Page 47 of Home for the Holidays

Heidi smiled. “You handled it like a pro.”

“Sure.” She laughed. “I’m a natural.”

“Well, notthatgood. Remember, you’re no spy for the CIA.”

“I would have sold all the country’s secrets in a heartbeat when it came to you.”

To say Heidi didn’t feel what Iris said in the pit of her stomach would have been a lie. She slowly moved her hand across the bed and hooked her index finger through Iris’s. “I don’t know how to handle this with you,” she whispered. “I’m afraid I’m going to fuck everything up.”

“Shh,” Iris said as she scooted closer. “You could never fuck this up.”

“But we can’t do this. We can’t.”

“I know.” The small smile on her lips was hard to decipher.

“What do we do? Just ignore this?” Heidi placed her hand on the side of Iris’s face, ran the soft pad of her thumb over her cheek. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

Iris’s eyes fluttered closed as she breathed in, her chest rising, then falling with the exhale. “I couldn’t ignore you if I tried,” she whispered, her eyes still closed.

“Iris,” she whispered and waited for her eyes to open. “What do we do?”

“Just see how it plays out?” She licked her lips. “Is that acceptable?”

“Probably not,” Heidi said with a soft laugh. “Whatever happens, I’m going to need to at least kiss you a few more times.”

“What are you waiting for?”

Heidi’s breath caught in her throat.

“Hmm?”

A nervous silence fell between them as Heidi studied Iris, the light smattering of freckles mapped across her nose, the ocean-blue color of her eyes, the way her lips were slightly parted.

“You’ve changed everything,” Iris stated, breathing in deep. “Everything.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Regret started to fill Heidi’s stomach, replacing any sort of courage that remained.

Iris swiftly leaned in and captured Heidi’s lips with her own. There was a brief moment—a second, literally—when Heidi thought she should stop. She shouldn’t be doing this. Not with Iris. But the spark that ignited inside her burned like a forest fire through the regret that had started to sprout, wiping the slate clean for whatever was going to grow next. So she kissed Iris back, tasted her saliva, felt her tongue, nipped her bottom lip. Her heart was once again beating so loudly that she was shocked Iris couldn’t hear it. The pulse filled her body, throbbing in places that hadn’t throbbed in years. Everything about kissing Iris was perfect. Her entire world had been off its axis until now. She’d spent so many years fighting with herself, with false gay demons and true straight monsters, that now, fully accepting who she was felt incredible. She was free. She was happy. And kissing Iris gave her the strength and courage to hold on to freedom, hold on to happiness. She wanted to remember every second, as if this could be the last time, even though she hoped upon hope that it wasn’t. But if it was, she was going to savor every moment, every nip, every lick.

Iris’s hand was on Heidi’s side, over her pajama shirt, barely under the waistband of her pajama bottoms, and she gently pushed Heidi until she rolled onto her back. Her brain was begging to feel Iris’s hands on her bare skin. Within a few quick seconds, Iris was straddling Heidi’s hips and deepening the kiss. Heidi placed her hands on Iris’s face, pulling her in, letting her know that she didn’t want to stop. She needed this. She needed Iris. Stopping now was not an option. She lifted her hips into Iris’s center, and Iris moaned into Heidi’s mouth.

“Jesus,” Heidi whispered against her lips. “What are you doing to me?”

“Not enough,” Iris said . “I want to fuck you so fucking bad.” Her words, the way she said them between kisses, between dipping her tongue into her mouth, had Heidi on the verge of a meltdown.

“Iris,” she breathed. “I am going to combust.”

“I want to see that,” Iris said before she placed a soft kiss on Heidi’s lips. “I want to see you unravel. I want to be the cause.”

“Fuck.” Her voice didn’t even sound like her own. What the hell was happening to her? She wanted nothing more than to fall into Iris, head over heels. She’d been fighting for love and acceptance so hard for so long and now that she found it with the most unlikely of people, she was filled with worry that she was being selfish. Because what if it all backfired? What if she threw caution to the wind, grabbed onto this amazing woman, and screwed up her relationship with her son? All because she finally felt an undeniable connection to someone…to his best friend and roommate.Oh god.She had never felt this way before. She had never wanted to risk literally everything forlove. Could this even be love? What if she risked it all and it wasn’t? Then what? “What are we going to do if us doing this ruins everything?” A soft sob came out of her throat, and she started to cry. “What are we going to do, Iris?”

“Oh, Heidi,” she whispered as she leaned down and kissed her cheek. “What if us doing this doesn’t ruin anything, though? What if we were meant to find each other? What if this is everything we both have wanted for so long?” She leaned her forehead against Heidi’s. “We’ll figure it out together, I promise.”

CHAPTERSEVENTEEN

“Well, hello there, Mrs. Abbott-Nowak. Or would it be Nowak-Abbott? I mean, I guess either works, and when I say either I mean Zac or hismom.”

It’d been an hour since Heidi had broken down. She left shortly after that, saying she needed to get ready for the day, but Iris was sure she was feeling about a thousand emotions and not sure how to handle a single one of them. And the reason she was sure of this was because that was exactly how she felt. She’d never been rocked so hard by someone before in her entire life. Heidi was awakening something inside of her that was screaming to be paid attention to. Now Stacey had FaceTimed her, and even though Iris needed to talk about everything that was happening, she was far happier lost in her thoughts about Heidi.

---