I’m a caregiver. And it has to stop. I have to take care of myself. I have to find... What I want.”
Right now, what she wanted was a stern jaw and blazing blue eyes.
Yes, he was...something. A project, maybe.
But there was something that appealed about him in a different way. He wasn’t a safe space, at all. He didn’t treat her like she was boring or sweet or soft.
He wasn’t just a project. Wasn’t just something for her to pour herself into.
He was something she could...test herself on.
He was a mountain, and she wanted to climb him.
“Nobody wants to stop you from finding what you want,” Rose said.
“I know you don’t. And you know what, it’s not you. It’s not any of you. It’s me. I’m in a habit. I’m in a rut. And I’m comfortable. That’s the thing. I take care of everyone else, but it doesn’t mean I don’t take care of me. I take care of me in a very particular way. That never tests me or pushes me or makes me contend with the big wide world outside, because it scares me. It’s easy for me to just stay home. It’s easy for me to tell myself that you and Pansy need something that I don’t. But you need me to push you and take care of you, and treat you like little birds, while I recede into the background.” Iris shook her head. “It’s not martyrdom. It’s self-protection.”
It all became very clear. Because she might be strong. Stubborn. But she was also afraid. Very afraid.
And that stubborn streak was well in place to protect her.
“Iris,” Rose said. “If this is still about Elliott...”
“It is,” Iris said. “But in a good way. That forced me to realize that nothing about the way I’m living matches up with what I secretly dream my life is going to be like. And of course I have dreams. But they don’t include being the spinster aunt in the attic at Ryder and Sammy’s house. And if they have more kids, you know I’m going to end up in the attic once all the bedrooms are filled. I want to have my own house. And maybe my own kids someday. I want to have my own business. My own dreams. I want to fall in love. I am ridiculously offended that I have never seen a naked man and you both have.”
Rose grinned, sly like a fox. Pansy looked like she might choke.
“So I need to reevaluate some things and change things. And I’m prioritizing the bakery. But this apartment is here. And I have the chance to live in it, and I think I’m going to use it to further my goals.”
“Your goals of seeing a penis?”
Iris shot Rose a deadly glare. “Well, not living in my older brother’s house would help with that.”
She felt humiliated and hot and embarrassed. And she hated that most of all.
It was one thing to be untouched, it was quite another to be as... Repressed as she had let herself be. She had just kind of ignored that part of herself for a long time. More self-protection. Because mostly, if she put herself out there, she knew she was going to end up hurt. Even though everything had worked out for Pansy and Rose, she had watched them be devastated by various hiccups in their relationships.
She had watched Sammy tear through men for all of her teenage and adult life. And while she had seemed mostly untouched by it, it was just something that Iris didn’t ever think she could do. Sammy and Ryder, on the other hand, had had an extremely intense time navigating turning their friendship into something more. And along the way there had been a lot of fights, a pregnancy and her brother getting his heart shattered for a period of time.
Iris had watched it all like a terrified spectator who was a little bit happy to be in the safe seats.
Basically, she hadn’t seen a lot in the way of casual relationships. She questioned, deeply, if the Danielses were capable of having them.
Maybe that was another issue with them.
They had lost so much early on that when they found love, they wanted to cling to it hard. So casual seemed to be next to impossible.
But she was going to have to try at some point.
Immediately, Griffin came to mind, and she shoved his image aside.
That man had heartbreak written all over him.
That man didn’t even have running water. He