Page 151 of Iris Kelly Doesn't Date

I chose me, but I choose you too.

Stevie stared down at her script as she sat in Devoción, her favorite coffee shop on Grand. She sipped a flat white, tried to focus on Rosalind’s motivations, reasons, fears, but suddenly all she could think about was that drawing Iris did the morning they broke up.

Stevie. Alone. In New York City.

Turns out, Iris was a bit of a psychic. Stevie was alone. She was in New York City.

And... Stevie was okay.

If there was one thing that drawing emanated—Stevie’s arms spread, head tipped up to the sky—it was that. Stevie was okay.

“Hey, hey, sorry I’m late,” a voice said.

Stevie looked up to see a young white woman with shoulder-length pink hair and blunt bangs skirting around the café’s greenery then plopping down on the tufted brown leather couch where Stevie sat.

“The Q was down again,” Olivia said, huffing out a breath that ruffled her fringe. She wore gray leggings and a heavily patternedsweater that looked like it might have belonged to her dad in the seventies, but that she somehow made work.

Stevie waved a hand. “No worries.”

Olivia smiled at her, and Stevie smiled back. Olivia was young—twenty-five, though that was only three years younger than Stevie herself, but Olivia had such a hopeful, innocent air about her, she felt younger. She was an actual graduate of Juilliard, so she was a ridiculously talented actress and was playing Celia, Rosalind’s cousin and dear friend inAs You Like It. She and Stevie had met during the auditions Thayer had invited Stevie to attend her first week in New York. Olivia was there too—she knew Thayer from some off-Broadway play they had both worked on last year—and her naturally open and bubbly personality made it easy for Stevie to relax around her.

She was also pansexual, and Stevie always felt safer, more herself, around other queer people anyway.

“What scene are you on?” Olivia asked, scooting close to Stevie and peering down at her script.

“Did you forget your copy again?” Stevie asked.

Olivia laughed, her clearly-false-but-still-gorgeous lashes fluttering against her cheek. “You know me. Last week, I lost my keys. Guess where I found them?”

“Let me guess. Your cat’s litter box?”

“Nope, that was last month. In the oven.” Olivia made a face. “Like, I don’t even use my oven. I keep my emergency stash of dark chocolate–covered almonds in there and—oh, oh, I see what I did now.”

Stevie smiled and shook her head. “You need a key hook. Right by your door.”

“I have one.”

Stevie laughed, then moved her already heavily marked-up script so it rested between them. “Act 1, scene 3.”

Olivia scooted close, her slim leg pressing against Stevie’s, andsoon they were lost in the scene, whispering the lines to each other so they didn’t bother the other patrons, pausing so Stevie could mark something in her script or Olivia could tap out a note on her phone. It was exciting work, Stevie’s heart beating faster at the idea of performing this at the Delacorte under a July sky, the crowd happy and summer-soaked and beautiful.

“You’re really good,” Olivia said when they’d finished the scene, nudging Stevie’s shoulder.

Stevie smiled. She was learning not to brush off compliments—especially coming from someone like Olivia, someone who’d already been a part of New York’s theater scene for a few years. Stevie knew her words weren’t empty.

“Thanks,” Stevie said. “You too.”

Olivia smiled, fluttered her fingers down her face. “I know.”

Stevie laughed, then flipped through the script for another scene between Rosalind and Celia. Olivia waited patiently, her arm still warm against Stevie’s.

“You know,” Olivia said, “we should go out sometime.”

Stevie’s fingers froze on a page. She glanced at Olivia, who was looking at her with softly narrowed eyes, head tilted as though the idea had just occurred to her.

“Like...” Stevie said but trailed off.

Olivia just grinned. “Yeah, like...”