Iris Kelly Doesn't Date (Bright Falls, #3)(116)
Brighton lifted a brow. “Are you telling me to smile?”
“I would never. But maybe, you know, try to at least look like you’re not out for blood.”
Adele had a point. Brighton was barely making ends meet with her tips as it was—she couldn’t afford to be grumpy. Her roommate, Leah, had been pretty flexible on the rent lately, but it came with caveats. Last week, Brighton found herself at an ornament exchange party for the singles group at Leah’s church. After being late with the rent three months in a row, Brighton hadn’t felt like she could say no to the invite, so she ended up with a plastic Christmas pickle ornament and fake smiling for an hour at a guy in khakis and boat shoes while he talked about the album he just released, a folked-up version of sacred Christmas music, because of-fucking-course he was a musician too.
Leah had asked her about Boat Shoes for the next three days, but Brighton couldn’t even remember his face, to be honest. Brighton liked cis men sometimes, but it took a lot to catch her attention, and Boat Shoes did nothing but bore her, despite Leah’s insistence he was the nicest guy. Leah was twenty-four and a conservative Christian, a tiny detail she’d neglected to include on her Craigslist ad six months ago. The resulting partnership had made for an interesting living situation, considering Brighton was not only a flaming liberal, but also very, very queer.
Suffice it to say, Brighton was desperate to make the rent on time this month. Leah was perfectly nice, but whenever Brighton got roped into some church event, she ended up stuck in a conversation that was, essentially, some version of “hate the sin, love the sinner,” and Brighton preferred to leave the word sin out of her identity altogether, thanks very much.
So she put on a smile, rolled her shoulders back, and fluffed her dark bangs so they fell over her forehead just so. At least she’d get out of this town in a few days, heading home to Michigan for Christmas. Her parents went all out for the holiday and, to be quite honest, Brighton couldn’t wait. She wanted her mom’s cinnamon hot chocolate and her family’s traditional lineup of Christmas movies playing every night, always starting with Home Alone. She wanted to walk all bundled up through the snowy sand on the shore of Lake Michigan, waves frozen in mid-crest so that the whole world looked like another planet.
She and Lola used to—
She froze mid-stir of a dirty martini, shook her head to clear it. She and Lola . . . there was no she and Lola. Not anymore. Not for six years now, but Lola still crept into so many of her memories, like a habit, especially at Christmastime. Six years was nothing to the ten before that. Still, Lola might as well be a ghost, might as well not even exist at all, and Brighton didn’t care to think too deeply about why.
About how it was all her fault.
She plopped an olive into the drink and handed it over to a girl with brown curls and green eyes. Their fingers brushed, just for a second. The girl smiled, her gaze slipping down from Brighton’s own dark eyes and pale face to the tattoo of the Moon tarot card surrounded by peonies on her upper right arm.
“I love that,” the girl said, eyes back on Brighton’s.
“Thank you,” Brighton said, feeling her cheeks warm and leaning her forearms onto the bar. She rightly sucked at dating, but hookups she could do. She looked at the girl through her lashes, smiled with one corner of her mouth. “It’s—”
But she froze as Cowboy Boots shifted from “Silver Bells” into a song that most definitely was not a Christmas tune, the familiar, catchy melody like a splash of ice water on Brighton’s face.
Rain is gone and I’m feeling light
Your ripped jeans like silk and wine
Cherry lipstick still on my mind
Can’t blame me, darling, I’m back in line
Brighton closed her eyes, tried to block out the lyrics she’d heard on Saturday Night Live a month ago and now couldn’t seem to escape even sitting in her own bar. The song, “Cherry Lipstick,” was everywhere—Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, covered at least twice a week in Ampersand. In the last six months, the band, a trio of queer women called the Katies, had rocketed from near nothingness to the hottest thing to hit millennial and Gen Z ears since Halsey.
To most people, “Cherry Lipstick” was just a song—a damn good indie pop song that many a gal would probably attach to their queer awakening, but a song nonetheless—and the Katies were just a band finding some success. Good on them. So this ubiquitous song playing in all corners of the world was fine and dandy . . . except for the fact that a mere nine months ago, Brighton had been the Katies’ lead singer.
And now she most definitely was not.
Cowboy Boots came to the chorus, belting out the lyrics with such gusto, Brighton was nearly positive this woman was in the middle of her own awakening.
“Oh, I love this song.” The girl was still standing in front of Brighton, martini in hand. “Don’t you?”
“Ah, Christ,” Adele said under her breath. “Here we go.”
Brighton glared at her friend, then turned a saccharine smile on the girl. “It’s a fucking masterpiece.”
At Brighton’s tone, the girl’s smile dimmed and she drifted away back to her friends. Just as well. Brighton was clearly in no mood to be accommodating, and anyone who loved “Cherry Lipstick” was bound to be horrible in bed. Granted, Brighton knew her logic there made absolutely zero sense, but it made her feel better in the moment, so she went with it.