Chapter Twenty-Three
Iris was running on fumes as she walked to work, but that was okay. She had her strategies and she was going to have a better week. The reemergence in her life of Natasha did not dictate who she was and it wasn’t going to derail the life she’d been building.
Or so she kept telling herself.
If she and Barrett had started becoming friends at any other moment in time, she imagined it wouldn’t feel as fraught and terrifying as it did.
However, she’d had years to become friends with Barrett and she’d kept her at a distance.
Perhaps meeting her right after the breakup had something to do with that.
And, maybe, it was a sign that she hadn’t really been healing.
She’d been keeping herself safe inside a castle of her own making. One that didn’t let new people in.
Phoebe had told her healing could feel complicated and messy. Iris had thought she understood that before. Now, she might actually understand it. But that didn’t help it feel tidier.
She breathed a sigh of relief when Burrow came into view.
No early Penn, no extra early Barrett. Everything was exactly as it should be.
Iris would be the first one in. Barrett would be the second one in.
And Penn would whirl through the place right before nine, full of vibrant energy and color and the aspirational life that had immediately drawn Iris to them.
They were so different, so many things that Iris never had been and never would be, but something inside her chest ached for the openness they lived their life with.
And maybe some part of her had always known she needed them in her life.
Penn showed her what living could be. Barrett was helping her get it, in whatever way actually worked for her.
Never could she have envisioned that when she first signed her contract.
She put the container she’d brought into the fridge, and some small part of her relaxed. Something more than yogurt. Something she planned to share. Something she’d made while talking to Anya. That had been nice.
Phoebe had asked if she could reach out to her friends more, and she’d wanted to.
Of course, she’d been avoiding Jemma and the others, but she’d been brushing Anya off in a bid to prevent her worries, to protect herself.
Actually calling, chatting, existing in the world together, felt more protective than anything, because, no matter what was happening with Jemma and Natasha, there was reassurance in knowing her best friend was still there, still cared, could hold her pain and her fear and still love her.
And it had been easier to cook while she was concentrating on Anya. Rhythmic, soothing kneading of dough. Her kitchen filled with the scents of tomato and basil, things she hadn’t realized how much she missed.
She sat in her seat as usual, and pulled up her emails. Three messages from Mr. McMillan. That project was becoming more… complicated than she’d anticipated. He was not the easiest client she’d ever had.
Her breath caught when she heard the door go and tiny little feet skittered across the floor, searching her out.
She could have cried. Everyone always talked about the power of animals in their lives, but she’d never had her own pet—her parents found them dirty and unnecessary.
Now, she wondered how different her whole life might have been if she’d had the opportunity to love anything the way she loved Oscar, and he wasn’t even hers—she felt like maybe she was his, though.
Not in the same way Barrett was, of course, but in a way that mattered.
He wiggled excitedly as she lifted him onto her lap and he flopped into her body, looking up at her like she’d hung the moon. He wasn’t even the type of dog who howled at the moon.
“Good morning, princess,” Barrett said, looking adoringly at Oscar as she followed him into the room.
In that way, she was exactly how she always had been—charming and confident and in love with Oscar—but she also set about laying out the biggest breakfast spread she’d brought so far.
Napkins and… burritos, maybe? She didn’t say a thing about it as she wheeled her own chair across the small space between their desks to join Iris at hers, instead chattering about something Oscar had done on their way over.
When she finally dropped into her seat, Iris gave her a puzzled smile and said, “Good morning, Barrett.”
She laughed like she was only just realizing she hadn’t stopped to let Iris speak.
No self-consciousness, just amusement. “I’d ask how you’re doing, but you’ve got the best dog in the world sitting in your lap and looking like he’s in love with you, so I can’t imagine it gets better than that. I might start getting jealous.”
Iris scoffed. “You know he loves you more than anything. I don’t think you need to be jealous.”
“Not what I meant.” She smirked as she unwrapped the two cylinders she’d brought with her and even laid out cutlery.
Iris’ confusion gave way to humor as she wondered whether Barrett pictured her eating burritos with cutlery. Of course, you could do that, but if they weren’t slathered in sauce, wasn’t the default to do so with your hands? Did Barrett think her too posh to use her hands?
An unpleasant bubble settled in her stomach as she took the food in.
She missed burritos. She missed eating. The last few days of actually having food made that clear.
Not that she didn’t still love yogurt. She did, and she was eternally grateful for its status as the safest food in her mind. But she missed food.
“You have to decorate the outside of your house a neon color,” Barrett said, examining her own burrito with a focus Iris knew was deliberate. “Which one do you pick?”
Iris narrowed her eyes. “I have to?”
“Yes. Otherwise, Oscar’s going to use your bedroom as his new bathroom.”
“Gross!” She frowned and shook her head. He was perfectly potty trained and would never do that. “Pink.”
“Why pink?”
“Why not?”
Barrett laughed. “Sure, but… explain? I’m interested.”
She looked it too, holding her burrito in the air and looking for all the world like pink was the most fascinating thing she’d ever heard.
Iris shrugged and picked up her own burrito.
The warmth of it was comforting—and the question kept most of her mind busy.
“I don’t know. It just felt right. Neon pink lights are nice.
It’s not going to be as aggressive as yellow would be in the daylight.
I think I could survive in a neon pink house.
And, if it’s my current home, hopefully pink wouldn’t be so far from the color of regular buildings that all of my neighbors would be annoyed. ”
“Princess, I think any neon color is going to be pretty noticeable. That’s kind of their whole thing.”
Iris simply scowled at her as she took a bite of the burrito. It was good, really good. Flavorful and textured and a million other things she’d been missing lately. They had to be home-made. Barrett was a good chef.
When she swallowed, she gestured to Barrett, eager to stop her mind fixating too hard on the fact that she was eating. “Which color would you pick?”
“Maybe I’d pick yellow, be nice and noticeable.”
Iris wrinkled her nose, just thinking about it. The balance would be off, it would be impossible to look at in the sun… Garish. It would be unbearably garish.
“You don’t like yellow much, do you, princess?”
“I have no strong feelings about yellow in general. But neon yellow on a building? No, thank you.”
Barrett snorted. “Yes, you do. You have your whole thing about sunflowers. It’s okay to just admit you don’t like yellow.”
Something in Iris’ chest felt like it squealed to a halt. Did she… dislike yellow?
She thought it over. It was true she’d never been overly fond of it. She didn’t own yellow clothes or yellow items. But honey was a nice color. And… Barrett’s amber eyes sometimes looked yellow-ish in certain lights, and they still looked lovely.
“I like honey,” she said, her voice stilted as she looked quickly down at Oscar.
“Okay,” Barrett said easily. “Honey’s good but sunflower yellow and neon yellow are out. You don’t like aggressive yellows.”
Iris nodded slowly. How had Barrett known that about her when she hadn’t even realized? “Yeah, I guess I don’t like bright yellow.”
Saying it made her feel mildly sick, as if Barrett was going to attack her or mock her for…
what? Having a preference about something?
Having favorites without checking if Barrett liked bright yellow first?
Did it matter? It wasn’t a judgment of the color in general, simply her personal preferences.
Barrett was still free to like bright yellow. But what if she hated Iris for it?
She didn’t. She smiled like she was unraveling a great mystery, one she was delighted to decipher. “Neon blue.”
Iris blinked through another bite of food. “Oh, right. Very futuristic.”
“Exactly. I think you’d have to lean into the vibe, but it would be very workable.” She covered her mouth as she cackled. “Maybe we need to get houses next to each other and stick a purple garage between us.”
“Neither of us is bi…” Iris had never actually confirmed she was a lesbian.
The others knew she was queer, but it had never come up specifically—or, rather, she’d avoided it coming up specifically in her bizarre bid to be mostly unknown.
Barrett, however, had been entirely open about being a lesbian.
She shrugged, unbothered. “I know, but it’s still a great flag and you have to admit it would look cool in neon lights.”
Iris had seen it in neon lights. It did look great. “Do you own a car?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. What would we be doing with the garage?”
“Building a princess castle, obviously.”
“Hilarious.”
She laughed like she was very proud of herself. “It’d be great. Oscar would love it, we could have little parties with our friends. Just imagine Ruby in a princess castle. She’d fit right in.”
Iris couldn’t argue that, but Ruby wasn’t her friend. Who would she be inviting at this point? She was still ignoring most of her so-called friends. So, just Anya, then.
Anya would get along with Barrett. Ruby and Deepti too, probably. But she was already fascinated by Barrett. A little too fascinated for Iris’ taste.
“I wondered if you wanted to have lunch together today?” Iris spat out unexpectedly.
She shook her head, eyes wide. She’d been planning to be a little smoother with the delivery and the timing.
It was just that thinking of Anya reminded her, and Barrett had probably made breakfast and… And a million things. “I made pizza.”
Barrett lit up. “Princess! You made pizza for little old me?”
“Well, I’ve seen you eat it, so I figured it was a safe choice, and I wanted to thank you for—” She gestured at the half-eaten burritos between them, not wanting to put too fine a point on it.
“You don’t have to reciprocate. I’m happy to do it—”
“I wanted to. So. Yes. You can also just take the food and eat it wherever you want. You aren’t required to spend your lunch with me.”
“I happen to like spending time with you, princess.” She winked. “I’d love to have lunch with you.”
“Okay. Right. Great. Lunch.”
“I’ll pencil you in, shall I?” She laughed, but there was something so incredibly soft and warm in her tone and expression that Iris wasn’t fully sure how to process the whole thing.
Iris paused. “I didn’t bring Penn anything…”
“That’s okay. You’re not a catering team, princess. Nobody is expecting you to bring everyone lunch.”
“But I brought you—”
“So? I brought you breakfast,” she said carefully, lightly, attempting to skate over the topic. “I didn’t bring Penn any.”
Iris stared at her partially-consumed food. That was true. Penn wasn’t having breakfast with them. They could walk in at any moment and it would just be fine?
“I’ll tell them I brought my own food today,” Barrett said easily. “No big deal.”
So many things that felt like massive deals to Iris were tiny ones to Barrett.
She’d never really known anyone who could just make things…
small in the best way. It was an interesting personality trait—was it even a trait?
More a skill, perhaps? Either way, it was something Iris didn’t have and hadn’t really known before.
Her family made things into a big deal, most of her friends too, she was realizing.
Even Anya. Iris loved her so much, but big deals often felt bigger with Anya.
There was nothing wrong with that, but it did make Barrett an interesting contrast. Particularly given that she wasn’t, by any stretch, a small personality.
Iris knew a lot of big personalities. Maybe she preferred them. Maybe she was trying to compensate for her own lacking one.
She didn’t like that thought.
“Maybe we can go house hunting while we eat,” Barrett offered, the small pucker between her eyebrows suggesting she knew Iris’ mind had gone somewhere unpleasant. “Find our bisexual neon dream.”
Iris sucked in a measured, grounding breath as subtly as she could manage. “There’s no world in which we buy two whole buildings in New York City, especially not ones joined only by a garage.”
“We’re architects, princess. We don’t have to find that property. We just have to find the land for it.”
“Mm, right. Available land. Something famously common in New York.”
Barrett laughed. “I like it when you’re snarky.”
Iris blushed and busied herself with her burrito.
She wasn’t sure why that was the reaction she was having.
For years, all she’d been with Barrett was snarky, and the woman kept coming back, kept interacting with her.
It was hardly news that she enjoyed a little sarcasm.
She’d just… never said it like a compliment before.
Especially not while they talked about a fictional life in which they were forever joined by a shared garage.
It was wild and ridiculous and fictitious. Of course it was. But… it was messing with Iris’ insides and she wasn’t really sure how to handle that.
She forced herself to look up at Barrett at possibly the worst moment. She was wiping a smear of guacamole from her bottom lip, and Iris’ entire body felt like it dehydrated as she watched the slide of Barrett’s thumb over her deep pink lip.