Delilah Green Doesn't Care(Bright Falls #1)(98)

Whatever this was between them—sex, more, nothing—it was over.

Because Delilah Green would never stay in Bright Falls for Claire Sutherland.

“Claire,” Delilah said. “Please, can we—”

But Claire held up her hand, cutting Delilah off. Delilah flinched like she’d been slapped, and that’s what it felt like to Claire too—her palm smarting, fingers shaking, adrenaline rushing through her veins.

Finally, Delilah nodded once, her jaw tight, and walked toward the hallway.

“Go ahead and walk away,” Astrid said quietly. “It’s what you do best.”

Delilah paused in the doorway, her shoulders up around her ears. Claire wanted to scream, no, no, no, this wasn’t right, but it was. It was, because Delilah didn’t turn around, she didn’t stay, she didn’t push.

She just left.





Chapter Thirty




JOSH WAS GONE.

Claire had to admit it now.

It had been two days since she’d heard from him.

It had been two days since a lot of things.

Two days since Astrid called off her wedding, since she’d walked in on Delilah and Claire. Two days since Delilah left Bright Falls. Two days since Astrid had spoken to Claire at all.

Iris had been the reluctant go-between, texting Claire with things she could do to help Astrid cancel the wedding. Since Wednesday, Claire had holed up inside her house, telling her manager Brianne she was sick while, really, she lay on her couch drinking lemon LaCroix until she switched over to wine around five p.m. each day, making phone calls to wedding guests and vendors or whoever Iris commanded via text.

Claire hadn’t talked to Iris either. At least not in person. After Delilah had walked out of Astrid’s room, Claire had tried to talk to Astrid, tell her about her whole thought process since things started up with Delilah, but Astrid hadn’t wanted to hear it. And she was right—this wasn’t the time for Claire to make excuses, no matter how justified Claire felt in her decisions. Astrid had just called off her wedding. She was heartbroken . . . though Claire didn’t think her heartbreak was over Spencer. Not after everything that had passed between Astrid and Delilah.

So Claire’s phone became an endless stream of cold, imperative texts, all of them void of any personal questions.


Call the florist.

Emailed you a list of guests to call.

Cancel the Graydon String Quartet. Here’s their number.



She’d done it all with a thumbs-up emoji and timely execution, completing whatever task she could to help Astrid take care of this mess . . . a mess she’d wanted, a mess she’d planned for with Iris and Delilah. She didn’t have a justification for that, for why she never felt comfortable being honest with Astrid about her feelings toward Spencer, why she always shrank away from confrontation.

Now, as she texted Josh for the millionth time with no response, left him yet another voice mail, she wanted a fight. She wanted to push his stupid broad shoulders and scream in his face. Words scrambled in her brain, everything she would say to him, everything that was clouding into her chest like a storm.

I knew you would do this, I was right, you always leave, everyone always leaves.

She called him again, but it went straight to his voice mail, just like it had every time she’d tried to contact him in the past two days. Ruby was beside herself. She’d been calling and texting her father nonstop too, and he wouldn’t answer. Yesterday, Claire had used the key Josh had given her a few weeks ago to let herself into his apartment, just to check things out and make sure he wasn’t lying on the floor with a fatal head wound or something. Inside, most everything looked like it was in its place, but his truck was gone, as were his toiletries and the big duffel bag he always took with him when he skipped town.

Now, as Claire finished a tense call to the Bradfords in Portland, fielding a million incredibly intrusive questions about Astrid’s sanity, she sat up on her couch and rubbed her forehead. Down the hall, Ruby was shut inside her room, sad music filtering from under the door. Claire felt like a piece of cloth stretched thin, fraying at the edges. She couldn’t watch her daughter go through this again.

She couldn’t go through this again.

She picked up her phone and opened her text messages, her thumb hovering over her thread with Delilah for the hundredth time since the other woman left. She wanted to talk to her. She wanted to tell her about Josh, to beg her to come back, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Delilah was already gone, back where she belonged, and Claire . . . well.

Maybe it wasn’t only Josh she couldn’t stand to see walk away again.

And that’s all that would happen if she reached out to Delilah right now, if anything happened at all.

Delilah doesn’t care.

Claire said it to herself, over and over and over, ignoring the spark of doubt in the back of her mind. It wasn’t doubt anyway. It was hurt, lust, maybe even a little longing, but it wasn’t doubt.

She switched to her messages with Iris and finally swallowed her pride.


Can we talk? Please?



She hit send and held her breath, but those three little bouncing ellipses appeared immediately, Iris’s response buzzing through soon after.


I’m already on my way over.





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