“I’ll tell you after some more free champagne,” she says, laughing.
I’ve taken another step closer, or she has, and now there’s isn’t much distance between us at all, the sun still lowering, the breeze drifting around the corner of the house.
In a flare, I feel the spots where she touched me last night. Neck and chest, one finger, pulsing with every beat of my heart.
If she gets closer, I might do something I promised I wouldn’t.
“What did Winona do to you?” I ask, now close to a whisper.
“It wasn’t her,” she says, looking at me through impossibly long, thick eyelashes. “She’s also a victim, she just fared better than I did.”
“If you need revenge exacted, just say the word,” I murmur.
She just laughs.
“It was Ava,” she says, and I raise one eyebrow. “And I told you, more champagne first.”
“If you insist.”
Delilah undoes the clasp on her fur cape, tosses it back onto the bench, turns her back to me.
“Thanks,” she says. “In return, I promise not to tell your date about this.”
Her back looks exactly like I remember, only half-covered with delicate pink lace. The moon, the sun, an eight-pointed star, descending down her spine. The lines are thick, exacting, the colors bold, like a stained glass window rendered by Sailor Jerry. From one shoulder, two red tentacles of a squid curl in; from the other, two bold-but-delicate leafy vines.
I don’t touch her. The backs of my finger brush against her skin, ever so lightly, as I carefully do up the rest of her buttons, but I don’t touch her even though I want to.
She says nothing, and I match it. I think of a hundred things I could say, but don’t let any cross my lips.
“There you go,” I finally say, stepping back. “Sorry about the broken one.”
“It’s all right,” she says, one hand coming over her shoulder, fingers drifting over the buttons, checking them. “Nobody looks at bridesmaids anyway.”
I clench my jaw so I don’t tell her how incredibly, wildly untrue that is. I don’t tell her that I spent the whole wedding ceremony staring at her without hearing a word anyone said, or that the only reason I heard her shouting for her sister is because I was looking for her.
I couldn’t tell you what the bride’s wearing. I think it’s white. But I know the lace of Delilah’s sleeves just barely covers the hull of a sailing ship, that her skirt ends half an inch from the floor, that her pearl earrings swing and bump her neck when she turns her head.
This was a mistake, I think, and then I hear someone step onto the porch.
“Sorry!” calls Winona. “Callum got a hold of one of Bree’s — ”
Delilah’s younger sister stops so short that her dress flows in front of her, carried by the momentum.
“Seth?” she says, clearly baffled. I guess Vera’s kept this close to the vest.
“Good to see you again, Winona,” I say, because I know my manners.
“Likewise,” she says. “I’m sorry, I just came back to help Delilah, I’m not…”
“He heard me shouting and appeared,” Delilah says, grabbing her cape again.
“Ah,” says Winona, who clearly has more questions.
“Picture time?” asks Delilah, whirling the cape around herself again, then clasping it.
“Yup,” says Winona. “Right now Ava and Thad are just giggling and making out for the camera but surely that will get old soon and they’ll want you for group shots.”
“Can’t believe I missed that,” Delilah deadpans, walking back down the veranda, toward her sister.
“It’s been a joy,” Winona says dryly.
“Thanks for the hand, Seth,” Delilah says, just before she disappears around a corner. “I can’t wait to meet your date!”
“Any time,” I call, and then she’s gone, their bright voices quickly fading.
I watch the spot where she disappears. The late afternoon chill is sinking through my suit jacket, but I’ve already had a whiskey, so it’s easy enough to ignore.
I know I should tell her that she’s the date she keeps bringing up. I know it, but there’s a petty, wounded part of me that’s enjoying her jealousy. Every time she says your date another black bloom unfurls, and it doesn’t matter that my satisfaction is poisonous. It’s still a flower.
I think again of the tattoos on her back, of how I’ve licked the sweat off them before, slid my hand along them on the way to bury my fingers in her hair —
I shake myself out of it. I walk for the doors, pull one open, and head straight for the bar.
Tonight calls for more whiskey.Chapter TwelveDelilahAs soon as we turn the corner of the building, Winona glances over her shoulder.
“Is he friends with Thad?” she asks.
My spine tingles all the way to my hairline, and I think I can feel every individual button beneath the cape including the spot where one’s broken.