A/N: Written for my fics-for-icons arrangement with iriswestallenhuh on tumblr. Enjoy. :)

*Many thanks to sendtherain for beta'ing.

*I own nothing. No copyright infringement intended.

Chapter 1 -

The glass doors opened with a sudden whoosh. Iris stepped outside the building and exhaled long and slow, feeling much more relaxed when she did so.

"You were in a hurry to get out of there," Linda, her best friend and roommate, said, deliberately bumping into her upon her own exit a moment later.

Iris looked at her best friend and noticed the devilish glint in her eyes.

"Weren't you? Professor Huff is awful."

Linda rolled her eyes and looped her best friend's arm with her own, as she pulled her down the steps and away from the campus buildings.

"He's boring is what you mean."

"He's a terrible teacher. I failed his last test, and I'm a genius."

Linda snorted. "You didn't fail. I failed." Iris opened her mouth to respond but Linda was too quick for her. "You got a C and I got an F – the literal letter grade of failure. C is average."

Iris scoffed. "In high school, maybe. In college anything below a B- is a failing grade, and that's the truth."

Linda shrugged, abandoning the argument.

"So, you have anything planned tonight?" She nudged Iris. "Besides going to your precious bookstore, I mean."

Iris nearly stilled at the latter comment, her face suddenly on fire. She cleared her throat as a distraction, but it hardly worked.

"N-No." She avoided Linda's suspecting gaze. "Why?"

"I was thinking…" She spread her free arm out before them. "Party."

This time she did stop. "Linda, no."

"Oh, come on, Iris. It'll be an evening party. It'll go late into the night. You'll be back from the bookstore, I'll be off work, we'll both have eaten dinner. It'll be fun."

She sighed. "Our apartment is tiny, Linda. Tiny. Where we will put everybody?"

"You're assuming a lot of people are coming," Linda said innocently.

Iris' brows narrowed. "I'm assuming you invited a lot of people, and you're very convincing."

Linda's Cheshire cat smile spread slowly across her face, and Iris released her, walking on ahead.

"Iris!" She laughed. "Iris, it'll be fun!" She looped her arm back through her friend's to get her to slow down.

"You didn't answer my question," she said, her tone deliberately clipped. Linda wasn't thwarted.

"Well, it just so happens that my very rich parents will be out at the summer cottage this weekend…"

Iris stopped again, her eyes wide.

"Linda, no."

Her tone was finally starting to irritate the raven-haired girl.

"Sometimes, Iris, you're honestly no fun."

She scoffed. "I'd rather be boring than in trouble."

"What's there to get in trouble for? They won't be back till Tuesday. It's one night. We'll clean up after."

"It'll be a mess."

"A worthy mess for a worthy cause."

Iris rolled her eyes and continued walking.

"So, is that a yes?" Linda pleaded, bumping her hip with her best friend's. "You'll come?"

"Do I have a choice?"

Linda smiled wide. "I knew you'd see reason."

Iris sighed. "I'm coming fashionably late."

"Of course you are." She pressed a kiss to her best friend's cheek. "I would expect nothing less of you."

Then just as if she wasn't pinned to her side for their whole conversation, Linda instantly released her and headed in the opposite direction.

"The restaurant beckons." She blew Iris a kiss and curtsied daintily as she turned her way one last time. "See you at home."

Iris shook her head at her friend and half-heartedly wished her a farewell before turning her own opposite direction a block later to the place she yearned to go every day, immersing herself in the literature at her fingertips. Bloschkey's Bookshop.

…

Ralph plopped down across from Barry, who sat reading just inside the library, and the latter knew right away that he was not going to like whatever his friend had to say.

"I have a great idea."

"No."

"You don't even know what it is."

"No."

He scoffed. "That's just not fair. You're not even giving it a shot."

Barry glanced up from his book. "Is it a party?"

Ralph's mouth hung open.

"I'm not going to another party with you, Ralph."

He scowled. "Why not? You enjoyed the last one."

Barry laughed humorlessly. "I did not enjoy the last one. You enjoyed the last one, gorging on food, getting drunk, and making out with at least two girls in the pool. I was your ride home, and I did not enjoy myself while I was there."

"Because you didn't interact with a-nee-bo-dyyy."

Barry turned a page silently.

Ralph grumbled.

"Did you ask Cisco?"

He said nothing.

"Or Ronnie?"

Ralph rolled his eyes. "Ronnie's going."

Barry looked at him. "Why does that annoy you?"

"Because he doesn't like me. I'm trying to avoid him."

"Well. You did hit on his girlfriend right in front of him…and the whole football team, which he is the star of. I can see why you'd be scared."

"I am not sca-"

Barry sighed. "Look. Call me when you want to be picked up, and I'll think about stopping by."

Ralph scoffed. "Are you saying you might not come?"

Barry shrugged and tossed his book in his backpack before zipping it and putting it over her shoulders.

"It's just a risk you'll have to take, my friend."

He patted him on the back and headed out of the library.

"Barry! Wait, Barry!"

But he didn't listen, just kept on walking. Once he was outside, he pulled out his phone and called Cisco.

"Hey, Barry," Cisco answered, sounding groggy.

"Hey- Were you…sleeping?"

"I had no classes today. What do you want from me?"

Barry laughed. "Uh, nothing, just was going to tell you I'm heading over now. I can't seem to avoid Ralph, so I'm going behind doors I can lock."

"Oh."

Barry frowned, sensing some unspoken worry in the silence his best friend left hanging.

"What is it, Cisco? Is something wrong?" An idea occurred to him. "Am I interrupting something?"

"What?! No! No way."

Barry rolled his eyes. "You know what, I think I'll just take a walk around the block, give you some time to suavely get rid of your overnight guest."

"Barry, it's not-"

But he laughed and hung up. Cisco wasn't one to bring girls back to the dorm, since he usually had trouble finding a date period. But maybe he'd gotten lucky and was exhausted from his one-night stand. Barry hadn't seen him when he left their dorm room that morning. Anything was possible.

To avoid embarrassing him in front of said girl, though, he figured he could end up someplace quiet where he was unlikely to be disturbed. He could finish the book he was reading, finish all his homework maybe, and then be free to torment his best friend once he returned to the dorm about all the scandalous details of his brief affair.

…

Iris licked her lips, turning the page of the delicious, sensuous novel. Well, perhaps that was putting it kindly. The book she'd picked up was pure erotica. Nothing but sex with a tiny thread of romance sprinkled in the beginning, middle, and very end. That fact was how she'd justify herself if anyone prim and proper caught her reading it. But that hadn't happened yet, and she was hoping it never would. She never bought any book, and the erotica section was in the very back of the very large, very old, very discreet bookshop on top of a furniture store five blocks from her apartment with Linda.

She'd discovered it quite accidentally – by opening the door she thought led to the bathroom and instead led to a flight of stairs that had stolen her curiosity immediately. She'd walked up the winding staircase and what she discovered when she reached the top was boarded windows and more aisles of books than she'd seen in her life; bookcases that neared the sealing, ladders propped in every other aisle to reach the higher shelves; rooms and halls with more books and ladders higher up with more books along walls on balconies. The place was a labyrinth; was it not for the arrows pointing to the two exits, one leading back to the furniture store and the other leading to an exit in the alleyway, she might not have found her way out of there.

To be honest, it had taken her a while to figure out if the place was indeed a bookstore or if it was merely a collection of books, maybe someone's private collection that they just so happened to stash above the first-level shop. But the first time she'd exited, she came back through the furniture store and a clerk caught her eye. He ushered her to the side where he told her that what she had discovered upstairs was all for sale and she need only bring down what she wished to purchase to the little room next to the alley exit. Because there sat an elderly cashier who was almost always present who would make the transaction.

Iris had a million questions, but she was so in awe of her discovery that she hadn't asked a single one, only nodded her thanks and ushered herself out the door. But she came back the next day and explored some more. It took her weeks before she encountered the erotica section. And first she thought it was cleverly hidden pornographic sketches that she would scoff at before moving on to genuine romance a few aisles over. Most of those had sex scenes in them, of course, but they didn't dominate the text. These books did. Some held sketches, but most were just fictional sexcapades. It was somehow the last thing she expected. She didn't know what to make of it at first, but she started to read, telling herself it wasn't that bad. By the time she came to the first threesome though, she was too far gone. She gasped and threw it onto the floor, but a moment later she picked it up again and resumed reading. She took a seat by the wall, one leg over the other, and discovered the slight friction of her thighs combined with the graphic depictions of sex resulted in her arousal. And, looking slightly about to make sure no one could see her, she moved the book to one hand and fingered herself over her panties with the other, biting her lip when she came so as not to make a sound.

After that she hurriedly put the book back, horrified by her actions and didn't come back for two days. But inevitably she returned to finish the book and then picked up another. She felt guilty about her tactics, especially since she sensed Linda would recommend putting herself out there in a social setting to create more meaningful and pleasurable encounters than fictional characters could ever do. But she wanted nothing to do with it. Her heart had been broken by boys twice in her life time, the most recent one being six months ago. She was not open to a relationship or to a guy just using her for sex for a one-night stand or a fling. She didn't want to deal with that ego, and at the moment all guys looked the same to her: egotistical maniacs afraid of commitment, who only wanted you for sex or arm candy until something better looking came along. She was through with it. And if right now she was going to forget those mistakes by unraveling through erotica, then so be it.

She was halfway through the newest book, detailing the sexual encounters of female pirates and their male hostages, her legs starting to rub together even as she was still standing, when a gasp startled her and she turned in the direction it had come, dropping the book as she did so.

There at the end of the aisle was a handsome looking tall man, probably around her age, staring at her.

"I…um…" he tried but nothing else came out. "I'm sorry I interrupted- S-sorry."

He ran away from her in the direction of the furniture store. She heard him run into a few, but she didn't see him again until the door at the bottom of the staircase slammed behind him. She was too in shock. She'd never seen anyone in the secret bookstore the whole time she'd been frequenting it.

Her heart pounded, wondering if her slight squirming in place had been as obvious as it was deliberate, and she figured it must've been or he wouldn't have stuttered and ran out of there like a bat out of hell.

She walked a few aisles down and peered through the wooden boards of the nearest window to see the man running down the street away from the shop.

"I really did a number on him," she chuckled lightly to herself.

But her face was on fire.