familiarity of Bright Falls might serve as a balm. It hadn’t, but it had given Delilah an idea for a photo series that had changed herambition fromstruggling freelance photographer who barely made renttosuccessful queer artist with an amazing apartment in Williamsburg.

Which she still hadn’t achieved, but she was trying.

“So... are you coming?”

Astrid’s voice cut through her musings, and she blinked Lucinda’s kitchen back into view. “Coming...” A dirty joke rested on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back.

“Oh my god,” Astrid said. “Are you serious? Tell me you are not serious.”

“I—”

“Delilah, tell me!”

“I’m trying if you’d shut up for two seconds!”

Astrid blew out a breath so loud, it buzzed in Delilah’s ear. “Okay. Okay, I’m sorry, I’m just stressed. There’s a lot going on.”

“Right,” Delilah said, racking her brain for what the hell wasgoing on. “Um, so—”

“Nope, no, no. You arenotcanceling on me, Delilah Green. Tell me that is not what you’re doing.”

“Jesus, Ass, take a Xanax, will you?”

“Please don’t call me that and donotcancel on me.”

Delilah let a beat of silence pass. Maybe seeing her own art on actual gallery walls, tiny as they may be, followed by great sex had just addled her brain a little, and whatever the hell Astrid was talking about would come roaring back to clarity. She pulled the phone from her ear and hit the speakerphone button, then checked the date on her calendar app—Saturday, June 2. Wee hours. Friday the first was definitely a date that had been cemented in her mind for months as she prepped for the Fitz show. But there was something else there, something June-ish and Astrid-shaped and—

Oh fuck.

“Your wedding,” Delilah said.

“Yes, my wedding,” Astrid said. “The one I’ve been planning for months and for which Mother insisted I hireyouas a photographer.”

“Don’t sound so excited.”

“I have another word for it.”

“You’re not really helping your case here, Ass.”

Astrid huffed into the phone.

“I’m still crushed I’m not a bridesmaid,” Delilah deadpanned, but with the revelation of her stepsister’s impending nuptials to some poor sucker, her heart picked up its pace as both terror and relief flooded her system.