Black Iris

Black Iris by Leah Raeder Page B

Book: Black Iris by Leah Raeder Read Free Book Online
Authors: Leah Raeder
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played, doctor.
    “Heads up, Princess Diaries ,” I said now, steering Hiyam away from a group of sloshed frat boys. She wore skintight jeans and a cling-film T-shirt, white leather boots, gold hoopearrings. She looked twenty-eight, not eighteen. The frat boys hooted.
    “That’s her shirt,” she said, ignoring them.
    “What?”
    “You’re wearing Blythe’s shirt. I bought it for her.”
    “I’m borrowing it.”
    “I thought you two weren’t on speaking terms.”
    Shrug.
    “Then why are you wearing her shirt?”
    “So she can’t.”
    “How petty.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did something scratch you?”
    I pulled the collar higher, not answering.
    We bought canned drinks and headed for the stage, passing various club tables: frats and sororities, activism, geekery, all the stuff that’s supposed to make college the Time of Your Life™. Of course Hiyam dawdled near the giant rainbow flag staffed by a boy band of Adonises (mostly in vanilla flavor), their smiles gleaming violently in the sun. PRIDE , the banner said. Like that wasn’t obvious from the gaggle of sorority bimbos fawning all over them. If they fawned any harder, they’d leave a stain.
    “People are so tolerant here,” Hiyam said.
    “Yeah, it’s so tolerant for straight white girls to lust after hot, unavailable white boys.”
    She finally cracked a smile. “Such a bitch, Keating. I like it.”
    Up onstage Armin spun AWOLNATION for the crowd, his long, lean torso in a V-neck, a beanie slouching on the back of his skull. Those lithe hands moved over the mixer with confidence and finesse. The same way he touched me. He knew how to make me crazy, his thumb gliding down my throat and between my breasts, pausing over my heart. His fingers could span my entire rib cage. I felt hot. I took my shades off—and spotted the golden-haired girl onstage, watching me.
    Blythe and I eyed each other coolly. That almost-smile curved at the edges of her mouth.
    Armin was midset but when I climbed up he kissed me in front of everyone, lifting my face until I stood on tiptoe. His skin was sun-warm and his lips tasted like beeswax balm. I closed my eyes and dissolved into heat and honey. People whistled. Armin let go and my heart seemed to hang in place, stuck in midair. It made feeble little flutters, like a pinned butterfly.
    “If you’re done sucking each other’s faces off,” Hiyam said, “I’m thirsty.”
    “Be good,” Armin said in my ear.
    “If I’m not, you won’t know.”
    He ran a thumb over my bottom lip. There was a faint ember-like light in his eyes. I’d seen it before. I knew what it led to.
    Today I would take it there, one way or another.
    I carried our drinks to the rear of the stage. Blythe passed me cups without speaking. When our hands brushed I yanked mine back as if I’d been burned.
    “Oh, the tension,” Hiyam said. “I’m tingling.”
    I poured, and Blythe pulled out a pint of Seagram’s and spiked the cups.
    “That is so college,” Hiyam said.
    I handed her a virgin soda. “Don’t touch Armin’s. It’s Red Bull.”
    “Like I want that nasty shit.”
    “I mean it.”
    She looked at me as if a dog had just spoken to her.
    The three of us sat on a road crate, me in the middle. The air was so saturated with bass every breath felt thick, thrumming in my lungs. It wasn’t quite like Umbra but something untamed worked its way through the crowd, stretching theskin of the bodies it entered, dilating nostrils, glazing eyes. That wolfishness.
    Blythe looked at the cup in my hand.
    “Guess we’re sharing,” I said.
    “Guess so.”
    She drank and then I did. Hiyam peered at us over the top of her sunglasses. “Wait, when did this happen?”
    “When did what?” I said.
    “You skanks were fighting over who gets to fuck my brother.” Her eyes widened at the cup. “Oh my god. Is that a metaphor?”
    “No,” I said, at the same moment Blythe said, “Yes. It’s a love triangle.”
    I glared at her. “It is not a love

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