Chapter Twenty-Five
Iris sat at the small desk in her apartment, staring at her computer screen and seeing nothing but Barrett.
She’d been there for an hour, since she’d gotten home, fidgeting with the thin ring she’d been wearing all day.
The one that had touched Barrett when they’d held hands over lunch.
Because that was what had happened. Sure, it had started out as sympathy, a friendly little gesture to show that Barrett wasn’t alone, but it had lingered, Barrett had held her hand too.
While they choked back tears and stared at each other, Iris hadn’t been able to prevent herself from looking at Barrett’s lips. Again. They really were beautiful.
Iris hadn’t struggled to eat her meal after that.
Sure, the butterflies in her stomach had made her feel like she was going to vomit, but, if being around Natasha made her want to cease existing, being around Barrett made her want to live forever, to blaze bright and bold, to take up space. Just like Barrett herself did.
She pulled her phone out and messaged Anya. Sitting at her desk all night, ruminating, was not a conducive use of her time. And she’d only just seen Phoebe. She couldn’t hold all these feelings inside for an entire week.
It only took Anya a few minutes to read her message and immediately call. “Hey. What’s up?”
A small part of Iris felt bad upon hearing the genuine concern in Anya’s tone. She’d tried to sound upbeat and nonchalant, but it wasn’t hard to see how she’d missed the mark in her current state. “Not much. I just might have a problem.”
“You might have? Do you need me to come over? Do you need me to fight someone? I swear to god if Jemma and Natasha have set up camp outside your apartment, I’m going to murder them with my bare hands.”
Iris let out a startled sound. “No, no. It’s nothing like that! They’re not even involved. Although, actually, I suppose I do have a problem involving them and I probably should figure out a way to resolve that soon—”
“Iris! The problem. What is it?”
“Oh, right. That. Um. Where are you?”
“In my kitchen.” She sounded so suspicious, but Iris could hardly blame her.
“Is anyone else there?”
“No? Should they be?” She paused. “Did those fuckers try to break into my apartment? I’ll kill them here too. In case you’re listening, I’m ready for you!”
Iris winced as she yelled the last part. “No. Anya. Nobody is breaking into your place. At least, as far as I know.”
“Yeah, seems like I’m alone.” She laughed. “So, tell me your thing!”
“I might—”
“You might tell me? You better. You asked me to call, remember?”
Iris knew that. She just hadn’t been prepared for the level of chaos Anya would bring to the conversation. Sometimes, you got chaotic Anya and sometimes you got calm Anya. Iris loved both versions of her, but she should have rehearsed this conversation, regardless of which version she got.
She sucked in a deep breath and looked up at the clock on her wall, actually seeing it. “I might like Barrett.”
“I’m sure you do, and, honestly, it’s about time you admitted you’re friends. You hang out together all the time. And I know we don’t have to revisit what she calls you. Like, I wouldn’t let people I hate use cutesy nicknames for me.”
“Right. But that’s not exactly what I mean.”
Anya was quiet for a minute, the only sound a measured breath she drew in, held, and slowly released. “Ah. You mean as something more than friends?”
“Maybe.”
Anya cackled so loudly and unexpectedly that Iris physically jumped and had to slap her free hand over her mouth to prevent a scream.
“Anya!” she gasped. “Jesus Christ.”
“Sorry,” she laughed, not sounding remotely apologetic. “It’s just that I totally called this.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Years ago, honestly, but definitely after my birthday party. It was so obvious there was some weird tension between you.”
“Years ago? Tension? Tension isn’t generally a good thing.”
“It is when it’s sexual tension, and the person you’ve got it with is hot.”
“You think Barrett’s hot?”
“And, yeah, years ago. I don’t know, just the way you talked about her. It felt like there was something there. She got under your skin and that’s actually really hard to do. I figured it meant something.”
Iris blinked rapidly, the clock completely forgotten from her view. The pace of the conversation was throwing her almost as much as learning… everything she was learning.
“Oh,” Anya continued, “and yeah, she’s hot. That’s just a fact. It’s that whole confident, mysterious thing she’s got going on.”
Of all the ways Iris would have described Barrett, mysterious wasn’t one of them.
When she thought about it, however, she supposed she could see it.
The dark clothes, the slightly aloof answers Barrett gave to people she didn’t know…
Plus, there was just something about her that felt magnetic but unreachable.
Not to Iris, she realized, but, if Barrett wasn’t looking to connect with you the way she was with Iris, that absolutely could come across as mysterious.
Just the… lesbian confidence of her. Iris wasn’t sure whether that was a real thing but she couldn’t think of another way to categorize it.
“Huh,” was all she managed to say aloud for Anya’s benefit. Had anyone ever struck her at such a loss for words as Barrett did? The woman didn’t even need to be in the room for it.
Anya laughed. “That cannot be you suddenly realizing she’s hot. You just said you were into her.”
“Right. But—”
“I don’t know what the end of that sentence was going to be, but there’s no but anything when you’re into a hot woman who had her hands all over you at my birthday party.”
“She was helping me with an anxiety attack.”
“Yeah, that’s how I always help people who are panicking—with my hands up their shirt.”
“Her hands weren’t up my shirt,” Iris insisted quickly, though she had to admit that they were inside the coat Barrett had given her and that might have looked like they were under her shirt.
“Why not?”
“Oh, my god. Anya.”
She cackled again. “What? She clearly wanted them there, you clearly want them there. And, bonus, it pissed Natasha off.”
Iris frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, that hasn’t been in the messages the others have been sending you?”
Iris’ body tensed and she had to actively work to get her muscles to relax. “I haven’t been reading them.”
“That’s totally fair, but you’ve been missing out on that drama.
Jemma’s trying to spin it as you being rude for bringing someone without telling anyone and then missing half the night to be with Barrett—as if she’s not the one doing something wrong here—but, apparently, Natasha has had a lot to say about Barrett and what she calls you. ”
“Why?”
“I’m going to guess for the same reason she’s dating one of your friends—former friends.
She wanted to come in and control you, mess up your life and mess with your head.
And it’s a lot harder to do that if you don’t give a shit about her and have moved on with your hot colleague who isn’t afraid of her. ”
“Barrett and I aren’t dating.”
“She doesn’t know that. Barrett sold it that night.” She snorted. “Probably because she wants it to be real.”
“I highly doubt that.” Iris felt her face getting hot, even worse when she thought about lunch again, her memory lingering on Barrett’s lips and the look in her eyes and how much it meant to her that Iris just wanted her to be herself.
“Yeah, well, you’re wrong.”
Iris hesitated, fidgeting with her ring again. “Do you think she looks like Natasha?”
“Barrett?” Anya said her name like the suggestion was ridiculous. But then, she thought about it and hummed. “I guess a little. Not enough that it jumps out at you, but, if you think about it, there are a couple of similarities. However, the whole aura? Completely different.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so either. Barrett was the one who suggested it.”
Anya sighed dreamily. “Maybe she was worried you wouldn’t want to date her if she reminded you of your shitty ex.”
“It wasn’t that,” Iris insisted, but a tiny spark in her mind wondered if it possibly could be. Barrett really hadn’t seemed happy about the likeness when she’d brought it up. Iris had dismissed it at the time. Who would want to look like someone’s terrible ex? But what if it was something more?
“Tell yourself what you need to, I suppose,” Anya said, and her dismissive wave was audible. “But! Can we focus on what actually matters here? You like Barrett?”
Iris nodded slowly, testing it out for herself mostly. “I think I might.”
“That’s huge. And amazing.” Her voice was softer now, excited but gentle.
“You think?”
“I really do.”
“I don’t know. It’s kind of complicated.”
“It’s not. You’re just making it complicated.”
She wasn’t. But she also wasn’t going to explain the whole thing to Anya. She could tell Anya her problems, but Barrett’s struggles weren’t Iris’ to share.
“Are you going to tell her?” Anya asked, giddy again, when Iris didn’t speak.
“I doubt it.”
“Why not?” She was positively outraged and Iris almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.
“I don’t know. She’s just got better things to do with her time.”
“She does not. I can promise you that. She’d probably be leaping from the rooftops if you told her you wanted her.”
Iris grimaced. “Leaping from the rooftops? Is that aspirational as a response?”
“Oh, my god. In a good way.”
“Sure.” Iris shook her head, certain she’d only interpreted it the other way because she’d touched on wanting to disappear with Barrett earlier. Outside of Phoebe, she’d never actually told anyone about that. Even with Anya, it had seemed like too much.
She wrapped her free arm around herself.
She’d kept so much from that time to herself, so convinced that she’d said enough, that her friends understood and could read it all between the lines.
They shouldn’t have to. She should have told them, been more open.
Like she was with Barrett. But Barrett was safe.
There was something warm in that thought, even as an aching pain took root in her chest at the look on Barrett’s face when they’d talked about it.
She understood the feeling too well. She’d been there.
And Iris’ soul ached for that version of Barrett—the one that had been so bitterly alone and in pain.
Even now, when Barrett wasn’t contending with wanting to die, Iris wanted to hold that part of her—all the parts of her.
Maybe, impossibly, that was how Barrett felt about her, too.
It was an unusual thought. The last person she’d liked had been Natasha, and Natasha definitely hadn’t cared if Iris wanted to die. If anything, she’d wanted to keep her in that space, keep her small and wounded, obedient.
“You should think about telling her,” Anya insisted.
“I don’t want to pressure her or ruin things. It’s not like I’m in a very healthy place for relationships, you know? One run-in with Natasha and I fell apart for weeks. She doesn’t need that.”
“Firstly, I love you, but you don’t get to decide what Barrett does and doesn’t need.
Secondly, it’s actually bullshit that you need to love yourself completely before you can let someone else love you.
Sure, you should be working on being the healthiest version of yourself, but you can love someone else while you’re still learning to love yourself. You can let them love you too.”
Iris gulped. The entire conversation was academic because Barrett wanted to be her friend. She hadn’t said anything about more than that. But there was a tiny ember of hope inside her that maybe, someday, wanted to try, wanted to know what it was like to love Barrett Campbell.
How far she’d come.
But she needed to be better first. Healthier. Maybe Anya was right that you could be with someone while still healing, but she was currently carrying far too much. And Barrett deserved better than that. She deserved someone who could love her without fear. And that wasn’t Iris. Not yet.