“So, how is married life going?” asked her friend casually after a little while.

Bee made a noncommittal noise. “It’s going.”

“Hm. Is the house worth it, at least?”

She froze, only a little bit, then forced herself to swipe to another design. It was a normal question, she told herself. There was no need to get anxious. Chuck and her had gotten a new house after all. After a second she realized that she was probably supposed to answer that, given that it was a question and they were having a nice conversation and everything.

“… It’s a nice house,” she finally settled on. 

“I’m glad to hear it,” answered Iris. 

She shifted on the back of the couch, her fuzzy sleeve just barely brushing the back of Bee’s neck. She hunched in her shoulders reflexively. It wasn’t unpleasant, per se. She liked Iris a lot, and the woman was never so much crowding her as much as she behaved a lot like a cat, who nonchalantly plopped down on your lap while pretending very hard that it wasn’t doing so. But sometimes she got careless, or Bee forgot that she was there, and the woman would accidentally graze her and she would be surprised. Bee didn’t like to be surprised, especially not by tactile input. Iris moved again and the fur left Bee’s personal space. A flash of nonsensical, shameful heat mingled with her relief. Bee swallowed the urge to clear her throat.

“Now, I don’t usually comment on other people’s lives,” began Iris casually, flicking at a speck of dirt on her knee, “so you’ll have to forgive me if I come across a little bold here, but it is a damn shame to take a pretty little thing like you out of the market just for a house, now isn’t it?”

Bee swiveled her head towards her. “I’m sorry?”

The woman shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me anything, sweetheart. But I have been doing this job for a long time. I don’t necessarily specialize in bridal, but when someone asks me for a dress, I make it,” she said, as if that explained anything. 

Iris looked down towards the area of Bee’s nose, the way other people sometimes tried to meet her eyes when having a serious conversation. 

“I’ve seen a lot of people get married for a lot of reasons, you know. Not all of them romantic. Sometimes people want passports, or tax cuts, or for their family to leave them alone. Or free houses.”

When she would replay this moment in her mind later, Bee would think of several things that she could have done differently. Starting with not immediately freezing with her mouth open like a gaping fish. It was very trout-like of her, she supposed, but not very useful. Nor very flattering.

 Iris leaned over and patted her knee briefly. 

“Hey now, don’t you worry, honey. I’m not judging you. And it’s not like it’s obvious. Your secrets will never pass my lips. I’ve just got a sixth sense for these sorts of things.”

That didn’t make Bee feel particularly better about any of it. Maybe Iris could be trusted, or maybe not. She didn’t feel like she had known the other woman for long enough to be able to tell. 

“Also,” she continued casually, shrugging one shoulder and finally leaning back out of Bee’s personal space, “the entire time he was here your groom-to-be kept saying things to himself like ‘oh this looks so real’ and ‘no one’s gonna figure it out.’”

She made air-quote with her fingers. Bee closed her eyes and prayed for patience. When she opened them again, Iris was picking at her nails as if she hadn’t just casually exposed Bee’s most dangerous secret.

“You didn’t choose the most unfrozen corn dog in the box, did you?”

“The what?”

“The — it’s an expression, it doesn’t really translate well.” She waved a perfectly manicured hand, looking for a way to express her thought. “The most… awake trout in the lake,” she settled on. 

Bee felt her eyebrows raise, but out of genuine bafflement, for once.

“Not the sharpest tool in the shed?” she suggested.

“That’s it!” Iris snapped her fingers then pointed at her with a conspiratorial smile.

On the one hand, Bee agreed. But on the other hand, she also felt vaguely like she should defend Chuck. Trash talking him to his face was one thing, but letting strangers have a go at him when he wasn’t here to defend himself was another. Especially since she knew very well that Chuck was far smarter than most people gave him credit for; he just consistently failed to think things through. It was her own fault for picking up his slack for so long that he’d gotten used to it. Which she wasn’t about to admit, out loud, to the Most Beautiful Woman in the World.

“He’s got his moments,” she said. “He’s… uh… he’s funny.”

Iris tilted her head sideways to look at her, biting her lower lip while something very much like hesitation unexpectedly came to roost on her face. It was something about the way her lashes were lowered, her hands temporarily stilled, her fine eyebrows ever so slightly furrowed. Bee’s eyes flickered away from her face. She didn’t know how much she was allowed to look, and felt that perhaps it would be safer not to look at all.

It felt especially disrespectful to stare at Iris while they were discussing Chuck. Ugh.

And yet, she never could quite manage to escape Iris’ orbit. It was the entire reason why she had kept coming here so often, despite the exorbitant price range of her merchandise. Iris was simply too beautiful, too funny, too interesting. Her hair was silky smooth, which felt like such a cursed thing to know, as now Bee would never be able to un-know it. Her hands were mesmerizing, darting in and out of the air as she talked like a flight of sparrows in the crisp morning sky. Her calves were haunting her, bared by the opening of her skirt yet hidden by the pleather of her boots. They gave Bee the same mix of elation and frustration as the idea of unwrapping a gift on her birthday only to find another layer of wrapping under the first one, which is why she tried not to think very hard about them at all.

In fact, she usually tried not to think about unwrapping and Iris in the same context, ever, with shamefully decreasing success the more time she spent around her. She had such large, shiny earrings, was the thing, and her makeup was perfect, and she smelled so very nice too. There was so many things to pay attention to, so many places to rest her eyes. And her shirts always looked just one second away from completely falling off her shoulders if one could only be so bold as to run their hands down her arms. Would her skin be soft? Of course it would be. A woman like Iris? It couldn’t not be.

The moment had stretched out too long. She took at panicked breath in, but then another expression flickered on Iris’ face, dislodging the hesitation. It settled on the curves of her amber lips, now released from her teeth — 

parting to reveal the slightest glimpse of her tongue — 

 and Bee’s thoughts went scattering.

“You like funny, huh?” she murmured, but even though there was a question mark there, it sounded as if she was talking to herself. “Well, I’m about to be hilarious.”

She leaned in, and so did Bee, her breath caught, her head empty. Curious to hear the funny thing that Iris was about to say.

The bell of the store did it’s cheerful little ding-dong, and Bee jolted as if she’d been doused with a bucket of cold water.

Iris pulled back with a grimace. “I’m sorry girl, duty calls. But hey, let’s meet up for coffee, alright? Say, tomorrow at seven pm? I’ll even do it all proper-like and pick you up at your door.”

Bee blinked. Her brain was making its best impression of a computer forced to reboot, flashing lights and all.

“Sure,” she said. “Sounds nice.”

 It would be kind of nice to have more female friends to hang out with, she thought vaguely.

Iris scrunched her face up in a grin, then booped her on the nose with the tip of her finger.

“You’re so cute. Alright then, it’s a date!”

She left with a twirl of her fancy silver skirt to go attend to the other customers while Bee slowly gathered herself and left. She was feeling pretty good about things, and might have even whistled as she walked down the street if she’d been able to. 

Then her brain finished buffering and sorting through all that had just happened. She screeched to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk. Her eyes widened.

Did that just — 

Had she just — 

A DATE?!