Page 41 of Iris Kelly Doesn't Date

“Ah,” Stevie said.

Iris folded her arms. “Now why would she do such a thing?”

Her tone dripped sarcasm. Stevie knew she needed to get this confession over with, and it all came out in a rush. “Probably because Ren—my friend I was with at the club that night—showed them a picture of you and me dancing at Lush and they were so excited that I’d hooked up with someone so very obviously out of my league that I let them believe we’re kind of sort of maybe dating.”

Iris squinted at her like she was trying to catch up.

“So,” she said finally, “we’re dating.”

Stevie said nothing.

“Like, fake dating. In a rom-com,” Iris said.

Stevie filled her cheeks with air, blew it out slowly. “It just sort of... happened. Adri and I used to date, and now she and Vanessa—”

“Oh my god, wait, what?” Iris said. “This is all about getting your ex back?”

“No,” Stevie said, taking a step closer to Iris. “No, I don’t want her back, I swear. But...” Fuck, it all sounded so ridiculous. When she spoke again, she closed her eyes and kept them squeezed shut. “I just wanted a minute to breathe. An hour, a day, where I wasn’t the pathetic ex slash best friend everyone was worried about.”

She opened her eyes. Iris was staring at her, mouth slightly parted.

“I figured, I’d let it play out for a couple of weeks, then tell them we broke up,” Stevie said. “I didn’t expect you—the real you—to come walking into my ex’s theater.”

Iris smiled a little at that. “Well, I am full of surprises.”

“Yeah.” Stevie smiled back. “You really, really are.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IRIS COULDN’T BELIEVEshe’d somehow found herself in the middle of a romantic comedy.

Fake dating.

It was ridiculous.

It was absurd.

It was...

She looked at Stevie, whose shaggy curls fell into her eyes, making her look like some sort of adorable lesbian pop star. She wore a fitted gray T-shirt that saidI Put Reading on the Map!and featured, inexplicably, a picture of a cartoon cat holding up a copy ofA Wrinkle in Time. The shirt bordered on ridiculous, but paired with Stevie’s low-hanging black jeans and boots, it worked.

Stevie was hot, there was no doubt about it.

And Iris got the distinct impression that she had no idea, which only made her hotter.

I just wanted a minute to breathe... where I wasn’t the pathetic ex slash best friend everyone was worried about.

Stevie’s words floated through Iris’s skull, a collection of syllables and phonemes that found their way into the middle of her chest.

She couldn’t say she didn’t understand where Stevie was coming from here.

She did.

All too well.

And, sure, Stevie’s tiny lie probably seemed harmless before Iris walked into the Empress. Empty words to take some pressure off. But now Iris was real.

Now Adri had offered Iris a lead part in the play.