“Peppa.”
“I think that’s a pig.”
“Okay, Wilbur.”
Iris laughed. “She’s a frog.”
Stevie laced their fingers together, kissed Iris on the back of the hand. “Says who? Her identity is her own.”
Iris smiled and stuffed the frog under her arm. They walked along the crowd, people waving at Iris every so often, and a silence fell over them that caused Iris’s heart rate to pick up.
This had been happening a lot lately, the closer they got to Much Ado’s opening night. The play would run for the month of August, and then . . .
Her deal with Stevie would be done.
They’d have no reason to keep up their charade, and Iris didn’t think she could take many more of these dates anyway. They were fun, sure, but they were also confusing, leaving Iris scribbling out each encounter on her iPad late into the night, analyzing every word the next day, tormenting herself over why Stevie didn’t seem to want to sleep with her again.
She knew she had to bring up their inevitable end. They had no exit strategy so far, no plan for how they’d break up their fake relationship for Stevie’s friends and the play’s cast and crew. She knew Stevie always did better with a plan, even if the idea of everything just stopping made Iris uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t explain.
“Hey, you two!” Claire called from River Wild’s booth. She and Ruby were working, selling the summer’s hottest reads for the store. Delilah was around here somewhere, taking photos for a National Geographic project she was working on—a book about liberal small towns—and Astrid and Jordan were both working at the Everwood Inn tonight, as they were fully booked with visitors for the fair.
“Hey,” Iris said, pulling her hand away from Stevie’s and kissing Claire and then Ruby on the cheek. “Selling a lot?”
“Oh, yeah, summer romances,” Claire said holding up a yellow paperback. “This one’s about fake dating and a bisexual disaster. Selling like hot cakes.” Here she winked at Stevie, a move she didn’t even try to hide from Iris, and Stevie cleared her throat, making a pretty huge show of inspecting a book on the flora and fauna of Central Oregon.
“Okay,” Iris said. “What am I missing?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Claire said, waving a hand.
“I think she’s calling you a bisexual disaster, Aunt Iris,” Ruby said.
Stevie choked, hitting her chest with her fist, and Iris popped her hands on her hips.
“Oh, your mother is one to talk,” she said to Ruby. “Let me tell you a little story about a cranky photographer and a little bet that she—”
“Okay, okay,” Claire said, literally pressing her hand to Iris’s mouth. “She knows the story.”
“Clearly not,” Iris said when Claire released her.
Claire just shook her head.
“Isn’t Stevie your fake girlfriend?” Ruby asked.
“Yes,” Iris said, pulling Stevie in close. “Yes, she is.”
Ruby just frowned, those hazel eyes she got from her father, Josh, narrowing in on Stevie. “Still? Even after—”
“Ruby, honey,” Claire said, “text your dad for me, will you? See if he’s still coming to pick you up tomorrow at nine.”
“Hang on,” Iris said, glancing at Stevie before frowning at Ruby. “After what?”
Ruby just shrugged. “Like, you know, all the wooing and—”
“Ruby,” Claire snapped. “Go. Text. Your father.”
Ruby rolled her eyes, then stomped off to the back of the booth, her phone in her hands.
“Teenagers,” Claire said, laughing, but Iris wasn’t looking at Claire.
“What is she talking about?” she asked Stevie. “Wooing?”
Stevie and Claire looked at each other, a quick glance and then away, but it was enough to set Iris on edge.
“Okay, someone better tell me what the fuck is going on right the hell now,” Iris said.
“Iris,” Stevie said. “It’s nothing. I—”
“Ruby doesn’t fucking lie,” she said. “And Claire, goddess bless her, is horrible at lying. Her face turns beet red and she chews her lower lip to shreds”—here she pointed at Claire—“just like that.”
Claire’s teeth released her lip.
“Iris,” Stevie said, taking her hand. “Let’s go talk, okay? It’s my story to tell, not Claire’s.”
Iris’s shoulders released a little, but her breath still felt tight, her jaw locked up and tense. “Fine.”
Stevie led her away from the booths and toward the water. The fair was set up in a park at the edge of town, Bright River rushing along to the east. Stevie kept walking until they reached one of the small docks, the fair’s crowd just a gentle hum behind them. A single lamppost in the grass turned the area golden, but the farther they walked out on the dock, the darker it got. The world was quiet, the stars above a brilliant silver.
“If you fucking say this is romantic, I will hurl myself into this river,” Iris said. She set her purple frog at her feet, then rested her forearms on the wooden railing, eyes going glassy on the water.
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Stevie said, coming to stand next to her.
Iris turned toward her. “Well, you better say something, Stevie.” Her throat tightened, but she swallowed around it. “What was Ruby talking about back there? What is all this? These ridiculous dates. What are we doing? Because it’s not for my book, and it can’t be for you, because you barely touch me.”
“I barely touch you?” Stevie said. “I hold your hand all night. I kiss you when we say goodnight, and—”
“Yeah, a single kiss, how exciting. We haven’t slept together since Stella’s.”
“So, sex equals . . . what? Proves what?”
Iris scraped a hand over her tangled hair. “I don’t even know what that means. What are you trying to prove, Stevie? We’re fake dating and we were fucking—which we’re clearly not doing at all anymore—and now Claire’s thirteen-year-old seems to know something I don’t, so tell me what you want, Stevie. What is all this for? What the hell do you—”
“I want you.”
She said it so quietly, Iris almost didn’t hear her. Stevie’s eyes were fixed on Iris, the moon glinting off that light amber color, turning it into bronze.
“What?” Iris asked, her own voice a whisper.
“I want you,” Stevie said again.
Her eyes filled, and Iris could tell she was shaking, but still, she didn’t look away from Iris. Didn’t even blink.
“I know you may not believe me,” Stevie said. “But the night we slept together—actually, before, when I went home with Jenna—I realized I didn’t want some stranger. I never really did, I just told myself what I thought I needed so I could be . . . I don’t even know. An adult? A person who controlled her own sex life? But I didn’t want just anyone. And I sure as hell don’t want to have sex with just anyone. I want you. Everything changed that night we went to Stella’s. It was like waking up from the longest sleep of my life. But then the next morning, you . . .”