Chapter Twenty-Nine
Barrett had said the words like they were the beginning and end of everything she’d ever been.
Maybe they were.
Iris swallowed hard. Wasn’t that all any of them wanted?
She’s stayed with Natasha far longer than she should have because she wanted to be chosen, because Natasha had somehow conditioned her into believing nobody else ever would.
And she’d finally left because she’d realized that wasn’t being chosen, not in the way you were supposed to be.
Her stomach ached, her throat constricting around the words itching to escape her: I choose you.
Instead, what left her mouth was, “Anyone would be lucky to choose you.”
Barrett scoffed. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do.”
“Eh. People pick me for what I can do for them, you know? It’s not really about me.”
It was for Iris. She could feel it like a physical force threatening to burst from inside her. She didn’t care if there was never anything Barrett could do for her, she just wanted to spend time with her. She wanted to know everything there was to know about her.
The whole thing made her dizzy. The intensity of the feeling, the certainty of it, the way it butted up against Natasha and all her damage. Because Iris felt safe with Barrett, but she knew what the people who claimed to love you did to you.
Still, she needed to tell Barrett that she was perfect as she was. “You—”
“Okay!” a cheerful voice said as someone sidled up to their table, two plates in hand.
Barrett sucked in an audible breath as Iris blinked, disorientated. They both recoiled, backs slamming into their own chairs, like repellent magnets.
The server didn’t seem to notice anything off, placing their dishes down and telling them to enjoy themselves.
Barrett laughed awkwardly when they were alone again. “That was probably good timing. Sorry. I didn’t mean to get so… woe is me.”
“No, Barrett, it’s—”
She waved a hand cutting Iris off. “That wasn’t what you asked.”
“It was exactly what I asked.”
She shifted stiffly, repeatedly adjusting the plate in front of her. “Well, um, what I want right now is to try some fabulous British food.”
There had been a time when Iris believed she didn’t understand Barrett at all.
But it hadn’t been that way for some time now.
She understood Barrett far more than she’d ever imagined possible.
And she understood the need to walk back an overly emotional moment just to feel safe, to feel in control of the moment. So she let it go.
She nodded. “Welsh rarebit or cottage pie first?”
The look Barrett gave her was impossibly relieved, her breath coming easier and deeper as she smiled. “It’s gotta be the Welsh rarebit, right?”
Iris grinned and risked taking things way too far as she cut a piece of the toast off and held it out to Barrett. The look she got in return was pointed, but the smirk that settled across Barrett’s lips was familiar.
“I guess I really didn’t need to get the coronation chicken to be treated like royalty, hey, princess?” She winked as she leaned in to accept the bite.
Iris frowned. “You don’t get treated well when you order that. It’s just a sandwich filling.”
Barrett’s expression switched from delighted to disgruntled instantly. She pointed between her mouth and Iris’ plate. “This is fantastic, but what do you mean it’s just a sandwich filling?”
“It’s like… chicken in some kind of curry-spiced mayonnaise.”
Barrett stared at her. “You’re serious.”
“I’ve never had it, but yeah. You could buy it pre-made in the grocery stores when I was there.”
“That is so unbelievably disappointing.”
Iris attempted to stifle a laugh. “Sorry.”
“It’s so grandly named,” she complained, digging into her own meal and holding it out to Iris without a second thought.
Iris nodded as she accepted the food. It was good, too. “That I can explain.”
“Oh, please, be my guest because I’m absolutely furious right now.” She didn’t look furious.
“It was named for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation.”
Barrett froze. “This fucking woman again.”
“She’s dead, Barrett,” Iris whispered, glancing around the room. In that way one might expect from an English restaurant in New York, there was a lot of memorabilia with the Queen on.
“I know that.” She shook her head, digging back into the food. “But, first, she has the audacity not to meet you when you’re over there, and, now, she’s got some pompously named food where I’m just finding out they don’t even coronate the chickens?”
“That’s what you thought that meant?”
“Why not? Brits are wild. Have you heard all the things they call alleyways?”
Iris laughed. “I haven’t heard all the ways—”
“Yeah, because there’s like a million of them and some of them sound like they just walked in from the nearest fantasy novel.”
“How have you heard them?”
“Oh.” Her mouth snapped shut and she held her fork out for Iris again. “Here, have some more pie.”
“Barrett—”
“Before it drops,” she urged.
Iris shook her head and accepted the food. “How did you know?”
“Ugh. Fine. I might have gotten lost down a British rabbit hole while I was doing research on things you’d like to do in the city.”
Iris sagged. Who wasn’t choosing Barrett? She was so thoughtful and curious and funny and kind. She showed up and made you feel important. She’d always made Iris feel wanted.
“And I have to say,” Barrett continued, slicing another piece off the Welsh rarebit and holding it out for Iris, “a snickleway doesn’t sound like a real place.”
Iris laughed. “Yeah, I was at college with someone from the north who called it a ginnel. Confused a few of us with that one.”
Barrett scowled as she swallowed. “See? Made up!”
“All words are made up.”
“You know what I mean.” She shook her head. “And also, if you’re going to use random, magic words for alleyways, why would you go with ginnel and not snickleway?”
“I thought you hated snickleway.”
“I don’t hate it. I’m just saying… I actually don’t remember what my initial point with this was, but would you rather meet me in a ginnel or a snickleway? One of those sounds like a magical adventure. We won’t get into the other.”
Iris remembered Barrett’s initial point perfectly well, but she didn’t care to remind her. She simply wanted to watch Barrett ranting about British terminology and having a fantastic time. “I would rather meet you in an alleyway and not wade into regional differences. They can get fierce.”
“I don’t doubt it.” She paused, looking up to wiggle her eyebrows. “And I’ll meet you in any alleyway you want, princess.”
Iris groaned. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, we know how you feel about the language. How’s the food?”
“Yeah, fantastic. I still don’t know if I’m a massive fan of tea, but it’s okay.”
Iris smiled. “You don’t have to be. You’re a coffee person. That’s okay.”
Barrett shot her a look that felt loaded for the words she’d said, but Iris was perceptive enough to know it was about being told she was good as she was. Ginnel-hating, coffee-loving Barrett, and that was more than enough.
“That’s something I do in my free time,” she told Iris after a moment. “Make coffee, buy coffee, try new coffee places.”
“We should go to one of those next time.”
Barrett lit up. “Is that you asking me on a date, princess?”
Iris’ insides bottomed out. She had no idea how to answer that. It couldn’t really be a date, right? She wasn’t—she couldn’t—it would be— “Uh…”
Barrett’s eyes were wide as she seemed to register what was happening. She cleared her throat. “I can’t promise they’ll make you coffee as good as I do.”
Iris nodded slowly, swallowing convulsively. “I’m sure they won’t. You do make a great coffee.”
“And I know what you like.”
It was almost impossible to hold in her wince. There were so many ways to interpret that. “You do.”
“Mm.”
Iris was pretty sure she was burning alive.
It was remarkable that everyone around them was enjoying their evening rather than running for the doors.
There was such a rainbow of emotions in being around Barrett, and Iris wasn’t sure how to handle any of them.
It had been so long since she’d felt safe enough to even think most of them.
Barrett let her stew in it for several long minutes before asking, “And in your free time, princess? What do you get up to?”
“Oh.” Nothing, if the answers her brain was not providing were anything to go by. “I… read, re-watch the same TV shows over and over again, make lists of things I’d like to do and never get to.”
If she’d had more of her wits about her, she’d probably have been a little less brutally honest in her answer.
Barrett lit up. “Well, that’s exactly what I’m here for. To help you see all the things you want to.”
It was nice to have someone to do things with, to visit places, to talk about them.
And, with Barrett, it didn’t matter whether they were racing across the city to ride a ferry or doing their groceries, everything became more fun, more interesting, more everything she’d ever wanted.
But Barrett wasn’t just required to show up for her.
She wanted to do that in return, to go wherever Barrett wanted, to let her experience everything she’d been keeping herself from too.
Iris gestured around them. “Well, this is one. Thank you.”
“Does that mean you’re going to let me pay?”
“Absolutely not. And we’re getting dessert too.”
Barrett laughed. Her head tilted as she looked at Iris, and her amber eyes looked honeyed in the light. Iris really did like that shade of yellow. Just as she liked the shade they usually leaned. Just as she liked Barrett. Barrett who was looking at her like she wanted to devour her.
“I like it when you’re stubborn,” Barrett murmured after a loaded moment, and her words didn’t shatter the electricity between them. They simply set it buzzing even more frantically. Iris’ hands were fizzing with it. Her cheeks, too.
“I like it when you’re stubborn, too.” The words were out before she could consider them. But what was there to consider? They were true.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Very much.”
So much that it terrified her how easily she could imagine spending every day with Barrett’s jokes and comments and…
brattiness. Because she was bratty sometimes, and it was every bit as beautiful as when she was serious and sincere.
She liked that Barrett had been trained to be this perfect, malleable daughter that did as she was told, but she’d looked at that life and said no.
She’d gotten out, found herself, and she let herself be a little bratty, be troublesome and cheeky.
Barrett was so many perfect things, and, even if she hadn’t seen it coming, Iris wanted all of them.
Barrett’s gaze darted between Iris’ eyes, loaded and wanting, before it landed on her lips, just like on the ferry.
There wasn’t a way to do that, not with the expression Barrett had and how visibly she was breathing, without it meaning…
what Iris thought it meant. She couldn’t even think the words to herself.
But she knew what she felt when she looked at Barrett’s lips.
They were soft and pink and she could imagine how warm they’d feel from the food and the hot drinks.
She could imagine the way her hand would slide along Barrett’s jaw to linger on the soft skin behind her ear.
She could imagine kissing Barrett. Vividly, consumingly, like her entire body had been waiting for it, calling out for it.
Barrett’s lips parted, her breath skittering across them.
Iris couldn’t remember where they were or when they were or anything other than Barrett and her joke that might have contained a kernel of truth. “Barrett, when we go to a coffee place you want to try, I want it to be a date.”