Chapter Eleven
Iris wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that comment.
It wasn’t unlike Barrett to say something flippant or provoking, something silly, but her soft tone and avoidant gaze made it feel real.
It wasn’t, though. Iris knew, deep down, what she was doing.
She’d run into Natasha, had a bad time in the aftermath, and Barrett was being sweet, worrying about her.
All Iris was doing was wanting that, needing it.
She wanted something sweet, someone who cared.
It was, according to her therapist, an entirely natural response.
She found it ridiculous. And even worse when it was Barrett she was attaching those feelings to.
“So,” Barrett said eventually. “Did you enjoy England? All tea parties and… meeting the Queen?”
Iris scowled at her. “I did not meet the Queen. That’s not a thing.”
“Lots of people meet her.”
“She’s dead.”
Barrett pressed her lips together. “Correction: Lots of people met the Queen when we were eighteen.”
“I was not one of them. She’s not waiting at Heathrow to meet every new international student.”
“Oh, I didn’t assume she was.” She shot Iris a cocky grin. “But you’re special, princess. Even got the title to prove it.”
“You’re the only one who thinks so.” Iris fought the wince that threatened to accompany her words.
Barrett was presently the only one who called her that, but she’d wanted someone else to previously and that was key to why she’d never asked Barrett to refrain from using it. She just didn’t want to get into that.
Barrett, however, did.
She openly studied Iris, curiosity raging in her eyes. “I doubt it.”
“I’m sure you do.”
Around them, the streetlights flickered to life, the evening slipping into night, and Iris finished the pizza she was holding simply for something to do. That was probably a good thing, though. She really did need the sustenance.
“Iris?” Barrett practically whispered—ridiculous on the New York streets.
Iris sucked in a harsh, shallow breath that felt like it hit a brick wall the second it met her lungs. “Yes?”
Barrett barely hesitated. “Can I ask why?”
“You can ask whatever you want. I’m not here to police what you get to ask.”
“You know what I mean. Are you okay with me asking? With talking about it?”
“No.” She let out a heavy breath. “But you can.”
“I don’t want to do anything that hurts you.”
Iris turned abruptly to look in a shop window. She didn’t want anything from it, but it gave her something to do other than look at Barrett.
“We can forget I asked,” Barrett said quickly, keeping a healthy distance between them.
“No. It’s fine. I just—” She shook her head. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Not what I’d been expecting.”
Part of Iris wanted to make her explain that—her thought process, whatever logic made it possible that having one of your work colleagues call you princess wouldn’t be embarrassing. But she couldn’t do that. This whole thing was awkward enough. She wasn’t going to make it worse.
She glanced around, avoiding looking directly at Barrett, and started walking. When they rounded a corner, she sucked in another sharp breath, trying to calm her chaotic, swirling thoughts. If she didn’t explain, Barrett would fill in the blanks, and that would be infinitely worse.
“You can ask,” she said quietly.
“It’s fine. You aren’t required to—”
“Barrett.” Iris furrowed her brow and stared resolutely ahead. “You can ask why I let you call me that.”
In her peripheral vision, she watched Barrett stroke Oscar’s sleepy head as she clutched him to her chest. The uncertainty of whether Barrett really would ask felt like its own entity beside her. A growing, physical, overwhelming presence.
Iris had always known the question would come at some point.
Even before Anya had asked her a dozen times in the past two weeks.
She hadn’t given Anya a real answer, just played it off as Barrett being Barrett.
But, with Barrett, she’d been waiting for this day since the whole thing started.
Honestly, it was a wonder it had taken so long to arrive.
“Why do you let me call you that?” Barrett finally asked, and something about her tone didn’t feel as terrible as Iris had been expecting.
She sighed. “For silly, desperate reasons.”
“What kind of reasons?”
Barrett sounded more breathless than Iris had been expecting, and she couldn’t help turning to look at her.
Something hopeful, almost giddy, was painting her expression, something she quashed quickly when Iris met her gaze.
But still, it was there, in her eyes—so alive and wondrous. Entirely unexpected.
Did she tell the truth? Was she really going to? Did it make much difference, really?
After everything Barrett had done for her lately, it felt like the least Iris could do. She didn’t really understand being around Barrett at all.
She led the way onto her street before saying, “Natasha is the only person who’s ever really had pet names for me. My family doesn’t do them, so I grew up feeling like they didn’t matter, like you weren’t supposed to do them, you know?”
“Sure.”
“So, yeah, I never really thought about them. But then, Natasha wanted to do them, and this foreign part of me suddenly wanted that, too. I wanted to feel special and loved.”
She couldn’t believe she was telling Barrett of all people, but it was about time she finally told someone. And Barrett wanted to know.
“That’s not so unusual.” Barrett’s tone was careful, coaxing. “Lots of people want to feel cherished.”
Iris shrugged. “I guess. But I was pathetic enough to hope for a good one and let her pick… a bad one.”
“What kind of bad one?” The sudden tension in her voice mirrored exactly how Iris was feeling.
“Hippo.” She cleared her throat before Barrett could react.
“And when my friends asked me why, I insisted it was cute, that she really liked hippos, that it was an inside joke they wouldn’t get.
But it wasn’t. I don’t know why she picked it and I don’t really know what it meant, but I know what everyone else’s faces did when she called me that.
And I know what it did to my insides when I thought about it. ”
“That’s the only part that really matters, Iris.” Barrett stepped in front of her, moving them up against a wrought iron fence and out of the flow of traffic. “Partners can have any nicknames for each other that they want, but it has to be agreed upon.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t exactly fight her on it.”
Something warred on Barrett’s face, something fierce and furious, but Iris didn’t really need her to explain it.
She was acutely aware of the muscles in her back, pulled taut and strained.
On the one hand, they felt filled with energy, desperate to run and fight, to move until none of this was real or bothered her.
On the other hand, the familiar lockdown.
The way her body wanted to collapse in on itself, to freeze in place in the hope that everything would move on around her, that, if she stayed still, nothing would hurt or notice her.
There was no way to control either response, nothing she could do to stop them, but she did notice the way it was different around Barrett now.
Barrett had seen her like that, had met the catalyst behind it, and things had been…
okay. Exposing, terrifying, confusing. But okay.
Barrett was here, talking to her like an adult, like someone who deserved respect.
And, whatever the feelings were that Iris had seen swirling on her face, they weren’t being directed at Iris.
Barrett wasn’t about to take what she was feeling out on Iris.
Intellectually, she understood that. Whether her body truly did remained to be seen, but, if she kept explaining, maybe that would help.
If Barrett understood, she wouldn’t get angry. Iris would be safe.
They made it to the stoop of her building and she turned slowly to Barrett and Oscar, fixing her eyes on him and trying to ignore the intensity of Barrett’s attention.
“Natasha doesn’t like hippos,” she told Barrett quietly.
“Yeah, I got that.” Barrett’s voice sounded like it was coming through gritted teeth, and Iris’ pulse raced, pounding in her ears like the ocean.
Barrett wasn’t angry with her. Nothing was going to happen.
A terrible part of her tried to question what if Barrett was angry with her? What if she knew that Iris should have been more grateful to have someone like Natasha in her life?
But that was Natasha talking. She’d done plenty of work since their breakup on separating her voice and thoughts from Natasha’s. She didn’t want to go back down this road of slipping into those thought processes.
She chanced a look at Barrett, lightning fast and loaded.
Barrett was tense and annoyed, but the way she was looking at Iris was gentle, considering.
Iris sucked a breath through her teeth. “She’d always talk about how terrible they were—violent killers, angry, brutal.”
“As if she was comparing you to that?” It was a question, but Barrett’s voice was unpleasantly flat.
“I guess. She’d claim it was special, like it said something that I had the power to destroy her but I’d never do it because I loved her too much, and I didn’t want to be a monster, did I?”
Barrett’s hands clenched around Oscar, not tight enough to bother him, but enough to demonstrate her distress.
Natasha’s voice was powerful in Iris’ head: See, you’re causing her pain. She almost hurt her dog because of you. Who does that?
She shook her head, looking around at the familiar street, registering everything that was hers and not Natasha’s. She’d moved here after finally breaking up with her. Natasha had never set foot here. She wasn’t welcome—in Iris’ home, head, or heart.
“You’re not a monster,” Barrett told her with conviction.