Page 37

Blair blinked, taken aback to realize that he had reached out and touched Iris’ hand without even realizing it. As their eyes met, his surprise was mirrored on her face, which was far closer than it had been a moment ago.

He swallowed. A curl had fallen in front of her left eye. He ached to brush it aside. Should he? What if he was overstepping? Just as he decided to go for it, there came the sound of a car door closing, of footsteps on the gravel driveway. They turned in unison to the front door, and Iris clapped a hand over her mouth as she grasped the handle of the broom.

“Help me hide everything!”

Blair scrambled to grab the rope, ribbon, scissors, unused twine, and bits of plant debris, then darted after Iris into her room. She lifted the bed skirt, and he tossed the supplies underneath as she slid the broom across the floorboards.

Her heartbeat pounded through his brain, making him dizzy. As Iris hurried to greet Gabriel, Blair stumbled into his room and shut the door with a shaking hand. He leaned against it for a long moment, trembling as he struggled to catch his breath. Finally, the pounding slowed, then stopped completely, and Blair slumped onto the window seat.

He could join Iris and Gabriel. But he thought he should give them a moment.

Despite his conflicting opinions about Gabriel, Iris loved him. And that was enough to make Blair hope they would be able to fix whatever was broken between them.

Even if that meant he was pushed aside in the process.

15

Checking the time on her phone, Iris swore. She and Blair only had a half hour before they were expected at the church for the pre-service rehearsal.

When Reverend Paul had asked if she’d be willing to fill in for the choir director and sing “O Holy Night” on Christmas Eve, Iris had felt unable to refuse. She was kicking herself for that now. And she definitely shouldn’t have suggested that Blair join her as an accompanist. Not that he wasn’t an accomplished musician, but she felt terrible for pressuring him into doing this with her so last minute.

Iris hurried up the staircase, past Gabriel’s bedroom, and into the music room, her steps muffled against the soft cream throw rug. Inside the closet where she kept her special occasion outfits, her hand swept over the velvet lilac dress she’d bought secondhand for the service. She slid it from its hanger and draped it over her arm, closing the closet door just as Gabriel stepped out of his room.

He was impeccably dressed in a black tailored suit with a festive red, white, and green striped silk bowtie. His black leather boots were so shiny that Iris could see her reflection in them, though she would have preferred not to. It only reminded her of how much work she had to do to make herself presentable.

“Don’t you clean up well.” Iris smiled, stepping up to tweak his bowtie.

“I’ll have you know, I’m always impeccably clean.”

Iris’ hands slid down his sleeves as she studied his expression. Gabriel had been putting so much effort into trying to pretend everything was normal ever since Blair had moved in, ensuring that they’d continued with their old routines and hobbies. Iris appreciated his attempts at preserving a sense of normalcy. Sometimes, though, clinging to their past habits rather than adopting new ones made things feel even more off balance.

“Hey, can you do me a favor?” she asked, smoothing down the already crisp lapel of his jacket.

“No, Iris, I will not sit in a pew with Ms. Wendell again. If I have to hear one more story about her brother’s gum condition⁠—”

Iris let out a snort of laughter. “I would never suggest such a thing!”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t pawn her off on me last year so you could have the end seat.

“Well, I’m not stupid.”

For a moment, everything felt almost like it used to, their old banter snapping back into place as though it had never been lost. Maybe the past several weeks had all been a beguiling dream, and there was no strange, entrancing young man waiting for them downstairs. What if there was nothing pulling them apart at all, their puzzle pieces still perfectly snuggled together in their comforting cardboard embrace?

“What did you want to ask me?”

“Oh.” Iris’ smile drooped a little. “Would you mind helping Blair with his tie? I don’t think he’s ever tied one before.”

Iris thought she perceived a slight tightening in Gabriel’s jaw, but only someone who knew him very well would have noticed. He nodded with a small smile and started down the staircase, while Iris closed herself inside the tiny bathroom just off the music room and slid into her dress.

She touched the curve of delicate beading that rested against the tan skin of her protruding collarbone. She’d always been a bit too thin, thanks to the digestive issues that had plagued her childhood, causing her to have to endure multiple surgeries over the span of about eight years starting when she was five years old. When she closed her eyes, she could still smell the acrid scents of the operating rooms, could feel the lightheaded anxiety that had filled her each time she’d had to count backward into an uncertain future.

For so long afterward, every pang of hunger, each stomachache had sent her into a panic so severe that she’d feared she might pass out from it, her heartbeat loud in her ears, sweat pooling on her brow as she’d sat with her head between her knees. And every passing year felt like an enormous accomplishment, a milestone that separated the Iris who was sick from the Iris who was well. But with each calendar tossed into the recycling bin to make room for another came an uneasy, prickling fear, because how long was her good luck supposed to last?

Her anxiety had gotten more manageable since moving out on her own, away from the house where her mother’s own worry hung like heavy draperies over the windows, blocking out all but the thinnest slivers of light.

And then she’d met Gabriel, who’d helped her see that there was more to life than the fear that gnawed at her bones like a wolf scraping every last vestige from its prey.

There was laughter, and there were candlelit movie nights, and there were bookstores that smelled like leather and ink and hope.