Chapter Text
Okay, so maybe this shouldn’t be as big of a deal as it is, but not having a boyfriend in high school is pretty much like social suicide to Iris West. She’s on the cheer team, a senior, and hopelessly boyfriend-less. If her life was a game of ‘which one doesn’t belong,’ the one thing about her that has got to go is her status as single. Preferably before homecoming.
And it’s not even like she’s ugly. Sure, she’s not the most beautiful or the most endowed girl on campus when it came to breasts or ass, but she takes pride in being a solid eight. She dresses nicely enough and she makes sure that both her hair and eyelashes are curled to perfection. So, she’s still a little confused as to why she’s never had real boyfriend (the one in second grade definitely did not count).
“Iris,” Barry says, fumbling with his backpack and struggling to keep up with her as she walks away from her (okay, their, but it’s basically hers anyway; he lets her use it whenever she wants to, God bless him) car. “Plenty of people don’t date in high school. It’s normal. No one even cares that you don’t have a boyfriend!”
“Shhh!” She says, covering his mouth before looking around to see if anyone had been eavesdropping on their conversation. “People can hear you, Barry!”
“Okay, whatever,” Barry says, peeling her hands off his lips. He reaches up to adjust his glasses. “My point is – the right time will come; you don’t need to force anything to happen. Any guy would be lucky to have you. Like, really lucky.”
She whips her head around to look at the boy walking beside her. He’s wearing a gray cardigan, a white t-shirt peeking out from underneath his half unbuttoned plaid shirt, skinny jeans and a pair of Converse that look like they’ve seen their final days. All in all, he’s average, cute in a boyish kind of way even, and there’s no way Iris should believe anything he says because she knows him. He’s the kid who grew up across the hall from her. And she knows him enough that she doesn’t take anything he says about relationships seriously. No offense.
“Maybe to you, okay?” Iris says, opening her locker. “I’m just tired of waiting. I’ve been waiting my entire life. I’m ready to fall in love with…” She trails off, eyes focused somewhere off in the distance. Barry follows her gaze to where Eddie Thawne, the star quarterback of Central City High’s football team, is standing with his friends.
“Oh,” Barry says, “so this is about Pretty Boy.”
“OMG!” she says. “Don’t call him that in school! It’s embarrassing.”
“But this is about him, right?” he asks.
Iris presses her forehead against her locker door and sighs. “It’s just – I’ve watched all of these movies about love and high school and the characters are all like ‘wow, what a great feeling!’ And I want that wow feeling, you know?”
Barry nods. “Yeah, I –”
He’s interrupted by the five-minute warning bell and then Iris is hugging him goodbye as they depart to their respective first periods. She’s about halfway to class when someone calls, “Iris!” And she already knows who it is before she even turns around. Quickly adjusting her hair, she plasters a smile on her face and turns in greeting, praying that he can’t tell that she’s internally freaking out about being late to class.
Eddie smiles at her – he’s always smiling, she’s never seen him not smile – and says, “Hey, how are you?”
“I’m good,” she nods. Her cheeks are beginning to hurt from smiling so hard. “Absolutely great. What’s up?”
“So I’m having a party at my house this weekend. It’s going to be awesome. Drinks, a DJ, awful barbeque, the whole works. You wanna come?” He asks. He’s looking at her with a hopeful expression, eyebrows raised the slightest bit in anticipation. And his eyes – Iris has never seen eyes like his. They’re the most unique shade of blue. Cerulean, maybe? “Iris?” he calls.
“Uh.” She says, broken out of her thoughts. “I have to check with my dad first, but I’ll definitely try to be there.”
“Just let me know, okay? I’ll text you the details.”
“Alright,” she grins. “I, um, got to get to class? So I’ll see you around, I guess.”
“See you around, West.” He winks before walking away from her.
Iris pinches herself to make sure she’s not dreaming. “Ouch,” she says, “definitely not dreaming.” And then she smiles because Eddie Thawne just invited her to his party. At his house. And he’s going to text her!
Her excitement distracts her from the fact that she’s considerably late to first period. Once the bell rings, she inwardly curses at the prospect of having to do the walk of shame into class. And even though she tries her hardest to be inconspicuous when she enters, tip-toeing between the desks when the teacher’s back is turned, Mr. Jackson still notices her late arrival.
“Miss West,” he says, “Glad you decided to grace us with your presence on this fine morning. Care to explain what you thought was more important than my class?”
Shit, she curses in her mind. How is she going to get out of this one? She couldn’t flat out say, ‘Oh, I skipped five minutes of your class to talk to my future boyfriend, no biggie.’ That was a guarantee to get an afterschool detention, which would affect cheer practice and turn into an overall shitstorm.
“Mister, she had an emergency,” Linda Parks pipes up. Honestly, thank God for her beautiful soul.
“Emergency?” he echoes, brows furrowed, obviously not following where this conversation is heading.
“The womanly kind.” Linda replies, causing the class to break out into a fit of giggles.
Iris feels her cheeks start to heat up as she says, “I was just coming from the bathroom, sir.”
Mr. Bones stutters for a moment before he nods. “Okay, Miss West, you’re excused.”
Iris sits down next to Linda and sends her a grateful smile before taking out her class materials and spreading them on her desk. She’s honestly trying to pay attention to the lesson about the election of 1800, but for some reason her mind decides to occupy itself with something else besides how Thomas Jefferson won the presidency by a landslide. Her attention is caught on someone else, rather. Eddie Thawne, to be specific.
“Would anyone like to answer why the Fourteenth Amendment was so important?” Mr. Jackson asks, looking around for his next victim. His eyes settle on Iris, who is busy tracing her pen across the pages in her notebook. She almost jumps out of her desk when he says, “Miss West?”
She looks up at him and realizes that most of the class is looking at her right now. She licks her lips, mostly out of nervousness. “I, uh, don’t know.” Some kids in the back of the classroom snicker.
He narrows his eyes at her. “I would advise that you pay attention to the lesson if you’re going to be missing class.” He says, and then he’s on a whole different tangent, but that doesn’t mean Linda Park isn’t concerned that Iris is off her game. It’s almost as if she can sense that something is off with her.
“You normally know all of the answers, West.” Linda whispers once Jackson isn’t paying attention anymore. She’s leaning over Iris’s shoulder, which gives her a good view of Iris’s notes. Linda has to resist the urge to snort at the hearts, doodles, and the ‘Iris + Eddie’ written in bubble letters on the page. “What’s that?” she asks. Iris can practically hear the smirk in her voice.
She frowns and quickly turns the page, but it’s too late. She knows that Linda already saw her doodles and there was no way she was going to let that topic drop. If anything, Linda would just bring it up later that day.
“Nothing,” Iris says under her breath, a hint of red coloring her mocha cheeks. She looks around the classroom before whispering, “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”
Later ends up being seven hours later after Iris is done cheering for the football game. She’s tired – beyond tired actually – and her feet ache with the pain of an oncoming blisters. She just wants to go home and maybe enjoy her new vanilla bath bomb. Any notion of going home, though, is thrown out the window when she hears someone calling out her name from behind her.
“Iris!”
The girl in question turns to see Linda bounding towards her, her cheer uniform disheveled and cheer bow perched precariously on top of her head. Iris really should have known better. There was no way that her best friend would forget about the conversation that she promised they would have, especially when it contained the likes of Eddie Thawne.
“Hey, Linda,” Iris says, adjusting the duffel bag on her shoulder. “What’s up?”
Linda settles her with a knowing look. “You know what’s up.”
“The sky?” Iris jokes. Linda sends her another steely look and fake punches her shoulder.
“Why didn’t you tell me you have a crush on Eddie Thawne?!”
“I just … didn’t think to mention it?” She says but it comes out more like a question. And then the next sentences out of her mouth are word vomit. “It’s not a big deal, Linda. I don’t even like him that much. Anyways, it’s never gonna happen. He’s waaay out of my league and I didn’t want to get my hopes up by thinking that I have a chance. Which I don’t. Because I’m me. And he’s him, you know?”
“Girl.” Linda says and okay, so maybe Iris does have the biggest crush in the world on Eddie Thawne. “You have to get at him.”
“He invited me to his party this weekend.”
“Really? That’s great, now all you have to do is slide into his DM’s.”
Iris ignores her word choice and instead asks, “And how do I do that?”
“You have to grab his attention. Make him think you’re unattainable. Date Barry.”
Iris is listening intently until Linda reaches the last part. At the mention of Barry’s name, her jaw nearly falls to her ratty old white cheer shoes. Date Barry? No way. Iris is pretty sure he doesn’t even know how to interact with the opposite gender. And even though he’s cute and probably the sweetest guy she knows besides her father, she’s never seen him in that light.
“Did you actually just hear yourself?” Iris asks once she gets over the initial shock. “You just told me to date Barry Allen, the boy who grew up just across the hall from me. That’s, like, against everything I know. And I’m not going to play with his emotions – he’s my best friend.”
“Okay, whatever, just like fake-date him. He’s cute in a nerdy kind of way. And he already worships the ground you walk on.”
“No, he does not!” Iris says indignantly, folding her arms over her chest.
At that exact moment, Linda’s phone decides to ring and she answers with an over exaggerated roll of the eyes – probably her mother asking where she is at this time of night – and then, before Iris can register what’s happening Linda is giving her rushed cheek kisses as she says, “Sorry, babe, gotta go. Love you!” and then she’s running across the school parking lot to her car.
On the drive home, Iris mulls over what Linda said. She can definitely see where Linda is coming from. She knows boys think differently than girls. A girl would see a boy in a relationship and pretty much leave it alone. A guy, however, finds a girl more attractive when they’re taken. Seeing her with Barry would make Eddie actually notice her. It’s basically a guarantee that Eddie will inevitably want to be with her.
All she needs to do is get Barry’s consent, which could go either way. He could say “No, I really need to focus on my grade in AP Physics. It’s slipping to a low A.” Or he could say, “Yes, of course! Anything for my best friend.” And to be honest, she would completely get it if he said no. She’s asking for a lot. She’s pretty much going to beg him to lie to the whole entire school on her behalf. He would literally be the most selfless person if he did happen to say yes.
Iris just needs to ask.
♡ ♡ ♡
Iris opens the front door to find Barry’s long frame sprawled out on the couch, one arm above his head so that the material of his shirt slides up, allowing her to see the pale skin there. She swallows – whether it’s because of nerves or something else, she doesn’t know. It’s late – she’s just coming home from a football game and whenever her dad isn’t home, he normally stays up to make sure she’s okay – but that doesn’t mean that she’s not surprised to see him laying there. She was sort of hoping he’d be sleeping in his bed by now. Then she wouldn’t have to go through with her plan.
“Hey,” she says, her fingertips playing with the frayed edge of her cheerleading uniform.
“Hey, Iris,” Barry pauses the TV to look at her and moves so that there’s enough room for her to sit next to him. His green eyes watch her intently as she sits, her skirt riding up as she does so. “What’s up?”
Her brown eyes settle on his. She decides to rip the band aid off fast.
“I don’t want this to sound weird or anything, but I need you to be my fake boyfriend.” She says, rushing out the last part.
Barry nearly chokes on air. “Wha … Wait – your what?”
He’s wearing a look of disbelief, so Iris repeats herself. “I need you to be my fake boyfriend,” she says a little slower and Barry swallows, his hand coming up to scratch at the back of his neck.
“Iris – are you sure?” He asks, genuinely confused. “Is someone forcing you to do this? Are you being bullied or something?”
She brushes a strand of her hair behind her ear and bites her lip, trying to find a way to tell him the information running through her head without sounding like a complete fool.
“I was actually talking to Linda earlier today about Eddie –”
“Pretty Boy?” Barry says with a raised eyebrow and she nods.
“—and she was telling me how the easiest way for me to get his attention is to make him think I’m unattainable. And at first, I thought it was ridiculous because you know how it always ends up in the movies – the girl has a crush on a guy, gets a fake boyfriend, and then accidentally falls in love with the fake boyfriend – but then I realized you’re the perfect guy. You’re my best friend so it’ll be believable and we don’t have any feelings for each other, so it’ll be no strings attached.” Iris says with the biggest grin on her face, all sparkling and jumping with excitement. “It’s perfect.”
She waits for him to answer, hands clasped in front of her and her eyes widened in hopes that he says yes. He seems to be thinking very hard about the whole situation, but eventually he cracks and says, “Okay, I’ll do it for you. Not because I actually think it’ll work or anything.”
The squeal that Iris makes as she hugs him is almost deafening. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love you!” She smiles.
“So, when are we starting this fake-dating thing?” Barry asks.
“Um, this weekend?”
“This weekend?” he repeats.
“Yeah,” she says, “Eddie invited me to his party.”
“Are you sure about that? It’s so soon and I’ve never been to a party before…”
“Bear, no worries. I can help you figure out what to wear while we go over the details of our relationship. We got this, okay?”
“Okay,” he says.
And even though Iris is pretending that she has everything under control, deep down she has the underlying fear that eventually this will all spiral out of control and come to bite her in the ass. But, hey, gotta stay positive, right?