“Ah. Kate Beckinsale, then.”
Stevie grinned. “Like any self-respecting sapphic our age, Kate was part of my formative experience. I saw that movie for the first time when I was, like, eleven, and . . . yeah. I found her pretty.”
Iris smiled. “For me, it was Blue Crush.”
“Which girl?”
“All of them?”
Stevie laughed. “You’re bi, right?”
Iris nodded. “I guess that’s important information for my fake girlfriend to know.”
“It is.”
They smiled at each other for a few seconds, and then Iris found Serendipity and started the stream. She ripped open the bag of popcorn as John and Kate grabbed for the same glove during Christmastime in Bloomingdale’s, and Stevie had to scoot closer to get a handful.
“I love New York,” Iris said as the actors ice-skated through Central Park.
“Have you gone there a lot?” Stevie asked.
Iris shrugged. “A few times, with my friend Claire and her . . .” She took a deep breath. “Her fiancée. Wow. First time I’ve said that out loud.”
Stevie tilted her head. “Yeah?”
Iris nodded but her eyes went a little shiny and she waved a hand through the air. “Anyway, New York is . . . I don’t know. It’s the only place I’ve ever been that felt exactly like I expected it to, exactly like every story and movie and poem about it. Like magic and realism all twisted up together.”
“Wow,” Stevie said, smiling softly at Iris. “You are a writer.”
“Oh my god, shut up,” Iris said, but she smiled back. Still, a certain longing rose up in Stevie’s chest as New York unfolded on the screen before her. The city had always been mythical to her, a theatrical utopia, but unattainable, an ethereal monster capable of swallowing Stevie whole, no matter how much Ren believed that’s where Stevie was meant to be. Despite all that, Iris’s poetic—if brief—endorsement was enough to spark something in the center of Stevie’s chest.
But she’d gotten really good at ignoring those kinds of sparks over the years, so that’s exactly what she did now, taking in the movie, that spark itself, like she would a fantasy novel or film. It was breathtaking, beautiful, but at the end of the day, an impossibility.
“My best friend Astrid?” Iris said after a while, John running rampant through New York with Jeremy Piven, searching for clues and signs. “She and her girlfriend, Jordan, are pretty big on fate.” Then Iris told Stevie all about how Jordan drew a Two of Cups tarot card for months, and Astrid drew the same one after they’d sort of broken up.
“Astrid wooed her back with, like, twenty Two of Cups cards strewn all over the Everwood Inn.”
“God, that’s romantic,” Stevie said.
“True,” Iris said. “But not as romantic as getting puked on by a one-night stand and then fake dating them.”
Stevie laughed. “Jesus, what a story.” She wasn’t sure she’d ever think of that night without cringing, but at least it was becoming a sort of joke between them.
Iris tilted her head, eyes on Stevie. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” Stevie said slowly. That question hardly ever preceded an easy answer.
“Why were you so nervous to sleep with me? Was it your anxiety, or . . .”
Yep, yep, Stevie was right. Definitely not an easy answer. “Oh. Um . . . well . . .”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Iris said.
“No, it’s okay,” Stevie said. If they were going to do this fake dating thing, it was probably best if Iris knew exactly what she was getting herself into.
“I don’t do that a lot,” Stevie said. “Sleep with strangers. And by a lot, I mean ever.”
Iris’s brows lifted. “Like . . . never?”
Stevie shook her head. “Anxiety definitely has a lot to do with it, but it’s hard to tell if it’s from my disorder or if it’s just me, or what. It’s not always easy to separate myself from my illness, or to even understand if I should separate myself at all? Like, what is my personality and what is my anxiety? Or are they the same thing? It’s confusing sometimes.”
“It sounds like it,” Iris said softly.
“I’m on meds and they help, but I think I got a little too in my head the night we met.”
“Stefania didn’t see you through, huh?”
Stevie laughed, swiped a hand through her hair. “No. She only helps to a point. It’s probably good that you know all of this now though. I might be really horrible at even pretending to be having sex with someone.”
Iris frowned. “You’re an actress. Pretending is part of your job.”
“Yeah, but with acting, I have a script. That’s why I love it so much. No surprises. Even if I have to kiss someone on stage, I know when it’s coming. I know what I say and what my partner says right before it happens. I know exactly what to do and say afterward. It’s different than actual life.”
“You managed to kiss me on the night we met,” Iris said.
Stevie laughed bitterly. “Yeah, and promptly threw up all over you.”
Iris winced. “Okay, I see your point.”
“I get that what we’re doing is fake or for research or whatever, but . . .” She shook her head, cheeks flaming.
“But what?” Iris asked, nudging her knee. “Come on, tell me.”
Stevie pressed her hands to her face. “It’s so embarrassing.”
“More embarrassing than vomiting on your date?”
“No, exactly that embarrassing.” She leaned her head back on the sofa as John’s fiancée gave him a wedding present on the screen. Maybe she could say it more clearly if she wasn’t looking at Iris, Sex Goddess of Bright Falls. “I’ve only ever slept with Adri. And that took me four years of flirting and freaking out in private. It took four years of getting to know her and really understanding that she loved me and wouldn’t judge me or leave me. Well . . . at least not right away.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Stevie felt Iris shift, but she didn’t glance her way. She focused on patterns in the plastered ceiling. “But I don’t have four years now—I mean, after you and I fake break up or whatever. I don’t want to take that long. I actually do want a real girlfriend eventually. And until that happens, I want to hook up and have sex. It’s been . . . well, never mind how long it’s been, but you saw firsthand the results when I try to sleep with someone I don’t know very well.”
“Not everyone’s into casual sex, Stevie. My best friend, Claire, is now engaged to the only person she’s ever tried to have a purely sexual relationship with.”
Stevie smiled. “That’s sweet.”
“Nauseatingly so,” Iris said, rolling her eyes, but then she grew serious again. “Plus, have you, I don’t know, considered another alternative? Like, do you think you’re demisexual? Or on the ace spectrum somewhere?”
Stevie tucked her legs to her chest, mirroring Iris’s position. Iris was looking at her so patiently, so . . . tenderly, Stevie felt herself relax more and more by the second.
“I’ve considered that, yeah,” she said. “But I do feel sexual attraction to people I don’t have an emotional connection with. Like I told you back at the Empress, I really did want to sleep with you.”
“Well,” Iris said, grinning and flipping her hair. “Who wouldn’t?”
Stevie laughed, but noticed Iris’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Anyway,” Stevie said, “It’s less about attraction and more about my brain. When I was with you the other night, I couldn’t slow it down. I kept worrying I’d do something wrong, or I’d be bad at something, or how my boobs are a lot smaller than yours, or how the idea of being naked with you made me feel like I needed to—”
“Puke?” Iris deadpanned.
Stevie groaned and covered her eyes. “Not very flattering, I know, but it’s not you, I promise. If anything, I wish I could be more like you.”
“Me?”
“You were so fucking suave the night we met. A pro.”
“A pro at sex.”
Stevie laughed. “I mean . . . yeah? Like you knew exactly what you wanted. You were relaxed. Cool. Sexy. I wish I had half that confidence.”