Iris (The Wild Side)(19)

I was way too old-fashioned for my own good.
“I didn’t invite that many guys, and the ones I did know not to mess up my view.”
I rolled my eyes. I should have known. He was such a lech.
We had another round of Mai Tais and just kept watching the show.
“I was only going to stay two hours,” I told Turner, five hours into the party.
He laughed. “Good job with that. Well, you can’t leave now. Look how much fun your girl’s having.”
I looked. I’d been looking, didn’t know how to stop.
She was tireless, the whole lot of them were, dancing to every song, calling out the DJ when one didn’t have a strong enough beat.
“Uh oh,” Turner said, and I looked from Iris to follow his gaze, which was trained on the large double doors that led into his playground of a backyard.
Tammy stood there, holding a cocktail in one hand, and scoping the crowd. She was wearing an itty-bitty red bikini, and I swore she got thinner every time I saw her. Every bone seemed to protrude from her pale skin, starkly defined.
Maybe she’d taken up crack. She certainly had the jacked up personality for it.
Not all of her was skinny anymore, though. Big, fake-looking implants now dominated her chest. She looked in danger of tipping over at any moment, and had her chest thrust forward to show it off, as though anyone could miss the new additions.
She’d upgraded since I saw her last.
“Where has she been all this time?” I wondered aloud. “Just hanging out inside?”
“I’m telling you, she’s in there looking for things to lift,” said Turner. “If I find out something’s missing after this, I’ll know where to look. I’m having Candy take inventory after tomorrow.”
Tammy’s focus fixed, unsurprisingly, in the direction of Iris and, hand settling on her hip, she started striding in that direction, her gait a bit awkward on five-inch stilettos, which were another thing she’d never have been caught dead wearing when she was married to me.
“Fuck,” I said softly, succinctly, standing up.
I was not sure what to do or how worried to be. Tammy was completely unpredictable to me, at this point.
And if she laid one single finger on Iris, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t lose my shit.
Turner stood as well, letting out his own long-winded litany of curses. “I hate it when women fight each other. There’s no good way to handle it.”
I started to move when Tammy reached Iris, whirling the other woman to face her with a hand on her shoulder.
The crazy bitch was actually going to go there.
I couldn’t quite believe it, even as I was seeing it with my own eyes.
I didn’t hear everything, but I did hear the words ‘trashy’ and ‘tacky’ coming out of Tammy.
That irritated the hell out of me.
Iris wasn’t trashy or tacky.
Tammy was.
Iris was adorable, and sexy, and too good to be true.
I was still out of reach when Tammy screeched the word, “Whore!” loudly and threw her cocktail, glass and all, at Iris, then flew at her, claws first.
The glass hit Iris on the shoulder, liquid flying everywhere, then shattered on the ground at her feet.
Before anyone, including me, could interfere, Iris jerked back from Tammy’s reach, turned her entire body around with a swift twist, and gave the other woman one firm kick to the chest, sending her back a good three feet, and into the pool.
Apparently my Iris knew how to defend herself.
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
I reached her in the next beat, picking her up by the waist to keep her feet safe from broken glass, stepping on it myself in order to keep her unscathed.
I took her a few yards away, hugging her against me, hands stroking over her hair, her back, murmuring soothing words even as I glared daggers at my ex, who currently looked like an angry, drowned rat.
Tammy glared right back, hateful eyes just for me.
I had officially had it with that woman.
“Never again,” I told her loudly. “You will never touch her again or you will be f*cking sorry. I should have you arrested for assault.”
“Don’t,” Iris said into my chest. “I’m fine. She didn’t hurt me.”
I look down at her, pulling her back by the shoulders to get a good look at her.
Not only did she not look shaken, she looked downright cheerful about the whole thing.
Confusing woman.
Turner escorted Tammy out personally, and I had to stifle a laugh when I heard him break out his best lecturing voice, telling her that she should be ashamed of herself. Somehow, he pulled it off, and she left without much of a fight.
“I’m sorry,” said Iris quietly, her eyes on her feet.
My eyes tried to bug out of my head.
She’d been physically attacked, and she was sorry? I wouldn’t have blamed her if she ran at a sprint away from my mess of a life, but instead she was apologizing?
“Why would you be sorry? She attacked you. I’m sorry, so sorry you had to deal with that.”
Her mouth turned up slightly at one corner, her eyes twinkling, and even so, it took me a minute to realize she was nothing so much as highly amused, trying actively not to laugh aloud. “I provoked her on purpose. It’s terrible, especially after my little speech about investing in the negative. Don’t be mad at me, but I thoroughly enjoy getting a rise out of her. It’s not that I’m prone to jealousy; I just . . . really don’t like her. And it felt really good to kick her.”
I started laughing. Started and just couldn’t stop, not for a long time. Finally, I got out, “What did you say to her to get her so angry?”