Chapter Six
Barrett pulled her phone out to fire off a quick text to Ruby with a very vague explanation of what was happening as she followed Iris back into the bar.
She already had it planned, the second Iris needed a break, they’d head over to where Ruby was.
Ruby didn’t need Barrett’s attention when she was admiring Deepti, but meeting one of Barrett’s friends was a fantastic excuse to pull Iris away from the group.
And that break was going to come fast if the way Iris’ body froze up was anything to go by.
She kept moving forwards, but her shoulders tensed, pulling in on themselves under Barrett’s jacket. Her breathing came too fast for the walk down the stairs and across the room.
It was going to take all of Barrett’s strength to be polite to these people.
“There you are,” a woman said as they made it back to the group, her voice tinged with impatience.
Barrett fought the urge to snap at her, instead stepping up close behind Iris.
Not touching her, but close enough that she’d feel the presence.
Iris didn’t react—didn’t do much at all.
She simply nodded, and Barrett was painfully aware how fast her breathing was coming.
Any closer and she’d have felt Iris’ back hitting her chest with each frantic lungful.
The woman opened her mouth as if to say more but she was cut off by another member of the group, the one who’d tried to go after Iris.
Barrett wondered whether this was the birthday girl, the one who hadn’t signed off on Iris’ ex attending.
She seemed to be the only one acting as if Iris’ mood was entirely rational.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly and urgently, stepping between Iris and the rest of the group.
It took a moment but, finally, Iris looked up into her eyes and nodded. Still no words wasn’t a good sign, but it was understandable.
“You can leave if you want,” the woman assured Iris as she moved in closer. “We can go together.”
Iris didn’t move. Freeze and flight. It made sense.
“Just me,” Barrett murmured, brushing against her back. Her hands found Iris’ wrists. She didn’t need to check her pulse to know it was racing.
With two fingers on each hand, Barrett started tapping the backs of Iris’ wrists. She had no idea if it would help, but bilateral tapping had helped her in the past, and it couldn’t make things any worse.
The woman in front of Iris snapped her eyes to Barrett, something curious and questioning taking root beside the concern. Barrett wasn’t as angry at her as she was with the rest of Iris’ friends.
“You’re Barrett,” she accused. “From Iris’ office.”
“The one and only,” Barrett replied, hearing the touch of exasperation in her tone. It really wasn’t about the woman in front of her.
“Anya.”
“Nice to meet you.” Barrett’s attention was mostly claimed by monitoring Iris and keeping up the even, rhythmic tapping on her wrists. However, when Anya looked back at Iris, Barrett’s eyes slid past her to the table where one woman was holding court.
Iris hadn’t clarified which of the two people Barrett had seen was her ex, but, watching the table, it felt easy to figure out who it was.
And it burned more than a little to realize that she didn’t look unlike Barrett.
There were differences, but their build was similar, hair color almost identical, and the confidence with which she held herself… Well, it wasn’t unfamiliar.
Except she was using it to intrude on Iris’ peace and safety, and Barrett would never do that.
“Oh, my god,” the woman who’d snapped at Iris when they returned practically moaned at Iris’ ex. “I’ve missed your cooking.” She turned to someone else at the table. “You haven’t eaten until you’ve tried her moussaka. It’s heavenly.”
Friendship for a plate of food. Didn’t feel worth it to Barrett. It could be the best plate of food in the world and it wouldn’t be worth doing this to Iris. And she wasn’t convinced it would be any good coming from that woman—but that was probably just her being petty in her protectiveness.
“It’s not authentic,” Iris muttered. It wasn’t an answer to whatever Anya was saying to her, and it confirmed that Iris’ mind was focused on the table too.
As if she knew she was winning, that she’d gotten Iris’ attention, her ex’s eyes flitted from the conversation and over to Iris. Instantly, Barrett felt the way Iris’ wrists tensed as she clenched her fists.
When she’d followed Iris back inside, Barrett had been committed to helping her get through this, to staying as long as she needed to.
Now, as she watched the majority of Iris’ friends fawning over a woman who’d hurt her, as she felt the stilted, panicked way Iris breathed and her body locked down, she wanted to take it all back, wanted to pick Iris up and run her out of this place.
But, that wasn’t what Iris had asked for.
And, in all of this, that mattered more than anything else.
Iris didn’t need to say it for Barrett to know that her ex stole her autonomy from her.
And Barrett wouldn’t be another of her friends doing that same thing.
Hell, they weren’t even friends. Colleagues.
Acquaintances. Whatever they were, she had no interest in stealing anything from Iris.
Barrett pretended not to notice when the ex got up and started heading their way.
She focused all her attention on Iris, adjusting her position so she was breathing deliberately against Iris’ back.
Her own heart was racing, so she could imagine how fast Iris’ must be.
While she couldn’t tell Iris to try matching her breathing without making things obvious, she could be purposeful and measured and hope it brought some semblance of calm and security to Iris’ body.
“I don’t remember jackets like that being your style,” the ex said as she moved into the group, trying with her proximity to move Anya back.
It wasn’t said maliciously. It sounded kind, curious, amused.
Like she genuinely wanted to know whether Iris’ style had changed while they were apart.
But that was how people like this worked. So sweet, so charismatic in public.
Anya stood her ground, brow furrowed as she shot the woman a look. Iris, however, stepped back. Barrett hadn’t been expecting it, but she held her ground, catching Iris with ease as their bodies pressed tightly together.
The ex looked at Barrett and there was a shot of something in her expression, hidden well but not well enough. Something possessive, bordering entitlement. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Natasha.”
“Barrett.” She smiled, but she knew there was a dangerous edge to it, something vicious. The real conversation between them playing out on a different field.
“Nice to meet you.” Natasha held a hand out for Barrett. “How do you two know each other? Iris here never mentioned you.”
“She never mentions you either,” Barrett said, emphasizing the tense just a little as she took Natasha’s hand briefly. She didn’t like letting go of one of Iris’ wrists, especially not after feeling the flicker of tension that Iris quashed quickly when Natasha said her name.
Natasha laughed easily. “Always were forgetful, weren’t you, Iris?”
“Not a term I’d use to describe her,” Barrett said immediately, and, of all the things she’d been expecting, Iris reaching to grasp her hand as she pulled it back from Natasha hadn’t been on the list.
Her fingers were icy cold as they closed around the back of Barrett’s hand and guided it up under the jacket to her ribcage.
Barrett worked hard to hide her surprise, keeping her expression easy, like this was something they did all the time.
This was about Iris, and Barrett would give her anything she needed.
“Is that right?” Natasha mused, her voice a tiny bit more strained than it had been.
“Yes.” Barrett smiled at Anya as she answered.
Everyone in the conversation was fully aware of the undercurrent, but the speculative expression on Anya’s face as she took in where Barrett’s hand had disappeared wasn’t anything to do with Natasha.
And it wasn’t like Barrett could explain it to her. She could smile, though.
“Remember when we went to Greece and you booked the wrong hotel?” Natasha asked with a laugh.
To the untrained observer, it would seem casual, but it was callous.
“We’d spent weeks discussing which hotel we were going to and then this one goes and books totally the wrong one.
Still, it ended up being a decent place, so all wasn’t lost.”
Barrett could see how carefully she’d have picked Iris apart, challenging what she’d thought she knew, changing little details, and saying it all with a smile. Classic abuser move.
“She booked the place you told her to,” Anya shot back, and Barrett felt a deeper surge of appreciation for her. Iris had one good friend.
Under the jacket, two of Iris’ fingers drummed urgently against the back of Barrett’s hand. She got the message easily. The tapping did help, and Iris wanted it against her ribs.
Naturally, like she did it all the time, Barrett slipped her other hand over Iris’ arm, to her hip, and up under the jacket.
When her hands were settled at the same height, she started up the rhythm again, and she tried not to notice anything about the feel of Iris’ body.
It wasn’t the time or the place for it. But she couldn’t fail to register the soft back rolls under her thumbs. She’d always been weak for a back roll.
Natasha was laughing with Anya—though Anya wasn’t joining in.
“I mean, I guess that’s true. We had talked about that place.
My bad for changing my mind and not making it extra clear.
Things get lost easily when you exchange as many messages as we did, and when you’re booking places and just searching for what you remember in the messages. ”
It would have been so easy to believe her, to see this as contrition, and maybe Barrett would have been sucked in by it too if she hadn’t been holding Iris.
But, of course, someone who operated like that had practiced.
She hadn’t always been terrible, hadn’t woken up one day as a monster.
It would have taken time, tiny little things that chipped away at who Iris was until those tiny little things were all that was left and they became the big things.
But, even then, she’d have been perfectly lovely in public.
So many abusive partners were, and, if Natasha was now dating one of Iris’ friends, she had to have stayed palatable in public.
“Anyway,” Natasha said when Anya reluctantly eased up, looking from her to Iris with discomfort, “what do you do, Barrett?”
“Architect,” Barrett replied, fully registering the way Iris’ fingers dug harder into her hands.
“Oh, just like Iris. That’s so cute. You must have so much in common.”
Barrett sighed. She’d hated being called cute for years.
It wasn’t a word that suited her and it felt infantilizing.
It worked for a lot of adults, but it didn’t for her.
Especially not when it was said like that.
Maybe that was her bigger issue with it.
Nobody ever said it and meant it as a compliment. It was always used to cut her down.
Oh, how cute you are with your little jobs together, playing at making buildings like you’re toying around with Legos…
When Barrett simply studied Natasha, she laughed, smoothing over the awkward moment, over Barrett’s failure to respond politely as the moment expected.
“Well, I’m sure we’re all grateful for your work.
We’d be lost without buildings, after all.
I know I love my apartment and would hate for it not to exist.”
“You’d have found another one if it didn’t,” Barrett said.
Natasha grinned. “Iris used to say things like that all the time.”
Barrett’s insides squirmed at the way she spoke. Like she still knew Iris, like what they’d shared was special rather than destructive. Maybe it was easy to see it that way when you were the saboteur—or to act that way.
Iris turned in Barrett’s grasp, seeking her eyes. “Well, it’s true, right?”
Smiling at Iris came easily, even in the circumstances, because it was what she needed.
Giving Iris Dean whatever she needed was simple.
Still, Barrett hated how unsure she sounded.
Iris was allowed to be whatever and whoever she wanted to be, but this wasn’t her.
Every atom in Barrett’s body wanted to get her away from Natasha.
“Right,” she told Iris certainly.
Iris nodded and Natasha stepped closer.
“You’re so funny,” she told Iris, “trying to get other architects to agree with you. But those other places wouldn’t be my apartment, would they? Don’t you remember that view? Imagine living without it! I totally couldn’t.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Iris said, and something about her tone made Barrett feel like she’d said that before, like Iris had been stuck having this conversation far too many times.
She stepped back, moving Iris with her, working hard to keep the tapping smooth and steady. Her body was thrumming with the need to escape—to get Iris away—but speeding up wouldn’t help, it would simply transfer more panic into Iris’ body and that was the opposite of what she was trying to do.
Natasha smiled wider at Iris, leaning into her space. “I know. You’d never do that, would you, Iris?”
And that was the end of Barrett’s tolerance for this woman, because Iris’ hands clamped down tight, her body beyond rigid.
Barrett did her best to turn Iris into her, to shield her, as she glanced at Natasha. “As lovely as this conversation is, I think it’s time we grabbed some drinks. Excuse us.” And, without waiting for a reply, she swept Iris towards the bar.