Iris had grown up hearing one version or another of that very phrase.Get seriouswhen she got suspended her junior year of highschool for getting into a verbal match with the assistant principal in the middle of a packed cafeteria about the archaic dress code.Get seriouswhen she told her parents she wanted to study visual art in college.Get seriouswhen Iris dreamed of turning the doodles in her journals and notebooks into a custom planner business.Get seriousfor the entirety of her three-year relationship with Grant, enduring constant questions about marriage and babies.
See, Iris liked sex. A lot. In her family’s minds, she waspromiscuous, which, even with her parents’ best efforts at progressive thinking, still made her mother’s mouth pinch and her father’s fair Irish cheeks burn as red as his hair. Not that she shared many details with them about her personal life, but Iris was never very good at keeping her feelings or opinions to herself.
“Honey,” Maeve said, sensing Iris’s hurt. “I only want you to be happy. We all do, and—”
“Here’s where you’re all hiding,” Zach said, his blond head appearing in the doorway. He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets, which were so tight, Iris was amazed he could fit one finger in there, much less five. “Can I help with anything? Liam said the burgers are nearly there.”
“Wonderful,” Maeve said, brightening and clapping her hands together once. She eyed Iris meaningfully. “Iris, will you and Zach set the table for us?”
Another thing Iris wasn’t very good at? Subtlety. Call it the product of a childhood as the quintessential middle child, call it a flair for drama, call it an inability to beserious,but if Maeve wanted Iris and Zach to couple up, then who was she to deny the woman her dearest wish on her birthday?
“Oh, we absolutely will,” Iris said. “But first, I have a very important question for Zach.”
He lifted a blond brow, a sly grin on his face. “Yeah? What’s that?”
Iris smoothed a hand over her hair, tugging on one of the tiny braids plaited through her dark red locks like she did when she was nervous, a tick her mother knew full well.
Maeve tilted her head.
Iris took a deep breath.
Then she yanked the moonstone ring from her left index finger and went down on one knee, presenting the ring to Zach with both hands.
“Here we go,” Aiden said.
“Oh no,” Emma said, pressing her eyes closed.
“Zach... whatever your last name is that I will happily take as my own upon our union,” Iris said, “will you marry me?”
“Iris, for god’s sake,” Maeve said, dropping her head into her hands.
“Um...” Zach said, backing up one step, then another. “Wait, what?”
“Don’t break my heart, Zachie,” Iris said, making her eyes as wide as possible, lifting the ring into the light.
“Iris, come on,” Emma said.
Behind her, Iris heard Charlie snort-laugh.
“I... well...” Zach continued to splutter, his orange-toned skin deepening into russet. He took another step toward the living room and fished his phone out of his back pocket, squinting at the screen. “Oh. Wow. You know what?”
“Early meeting tomorrow?” Iris asked from her place on the hardwood floor. She stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “Family emergency?”
“Yes,” he said, pointing at her. “Yes, exactly. I’m... this has been... yeah.” Then he turned and bolted out the front door so fast, a cologne-soaked breeze fluttered the ferns in the entryway.
The sound of the door slamming shut echoed through thekitchen as Iris got to her feet and calmly slipped her ring back into place.
Her family watched her with partly amused, partly annoyed expressions on their faces, which was pretty much her childhood captured in a single scene. Wild-haired, nail-bitten Iris, up to her usual antics.
Despite this familiarity, Iris’s cheeks went a little warm, but she simply shrugged and reached for another cube of cheese. “I guess he wasn’t ready to settle down after all.”
Her mother just threw her hands into the air and finally—dear god, finally—opened a bottle of wine.
CHAPTER TWO
ADRI AND VANESSAwere making out.
Not that anyone else sitting in Bitch’s Brew in the middle of downtown Portland would notice—the two were hiding behind a battered edition ofMuch Ado About Nothing—but Stevie knew the signs. Adri’s pale fingers were grasping the orange cover just a little too tightly, and her mermaid-green hair, just visible over the top of their barricade, bobbed ever so slightly with the motion of her... well.
