Chapter Twenty-Eight
Iris had caught the weight of her words, Barrett knew it from the way her fingers clenched tighter around Barrett’s hand and in the minute shifts in her expression.
She expected Iris to drop her hand the second they’d crossed the street, as if the entire thing had simply been a way to avoid getting separated. As it should have been.
However, once they were safely installed on the opposite sidewalk, Iris didn’t flinch or hesitate for even a second.
She simply kept her hand in Barrett’s, walking on like it was the most natural thing in the world, like they did it all the time.
A frustrating part of Barrett’s betraying heart thought she might like doing it all the time.
Iris' hand was soft and warm and felt familiar in an eternal way.
Part of Barrett was waiting for the panic to kick in, for the urge to pull away, to brush the moment—the entire encounter, even—away.
And it was there. The fear, a constant beating pattern, grown familiar with age.
But there was something else, too. Something kinder.
That, however, started a different kind of panic.
The panic of not panicking about the thing she usually panicked about.
Fucking hell.
Iris was rewriting all the rules of what she thought being close to someone would be. She couldn’t rewrite who Barrett was, though. The collision of the two was a bizarre experience, but she thought Orion might have been right. It felt like growth, as terrifying as that might be.
And Iris was just a quiet, constant presence, holding her hand securely as they walked to Tea and Sympathy.
Barrett had thought she was bringing Iris here because those were things she needed. Now, it felt like Barrett might be in need of them.
It didn’t take them long to make it to their destination, and Barrett was struck by how close it was to Iris’ place for a restaurant she’d been wanting to visit and never made it to.
Of course, emotional distances were harder to cross than physical ones, and it had been crystal clear on Iris’ face that Tea and Sympathy had been an emotional distance.
Iris stopped them outside and Barrett’s head whipped in her direction, wondering if bringing her here had been too much.
“Barrett,” she said sincerely, “you don’t have to like tea for me. Hell, I don’t even drink it regularly. But that’s really beside the point. I want to get food with you, not who you think I want.”
Barrett winced. An alarmingly accurate read on her. Although, it felt more complicated than usual.
She’d done a lot of being exactly what people wanted her to be, who they needed her to be. Her comment had suggested she’d switch up her personality, her likes, to please Iris. And her own fears were rooted in that idea. But it wasn’t really that.
She sighed. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Ha. Kind of. Intellectually.”
“But it’s harder to know it in your heart.”
“Something like that.”
Iris stepped closer. If holding hands wasn’t giving the impression they were a couple, holding hands and standing close enough to kiss certainly was.
Barrett burned. A voice in the back of her mind yelled at her to step back.
Her heart picked up its pace, and the frantic racing seemed to insist she needed to listen, to move, to walk this dynamic back.
But a racing heart wasn’t always a bad thing.
Sometimes it was the result of an incredible, beautiful woman stepping into your personal space and looking at you like she understood every broken fragment of you.
And the rest of Barrett’s mind liked that.
It liked that Iris was so close, that she cared, that she wanted to spend time with Barrett.
It also liked that passersby might look at them and think of them as a couple, that this delight of a human being had looked at her and decided she was the chosen one, the one Iris wanted.
Iris narrowed her eyes. “We’re going to go in here and you’re going to order whatever you want. Understood?”
“Yes,” Barrett breathed.
They were so close, a hair’s breadth apart.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so close to anyone and felt so many things at the same time.
Barrett had built herself into an expert at feeling nothing, at intellectualizing anything she did feel and talking around it until it was all facts and no feelings.
Iris often did something similar. They had that in common.
But when they were together, all of that went out of the window.
Sure, she’d be able to intellectualize this whole thing later, but, in the moment, it was a kaleidoscope of emotions and images and feelings that flooded her body and screamed nothing but Iris.
Iris’ eyes darted to Barrett’s lips, her own parting, and Barrett felt like her brain exploded at the exact same moment her chest imploded. Who needed breathing when they had Iris Dean looking at them like that?
“Good.” Iris sounded a little short of breath as she finally stepped back and dragged Barrett towards the door. “And I’m paying.”
It took several moments for the words to register through the haze of… almost possibly kissing Iris?
But then, they did, and Barrett’s stomach clenched uncomfortably. “That’s really not necessary, princess.”
“I know.” She had her stubborn tone on, the one Barrett had heard her use with difficult clients at work. It did not bode well for Barrett. And not simply because it was a little bit hot when she got stubborn. More than a little bit.
“Iris. I showed up at your place, uninvited, to bring you here. It’s on me.”
She shook her head as they were invited to take a seat. “You’ve been buying me food for weeks now. It’s the least I can do.”
“It’s not a scorecard. You don’t have to… I don’t know, pay me back or even the field.”
Around a year after she’d started making real money, Barrett had begun getting over the panic that gripped her every time she had to pay for something.
It had been a lot of work, but, with money in the bank and reliable, decent paychecks, she’d gotten there.
It had felt like fixing something, that part of her that lived with growing up in poverty.
However, she still hadn’t quite gotten over the idea of other people paying for her.
The voice that told her she’d owe Iris, despite her own words, was insistent.
“I know I don’t,” Iris said, perusing her menu. “Maybe I just want to treat you.”
The air whooshed from her lungs and she concentrated on the feel of the smooth, floral tablecloth under her fingertips.
A voice that sounded remarkably like her mother’s told her not to accept, it would look like weakness.
We don’t need charity, Barrett. They’ll ask us to pay them back in the future and what will we do then, hey?
Her mother butted up against the tiny part of her that wanted it to just feel nice. A woman she liked far more than she should was getting food with her. She wanted to treat Barrett, and that was… special, kind, nice. It was something that shouldn’t cause terror to race through her body.
Iris wasn’t going to hold this against her. Iris didn’t need her to pay for everything, to fix everything, to handle and cover and augment every little part of their lives.
Literally, Iris wanted to pay. Barrett should not have been having a crisis about that. She worried about people needing her to pay for everything, so, when someone didn’t, that should have been reassuring—relaxing, even.
But they didn’t call it complex trauma for no reason. The thought was almost laughable. Painful, ridiculous, and annoying. She’d come so far, but she still ended up here.
Iris reached one hand out without looking up from the menu and placed it on top of one of Barrett’s.
The almost laugh became an almost sob, held firmly in the middle of her chest like a rock she could barely breathe around—barely even think around.
Iris knew she was struggling and she was there.
Steady, constant, holding Barrett through it all.
She wasn’t afraid of it or annoyed by it.
She was just… there, allowing Barrett to feel whatever she needed to feel.
With all the shit Iris had been through, how had the world made someone as magical as her?
Ruby’s voice in her mind was the one that pointed out that maybe Iris was feeling the same way about her.
If ever she’d needed an example that people were tapestries of all the experiences and people they’d had in their lives, it was the carousel of voices that came to her when she tried to exist with Iris. And it was all that same fucking growth.
Iris looked at her and smiled.
There was something blissful in watching Iris soften around her. The tapestry that others had tried to burn and beat had sewn itself back together and now, inexplicably, wanted to buy Barrett food.
“Do you know what you want?” Iris asked quietly.
You.
Barrett shook her head. She hadn’t even glanced at the menu, and she couldn’t bring herself to look away from Iris—soft cheeks and dark eyes and those perfect fucking eyebrows.
She wasn’t supposed to want Iris. But she did. It really was as simple as that.
“I can make recommendations, if you want? I know you’re new to British cuisine.” There was something mischievous in her grin, something teasing, and Barrett’s brain was going to explode again at the idea that a teasing version of Iris existed and she was the one who got to experience it.
“What are you getting?” she asked, using all her might to act normally.
“Welsh rarebit.”
Barrett did a double take. “Welsh what?”
Iris breathed a laugh, her grip tightening over Barrett’s hand. “It’s a kind of cheese on toast.”
“Right.” So, not rabbit, which was what Barrett thought she’d heard and which made absolutely no sense as something Iris would order. She’d had so many questions. “Of course.”
“You can have some when it arrives. I actually think you’ll like it.”
Barrett felt entirely cool about the prospect of sharing food with Iris. “So, I’ll order something different and we can… both have some of each?”
“Works for me.”
Barrett nodded. It worked for her, too. Far more than it should have.
She finally looked at the menu and her eyes landed on something called ‘coronation chicken’. It wasn’t a dish she’d ever order, but she couldn’t help wondering what the hell it was. Did Brits coronate their poultry like royalty?
In the end, she settled on something far less regal: a vegetable cottage pie. It sounded good, she’d never had a cottage pie, and, after she announced it as their second dish, Iris looked delighted. She’d easily take all of that over a coronation any day.
And they did order a pot of tea to share, but they ordered other drinks, too.
It was when Iris’ hand had disappeared from her own and they were both nursing multiple drinks that Barrett felt herself settling down again.
The whole thing was exactly as she’d imagined it.
After being stuck off-site for the day and missing Iris more than she’d care to admit out loud, sitting with her in the fading light felt like the best way to end any day.
“What do you do when you’re not looking after me?” Iris asked, amusement coloring her tone.
Barrett blinked rapidly. “What?”
“Your time lately is work, Oscar, and looking after me.”
“Hanging out with you,” Barrett corrected.
Iris smiled shyly. “Hanging out with me. But, what do you do outside of that? I want to know.”
For one, wild moment, Barrett’s mind went completely blank, like she’d never had the faintest clue what she did with her time. “Well, there’s a lot of Oscar, seeing Ruby and Deepti too.”
Barrett liked how easily Deepti had just become a given. She was not sure if she enjoyed the reminder that she still had to ask Iris to the moving in together celebration. What if Iris refused? What if it felt like too much, too fast, too… everything?
“You’re going to have to send some pictures of Oscar to the appreciation society group chat later.” Iris adjusted herself in her seat, glancing around the restaurant. “I missed him today.”
She’d initially considered bringing him to Iris’ place with her—he had, after all, missed Iris today, too—but he’d been wiped out and she’d really wanted to bring Iris here. “I will.”
The group chat had been active enough, but, given that Iris said very little in it, they hadn’t deviated much from Oscar.
Barrett had had visions of Ruby revealing every comment she’d ever made about Iris, but she hadn’t needed to worry.
There was even a part of her that wanted to see Iris’ reaction to some of the comments and Ruby’s interpretation of them.
It definitely said something if she was spending her time wishing her best friend would out her, apparently long-standing, crush on her colleague.
“And when you’re alone?” Iris prompted.
Barrett laughed, relaxing back into her seat. “Okay, princess. Hell of a question.”
Iris recoiled as she registered how that could be interpreted. “Oh, god. Not like that.”
“Like what, then?” Barrett knew what she meant, but teasing her was every bit as fun as being teased by her—and Barrett had been teasing her for a very long time.
“I just wanted to know what you like, if you have any hobbies, that kind of thing.” She hesitated, the momentary embarrassment giving way to something painfully earnest. “I wonder what you want in life, you know?”
Barrett’s chest constricted. There was an easy answer, just brush it off and answer with her hobbies and interests, keep it superficial and safe. But it was Iris, and the answer felt like a never-ending cavern that had been cleaved open inside of her.
Iris had hit upon the exact thing that Barrett never admitted to anyone, not even Orion—not in so many words, at least. It was the thing that made standing out front with Iris, looking like a couple, feel so ridiculously good.
And she was genuinely considering just admitting it.
To Iris. They’d admitted so much to each other already, what difference was one more thing?
A little, tiny, unbelievably massive thing.
“You can tell me,” Iris murmured, sounding every inch like she meant it.
I just want you. I can handle all of you. You’re safe here. I want to know you.
It would be ridiculous with anyone else. With Iris, Barrett almost believed it. Because it was the way she felt about Iris.
She sucked in an unsteady breath. “I want someone to choose me.”