“Honey,” Maeve said, sensing Iris’s hurt. “I only want you to be happy. We all do, and—”
“Here’s where you’re all hiding,” Zach said, his blond head appearing in the doorway. He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets, which were so tight, Iris was amazed he could fit one finger in there, much less five. “Can I help with anything? Liam said the burgers are nearly there.”
“Wonderful,” Maeve said, brightening and clapping her hands together once. She eyed Iris meaningfully. “Iris, will you and Zach set the table for us?”
Another thing Iris wasn’t very good at? Subtlety. Call it the product of a childhood as the quintessential middle child, call it a flair for drama, call it an inability to be serious, but if Maeve wanted Iris and Zach to couple up, then who was she to deny the woman her dearest wish on her birthday?
“Oh, we absolutely will,” Iris said. “But first, I have a very important question for Zach.”
He lifted a blond brow, a sly grin on his face. “Yeah? What’s that?”
Iris smoothed a hand over her hair, tugging on one of the tiny braids plaited through her dark red locks like she did when she was nervous, a tick her mother knew full well.
Maeve tilted her head.
Iris took a deep breath.
Then she yanked the moonstone ring from her left index finger and went down on one knee, presenting the ring to Zach with both hands.
“Here we go,” Aiden said.
“Oh no,” Emma said, pressing her eyes closed.
“Zach . . . whatever your last name is that I will happily take as my own upon our union,” Iris said, “will you marry me?”
“Iris, for god’s sake,” Maeve said, dropping her head into her hands.
“Um . . .” Zach said, backing up one step, then another. “Wait, what?”
“Don’t break my heart, Zachie,” Iris said, making her eyes as wide as possible, lifting the ring into the light.
“Iris, come on,” Emma said.
Behind her, Iris heard Charlie snort-laugh.
“I . . . well . . .” Zach continued to splutter, his orange-toned skin deepening into russet. He took another step toward the living room and fished his phone out of his back pocket, squinting at the screen. “Oh. Wow. You know what?”
“Early meeting tomorrow?” Iris asked from her place on the hardwood floor. She stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “Family emergency?”
“Yes,” he said, pointing at her. “Yes, exactly. I’m . . . this has been . . . yeah.” Then he turned and bolted out the front door so fast, a cologne-soaked breeze fluttered the ferns in the entryway.
The sound of the door slamming shut echoed through the kitchen as Iris got to her feet and calmly slipped her ring back into place.
Her family watched her with partly amused, partly annoyed expressions on their faces, which was pretty much her childhood captured in a single scene. Wild-haired, nail-bitten Iris, up to her usual antics.
Despite this familiarity, Iris’s cheeks went a little warm, but she simply shrugged and reached for another cube of cheese. “I guess he wasn’t ready to settle down after all.”
Her mother just threw her hands into the air and finally—dear god, finally—opened a bottle of wine.
CHAPTER TWO
ADRI AND VANESSA were making out.
Not that anyone else sitting in Bitch’s Brew in the middle of downtown Portland would notice—the two were hiding behind a battered edition of Much Ado About Nothing—but Stevie knew the signs. Adri’s pale fingers were grasping the orange cover just a little too tightly, and her mermaid-green hair, just visible over the top of their barricade, bobbed ever so slightly with the motion of her . . . well.
Anyway.
Stevie eyed the happy couple from her spot behind the espresso machine, black apron tied around her waist, batting a rainbow-hued streamer out of her face while she finished up a flat white. She and Adri used to do the exact same thing—up until about a year ago—giggling and kissing like teenagers in a coffee shop behind whatever screenplay they were studying at the time.
“Didn’t she come here to talk to you?” Ren asked. They were sitting at the bar, two different cell phones lying in front of them, along with a sleek silver laptop and a large glass of cold brew.
Stevie shrugged. “I think that’s what she said.”
Stevie didn’t think—she knew. Adri had definitely texted her this morning and asked if she could stop by Bitch’s on one of Stevie’s breaks so they could chat. Granted, this wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. She and Adri were still friends. Best friends. Vanessa was Adri’s new girlfriend as of a month ago and, incidentally, also one of Stevie’s best friends. Ren, the fourth member of their little queer crew that had bonded together during freshman orientation at Reed College and hadn’t let go in the ten years since, worked remotely at Bitch’s nearly every afternoon.
Stevie knew this situation wasn’t unusual in queer communities. With such tight-knit groups, cemented together because of sheer numbers and shared experiences, it was pretty common for friends to have slept with each other once or twice, or at least engaged in a kiss or two. Still, Stevie and Adri had been together for six years—from senior year of college to . . . well, six months ago—and while Stevie had agreed when Adri instigated their breakup and everything had been mutual and mature and all that adult shit, Stevie wasn’t quite prepared for Adri to jump into bed with one of the very people on whose couch Stevie slept when she first moved out of Adri’s apartment.
She should’ve chosen Ren’s couch.
But Ren, god bless them, lived in a luxury apartment in Portland’s most expensive neighborhood, which also meant their place was the size of a toaster. It was immaculately decorated, all the finest linens and furniture, but their king-size bed took up the entire bedroom—for real, they didn’t even have a nightstand—and a single love seat and coffee table made up the whole living space. It was all very Ren, who either invested in high-end stuff or went without.
But this was fine, because Stevie had found her own place, just a block from Bitch’s where, yes, at twenty-eight, she still worked in between auditions and any roles she actually managed to land. Which, lately, wasn’t many. Her most recent acting job had been nearly a year ago, a modernized remake of The Importance of Being Earnest in Seattle, where she played Gwendolen and got decent reviews, resulting in absolutely zero interest from other directors.
Needless to say, she was in a bit of a rut. Ren, a publicist for an ethical clothing company, said she simply needed to remake her brand. Whatever the hell that meant. If Stevie had a brand, it was an underwhelming amalgam of anxiety and childish dreams she couldn’t seem to relinquish.
How very inspiring.
“They’re extremely unclassy,” Ren said, glancing at Adri and Vanessa with a white stylus pressed to their cheek, head tilted elegantly. Ren’s apartment wasn’t the only thing that was immaculate. They were dressed in a three-piece gray suit, purple-and-green paisley tie, and three-inch purple heels. Their hair—black, short on the sides and long on top—coiffed and swirled upward in a way that would make Johnny Weir jealous. Their makeup was also perfect, silvery-purple eyeshadow, winged liner, shimmery lavender lip. Ren was Japanese American, nonbinary, pansexual, and the single coolest person Stevie knew.