“I don’t want to inconvenience you,” Iris replied.
“I’ve got a spare bedroom you can crash in until you figure something else out,” I offered, hoping she didn’t fight me on it and just accepted.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Nancy chimed in, clapping her hands.
“Okay, thank you,” Iris said, twisting her hands as though nervous. “It’ll just be for one night. I just hate texting some of my friends so late, but I can make arrangements for the weekend.”
“I’ll go next door and ask Swift if it’s okay for you to grab some things and pack a bag,” I told her as I stood and made my way to the door.
I was just about through the door when I heard Iris mutter quietly, causing me to pause and listen.
“This could be a disaster,” she said.
“Yes, but with that man along for the ride, it could also be a fun and spicy disaster,” Nancy muttered backexcitedly. “You could use a little fun right now, dear. Just promise to tell me all about it later.”
On that note, I walked next door, but I couldn’t help but grin a little. Being with Iris would definitely be a disaster. Not on my part, but on hers. I was a giant red flag—one that she needed to stay far, far away from. But damn if Nancy wasn’t also right that it would be a fun and spicy disaster.
The car ride back to my place so far had been a quiet one. I knew Iris was processing a lot, so I let her have that space, but I also didn’t want her to worry too much about it since there wasn’t much else she could do at this point.
I knew she could have driven herself, but driving when you were emotional was never a good thing, so I offered to take her and would bring her back in the morning.
Not wanting her to feel any more uncomfortable than she already was tonight, I decided to ask her some questions to distract her.
“Iris, I know you have one sister—Anna—but you have another one if I remember correctly, right?”
She turned to face me but just stared for a beat before answering. “I actually have four sisters.”
“For real?”
At her sister’s wedding, Archer had mentioned her whole family was there, but I hadn’t bothered to talk toanyone if I didn’t have to. I was the exact opposite of a social butterfly. Plus, seeing Iris at the wedding in a skintight gown showing off all her assets made it hard for me to focus on anyone else in the room.
“Yes,” she said, pulling me from my thoughts of her in a tight dress. “I assumed you already knew that. I’m adopted, so I have four sisters that Mom and Auntie adopted.”
I knew Anna lived with her husband in Georgia, but I wasn’t sure about the rest.
“Other than Anna, do they all live here?”
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “Mom and Auntie live on a working farm in a small coastal town in Northern California, and my sisters are all scattered about.”
“Are you all close in age?” I asked, not knowing anything about how fostering and adoption worked.
“We’re all within ten years of each other,” she said. “Gale is the oldest of the sisters, in her mid-thirties, and lives in the converted guest house on the farm. She’s a forensic scientist but can do most of her work remotely, which is good since she is extremely introverted.”
Her face lit up while she talked about her family, and I loved seeing her ease out of her anxiety.
“Cora is the next oldest, and she’s the Nevada State Hydrologist up in Reno. Then comes me, followed by Anna—who you already know. Finally, there’s Hazel, who just turned twenty-six. She’s a marine biologist andlives in a different coastal town not far from Mom and Auntie. Cora and Hazel are biological sisters.”
“All girls,” I noted.
She nodded before explaining. “In the beginning, they took in both boys and girls, but after Gale arrived, that changed. I wasn’t there at that time, but I was told she had a really hard time with any male presence,” she said softly.
There was clearly more to the story there, but I was trying to keep the conversation light, so I wasn’t going to pry.
“Umm…what about you?” she asked me. “Do you have family here?”
I knew this was on me because I was the one to originally ask, but I also knew that by answering her, I was about to open a can of worms.
“My parents still live in the house I grew up in on the southwest side of Vegas,” I told her. “I’m the oldest of four siblings. My sister Dani is next. She lives over by the UNLV campus where she works—she’s an ASL instructor.”
