The house sweats under a quiet, stifling tension. Iris sweats. She lifts a corner of the front window curtain, peering out over a quiet, stifled street. Sullen thunderheads crouch overhead. The pavement steams and wavers in the gray-green light. She can see no sign of Barry.
Iris lets the curtain fall. The air, when she sighs, feels damp going down, and hot. The storm that's rolled in off the badlands has turned the house into her own private sauna. In short-shorts and a tank top, she finds it nearly bearable. Sweat prickles out of every pore of her body - don't even get her started on her hair.
She paces the living room, which sulks in muted midday darkness. It feels like the the city has stopped, like the whole world has stopped; life itself on pause until the pressure reaches its peak and the heavens shudder open under their own weight.
Barry's hastily emailed itinerary had his train getting in two hours ago. Two hours Iris has stalked, barefoot, around the downstairs, returning again and again to the window and her fruitless vigil.
("I can get a ride from one of the guys at work," Joe had offered, "and leave Iris the car."
"Nah, it's cool," Barry had said, "Don't let me put you out.")
Two hours and no call, no text, no Barry. Iris knows the station route; she takes it three times a week and gets off at the next stop, the community college. She can't remember ever enduring a two hour bus ride one-way, rush hour slogs included. Maybe the strapped university student lost his mind and decided to walk?
She wouldn't do it. Not in this weather. And Barry - not in any weather, surely.
Her watch beeps. Her sweaty wrist chafes under the cheap plastic band. Another hour gone. Grandma Esther's mantle clock chimes an echo, half a minute later. Either the heirloom needs a windup or her watch is fast.
("Eight-ninety-nine," Barry had announced with pride. This year, on budgets hamstrung by tuition, they'd promised each other a bargain-bin Christmas.)
Iris slips her phone out of her back pocket. She clicks the keyboard down and texts Barry another "where r u?" when finally the sky seizes, all strobing flashes of light and immediate, concussive rolls of thunder.
The front door swings open, letting in the hesitant patter of the first, fat raindrops and a tired, "Made it home just in time, huh?"
Iris presses send in the same moment she whips her head up to see him. Barry's slow smile pushes across his face, his eyes squeezing into a glint of familiar humor.
"Iris. Hey."
He steps across the threshold into the foyer, leaving the door open. A breath of fresh, nearly cool air stirs into the room after him.
Iris stirs, as well. She chucks her phone down onto the couch and dances around the end of it, bounding up the step to throw her arms around him. His bulky backpack makes it a challenge. Probably full of course-specific books he'll never read again but won't throw away.
"I was worried you wouldn't make it home at all! Where have you been? You didn't walk, did you? Imagine if I had to tell my dad that you'd been struck by lightning!"
He's dropped his duffel bag and the handle of his oversized wheeled suitcase to return her hug. When she pulls back for answers, his hand remains large and warm in the space between her shoulderblades a moment longer.
He twists his mouth, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. Despite having nearly a foot on her, he still manages to look up at her from behind his eyelashes. "I fell asleep on the bus and my phone died."
Iris shakes her head at him with a chuckle. Her hands clutch his bony elbows, just because she can. All the day's tension drops from her shoulders, like a cloudburst. "Aw, Barr, why didn't you just sleep on the train?"
"I did!" A wide, helpless shrug. She's missed the theatrics of his gangly limbs. She's missed him.
She takes a moment, there in the entrance, to reacquaint herself with him. Two semesters of late university nights followed by long university days have left their mark. Barry's the polar opposite of the bronzed, outdoorsy type, but the gauntlet of labs, libraries, and lecture halls have left him looking washed out. Weird Al has nothing on this level of white and nerdy.
("I had no idea colleges had snow days," Iris had gushed, phone cradled on her shoulder as she'd peered out her bedroom window. "We didn't get that much on this side of the river, but I heard they're still trying to get the snowplows through downtown. Did you guys get it bad out there, too? Or, wait, are white Christmases even a thing?"
A long silence. She'd pulled the phone off her ear to check the connection hadn't dropped.
"Iris, I honestly have no idea," he'd laughed.)
Iris compulsively darts up to sneak him a fond kiss on the cheek, and if he jumps, who wouldn't blame the sudden clatter of thunder directly overhead?
"Ah, I'll - let me just get this," Barry says, slinking back towards the door with his shoulders up to his ears. She follows, trying to get a grip on his backpack. The rain comes down in sheets, still no wind to drive it under the eaves.
"Geez, Barry," Iris grunts, tugging on the backpack. His arms get stuck in the straps as he twists blindly to figure out her intent and shut the door at the same time. His shirt is sweat-dark underneath. "No wonder you're tired, this weighs a ton!"
The bag slips free of his shoulders after a coordinated jig. It impacts against the hardwood floor with an even harder thunk.
"Hey, I paid good money for those," Barry whines. His awkward elbows stab the air as he rubs at the damp, sore patches the backpack straps have left on either side of his neck.
"Packrat!" Iris accuses. She catches his eye and for a second she sees something behind his smile. Something ozone-sharp and lighting-quick. His arms drop to his sides and he opens his mouth.
The rain kicks up to eleven. For a moment, the pounding of it against the fragile surface of the world drowns everything out. Staccato lighting slashes through the curtains. The thunder, when it comes, sounds lazy, distant.
Just like that, the torrent abates.
"Okay if I start some laundry?" Barry asks.
Iris drags the backpack out of his way as he leans past her to retrieve his other things. "Yeah, of course," she tells him. "Dad might have some shirts in the dryer, but you can just move them if you need to."
"Okay." He hikes his duffel onto his shoulder, tilts the rolling suitcase so the wheels engage. "Be right back."
She grins, a quick acknowledgement. "I'm not going anywhere," she feels the need to remind him.
He thinks about saying something to that. But he doesn't. Instead, he nods once, edging towards the basement door.
"Hey Barry," she calls. His attention comes running eagerly back to her. It makes her unaccountably shy.
"Yeah, Iris?"
"Just - welcome home."
He doesn't have to say anything to that. Words can't compare to the way his lips twitch upwards and his eyes crinkle into that sunbeam smile.
Iris leaves him to descend into the basement. His luggage thumps the stairs with vehemence enough to challenge the retreating thunder. She ascends. The backpack fights her for every step. When she kicks it into the center of Barry's stuffy room, it feels like she's won a prize match.
She beats Barry back to the living room, too, but decides against checking on him. He can't have forgotten how to work the washer. She goes to the couch to retrieve her phone instead. Good timing, Dad. Joe's left her a short, rushed message so she texts him back:
"he's home! safe & sound"
Joe replies a few seconds later:
" ;:) ."
Iris imagines he'd have a lot more to say if only the criminally small phone keyboard didn't have some sort of grudge against him. She's sure he'll get the hang of it. Someday.
Barry emerges from the hall to see her shaking her head at her phone. He's swapped his soaked travel shirt for a faded tee with the words CENTRAL CITY SCIENCE FAIR '04 stretched tight across his chest. At his look, she raises the phone in explanation. "Dad says hi."
"Ah," he nods, lingering in the entryway, noting his backpack has absconded. He lifts an arm to hook his fingers on the overhead beam. "Joe's texts are . . . unique, aren't they?"
His words are accompanied by a joking squint and hers with laughter. "One of a kind. Full of character. But at least he's trying."
"Gotta give him that," Barry concedes. His hand slips off the beam as he sags down into the living room. "Good on him."
Iris steps towards him and holds out a hand. He takes it without question. "So I know you probably just want to crash, and that's totally cool and I won't hold it against you, but while you're still standing I thought we could - well, come here, okay?"
He squeezes her hand.
("You can call whenever you want," she'd said into his shoulder, holding tight. "Or text. Or email. Or regular mail, I don't care."
"Semaphore? Carrier pigeon? Cuneiform tablet?"
Iris had pulled back just to swat him on the arm. "Point is, Barry, don't forget us while you're off on your great adventure, okay? We'll be right here if you need anything."
"Geez, Iris, I'm going away to college, not the frontline. Which is excellent because could you really see me in a war? I bet I wouldn't last a day. Half hour, tops." His eyes had shone while his words tumbled. The announcement of his train's imminent departure had mercifully cut his nervous tangent short.
"Go on, then," she'd laughed, pushing him towards the platform. "Make us proud. And call! I'll be waiting.")
"I've been waiting all week for this," Iris explains. Barry follows her wordlessly back into the kitchen. "Be proud of my self control. I didn't want mess up the most important of time-honored school's-out traditions."
She glances over her shoulder in time to see his eyes light up. "No way," he breathes, letting her hand go in favor of leaning bodily over the tiled countertop. Like the closer he gets the more real they'll become. "From Old Widow Finch's tree?"
"Worth putting off a nap for, right?" Iris bumps him with her hip. Reaching past him, she hefts two giant peaches from the bowl and passes one to Barry. Then, in accordance with unwritten tradition, the two of them tuck their treasures close and race each other to the front stoop.
The rain falls steady, sedate. Occasionally sections of cloud will flicker with bottled lightning. The thunder, pacified, seems more purr than roar. A mercurial breeze teases, never quite satisfying, though the afternoon's general tone has dropped from sweltering to sultry.
Iris digs her toes into the warmth of the painted wood. Barry sprawls at her side, fairly draped over the steps. Rain water spills off the eaves and splashes onto the plastic tips of his sneakers. Peach juice runs into her palm and down her wrist - she yelps and brings her arm to her mouth. Barry copycats, eyes bright.
"You know, I really didn't expect you to wear that dumb watch," he says, pleased. "Or really that it would last this long?"
She settles a shoulder against the whitewashed porch pillar. Knocks his knee with her foot. "Of course I'd wear it, it's the best gift I've ever been given."
His nose wrinkles, doubtful. "Joe got you a MacBook for Christmas."
Iris laughs into her peach. "Doesn't count, I'm paying him back over the summer."
"Heyo, Miss Moneybags!"
"Oh, yeah," she agrees, sarcastic but not unkind, "Part-time-minimum-wage baristas rake it in. Secret millionaires, all of us."
"If it's any consolation," he says, sitting up and drawing his feet up to the top step, "vice spending tends to stay relatively stable during recessions. You know, discretionary spending on stuff like alcohol, tobacco - coffee. The small-ticket items that get people through the day. What I mean is, you've got job security, at least, and that's more than a lot of people can say right now."
The bags under his eyes don't lighten any. But for a moment there he becomes animated, preternaturally enthused by any topic worth sharing. She'll never admit it but she's missed the "full nerd" experience.
"This whole Mr. Brightside attitude is going to get old someday, you know that, right?" She means it as a compliment. An appreciation. He knows this, but still. Their light conversation suddenly sinks under Barry's quiet, deep thoughts.
"This year was tough, Iris," he says at last. He hugs his knees. The half-eaten peach hangs forgotten from one hand. "All of it. Getting through the coursework and making the grades, obviously, but also the distance. I didn't - I know I came home for the holidays and we talked on the phone all the time, but being away for so long was just really hard."
Her thoughts move to comfort him, but the words themselves lie out of reach in the moment she has to voice them. He gives her a quirked half smile to fill the gap, and carries on.
"So, yeah," Barry says, "Didn't mean to get all real talk on you, but these last few weeks I've been so ready to come home. And I only have a home to come back to thanks to you and Joe, so . . . ."
He trails off again. His sneakers skid off the step. He gestures with the peach, trying to fit his sentiment into the right shape. "If I can be optimistic at all, it's only because of everything you guys have done for me," he concludes.
Iris reaches over and squeezes his arm above the elbow. She raises her own peach. A belated toast. "To coming home."
The dance of his eyebrows tells a complex story. Amusement and relief win out in the end. He meets her toast in kind. Iris feels a fuzzy pang of fondness for him, the way their eyes catch when they each take a bite. The flavor seems renewed, somehow. Sweet as spring, heady as summer.
The storm has settled in as a comfortable white noise backdrop to their shared moment. Iris finishes her peach first and flicks the pit out into the lawn. She has half a mind to relive her childhood to its fullest and go running after it, laughing into the rain.
She turns to Barry instead and asks, "So how does the infamous West hospitality rate so far?"
"Ten out of ten," he says easily. "If you don't mind sharing some of the credit with Old Widow Finch, of course."
She'll accept that. "Feeling better, then?"
She sees it flash across his eyes the second she asks. She hates herself for setting him up for it, hates him for his audacity as she steals herself against his answer. But she also loves him for the way he can't say it with a straight face, can't get through the word without choking, juice spilling from the corners of his mouth.
"Peachy!"
"I hate you," Iris laughs. "I've missed you so much."