Page 66 of Delilah Green Doesn't Care

Iris flicked her off without skipping a beat. “The solution. We all go camping.”

Claire blinked at her. “All... all of us?”

“All of us,” Iris said. “You, me, Goth Queen over here, Ruby, Josh... and Astrid.”

Delilah spluttered her sparkling water all over the counter. “Shit, sorry.”

She started to get up for a paper towel, but Claire put a hand on her knee, freezing her in place. Claire kept her eyes on Iris, but she could feel Delilah’s warm skin through her jeans. Delilah sat back down, and Claire told herself to move her hand, but she couldn’t seem to connect her fingers to her brain. Only when Iris flicked her gaze down to Delilah’s leg was Claire able to slide her hand back into her own lap.

Next to her, she heard Delilah release a breath. Or maybe she just imagined it. Maybe she was already drunk off half a beer.

Finally, Delilah cleared her throat. “Astrid Parker. In the woods. Sleeping in a tent.”

“This is what I’m saying,” Iris said.

“Are you high?” Delilah asked. “She’d never go for that. She needs her cold creams and feather duvets.”

“No one calls them cold creams anymore,” Iris said. “What are you, eighty years old?”

“Both of you, stop,” Claire said.

“She’ll come,” Iris said, looking at Claire. “If you tell her you need her, she’ll be there.”

Claire’s shoulders slumped. “Ris. That’s manipulative.”

“Not if it’s true. You want Ruby to be able to go camping with Josh without sending you reaching for a Xanax every five minutes while they’re gone, right? So the only solution is to go too, but you don’t want to be with Josh by yourself because, let’s face it, the man is fine and you never make great decisions when he’s around—”

“Wait, what?”

“—and so we all go, for moral and sexual support, and get Astrid talking more about Spencer in the meantime.”

Iris mimed dropping a mic, then grinned at the both of them.

“Sexual support?” Claire asked, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

Iris reached out and pinched her cheek. “Like I said, you’re a horrible liar.”

Next to her, Claire felt Delilah go very still. Her knee, which had been brushing Claire’s hip, just barely, moved away, and Delilah finally got up to get those paper towels and clean up her spill.

Claire’s cheeks warmed, blood rushing to the surface of her skin. Iris knew about all the times she’d slept with Josh after they broke up. And if Iris knew, then Astrid knew. And now Delilah knew, andClaire wanted to climb under a table with the emergency bottle of bourbon she hid in the cabinet above the refrigerator.

Iris reached out and squeezed her arm. “It’s okay, honey. I’d probably bone him too if I had the chance.”

“Ris,” Claire groaned, dropping her face into her hand. She didn’t dare look at Delilah. Not that it should matter. Not that she and Delilah were anything. Not that the other woman would care at all about who Claire slept with.

Claire sat up straight and shook her bangs out of her eyes. She needed to focus. Because as much as she hated to admit it, Iris’s solution was the only way to avoid a war with Ruby. On top of that, everything Iris said was true—Claire did need her friends there if she was going to go on this trip, and it wouldn’t be lying or manipulative to tell Astrid exactly that. If they all ended up talking about how Spencer was an asshole in a tailored suit, then so be it.

“Okay, let’s call her,” she said.

Iris grinned and pressed her phone to her ear. “Already had her number pulled up.”

Chapter Eighteen

MIRACULOUSLY, ASTRID AGREEDto the camping trip. Delilah watched it all unfold while leaning against the kitchen sink. It took three calls and a few text messages before her stepsister answered the phone, but Iris could be damned determined when she wanted to be, and when Claire got on the call, explaining how she needed her friends there to support her, especially since she couldn’t be trusted around Josh, Astrid apparently caved like a hollowed-out cream puff.

I can’t be trusted around Josh, Astrid. You know I can’t.

That’s what Claire had said. Quietly, as though she was loath to admit it, but Delilah still heard it, loud and clear, like a church bell ringing through the town square.