Her heart drummed under her ribs as she navigated the program, finding other files with her name on it.
Stevie and Iris on stage at the Empress.
Stevie sitting alone on the beach in Malibu.
Stevie and Iris slow dancing in Iris’s living room, candles all around, the colors in this one complete and dark and soft.
They were beautiful. Each illustration, each portrait, capturing Iris and Stevie’s entire relationship. They were drawn with skill and talent, surely, but there was something else there.
Something real.
Stevie didn’t know what to think or feel. These drawings, they felt warm. Careful and meticulous, every line thoughtful and purposeful. They didn’t match up with the Iris who, for all intents and purposes, had just kicked Stevie out of her apartment after a hookup.
Nothing matched up whatsoever.
But before Stevie could think more about it, the shower turned off. She didn’t want to still be here when Iris came back to her room—plus, she knew Iris expected her to be gone, and she had to respect that.
So she opened up to the file featuring Stevie at Stella’s that Iris had been working on, clicked the iPad screen dark, and set it on Iris’s nightstand. Then she pulled on her boots and found her bag on the floor in the living room and left.
RAIN PELTED STEVIE’Scar, rivers of water washing down her windshield. She’d only made it two blocks from Iris’s, but she could barely see and her anxiety had her heart sprinting against her ribs.
She pulled into a street parking space to catch her breath. She tried to think of what the hell she was going to do the next time she saw Iris. She tried to imagine everything between them going back to the way it was, which was clearly what Iris wanted, but the sheer thought of faking how she was feeling—how she’dbeenfeeling—just made her lungs grow even tighter.
She leaned her head against the seat, wondering how long shewas going to have to wait this rain out, when her phone buzzed. She dug it out of her bag, her heart swelling into her throat when she saw the notification for an email from Dr. Calloway. She tapped on it, words she wasn’t sure what to do with springing into her view.
Hi Stevie,
It was so good to see you yesterday. Attached is all the information regarding the play. I do hope you’ll consider it. Please know, I wouldn’t cast just anyone—I have a lot at stake here, a lot to prove, and I don’t gamble with my own career. I hope you won’t gamble with yours. I’d appreciate your decision by September 1st.
Best,
Thayer
Stevie tossed her phone into the passenger seat, panic already starting to rise up like the tide. Her fingertips tingled, and she squeezed her eyes closed, focusing on the feeling of the seat’s fabric under her legs, the weight of her body in the car, putting herself in the moment, using all five senses like her therapist suggested she do when she got overwhelmed.
New York City.
An actual, prestigious play in New York City.
She’d barely had time to process Dr. Calloway’s offer, everything with Iris looming to the forefront of her mind since she saw her old professor.
She could barely make sense of it now—Stevie Scott on the Delacorte Theater stage.
Stevie Scott in New York City.
Alone.
She couldn’t picture it, couldn’t even fathom leaving everything she’d known and trusted for the last ten years, everything that kept her balanced and safe.
And now there were all these feelings for Iris...
Feelings Iris had zero interest in pursuing.
Her eyes were just starting to sting when the rain let up just enough for her to see the sign rocking in the wind just outside her window.
River Wild Books.
She took a deep breath and got out of her car, jogging to the cobbled sidewalk and hurrying under the shop’s awning before she was completely soaked. A little bell dinged as she stepped through the door, and she was immediately hit with the smell of books, paper and glue and leather, a hint of coffee just underneath.
