Delilah Green Doesn't Care(Bright Falls #1)(18)

Not that she cared all that much about her stepsister losing her shit, but as Delilah’s mind ran through dropping the bomb on Astrid, booking a flight back to New York, then walking into her apartment without the fifteen grand Isabel was paying her for this wedding gig, she knew she was up shit creek.

Delilah needed the money. Plain and simple. The Whitney might open a lot of doors, even give her some sales, but sales weren’t guaranteed, and the show itself wouldn’t pay her rent and ensure she could buy a grilled cheese sandwich from her local bodega for dinner.

Still, there was no way she was passing this up. She had some pieces that she really loved already—maybe even a couple that she’d shown at the Fitz—and she’d have a few days once she got back home to fine-tune them, take some new shots if she needed to, work in the co-opted darkroom where she rented space in Brooklyn.

She just wouldn’t sleep for seventy-two hours. Or eat. No big deal.

The Whitney.

Her chest swelled, and she felt an inescapable need to squeal. So she did, nice and quiet, while she wrote Alex back and enthusiastically—but totally professionally—accepted their invitation.

She’d just hit send when someone knocked on her door. Delilah froze, trying to remember if she’d requested room service or something in her slightly inebriated state upon checkin last night. Nothing rang a bell, and she vaguely remembered hanging the Do Not Disturb sign on her doorknob. Better to hunker down in this sea of cotton flowers until they went away, but she’d barely decided on this plan when she heard the unmistakable sound of a key sliding into a lock and the door swung open, revealing Astrid with two to-go cups from the Wake Up Coffee Company, the local coffee shop, stuffed into the crook of her left elbow, a key dangling from her right hand.

Delilah dropped her phone and yanked the comforter up to her chin. “What the fu—”

“I knew it,” Astrid said, cutting Delilah off. “I knew you’d still be in bed.” She set the coffees down on the dresser—the entire piece of furniture might as well have been one giant papier-maché flower—and fisted her hands on her hips. “It’s nine thirty.”

“How the hell did you get a key to my room?” Delilah motioned to the rose-gold key ring, which, unsurprisingly, was shaped like a rose.

“Nell is a client of mine.”

“Nell.”

“The owner?”

“Ah yes, good ole Nell.”

Astrid sighed. “Most people actually know one another in this town, Delilah, and I redesigned her living room–kitchen combination last winter.”

“So a few throw pillows and a leather couch equals a complete and utter invasion of privacy? Isn’t that illegal?”

Astrid pulled a face, making it very clear that what she was about to say next pained her greatly. “I’m your sister.”

Delilah rubbed her eyes—that word had always settled funny on her gut. “Well, you should have redesigned this god-awful hotel room.”

Astrid’s shoulders loosened, just a fraction, before looking around at the garden party. “Jesus, it’s truly heinous.”

“I think I dreamed I was getting strangled by a tulip all night long.”

“Oh, these are peonies,” Astrid said, running a hand over the pillow on a rattan rocking chair by the window.

Delilah flipped her off. “I guess it’s better than the Everwood. That place is like something out of a horror movie.”

The Everwood Inn—the only other inn within a fifty-mile radius of Bright Falls was just on the edge of town—was nationally famous for the Blue Lady, the purported ghost of a scorned early twentieth-century woman who haunted one of the Victorian house’s bedrooms, searching for her long-lost lover with a glowing blue lapis lazuli stone around her neck. It was also creepy as hell, with dark wood furnishings, ancient carpets that probably dated back to the Blue Lady herself, and cobwebs in every corner. Pru Everwood, the owner, still ran it as an inn, as far as Delilah knew, but it was little more than a tourist trap these days.

“I’d love to get my hands on that place,” Astrid said, swiping her hand over the dresser, then rubbing her fingers together, as though checking for dust. “It could be really beautiful if Pru would ever consider renovating.”

“Pru was a hundred years old when we were kids. I doubt she’s up for a big project,” Delilah said, pushing back the covers and swinging her legs off the bed.

“Whoa, hey, oh my god.” Astrid shielded her eyes like the sun was attacking her.

“What?”

“You’re naked.”

“I have on underwear.”

“And no top.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t expect company wielding a fucking key.”

“Okay, fine, just get dressed or we’re going to be late.”

“I thought I’d go like this.”

Astrid’s arm dropped and she glared.

“All right, all right,” Delilah said, grabbing her black bralette off the floor and slipping it on. Then she struck a pose. “How’s this?”

“I will sneak in here at two in the morning and staple all your underwear to the walls.”

“Sounds noisy. I’d probably wake up.”

Astrid’s nostrils flared. Delilah grinned, her plan unfolding perfectly. If she was going to photograph this wedding—particularly now that she had a ton of work to do for the Whitney show—then, dammit, she was going to have fun, and she could think of nothing more entertaining than getting under Astrid’s skin. And Isabel’s, if at all possible, though the woman was like a highly polished granite wall. Astrid, on the other hand, was easily ruffled.