Chapter 4 Iris
iris
The Crimson Vine is the kind of restaurant that tries a little too hard with its dark wood and candle-cluttered tables, but the booth we're tucked into feels private enough that I don't mind.
A wine rack separates us from the rest of the dining room, and the noise of other conversations blurs into a low hum which makes it easy to ignore.
My wine glass is half-empty. The bread basket is demolished.
And Milo Vark has not stopped talking since we sat down.
He's telling me about the time he accidentally kicked a football into the marching band's tuba section, his hands carving shapes in the air as he narrates, his hazel eyes wide with the drama of his own story.
Quentin is on the other side of the booth with his menu closed and his water glass already half-empty, watching his brother perform with an expression that suggests he's heard this one before and has chosen to endure it.
"The tuba player just stood there," Milo continues, gesturing with his bread roll for emphasis. "Didn't flinch. Didn't blink. The ball bounced off the bell of his instrument and he kept playing like nothing happened. I think about that man every single day. He's my hero."
My cheeks ache from smiling. "Did you apologize?"
"Profusely. Multiple times. I wrote him a card. He never responded, which honestly just made me respect him more."
A laugh falls from my lips as my gaze drifts to his brother.
The Beta hasn't said much since we ordered.
His attention moves between Milo and me, like he's cataloguing the conversation rather than just listening to it.
When the server came by to ask about wine, Milo turned to Quentin without hesitating, a reflex so natural I don't think either of them registered it.
Quentin ordered a Pinot Noir with the confidence of someone who'd already decided, and Milo went back to his story about the tuba player without missing a beat.
Despite being twins, they couldn’t be more different.
The way Milo defers to his brother on certain things.
The way Quentin accepts it without comment, like it's simply how they operate.
There's a language between them that I'm only catching fragments of, and I find myself wanting to learn the rest. Most twins are the same designation and yet, in a strange way, Milo and Quentin fit better together than most twins I’ve met.
Quentin catches me looking at him. His eyes hold mine for a beat longer than casual, the Beta watching my mouth when I talk rather than my eyes.
Most people look away when they realize I've noticed them staring.
He doesn't. He just takes a slow drink of his wine, his gaze locked on my face, and the directness of it sends a warm pulse through my stomach.
"So." Milo tears his bread roll in half and dunks one piece into the olive oil on his plate. "Math and art. Double major. How does that work? Because in my head those are opposite ends of the universe."
I get this question a lot, usually from people who are already bored by the time I start answering. Advisors who think I'm being impractical. Teammates who smile politely and change the subject. My father, who supports everything I do but has never quite understood why I need both.
"They're not opposites," I say, turning my wine glass by the stem.
"Math is structure. Rules, patterns, frameworks.
It's the skeleton of how things work." I pause, considering the best way to explain something I've never been good at putting into words.
"Art is what you build inside that structure.
The choices you make when the rules give you room to move.
I need both. The structure without the art feels sterile, and the art without the structure falls apart. "
Milo nods like I've just explained something profound, his bread forgotten in his hand. "That's beautiful. Q, isn't that beautiful?"
I expect Quentin to deflect or brush past it the way he does with most of Milo's commentary.
Instead, he leans forward, his forearms resting on the table, and I realize he's been listening with his full attention.
Not the polite performance of interest that I've gotten used to from people.
Genuine focus, the kind that makes the space between us feel smaller.
"The structure gives the art permission to exist," he says quietly. "Is that what you mean?"
My breath catches in my throat. "Yes. That's exactly what I mean."
Something shifts behind his eyes, a flicker of surprise that he doesn't bother hiding.
Most people glaze over when I try to explain the connection between my two majors.
They nod politely, ask if I plan to teach, and move on.
Quentin just articulated it better than I've managed to in two years of trying, and he did it like it was obvious.
The main course arrives, and the conversation loosens from there.
Milo asks about my art, and I tell him about the canvas I can't seem to finish, an abstract piece in teals and golds that keeps shifting every time I sit down with it.
He leans forward on his elbows, bread crumbs on his blazer, genuinely invested in the problem of a painting he's never seen.
"Maybe it's not done because you're not done," he says, like that's a perfectly normal thing to offer.
"That's either profound or completely meaningless," I tell him.
"Story of my life." He grins, the gesture taking over his whole face.
Quentin mentions his pre-med track when I ask. "Orthopedic surgery," he says, and nothing else. No explanation, no justification. Just the destination.
"So you want to fix broken athletes," I say, trying to get him to open up more. It’s an unspoken rule not to spend time with the athletes I’m helping coach but sitting here with the Vark twins makes me want to step into very, very dangerous waters.
"I want to fix the things that keep them off the field." His eyes hold mine. "There's a difference."
There is. A big one, and the fact that he draws the distinction without being prompted makes my fingers tighten around the stem of my wine glass.
Milo stuffs another piece of bread in his mouth while dusting off his blazer. "Meanwhile, I'm over here studying Sports Medicine so I can tape ankles and tell people to ice things." He waves a hand. "Very glamorous. Very prestigious."
"You're underselling it," I tell him.
"I'm really not. Last week I spent forty-five minutes learning about blister management. Blisters. I could write a thesis on blisters now. Ask me anything about blisters."
"I'm not going to ask you about blisters, Milo." A soft chuckle rumbles through my chest.
"Your loss. I'm riveting on the subject.
" He reaches for his wine glass with the same hand he's been gesturing with and sends it sliding toward the edge of the table.
Quentin catches it without looking, slides it back to the center, his eyes still on me.
My stomach does a slow turn that has nothing to do with the food.
Milo doesn't notice. "But honestly? I love it. The body is insane. Like, the fact that we just walk around on these bones and tendons and everything holds together through sheer biological optimism? Incredible."
"Biological optimism," Quentin repeats, his tone flat.
"I stand by the phrase."
The server clears our plates, and somewhere between Milo's defense of biological optimism and Quentin's quiet correction of his brother's understanding of ligaments, the thing I usually carry on dates has gone quiet.
That braced feeling, the part of my brain always waiting for the careless comment or the entitled assumption or the reminder that I'm not a person to them, just a prize or a name.
It's not gone exactly. But it's settled somewhere I can't hear it, and I'm not sure when that happened.
"Can I ask you something?" Milo leans back in his seat. His tone is still warm, but there's a shift underneath it. "Why did you sign up? For the auction. You don't exactly seem like the type."
A deflection is already forming on the tip of my tongue.
Years of practice, smiling through questions I don't want to answer, steering conversations away from anything that might require me to be honest about myself has made it easy.
But Milo is watching me like the answer actually matters, and Quentin hasn't looked away from my face in the last thirty seconds, and this booth with its demolished bread basket and empty wine glasses feels like a safer place than it has any right to be.
"Impulse," I admit. "I wanted one night where I could just be a person. Not the coach's daughter. Not the team bookkeeper. Not the version of myself that everyone else needs me to be."
Milo doesn't rush to fill the silence that follows and Quentin's shoulders ease beside him.
"It was a win-win situation. The team would get some money and I’d... well, I thought I'd regret it," I continue. "I figured I'd spend the whole night performing and counting the hours until I could go home." A breath leaves me slowly. "I haven't thought about the time once."
Milo's lips part. His eyes go soft and his hands grip the edge of the table like he's physically anchoring himself to keep from saying everything in his head at once. The effort is almost endearing.
The server returns to clear the last of the plates, effectively cutting off that part of the conversation, Quentin’s card already on the leather folder before Milo can reach for his wallet. Milo opens his mouth to protest, catches something in Quentin's expression, and closes it again.
I lean back in my seat, pleasantly full as I realize the dining room has thinned around us while I wasn't paying attention.
Tables that were full an hour ago sit empty now, and the noise has softened to murmurs and the quiet clink of glasses being bussed.
I should be thinking about the walk home, about the budget report sitting on my desk, about the work I told myself I'd finish tonight.
Instead, I'm sitting in a booth with an empty wine glass, and the only thought I can hold onto is that I don't want this night to end.
The silence is disrupted when the server brings Quentin’s card back, wishing us a goodnight, before disappearing into the back.
Quentin signs without looking at the total, tucks his wallet away, and then his gaze finds mine.
"I want to be clear about something. The auction was for a date.
This was the date. Whatever happens after this is your call, not something we paid for. "
He's giving me an out. A clean, respectful exit that most people wouldn't think to offer because most people treat charity auctions like transactions with fine print. That and the fact that many of the Alphas I’ve been on dates with always expect something in return.
Except, I’m not sitting across from an Alpha. Quentin is looking at me like my answer carries more weight than four thousand dollars, and beside him Milo has gone completely still. I can’t tell if he’s trying to keep from saying something or he’s trying to preserve the moment.
I should say goodnight and thank them for dinner, walk home alone, and process this in my nest where I can think without the pull of Quentin's gaze and Milo's warmth and the strange, unfamiliar feeling of spending an entire evening without my guard up.
"My apartment is a ten-minute walk from here," I hear myself say. "If you want to keep talking."
Milo's scent spikes, before he can control it, his ears turning pink. "Yes. Absolutely. One hundred percent. I mean, if Q wants to. Q?"
Quentin hasn't looked away from me. "Yes."
It takes us nearly three minutes to make it out to the sidewalk before Milo had to grab a fistful of the buttermints.
God, he’s adorable. The February air bites at my bare toes the moment we step outside, and I ignore it the same way I always do.
Milo falls into step on my left, glancing down at my sandals with his eyebrows pulling together.
"You're doing it again," he says. "The sandals thing. In February."
"The sandals thing."
"It's very you." He pauses. "That's a compliment. In case that wasn't clear."
The corner of my mouth tugs upward. Quentin takes my right side, hands in his hoodie, matching my pace. Our shoulders brush with every other step on the narrow sidewalk, the contact probably accidental except none of us move to stop it.
Tonight was supposed to be one evening of not performing. One impulse I expected to regret by morning.
I didn't expect it to feel like it was just beginning.