Adri:So I was hoping we could get together to talk about the script
Stevie:Oh?
Adri:This project did start with you and me in a shitty apartment, after all
Stevie:And really bad pizza
Adri:God, so bad. It smelled like feet. Am I remembering that right? Didn’t it smell like feet?
Stevie:It totally did. But it was five bucks a pop and we were broke
Adri:Facts. So what do you say? Could you meet me at our place this afternoon?
Stevie:Our place?
Adri:Sorry. You know what I mean
Stevie did, but she hadn’t been to the apartment she’d once shared with Adri since she moved out, and she honestly wasn’t too keen to change that, particularly now that Vanessa lived there. Stevie winced,thumbs hovering over the keys. She looked up at Iris again, who was now waving to a group of people heading toward them.
Stevie:I can’t today. I’m actually at the Belmont with Iris
Three dots bounced onto the screen, then disappeared before appearing again. Stevie felt her throat go a little tight. But she and Adri were over. Friends only. Dating other people. Adri would understand.
Adri:Got it. No worries then
Stevie pressed a hand to her stomach. Dammit, she hated texting for this very reason. She knew Adri and there was definitely atoneto her response, but Stevie also knew if she asked about the tone, Adri—and most people, it was a fucking text for Christ’s sake—wouldn’t have a clue what she was talking about and then Stevie would feel like an idiot.
So she swallowed several hundred times, took five thousand deep breaths, and dropped her phone back into her bag.
“Hey!” Iris called to the incoming group, then turned to grab Stevie’s hand, whipping her to her side before Stevie had even finished zipping up her tote.
“Oh, okay,” Stevie said, stumbling against her.
“Pucker up, buttercup,” Iris whispered, and Stevie laughed again, feeling herself instantly relax.
“This place is gorgeous,” a pretty brunette with glasses said. She had on a vintage-style polka-dotted one-piece, a wrap skirt around her waist. She held hands with a curly-haired woman in a black tank top and shorts, an array of arm tattoos gleaming under the sun.
“Isn’t it?” Iris said.
“Of course it is, it’s the Belmont.” This from a refined-lookingblonde with shaggy bangs, her hand tucked in the palm of a woman with reddish-brown hair cut short and shaved on one side.
“You can take the girl out of the cotillion, but you can’t take the cotillion out of the girl,” the tattooed woman said.
“Flip her off, Astrid,” Iris said to the blonde. “I beg you.”
Astrid just pursed her mouth and shook her head.
“Point,” the tattooed woman said.
“Fuck, it’s hot,” the guy Stevie remembered as Simon from the Empress said. “Is it supposed to be this hot in June?”
“Global warming, baby,” a Black person with a halo of dark curls said.
Iris just beamed at all of them, then slid her arm around Stevie’s waist. “Everyone, this is Stevie.”
At that point, the entire six-person group seemed to freeze, as though they just realized Stevie was there.
“Holy shit,” Tattoos said.
