Page 111 of Iris Kelly Doesn't Date

IRIS DIDN’T TALKto Stevie all weekend. Stevie didn’t text, didn’t call, and Iris didn’t either. She didn’t even think to. She also didn’t stalk Stevie’s social media. Stevie hardly ever posted on her Instagram anyway, not that Iris noticed.

Not that Iris was thinking about her at all.

Still, Sunday evening, after two days of relentless writing, her novel’s word count finally creeping up to about the halfway mark, she sat in her living room drawing Stevie Scott.

Stevie Scott’s mouth on Iris’s neck.

Stevie Scott’s hands on Iris’s body.

Stevie Scott’s eyes closed as Iris touched her, kissed her, made her—

“Fuck,” Iris said as the definitely not-safe-for-work illustration came to life on her iPad.

She hadn’t meant to draw their night together, but it was the next step, the next scene in her weird, true-story project, and now Iris couldn’t stop thinking about how many times Stevie had made hercome, the soft way she’d closed her body around Iris’s once they were both finally spent.

How Iris had fallen asleep like that, the possibility of asking Stevie to leave in the middle of the night never even crossing her mind.

And Iris always asked her partners to leave.

And they always did, no questions asked.

Iris shook her head and swiped out of her drawing program. She just needed a distraction. She’d spent her whole weekend in her apartment, writing romance andremembering, and fuck, she needed to do something else.

Someoneelse.

Her hands shook as she pulled on a pair of high-waisted jeans and a yellow crop top, as she slicked on mascara and some sparkly coral lip gloss. Low blood sugar. That’s all it was. She never remembered to eat when she was writing. In the kitchen, she dug into a box of crackers, then tapped out a text to the group chat, now namedCheers for Queers.

She tapped outAnyone up for Lush, but then hesitated before she hit send. She’d seen the way Claire had looked at her in Stella’s the other night, the assumptions all of her friends were making about Iris and Stevie, even as Stevie danced with Jenna. Honestly, she didn’t want to deal with their horror that Iris was looking for a random hookup.

She exited out of the group chat and tapped on Simon’s name.

“You know, normal people text,” he said when he answered her call.

“I’m not normal, Simon,” she said. “Surely you know that by now.”

He laughed. “Fair enough. What’s up?”

“You in Portland?”

A pause, just long enough to make Iris ask if he was still there.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m here,” he said. “And yeah, I’m in Portland. Why?”

“I need a wingman,” Iris singsonged, grabbing her keys and bag.

“You don’t,” he said. “You really don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“You honestly think I didn’t hear about how you stormed out of Stella’s after Stevie got with Jenna Dawson?”

“Oh fuck, not you too.”

“I’m just saying, Claire would stick needles under my fingernails if she knew I took you out to get laid.”

“It’s not Claire’s business.”

“Okay, fine, but it is mine, since you’re asking me to participate here, and I’m saying no.”