Iris Kelly Doesn't Date (Bright Falls, #3)(14)

“Making out with two people at once,” Stevie said. Sure enough, a blink after Ren spotted her, a dude with blond hair licked a stripe up the woman’s neck, while another person nibbled on her ear.

“Damn, good on her,” Ren said softly. “See, she knows how to make the queer bar dynamic work for her.”

Stevie smiled and shook her head, crossing her arms as she continued to look around the room. Everyone she noticed seemed to already be coupled up, dancing and making out and laughing like old friends. Her shoulders slumped a bit as she wondered how people did this all the time. Every night of the week, strangers met strangers, hooked up, fell in lust, fell in love.

Some days, Stevie spent an hour wondering if that customer whose order she’d screwed up at Bitch’s was going to sue the entire business and shut everything down, destroying all of Effie’s hard work and putting Stevie out of a job. An irrational thought, she knew, but that didn’t keep her brain from latching onto it like a sloth around a tree limb.

Acting was the only part of her life where she was free from this crippling second-guessing of every move she made. When her therapist first suggested she try theater in middle school, shortly after coming out and getting diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, her mother was terrified. Stevie could barely answer a question in class—how was she ever going to get up in front of an audience and rattle off lines?

But Stevie wasn’t Stevie when she was on stage. She was Gwendolen Fairfax. She was Amanda Winfield. She was Ophelia and Rosalind and Bianca. Assuming a character’s identity, their dreams and fears and quirks, had always come so naturally for Stevie. Stepping into being someone else . . . well, it was a relief, if she was being honest.

As she stood in the middle of Lush, looking for a stranger to talk to, her stomach clenching with anxiety, she realized all she needed to do was step into a character. She wasn’t Stevie, twenty-eight-year-old barista and struggling actor. She was Stefania, a sought-after, New York-or Chicago-or LA-bound, midriff-baring theatrical badass.

She straightened her posture—Stefania would never cower from nerves—determined to find someone to approach. But seconds turned into minutes, and she was just about to say fuck it, order a tequila for herself, and force Ren to go talk to that curvy goddess by the pool table, when she saw her.

A redhead.

Standing by the jukebox, talking to a white guy with glasses and a trimmed beard. Stevie watched them for a moment, looking for signs that they were together, but the guy looked a bit rumpled, like he’d just gotten out of bed, and the woman was definitely looking out at the crowd with a tilt to her head.

Stevie recognized that tilt. The I’m interested tilt. The What have we here tilt. Not that she was such a genius at reading body language. She simply had a feeling that the guy was sort of like Stevie’s Ren—a wingperson, moral support.

“Ren,” she said out of the corner of her mouth, like it was a secret. “The redhead by the jukebox. What do you think?”

Ren straightened and gazed through the crowd, eyes widening when they landed on their mark. “Nice.”

“You think she’s here with him?” Stevie asked.

“Nah,” Ren said. “She looks hungry.”

Stevie smiled, thrilled she’d actually gotten that one right. Now all she had to do was . . .

Shit.

She actually had to do this.

She took a few deep breaths, observing the woman as she let Stefania, Sexy Wonder-Thespian, seep into her bones. The redhead was white, her skin so pale it looked nearly blue underneath the dim lighting. She had little braids plaited throughout her long hair, freckles over much of her face. She wore a cropped green sweater and tight jeans, but only about an inch of her stomach was showing. Stevie started to feel self-conscious about her shirt again but forced herself back into character.

Stefania wasn’t self-conscious.

Stefania was a queer marvel.

A gift to sapphics everywhere.

A genius in bed.

A—

“You’re doing that thing again, aren’t you?” Ren asked.

Stevie blinked her reality back into focus. “Huh?”

“You’re pretending you’re someone else.” Ren narrowed their eyes.

“I’m . . . I’m just doing a little mental exercise to boost my courage,” Stevie said. She knew it was weird, trying to become a fictional character off the stage, but it worked for her. Besides, her name was Stefania. She was an actor. “Do you want me to go hit on that woman or not?”

Ren presented their hands in surrender. “Fine. Do what you gotta do, I guess.”

Stevie frowned at Ren’s disapproving tone, but she shook it off. She needed this. Needed a night free of being . . . well, herself.

She cleared her throat. Fiddled with her fringe. She took a deep, calming breath. She took one step toward the redhead and froze.

Because the redhead was already walking across the room, her eyes fixed on Stevie.





CHAPTER FIVE





SIMON WAS BEING a terrible wingman. On the phone, he’d failed to mention that Iris had in fact woken him up and, while he’d dutifully gotten dressed, and Emery hadn’t complained when Simon left them in their bed to come out to a queer club with Iris—Emery knew Iris well enough by now to think nothing of it—Simon was less than energetic once they’d arrived at Lush.