CHAPTER THREE
Miles' Island, Greece — 14:48 p.m.
—— THEY ALL TOOK A SMALLER BOAT to the glass dock that came off the beach of Miles’ island, their luggage all packed up against them. Iris shimmied from beside her suitcase, stepping on to the dock after Birdie, who had already started sprinting her way towards Miles, who they had all caught sight of sitting with his guitar. Whiskey stepped off after and Iris held out a hand, the girl taking it with a hint of a smirk, and they all watched as Birdie continued her screaming towards the man on the beach.
“Miles!” she screeched, her voice causing a couple other seagulls to join in. She reached land in a matter of seconds, and Miles welcomed her joyfully, wrapping one arm around her back.
“Oh, my baby, Birdie!”
“Oh, with your island!” Birdie continued to gush, untangling herself to stand on her own once more. “Serenading me with my song!”
“On the guitar Paul wrote in on,” Miles boasted, leaning the musical instrument up against his thigh. Birdie chuckled silently, not believing him, but he only nodded, making her gasp out in surprise. “I know, legit, right? But look at your face. It was worth it. Oh!” He threw the guitar into the sand upon catching sight of everyone else making their way over. “My friends, my friends, oh, my old friends.”
As Birdie picked up Paul’s guitar from the sand, making sure it was completely fine, everyone else stepped out from the dock, holding some of their bags over their heads while Mr. Andino got the rest of them, struggling his way through the water.
“Are we allowed to hug after the whole Men in Black thing?” Claire asked as she was the first to reach Miles after Birdie, arms already outstretched anyway.
“We can hug. Okay,” Miles smiled, leaning back, telling her to come over.
“Oh, God, bring it in,” Claire exclaimed, sounding relieved, but Iris didn’t think Claire had ever felt relieved about anything. And the slight hint of uncomfortableness when she let go pointed towards her being right.
“Oh! We’re allowed to hug!”
“Ah. Aw.”
Ignoring Peg, Miles caught Iris walking up next. “Oh, my baby girl, Iris. Come over here, you.”
“Hey, Miles,” Iris smiled, pushing back the disgust in her throat as the man made her drop her bags and held her gently in his arms. He let his hands drift down to her lower back, everyone catching it with uncertainty, and Iris swallowed, pushing herself back and away from him.
“Such a tease,” Miles joked, pointing as her as she laughed in the way she had practiced for when she was around him, and he finally let her go stand with the others, Mr. Andino picking up her bags for her this time. “Duke!”
“Hey, buddy. This is a dream,” Duke sighed, looking around at the golden beach that circled the island, the ocean a deep blue against the shoreline. Iris had to admit, it was goddamn beautiful.
“Not a dream, wide awake,” Miles laughed until Duke grasped him in a hug, squeezing him tighter than the man had anticipated. “And it feels so good.”
Once Duke let go, Miles took a deep breath and looked to the next person, that being Whiskey. Iris bit the inside of her cheek as the two wrapped their arms together, this time everyone catching the obvious moment happening between them, not understanding why Duke hadn’t complained about it. Iris was sure that Whiskey and Miles had had a little something on the side for a while now, and they didn’t exactly try to hide it, so it was just another punch in the gut.
“Wow. I just… I love that necklace,” Miles complimented softly, the girl twirling it in one finger with a smile. “Great. Come on, bring it in.”
“This old thing?” Whiskey laughed, stepping forward and letting his arms wrap around her waist, her’s around his neck.
“How you doing?”
“I’m so good.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm-hmm. Great island.”
“Greek island, huh? Sexy, right?”
Iris looked around, trying to avert her eyes as she cleared her throat pointedly. Duke took the signal that everyone else was uncomfortable and put a stop to it.
“So, uh, Benoit Blanc, huh?” Duke questioned, Miles and Whiskey looking as if they had just been thrown out of their own world. Miles seemed to grasp the situation quickly again while Whiskey pushed her hair back behind her shoulders again, checking on Iris, but only seeing the girl looking elsewhere. She frowned and walked back over to Duke, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Man, when you throw a murder mystery party, you do it right, buddy.”
“My man,” Miles greeted Lionel, still seeming slightly confused by the detective's presence on his island.
“Hey, pal,” Lionel smiled warmly, the two sharing a handshake and a pat on the back.
“Good to see you.”
“You too, buddy.”
“Hello,” Miles finally addressed Mr. Blanc, the rest of them standing in a line behind him, observing the conversation with curiosity.
“Mr. Bron, I cannot overstate my gratitude for this, I—” Mr. Blanc tried to thank.
“So happy to meet—” Miles interjected, but his sentence trailed off upon seeing Andi making her way across the glass dock, her presence as intimidating as ever. The silence was deafening as they all watched, Iris furrowing her eyebrows through the sunlight while Miles placed his hands on his hips. “Andi. You’re here.”
“I am,” Andi replied, those being her first words since arriving so out of the blue.
“All right, when’s the murder mystery start?” Duke intervened, once again knocking Miles out of his own thoughts, the man turning to face them all.
“My man, patience. Patience,” Miles waved his hand, chuckling to himself with some sense of familiarity. “Okay, look, I know you guys think I’m a hippie, but can we just take a second and fully inbreathiate this moment together?” Iris looked around at the others, watching as Whiskey took a deep breath and Duke hummed in agreement, she turned away once again with an exasperated sigh. “We’re old friends. We’re still friends. And I love you all. I just wanted to say that. But we got a great weekend, just our gang, just us.”
“Hey, hey!” a guy greeted as he made his way across the beach behind Miles, Iris and everyone else staring after him with their eyebrows raised. He had a bottle of something in his hand and some goggles hanging round his neck.
“Hey, bro,” Miles returned, sending him the shaka sign.
“I’m not here,” the guy reassured the others, waving around his bottles of Corona.
Waiting until he walked a good distance away, Birdie leaned forward, whispering, “Who’s that?”
“That’s Derol. He’s just— He’s staying here,” Miles explained, realizing how that contradicted his previous statement of it being just them that weekend. “He’s just going through things, but he’s not part of the experience at all, okay? So first, a proper tour of the Glass Onion.”
The group erupted into shrieks from Birdie and statements of excitement. Iris was a little confused, turning behind her to see the large glass dome on top of the mansion, the sunlight bouncing off it in blinding rays. She was happy that her sunglasses shielded her eyes.
“Doesn’t really look like an onion,” Whiskey frowned, having moved away from Duke in the excitement, joining Iris as they followed Miles up the path from the beach.
“That was exactly what I was thinking,” Iris smiled over at her, Whiskey chuckling happily and looping her arm in her’s, skipping by her side.
“Oh, wow, okay,” Claire said as they reached the top of the steps into the courtyard. Plant life and grass patches were everywhere, the entire garden being shadowed by the main building and the Glass Onion above it.
“Wow!” Birdie gushed, stopping beside her as everyone gathered round in a loose circle, Whiskey having disjointed from Iris and gone back to Duke. “It’s like an actual huge glass onion.”
Iris cocked her head, not too sure about that.
“Yep,” Claire sighed with exasperation.
“It’s past, present and future,” Miles explained, somewhat cryptically as he took to the center of attention once again. “It’s what came before, where I am now, what I’ll leave to the world.”
“Ignore me,” Derol warned him as he shimmied his way past Iris, the girl staggering back to get out of his way while the scent of weed pungently followed. It seemed they all committed to the part of forgetting him as they all acted as if he hadn’t even been there.
“This is the full reclamation of everything I’ve achieved up to now—” Miles tried to continue.
“So, what kind of staff does it take to run a place like this?” Lionel questioned, looking around, and Iris copied his actions, seeing that, sure enough, there was no else about. It was just them standing in the lonely courtyard. Well, and Derol, of course.
“Normally like fifty, but, you know…” Miles mumbled, speaking louder as he quickly moved past it. “Look, I sent everyone home. I just wanna have a normal weekend with my old friends like the old days—”
There was a whirring of machinery and Iris turned her head to see a dog-like vehicle with all their bags laden on it. It quickly moved down the path further in the courtyard, Iris putting a hand over her eyes to check that she was seeing what she thought she was.
“Is that…?” Iris asked, but noticed everyone else just paying attention to Miles. “Oh, okay. Nevermind.”
“Right? See, look, that’s the thing,” Miles carried on, not clocking that anyone had spoken or anything was moving behind him. “This isn’t just a rich-asshole house. It’s… It’s— I mean, it’s not even a house. It’s a… It’s a commune. For creativity.”
“Oh, amazing,” Birdie sighed, playing right into Miles’ game of compliment fishing.
All of a sudden, a loud, echoing “dong” rang out over the island, scaring birds from the trees all around them. Iris nearly jumped out of her skin, her travel bag dropping to her feet as she calmed herself down. It seemed everyone else had gotten the same fright, looking around to find the source of the noise.
“Wha— What is that?” Lionel questioned, even as the dong continued to echo into the ocean.
“That’s the hourly dong,” Miles replied simply, as if it should have been obvious. “You know I got Phil Glass to compose that?”
“What?” Claire asked, confused.
“It’s not a— It’s not a song, though,” Iris muttered, picking her bag back up.
“Who’s Phil Gas?” Birdie whispered to Peg, who waved her off.
“Okay, let’s stop talking and actually start hanging out and having fun,” Miles announced, trying to hype the group back up. “Your rooms are assigned by the chakra that I most closely associate with each of you. I know. Go with it, okay? Your biorhythm monitor is the key to your room. It’ll lead you to the room using haptics.”
Iris felt her wrist buzz slightly, her white wristband shining with a green-ish picture of a heart, the buzzing falling into a steady rhythm against her pulse. She raised an eyebrow, but shrugged, guessing it did seem like a Miles thing to do.
“Get settled in, change. Let’s meet up at the pool,” Miles advised them, letting his shoulders slump back, relaxingly. “We’ll have a chill afternoon. And then the game begins.”
“Ooh! Sacral!” Birdie cried out in surprise, her wristband lighting up in orange. “You know me, Miles. Oh, Miles.”
Birdie and Peg were the first to wander off into the complex and Iris followed after, holding her wristband out in front of her, confused how it was supposed to work. The buzz steadily grew more rapid as the noise from everyone else drowned out, leaving Iris by herself as she made her way round the corner, the ocean a deep blue behind the numerous trees and the small slither of the beach still visible. She had to give it to Miles; it was fucking gorgeous.
As she really felt she was all alone, her wristband buzzed more than it had ever done before, getting her to halt in front of a wooden sliding door into a large room made up of what Iris noticed was an Alaskan King, multiple paintings hanging from the walls and a ensuite with another sliding door in the corner. She let out a relieved sigh, dropping her bag next to her others that had been placed at the end of her bed, feeling peace drift over her at it finally being silent and her wristband going quiet.
Dropping herself down, Iris laid back into the pillows of her bed, savoring the moment because she knew she wouldn’t get many that weekend. She didn’t even know why she’d come, she knew this was a terrible idea. First — she couldn’t keep back the guilt she had felt after that night with Whiskey, and she was terrified for the moment when Duke would finally work it out. Second — she had her last chance with her publisher, and if she didn’t get those first couple pages done by next week, she was going to be out of a job. And Miles wouldn’t help her.
Her brain was a mess, but she tried to ignore it. She was on a fucking island for god’s sake, and there was a beach just outside her window, a pool right around the corner. She was in freedom, a paradise away from home, and she was wasting it laying on her bed, replaying each and every problem she had right now.
“Howdy, neighbor,” a voice greeted from her doorway and Iris raised herself up onto her elbows, slightly pissed to have her peace disturbed so quickly, but her anger drifted at the sight of Whiskey leaning herself against the threshold, arm over her head and a smirk on her face. Iris smiled to herself, the picture so perfect with the sun being blocked out, silhouetting her, but highlighting all her features. It was exactly who Iris had written her third book about, but no one but her would ever know that.
“You’re my neighbor, then?” Iris asked, Whiskey rolling her head back as she wandered into her room, settling herself next to her on the bed. “Should I get some earplugs?”
“Why ruin the fun we’re going to have?” Whiskey teased, enjoying the blush she got in return. “What’s your chakra, then? I’m feeling curious.”
“I barely know what a chakra is, Whiskey,” Iris sighed, holding out her wrist for the girl to take, the blonde raising her eyebrows at her before looking down to check. She tapped the white wristband once, watching as the green-ish color embossed with a heart circled it.
“Oh, you’re the heart,” Whiskey said, not letting go of Iris’ wrist as she laid back with the brunette, turning onto her side. “Miles’ thinks you're the center of love for everyone. You know, compassion… empathy… forgiveness.”
“Right, sure,” Iris rolled her eyes, taking back her wrist with a scoff. Whiskey frowned, but leaned her chin down on her palm. “What’s your’s, then?”
“Well, I’m rooming with Duke, so Solar Plexus,” Whiskey sighed, the yellow mixing with the sunlight on her wristband. “It means confidence, and self-esteem, and control.”
Iris watched as the blonde’s face fell when she spoke, and she worked up the courage to lean forward, moving some hair from her face. “Hey, you’re pretty confident, you know. Your self-esteem is fucking unbeatable. And, Whiskey, if you don’t know the control you have over others… you’ve gotta be blind.”
Whiskey let her lips turn upwards into a smile, crawling herself forward slightly, landing her face just a few inches away from Iris’. For a second, she wondered if she should delve into what they had already started, but then she decided on the smarter decision. “I think we should talk.”
“Hm? About…?” Iris asked, eyes snapping back up from Whiskey’s lips, cursing herself.
“You know what,” Whiskey sing-songed, pushing herself back up to her knees and hopping off the bed, leaving Iris to follow her figure round her room. “About that night.”
“I agree,” Iris replied after a second of thought. Her heartbeat doubled in speed and she wondered if the murder mystery would really turn out to be about her. It would be a pretty shit conclusion of a heart attack.
“Well, I guess I’ll start…” Whiskey decided, moving herself to drag Iris’ suitcase down to the floor, unzipping it and flipping it open. She started to look through it as she spoke, and Iris guessed it was a task to avoid meeting her eyes. “I, um… don’t think it should happen again. I mean, I’m with Duke, and it shouldn’t have happened to begin with. I just— We were drunk, right? It was just a little fun, and, yeah, I enjoyed it, but it shouldn’t have happened.”
“Oh, um…” Iris barely got out, watching as Whiskey glanced up for a second, checking her reaction, but upon seeing it, immediately looked down to the brunette’s suitcase. She cleared her throat, realizing how awful the silence was. “Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, it was just some… fun. But, well—” Whiskey wondered if she was about to argue. “ —We shouldn’t tell Duke. We’re agreed on that?”
“Oh, of course,” Whiskey nodded quickly, shaking the hope away from her head, realizing it had been stupid to even think. She chuckled in spite of herself. “He would… Well, he would kill you.”
“I appreciate the reassurance, babe,” Iris smirked, taking off her cap and throwing it on her bed, standing up to walk over to Whiskey in front of her suitcase. “What are you up to?”
Whiskey was happy the moment was over, but the hint of awkwardness still lingered, and she wondered if that meant it had been the wrong decision. “Well, I just wanted to help out.” She took out a specific bikini, throwing it over to the girl and standing up. “You’d look super hot in it, just saying.”
“Thanks…” Iris sighed, looking down at the dark green two piece. “Just saying.”
Whiskey smirked at her added comment, skipping up to her and giving her a swift kiss on the cheek, before walking out of her room, leaving Iris to bask in her own bemusement.