Delilah Green Doesn't Care(Bright Falls #1)(29)

“Thank you for your help today,” she said. “With Ruby.”

Delilah shrugged. “It was no big deal. She’s a good kid.”

“It was a big deal. We were ten seconds away from a meltdown over a bit of lace and satin in the middle of Vivian’s.”

“Would that have been so bad? Probably the most action that snore fest has seen since it opened.”

Claire laughed. “Until you came along, that is.”

Delilah flourished her hand in agreement.

“Still,” Claire said, “Astrid bought that dress for Ruby. I just didn’t want to add to her stress.”

Delilah chewed on this, thinking back to when she and Ruby went into the bathroom with the dress. The girl had been sweet, yeah, but she’d also talked her ear off, and Delilah had let her. “Honestly, I think Ruby would’ve worn the dress as it was. She just wanted someone to listen to her.”

“I listen to—” But Claire cut herself off, her mouth hanging open as she blinked over and over again. Then she let out a groan and dropped her head into her hands. “Oh my god.”

Delilah laughed softly. “It’s okay.”

Claire looked up. “I’m turning into one of those moms.”

“What kind of moms?”

She flapped her hands around. “The ones, the ones who never listen and think kids are idiots who can’t think for themselves and just want things to be easy and quiet and oh my god.”

“Do you think Ruby’s an idiot who can’t think for herself?”

“No!” Claire’s eyes went soft, along with her voice. “No. She’s so smart. You talked to her, right? She’s a great kid.”

Delilah nodded. “Seems to be.”

“I just . . . I want her . . .” Claire sighed and looked down at her hands. “She hasn’t had it easy. And I think some part of me thinks, the tighter I hold on to her, the more . . . I don’t know, organized I make her life, the safer she’ll feel. And I . . .”

Claire stopped, stood up straight, her posture suddenly rigid. “God, I’m sorry.” She cleared her throat again. “You don’t want to hear about this.”

“Sure I do,” Delilah said. She said it on instinct, the right thing to say to lure Claire into liking her, but as Claire sighed out a little laugh and straightened the books for the hundredth time, Delilah realized it was true. Back in New York, she didn’t have any friends with kids. Everyone in her circle was an artist, aggressively single, and completely absorbed in their work. In fact, Delilah wasn’t even sure she’d actually call any of them friends. They were colleagues, fellow artists, people she met up with at events, occasionally slept with. They were connections, hookups.

Friends?

Delilah didn’t think she’d ever actually had one of those. Not a real one, someone she’d call if she was having a bad night or in trouble. She never went to college, never had a roommate to bond with. Jax had never been her friend—lover, chaos and passion personified, but not her friend.

Now, standing in River Wild with Claire Sutherland, of all people, she found herself leaning in, fascinated by this life Claire led, raising a tiny human, a person all her own. She wanted to ask Claire to go on, even if just to hear her voice, the way it was the littlest bit raspy, but before she could, footsteps clomped over the hardwoods from the back of the store.

“Mom, can we go home yet?” Ruby’s voice called from somewhere among the shelves.

“Yeah, sweetie, I’m almost done,” Claire said. She took the books and slid them to the back counter where there was some sort of gift-wrapping station, thick rolls of brown paper and simple striped ribbons. Then she came back to the register and started to shut the computer down. Delilah watched her, waiting for some eye contact, but Claire never gave it.

“Good, I’m starving,” Ruby said, emerging from between the freestanding bookshelves, still in her lavender dress and boots. When she saw Delilah, her face broke out in a grin. “Hey! You’re here!”

Delilah smiled at her, crossing her ankles as she leaned against the counter. “I am.”

Ruby’s eyes gleamed, her gaze roaming over Delilah’s tattoos. Delilah could see the questions stacking up in the girl’s mind.

“Which do you like the best?” she asked Ruby.

Pink spread over Ruby’s cheeks, like she’d been caught. “Oh. Um . . .”

“It’s okay,” Delilah said. “I want to know.”

“Well . . .” Ruby took a step closer. “I like this one.” She pointed to the rain cloud thundering over the teacup.

“That’s one of my favorites too.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s a storm in a teacup,” Delilah said.

Ruby furrowed her brow. “Huh?”

Delilah laughed. “It’s an old phrase. It means . . . making a big deal out of something small. I got it to remind myself to have some perspective. That, most times, things aren’t as devastating as they might feel at first.”

The girl nodded, head tilted in thought.

“I like that one too,” Claire said.

Delilah snapped her gaze to the other woman. She let a slow grin spread over her mouth.

Claire smiled and shook her head before kneeling down to grab her bag from under the counter, but Delilah swore she blushed a little.