For Better or Hearse

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“H oly shit,” Delaney crows as they walk down to the beach. “Did you see Don’s face? He was fighting for his life at that table.”

Ash’s mouth pulls up into a smirk. “Humbling a stranger in public has been on my bucket list for years.”

“You didn’t even take a slow spiral down. You took a leap off a cliff. I love it!”

Delaney passes her the bottle of wine. Ash takes a swig, passes it back.

She doesn’t even feel embarrassed. All she feels is purged.

DeeDee whoops, whips around and walks backward, focus still set on Ash. “Conflict resolution queen!” she shouts, pumping the wine bottle in the air.

The night is balmy, the sun almost set. They wander past the resorts and the expensive houses until they come to a spot on the beach that Delaney deems worthy. Their hotel in the distance, minutes away.

With tired huffs, they sit on the sand. Ash nestles the bottle of wine so it stands up, and they take turns drinking from it. A big grin on her face, Delaney pulls the tarot deck out of her large woven beach bag. She unveils a silk scarf and places it on the sand, small ripples beneath it.

“How long have you been doing this?” Ash asks. She’s never been one for organized religion, but the spiritual, the woo-woo, the weird, has always helped her ground herself. She loves the mythology of it. That blend of magic and supernatural.

“Since I started acting,” Delaney says, adjusting to cross her legs. Her turquoise earrings glint in the fading sun. “I taught myself tarot between shoots while I was waiting on set.” The cards slip smoothly between her fingers as she shuffles. “At first, I did it because I was bored. Scared the shit out of Zendaya once.”

Ash laughs.

“I’m not a psychic, and I don’t have the gift of clairvoyance or anything. It’s meditative for me. It forces me to think about things I maybe wouldn’t. We decide our future, yes, but the cards can help us to make that decision.” A shrug of her slender shoulder. “It helps me work out the kinks.”

“The kinks. I like that.”

They share a smile.

Delaney’s face loses some of its brightness. “Maybe I’m not good at it, but…”

“But,” Ash clarifies, unwilling to let her do this. “But you like it, right? Bare minimum, no one says shit about it. Best is they support you. It’s not hard to support a hobby that someone you care about loves.”

“Yeah,” she says softly, smoothing a square of sand beside her. “That’s true.” Then she inhales and straightens up. “Let’s keep it easy. Three-card spread.”

Ash lifts a brow. “Sounds sexy.”

Concentration creasing her face, Delaney lays three cards on the sand. “Do you have a life crisis?”

Ash chuckles. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“Past, present, future, then.”

Ash admires the cards. With their ethereal images and moody jewel tones, they’re stunning. She thinks about the time she and her mom had a reading done at a cheap strip mall. It was a terrible experience and not at all real, but it still made her giddy about the what-else-is-out-there.

“Ooh, this deck is sassy,” Delaney breathes, a myriad of emotions playing out on her face. She hovers her hand over the cards. The second she does, a gust of wind sweeps up, threatening to upsend them. With a squeal, she tosses her body over the scarf and the spread to shield it.

Ash’s eyes meet Delaney’s. Electric awareness crackles between them. “If the ocean pulls back,” she whispers, “we run.”

Mouth ajar, Delaney nods. Then she straightens, inspects the cards. Her glazed nail moves, taps a heart impaled with three swords. “This is the three of swords. Your past.”

“An impaled heart. It’s perfect.” Her throat is burning.

“It means loss.” The energy between them kicks up. As does the wind. “You have said goodbye to more things than you have cared to in your past. Things you still grieve for. Things that taught you what life costs, and that’s made you…pull away.”

Her words have ice sinking in Ash’s gut. Brief flashes of the past. Microbursts of loss. Her health. Aunt Sophie. Jakob. Tessie.

Delaney moves on to the second card. Taps it like she did the first. Her eyes have taken on a strange glassy quality. “Your present. The Tower.”

Ash winces at the image of figures falling from a flaming stone tower. She drinks from the bottle of wine.

“New things are coming into your life. Things that scare you.” Delaney’s gaze flickers to Ash’s. “You simultaneously like it and want to run from it. You’re not sure how to work your feelings into the story you’ve told yourself. You’re fighting them because you’re scared. There are cracks in your life, and something about the here and now is filling them.”

Heart hammering hard, Ash digs her fingers in the sand. All this woo-woo, this introspection, this life, it resonates.

Delaney nestles her elbows on her crossed thighs. “I think it means my brother.”

Ash’s laugh is sharp as a blade. “No way.”

With a flat yeah-right look, Delaney says, “I don’t need a tarot deck to tell me that. Tonight, you two were all over each other. Even if you physically weren’t. ”

Her cheeks flame with embarrassment. So much for remaining inconspicuous.

“He and Camellia…” Delaney’s voice kicks up an octave. Full of anger. “Their couple’s spark was not sparking like it should be. They were like Barbie and Ken robots. Pretty packaging, but she wasn’t the one.” Her expression shifts to smug satisfaction. “Let’s just say I wasn’t super upset when I saw you in that church.”

It means a lot to Ash. That maybe she did something right, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

“It’s different with you.” Delaney searches Ash’s face. “ He’s different with you.”

Ash holds her breath. She doesn’t want to ask, fights it, but eventually, the question pops out. Curiosity has always been her downfall. “How is he different?”

“I’ve never seen him so soft for someone else before.”

She’s soft for him too.

The knee-jerk thought sinks into her stomach like ice.

Oh god. Is it possible? She likes him? In a more than temporary way?

A brilliant smile fills Delaney’s face. “See? I’m right.”

Ash looks down, heart racing. “Right is relative.”

“You’re honest with everyone but yourself, you know that?” Delaney sounds amused.

Ash narrows her eyes. “I don’t like you very much.”

Delaney sticks her tongue out. “Last card,” she says. “The future.”

It’s the Devil.

Ash groans, anxiety coiling in her stomach like a snake. “So do I shit my pants now or later?”

Delaney smiles, one brow arched high. “It’s reversed, so it’s not as doom and gloom as you think.” She leans down low, cocks her head. Listens as if the cards are telling her all their secrets.

Ash holds her breath. Holds her hope. Her heart.

Delaney opens her mouth, pulls in a breath. But before she can speak, a gust of wind picks up the card. They scramble to catch it, but it’s too late. They watch in horror as it’s danced across the beach and into the water.

“Holy balls,” Delaney says, her jaw dropped.

Ash doesn’t know how she feels about that. Losing a card to the sea.

Eyes wide, she looks at Delaney. “Does that still count?”

“It does.” Delaney’s tightly drawn brows ease. She closes her eyes, whispers, “What you escaped in the past is not what you will find in the future. What held you back will release you.”

Emotion clogs Ash’s throat. Tears sting her eyes. For a reason she can’t understand, the reading’s landed like an arrow. Maybe because she believes. Maybe because she wants to believe.

Because Delaney—the tarot—is right. She does hold herself back. She pushes other people, but never herself. Her legs have roots in her sadness, her heartbreak. She thought she had grown from that, but what if she hasn’t?

Delaney regards her, expression intent. “What do you think?”

“I think…I drank too much wine.”

With that, Ash flops onto her back on the sand. Rum and coconut juice and red wine slosh around in her belly. Above, the stars blink. Delaney settles beside her. Slips her hand into Ash’s.

Ash closes her eyes. Somewhere, there’s the ping of a phone.

Emotions stir in her. Heavy, full of longing. An aching chorus of courage.

Maybe you aren’t a mess. Maybe you could do this with Nathaniel. Maybe you want to.

Maybe he does too.