“You offered her the role. You knew she would be here.”
“Not Iris here. Iris and you.”
Stevie felt the words like a shove to the chest. She must’ve heard wrong. Adri was with Vanessa. Vanessa, who was sweet and smart and beautiful and not a fucking mess all the time. Adri was the one who started the entire conversation that led to her and Stevie’s breakup, brought it up in bed one night back in January, after they’d already brushed their teeth and turned out the lights and said good night.
I think we should talk about breaking up.
That’s what Adri said, her exact words, and Stevie had felt them like a bomb finally detonating, a bomb she’d been watching falling from the sky for months. Of course Stevie had agreed—she always agreed with Adri, with everyone—and once your partner says something like that, something so final and shattering, there was no going back anyway.
So they’d broken up.
And Stevie had been lost for months, wondering if she’d ever have had the courage to end things if Adri hadn’t spoken up first, which had brought on a spiral of self-pity and hatred that pretty much locked Stevie into place until very recently.
She knew she and Adri didn’t have what she wanted, didn’t have what Adri wanted either, but she also craved familiarity.
Safety.
And she and Adri had been so, so safe. Even now, that safety was like a clear eye in a hurricane—wide open and calm. No one-night stands, no nervous puking, no lessons.
No wild redhead who made Stevie—
She squeezed her eyes shut, stopping the thought. This wasn’t about Iris. Not at its core. Couldn’t be. She and Iris weren’t even real.
“You wanted this,” Stevie finally said. “You’re the one who put this whole thing into motion. You’re with Van. You’re living with Van.”
“I know,” Adri said. “And I . . . I’m not saying that I . . . fuck.” She rubbed her forehead, sent her fingers through her wavy hair.
“What? You’re not saying what?”
Adri dropped her hands. “I’m not saying I want to get back together, okay?”
Stevie shook her head. “This conversation is making me feel like shit, Adri.”
“I’m sorry. Dammit.” Adri turned so she was facing Stevie, took one of her hands in hers. “I don’t mean to do that. Really. I just . . . look, we were together a long time. That doesn’t just go away, does it?”
Stevie’s throat went tight. Too tight, but she managed a raspy, “No.”
“And I miss you. I do.”
Tears welled into Stevie’s eyes. “Fuck, Adri.”
“I know.”
“You’re with Van,” Stevie said again.
“And you’re with Iris.”
Stevie swallowed. “I am.”
Adri leaned closer, rested her chin on Stevie’s shoulder. She was so close. So . . . familiar.
“See?” Adri said softly. “A lot of different things can be true at once.”
Stevie leaned her head against Adri’s—so easy, so normal, even as her mind whirled like the ocean wind.
“I worry about you,” Adri said after a while. “I don’t want you to get hurt. And Iris seems like a lot.”
“So . . . what? You want me to break up with her?” Stevie asked. “Are you breaking up with Van?”
Adri said nothing. Stevie wasn’t even sure what she wanted that answer to be—she loved Vanessa. And Stevie didn’t want to get back with Adri, but god, she had to admit the thought was intoxicating. Sinking back into something she knew, something she understood, even if it was somewhat lackluster as far as great love stories went.
But maybe Iris was right.
Maybe those kinds of stories were simply that—stories. Myths humanity wove to thread hope through the meaningless chaos of life.
Still, that hope of a great love was there, fanned into an even stronger flame since she and Adri separated, and Stevie didn’t think she could ignore it now.
And she didn’t think Adri wanted to ignore it either.
Stevie pulled back to look at her ex. “You’re not breaking up with her.”
It wasn’t a question.
Adri’s teeth closed over her lower lip, and she shook her head. “I love Van. I do. But I love you too.”
Clarity glimmered on the edge of Stevie’s thoughts, a glimmer of light in the middle of a storm. Adri’s attitude with Iris. The way she was all over Vanessa at the pool. This conversation right here, which felt like tentacles reaching out to lock Stevie back into place, back into Adri.
Tears spilled over and raced down Stevie’s cheeks, but she forced herself to stand up. She knew she needed to say more. Needed to tell Adri to stop, to let her go, but she couldn’t get the words together in her head. They jumbled together, a mishmash of things she knew were true and things that terrified her, that illusive clarity still hovering out of reach. But she knew she couldn’t stay here, and those words were, at least, easier to say.
“I need to go.”
“Stevie—”
But Stevie kept walking, and the wind and waves swallowed up whatever Adri was going to say to stop her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
IRIS WATCHED STEVIE lean her head against Adri’s.
She hadn’t meant to see. She’d come up to the room to grab a hair tie so she could go out on the beach to find Stevie. As she secured her still-damp hair into a low ponytail, she’d stepped out onto the balcony to look for her fake girlfriend, glancing left and right so she knew which way to head.
And there she was, sitting in the sand and staring at the waves, a tiny shape a few hundred yards down the beach. But just as Iris was about to turn away to head downstairs and outside, she’d seen Adri.
She’d seen Adri sit down next to Stevie.
She’d seen her press in close.
She’d seen her rest her chin on Stevie’s shoulder.
Which was all fine.
Whatever was going on between Stevie and Adri, it was complicated. Iris knew it wasn’t really about her—it was about six years of emotions and togetherness, and there was no way Iris could really relate to that.
There was no way Iris could compete with that.
Not that she was even trying. She was here to help Stevie. She was here for a play, a play Iris herself wanted to do.
After she came back inside the room and closed the sliding balcony door, she decided to focus on Beatrice. She washed up and then settled in her tiny twin bed and tried to read through the revised script Adri had given her before dinner. But she couldn’t concentrate. She kept seeing Stevie, wondering about Stevie, worrying about Stevie. Finally, she tossed her script aside and took out her iPad, opening up a folder now labeled “S & I.”
In the last week, she’d been drawing a lot. She’d written a lot too, her novel finally taking on somewhat of a shape, enough that she could breathe a little bit when thinking about her deadline. But she had a lot of illustrations too—a scene of Iris tucking Stevie into her bed the night they met, the shock of seeing each other at the Empress, their conversation backstage. The Belmont. Her friends’ incredulous expressions as she introduced them to Stevie.
Their lessons that night.
She nearly opened up that file, her finger hovering, her mind already re-creating their mouths on each other, Stevie’s fingertips as she dragged Iris’s bra straps down her arms.