12. Two Sides to Every Story
Two Sides to Every Story
Q
“Hey, Iris… so, I have a kind of personal question to ask you, and it’s totally okay if you don’t want to answer.”
Iris blinked at him.
Q hadn’t exactly cornered her when she and the others had come upstairs and joined the guys, but she’d stepped over to the fridge to get something, and he’d followed.
It was the most private he could get without following her to the bathroom, and he definitely wasn’t doing that.
He had kept his voice low, though, and no one else seemed to have noticed or heard him.
“Um, okay.”
“Why did you and Noelle stop being friends?” When her lips pursed, Q rushed on, so she didn’t think he was just being nosy.
“She’s in the new subs class with me, and she’s been making friends with Sam, and some of the things I’ve heard her say…
Well, I just wanted to make sure I had both sides of the story. ”
“Oh…” Iris blinked again, her eyelashes fluttering so quickly it almost looked like she was batting them. “Um, well, mostly because when we were living together, she decided to end our lease with the apartment building and didn’t tell me until after she’d already done it.”
It was Q’s turn to blink in surprise. Noelle sure as hell hadn’t mentioned anything about that when he’d been within hearing. Granted, he hadn’t talked to her much directly, but the impression he’d gotten was that Iris had ended the friendship, not Noelle.
“Oh my God, are y’all talking about Cunt Rag?” Rae appeared at Q’s elbow, practically quivering with angry energy.
Iris face palmed, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
Rae’s words, not spoken quietly, had drawn the attention from everyone else in the room.
Quick as a flash, Domi was on the other side of the island, across from him and Iris, while the others ambled over more slowly.
The scowl on Rae’s face made her look like a small, mean faerie.
“Do I even dare ask who ‘Cunt Rag’ is?” Asad wondered aloud, positioning himself next to Domi and leaning on the island. Law had moved in beside him, putting him closest to where Q, Rae, and Domi were. Avery and Connor ended up on the other side of Domi, and Connor’s lips turned down in a frown.
“Noelle,” Rae said at the same time Law spoke.
“Someone they should not be calling that.” Law gave Rae a stern look. She looked away from him, shrugging, but she didn’t appear particularly repentant.
“We’re not at either of the clubs,” Rae said, more than a hint of sass in her voice. Q had known she was a brat, but damn.
Still, he’d heard similar from Olivia, who called Jared’s ex, Marissa, “Truck Stop.” He wasn’t sure what that actually meant and didn’t think she really had a definition either, but it sure as hell sounded bad.
Cunt Rag felt like it was in the same league, except he knew exactly what it was, with no ambivalence about its meaning.
“Don’t even try saying she’s not that bad,” Domi said, pointing a finger across the counter at Iris. Iris closed her mouth and the refrigerator door at the same time, shooting an apologetic look at Q. He really hadn’t meant to draw everyone’s attention, but he wasn’t upset that he had.
It sounded like he was about to get all the tea, but not from Iris. She looked both uncomfortable with and relieved by Domi’s order.
“I was surprised to see her in the submissive class.” Q made it a statement rather than a question.
Clearly, he’d hit on a sensitive topic, and he wanted to know more, but he also didn’t want to put Iris on the spot with an audience.
It was one thing to have a private conversation, but now everyone was involved.
Domi and Rae made identical faces, and even Avery, who he tended to think was the chillest out of the bunch of them, frowned. Iris’ expression was carefully blank—something he recognized as a ‘bad sign’ from having lived with a woman for years.
“I’m not.” Rae snorted. “I bet she expected Iris to come chasing after her, full of apologies, even though Noelle basically kicked her out of her own apartment. When she realized Iris was moving on with her life, she couldn’t handle it.”
“She is not a nice person,” Domi chimed in.
“She seems like she is. She acts like she is. But as soon as Iris was out of the room, Noelle started talking shit about her, even though they were supposedly best friends. She acted like she was joking, but she was definitely waiting to see if we would join in.”
“Noelle can be abrasive. And kind of needy. She’s the kind of person who will talk shit about others to feel better about herself, but it’s mostly because she’s insecure,” Iris said, her tone defensive.
“Which doesn’t excuse the bad behavior. People can be insecure without being assholes.” Rae’s uncompromising tone was ruthless.
It was also making him worried.
If he hadn’t already known something had gone down between Noelle and Iris, he wouldn’t have been wary of her and would have probably been drawn in and believed everything she said.
The way Sam did. Now, he also had to worry that these women would be at odds with Sam because she was becoming friends with Noelle.
“She’s not always that bad.” Iris threw her hands up.
Q didn’t question why she was still defending her ex-friend. He’d seen this before with his friend Leigh and her ex, Michael. He hadn’t gotten it until he’d talked about it with Angel, who was also Leigh’s best friend.
Michael had been toxic and emotionally abusive.
A big part of that was making Leigh feel as though she was the one being unreasonable—that she had done something wrong, that she could have tried harder.
Now, Leigh could look back with clear eyes and had told him that part of her hadn’t wanted to admit that everyone was right about Michael and how he’d treated her.
She hadn’t wanted to admit how badly he’d made her feel because then, she would have had to admit she’d stayed with someone when she shouldn’t have. Would have had to admit that all of her friends were right about him.
That was especially hard because it’s not like people were bad all the time.
Michael could be really great to Leigh. He’d especially loved the grand gestures that made him look good to other people.
Heck, if Q hadn’t been living with Angel and heard the girls talking about him, he would have thought Michael was a pretty amazing boyfriend.
“Nobody’s bad all the time, people are complex,” Avery said, chiming in for the first time.
“If she was bad all the time, it would have been easy to end the friendship. If she was bad all the time, you wouldn’t feel guilt over it.
If she was bad all the time, no one would want to be her friend.
It’s not like toxic people are always toxic, which is actually what makes them even more toxic. ”
“That hurt my head,” Asad complained, rubbing his forehead and making everyone snicker, which helped lessen the tension in the room.
“She’s right, though.” Rae gave Iris a hard look. “Just because she wasn’t always a crap person, didn’t mean you have to put up with her crap. I still think it’s bullshit that she’s being allowed in the club.”
“As long as she leaves Iris alone.” Domi crossed her arms over her chest. “There’s no way she suddenly decided she was into kink and ended up at Marquis. It wouldn’t surprise me if she even knew Law was teaching the class.”
“I did tell her that he teaches the classes,” Iris admitted.
“And no, she never seemed interested in kink before, but… I don’t know.
” She threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t even know why I’m trying to defend her.
I just don’t want to say something that gets back to her and makes her pissed off. I am so tired of the drama.”
“Because you know she’ll make drama.” Rae scowled. “If she does, I’m taking her down. I don’t care if I get kicked out of the clubs.”
“No one is taking her down and none of you are getting kicked out of the clubs,” Law interjected firmly, his stern gaze sweeping over everyone.
“She is being given the same chance as everyone else, but if she does something that causes an issue, she will be removed from the club. In the meantime, if she’s interested in learning about kink, she’ll have the same chance to do so in a safe space, just like the rest of you. ”
Rae made a rude noise while Domi did the thumbs down gesture, and Q had to do his best to hide his laugh—made even more difficult when he happened to catch Asad’s eye and realized the other man was doing the same thing.
While neither Rae nor Domi was being particularly nice about Noelle, after hearing what they had to say, he couldn’t blame them either.
Noelle was telling a very different story from what they were, and he was inclined to believe them over her. Maybe because he knew them better, but it didn’t really matter why.
He was going to be keeping a much closer eye on Noelle.
“She really doesn’t seem to be causing any trouble in the class,” Connor offered. “She seems sincere about learning.”
Q kept his mouth shut. Connor hadn’t heard everything Noelle had told the other subs about Iris, and he didn’t want the ladies more irate than they already were. It was better to let Connor share his experience with adding any commentary.
“Of course, she does, because if she doesn’t suck you into her web, she can’t drink your blood,” Rae retorted.
“You should write that down for one of your books,” Domi told her. “That was good.”
“Noted.” Rae pulled out her phone and started tapping on the screen, making Avery laugh.
“Books?” Q asked.
“Rae’s an author,” Domi said proudly when Rae didn’t answer right away.
“I’ve written one book. I’m working on the second one.” Rae’s shoulders hunched a little, and he was pretty sure she was blushing, though it was hard to tell with her dark skin and her face half-hidden. “Sometimes, I use things either my friends or I say.”
“Oh, really?” Asad leaned toward her, flexing his biceps, despite the fact he was wearing a long-sleeve shirt that covered most of the show. Grinning at her, he winked. “I have a great idea for a sexy hero who’s known as the Persian Excursion.”
“Trust me, I already have that one written down.” Rae smirked at him. “I haven’t used it yet because I’m worried readers will think it’s too ridiculous to be realistic.”
“You know she writes romance, right?” Law asked with amusement. “That means a fictional Persian Excursion would end up in a committed relationship.”
“The key word being ‘fictional,’” Asad smirked. Then he frowned at Rae. “And I am not too ridiculous to be real.”
“Real life is stranger than fiction,” Avery quipped.
“Things that happen in real life are often things that people don’t believe when in fiction.
Like, did you know that Tiffany was a popular name in medieval times?
But historical romance authors can’t use it because so many people think that it’s a contemporary name, and they get all up in arms about it being used in books set before the 1960s. ”
“Really?” Connor actually looked interested, but then, he collected odd bits of knowledge. “How do you know that?”
“Saw it on social media and looked it up to see if it was true.”
“Story of my life,” Rae muttered.
“You want truth that’s stranger than fiction? Q and Sam went to the same high school, hated each other, then years later ended up at the same sex club, where they’re paired off for a class and now, they’re going on a date.”
“We didn’t hate each other,” Q protested, as all the ladies perked up, their interest zeroing in on him. Not because they were more interested than the guys, but because this was news to them. “We just… we were always competing for the top spot.”
“Oooh, second chance, former rivals to lovers,” Rae said, her eyes lighting up, and she started swiping more words onto her phone. Q scowled, but she didn’t seem to notice. “That’s good, got anything else?”
“He asked her to prom, and she said yes, then changed her mind the next day,” Asad said.
Q threw his hands up in the air and glared at Asad.
“That’s hardly important.”
“No, no, that’s back story, that’s good. So, rivals but crushes and now second chance lovers… I like that.” Rae grinned and Q shook his head.
“As long as somebody’s happy,” he said sarcastically.
“So, what are you doing for the date?” Avery asked, propping her chin up on her hands, elbows resting on the counter.
“Taking her to pub trivia. Do you think that sounds like a good date?” Getting the feminine perspective was always a good thing, in his experience. Angel had approved, but a second opinion never hurt.
Avery looked at the others, who looked back at her. An odd expression of guilt settled on Domi and Rae’s features.
“We don’t really know her well enough, and that’s a pretty niche date,” Domi said after a moment. “You two were rivals in high school? For like, valedictorian and stuff?”
He nodded, looking back and forth between them. Only Rae and Domi appeared to feel guilty about something and he couldn’t imagine what.
“Then it sounds like something she would like. Might be fun to be on the same team now.” Iris grinned at him encouragingly. “I don’t really know her either, but I think it sounds like a unique first date.”
Unique was good, right?
“Didn’t you two take the sub class with her?” Law asked, frowning at Domi and Rae. The guilt in their expressions increased, and they exchanged glances. Rae sighed.
“We did, but we weren’t really good about branching out and making new friends.” She glanced apologetically at Q. “Sam seemed nice, but… we were kinda doing our own thing.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Q replied, a little curious about why she and Domi seemed to feel so bad about it, but he didn’t mind reassuring her. It wasn’t like the whole world had to be friends with each other. “You two already knew each other.”
“Yeah, but it was pointed out to us that we could be less insular.” Domi smiled at Avery and Iris. “And making new friends has actually been really great. I just wish we’d worked on it sooner. Maybe we’ll get the chance to get to know her better now that you’re dating her.”
Q nodded, but he could feel a little niggle of anxiety curling in his stomach. Everything suddenly felt a lot more complicated than it had yesterday.