by Robin Hale
“I hear this gala is your project,” Amber continued, freeing a hand to gesture around the lavish space. “It must be an enormous amount of work to pull it off.”
There. Amber had left an opening for Dahlia to pick up the thread of the conversation and talk about herself. Her work, her achievements, her interests in educational philanthropy — which were genuine, even if the gala was the only way they manifested. Amber wore her same friendly smile, genuine interest in her pretty brown eyes, open expression unprepared for how she was about to be thwarted.
“Oh, no,” Dahlia parried. “This gala hasn’t changed in years. Iris could organize it — without Carrie.”
The corner of my mouth quirked downward. I was sure that fencers weren’t supposed to target spectators. And me, without my rapier.
The riposte. “I want to hear all about this whirlwind romance of yours. How did you two meet?” Dahlia asked, smile sparkling in the ballroom’s designer lighting.
Amber’s eyes widened a fraction, her grip adjusted on the stem of her glass. The signs were subtle, but Dahlia had her at the back of her lane. “I bumped into her at a coffee shop. Spilled her coffee everywhere.” Self-deprecating wince and a smile, then Amber was fixing her footwork, pushing the attack to make Dahlia return some distance. “How do you get in touch with the school systems that need help?”
Dahlia waved the question away. “I borrow one of my father’s assistants. We have long-standing relationships with the local district offices, most of the work is in the collating.” And then she pressed. “Spilled her coffee?” A wicked gleam came into Dahlia’s eyes. “Did you invite her back to yours to change?”
Amber huffed a surprised, half-delighted, half-embarrassed laugh and I scowled. “Dahlia.”
“I’m only teasing, I promise. But how did you go from coffee-mishap to dating? Iris is a nightmare without her coffee.” My cousin was handily winning the match. She wouldn’t let up, didn’t leave openings, knocked every overture aside and I could’ve called the match. “Did she ask for your number?”
“No, actually,” Amber smiled, losing some of her PR-face as the corners of her eyes crinkled. “I wasn’t sure she recognized that I was a person, at first.” Her laughter was soft and quiet and I leaned in to hear it better — immediately earning a sharp-eyed, triumphant look from Dahlia. “Seemed like I was a sentient roadblock.”
“That sounds like Iris. So, how’d it happen?”
“She invited me to her office.”
That…was a diplomatic way of putting it. Kinder than saying that Carrie had her kidnapped off the street.
Dahlia landed a backhanded thwap against my arm regardless. “You invited her to your office? Of course you did.” She snorted. “You useless nerd. Then what happened?”
I spent the conversation as a convenient prop for one or the other of them to laugh at, gesture to, or despair of. Mostly Dahlia doing the despairing. No, Amber spent most of her time with a light flush dusting the crest of her cheekbones, darting glances at my face, smiling and looking back toward my cousin. She was playing it off perfectly.
So perfectly that I could pretend the things she said were actually true, rather than only technically.
She made it sound…blissful. That once in a lifetime kind of love that made people get married scant days after they’d met. My heart twisted but I kept it off my face, kept it out of my eyes. Kept it confined, in fact, to the taste of champagne bubbling over my tongue.
It might’ve been years before Amber turned and handed me her glass. “Hold this for me? I need to find the ladies’ room.”
“Oh, back in that direction, you can’t miss it.” Dahlia pointed to the far side of the room. Once Amber had left, she turned to me. “She’s adorable.”
I nodded. She was.
“I need to corner a caterer and find out what’s happening with the macarons,” Dahlia said, backing away toward the kitchens. “But aren’t you glad I bullied you into inviting her? She’s great, Iris.”
I smirked, nodded, and tipped my glass toward Dahlia in a completely meaningless set of gestures, but it didn’t matter. She ran off toward the mystery of the macarons and I was left suddenly and idiotically wistful about the smudge of lipstick on Amber’s glass.
Fuck me.
* * *
THE PROBLEM with waiting for one’s date to return from the restroom was that standing alone at a gala in Silicon Valley meant painting an irresistible target over one’s head. People approached pairs, sure, but they couldn’t stay away from people standing on their own. They all felt compelled to rescue me from my crushing loneliness, despite the evidence that I was waiting for someone to return.
Perhaps they imagined I was so lonely that I had resorted to double fisting champagne.
At any rate, I stood in solitude for less than three minutes before Harold Garberson found me.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, Irie!” Harold ambled up to me with a chuckle and a boisterous slap on the back that came out of nowhere. What did he find so damn funny? “Seems we’ve both been abandoned by our dates.” He gestured toward the pair of flutes in my hands.
“Seems so.”
A beat of silence as I resolutely did not pick up the conversational football. Amber would’ve been horrified.
Harold, however, was not to be deterred so easily. “Anyway, I wanted to say…about this business with the board…I wouldn’t read too much into rumors. And even if something were to happen —”
I cut him off with a narrowed glance. “Harold, what do you hope to accomplish in this conversation?”
He blinked, started to sputter with the kind of surprise I’d expect from being interrupted by a house plant, not a grown woman who’d never had time for him. Why he thought I’d care about his mealy-mouthed nonsense, I couldn’t imagine.
“There’s nothing to be gained by burn —”
Oh hell, more tired cliches. A muscle twitched in the hinge of my jaw and I marked the exact second my patience snapped. “Look —”
“Oh, there you are, Harry!” A bright, melodic voice shattered the potential energy I’d gathered in the set of my jaw. There was less than a breath before Sandra stepped in between Garberson and me. “Be a dear and fetch me another champagne, would you?”
And just like that, the irritant was removed.
Sandra settled in to take Garberson’s place and offered me a fond, private smile that didn’t belong at a fundraiser gala. “Iris,” she said warmly. “It’s been a while.”
Sandra looked as perfectly put together as she always had. Her red hair was complemented by the shade of her dress. Her makeup was flawless. And her eyes snagged on the crooked lapel of my jacket, the scuff marks on my wristwatch the way they always had.
“You look good,” I said after a moment. “I heard about the new role — president of vision or something to that effect?”
Far from the canned laughter she’d always dropped on red carpets or interviews, Sandra’s chuckle was genuine. “President of Visionary Cultivation. An absurd department. The position is largely ornamental, of course, but I do get to keep my hand in at bullying the purchasing decisions, so it isn’t all bad.” Her eyes glittered at me. “Well done with SparkSignal’s new growth. Quite the spike in engagement, recently. Or so I’m told.”
I shrugged off the compliment. All of that was weighed down by the looming vote. I didn’t want to think about favors I might be doing for Harold fucking Garberson, after all.
“I know you hate them, but I do want to offer an apology for that article.” Displeasure curled the carefully painted petal of Sandra’s lips. “It came out all wrong. They bombarded me in between shows in Milan. And it wasn’t even the journalist I’d first spoken to and — it was ghastly. I didn’t want you to internalize it. Stick to the complaints I actually had, hm?”
I huffed a laugh and took a swig of my drink. “Noted. Don’t let it keep you up at night.”
“Oh, I never do.” A wicked slant to the smile
that used to promise all sorts of things.
Funny how the world changed when you weren’t looking, how the things you once wanted stopped looking so appealing.
“I gather that congratulations of a different sort are in order, however,” the redhead at my side continued. “I met your companion in the powder room.” A pause, long enough to make my chest go tight and wonder if I was about to have it out with my ex in the middle of my family’s ballroom. “She rather sparkles, doesn’t she?”
Tension released. Sandra sounded sincere. “She does,” I agreed.
“She’s also been waylaid by Catherine, and I fear she might be a trifle overwhelmed,” Sandra said.
I jerked my head up and narrowed my eyes, searching the crowds for Amber’s hair, the shimmer of her dress, the flash of her smile. There. She didn’t get very far on her way back to me. I nodded at Sandra and started across the ballroom, stopping at the touch of her hand on my elbow.
“You look happy, Iris,” Sandra said softly. “I’m glad to see it.” A gentle squeeze and she let me go, and all I could do was nod again and leave.
I was happy. For as long as I didn’t look down.
* * *
SANDRA HAD DESCRIBED the scene as Catherine cornering Amber, but by the time I arrived it had neatly reversed. Hell, Catherine looked panicked. Anyone else might’ve missed it: the hitch of her left eyebrow, the tension around her mouth, the splay of her fingers over her champagne flute. To the untrained observer, she looked as cool and unaffected as ever.
I knew better. I knew that Cate’s face was as close as it ever got to wide-eyed, open-mouthed horror.
“He’s a wonderful roommate. Really very considerate,” Amber was saying, gesturing between the two of them. “I feel incredibly lucky that he and Rain had an open room when I first moved to the city. It’s such a lovely building, too.”
“Amber,” I broke in, coming to Catherine’s belated rescue. “I see you’ve met my friend Cate.”
Cate’s eyes flashed to mine with a strange expression. I dismissed the thought. There wasn’t much use speculating about what set Cate off.
Amber turned to look at me and the smile that spread over her face was like the sun over perfect ocean waves. Entirely too bright, entirely too brilliant for someone who had seen me less than twenty minutes prior. She looked at me like looking away hurt. My stomach flipped and I hid it beneath a lazy half-smile. I slid a fresh champagne flute into her hand and my arm around her waist.
“Yes,” Amber agreed, looking back at Catherine. “I’ve just been telling her that I’m close with her assistant.” Brown eyes glanced down at me. “Dave?”
I hummed acknowledgment.
“They share an apartment.” Cate’s voice was only slightly more clipped than usual. “They have a third roommate.”
“Mm, I know,” I agreed, letting my smile grow wider. I shouldn’t take so much pleasure in Catherine’s discomfort, but it was too great a temptation not to indulge. “Rain. I met her at karaoke night. Stepped right out of 1969.”
The brunette in my arm let out a peal of laughter while Cate stared at me with an expression of betrayed horror. Obviously, she thought I should have informed her that her assistant had housemates. She might not have been wrong.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Cate said once she’d recovered from my treachery. “I should get back to my companion.”
Amber made her usual goodbyes, the sorts of things that should’ve sounded trite and mechanical, but managed to ring sincere. It was impossible to leave her thinking she hadn’t loved meeting you. That it hadn’t meant something more than passing.
I watched Catherine go, idly curious about whether or not she actually had a companion to return to, then tightened the arm around Amber’s waist.
“Did I say something I shouldn’t have?” Amber asked. “She seemed…upset.”
Pride bubbled up alongside the fierce affection that fogged my brain in her company. Well-spotted, Amber. “She’s fine.”
Amber wasn’t buying it. “I don’t know what I did to make her —”
“Make her?” I laughed. “That must be exhausting.”
“I — what?” Amber turned, confused.
“‘Make her’. Imagine thinking you have that much control over other people. You couldn’t make Cate drink a different brand of Earl Grey,” I said. “Why feel guilty over the way she feels?”
Pink rose in those cheeks. “Well, I — it’s my job to be able to make people feel a particular way.”
The admission landed with a thud and it explained an uncomfortable amount about the insecurity lurking behind each of her smiles. “No,” I said firmly. “It’s your job to present people with something to react to. And you’re good at guessing their reactions. Better than I am.”
The look on Amber’s face said she expected that statement had hurt to say.
“But it’s still a guess. We’re still…random number generators. And you’ll drink yourself to death if you make it your responsibility when someone pops out with a 7 instead of an 8.” I murmured the last while depositing our empty glasses on a nearby table, and took Amber’s hands in mine. “Come on. You’re going to dance with me. It’s the only way I’ll get any peace.”
* * *
THE MUSIC HAD SHIFTED to something syrupy and slow, and the only possible response was to pull Amber closer. I had to wrap my arm around her waist and take her hand. I couldn’t avoid fitting my temple to her cheekbone so that the smell of her wiped away the ballroom’s fresh-cut flowers and lingering currents of expensive perfume and cologne.
It was swaying more than dancing, but it didn’t matter. It was enough that it kept the rest of the crowds back. It was enough that it meant her skirt was rustling around the legs of my trousers, her bodice cool and smooth under my bare fingers.
Having a clock in the ballroom would’ve been wildly unfashionable, so I didn’t know what time it was, but the way the crush of bodies was thinning out meant that we were dangerously close to shutting the place down. Only a handful of other couples were left on the dance floor, and carefully invisible staff were returning the ballroom to its untouched, pristine splendor with every breath that ghosted across my jaw.
I didn’t want to let go.
I had to. The band wouldn’t play forever; the event would end soon. Every moment I spent lingering there was one I was stealing from the full night’s sleep of at least a dozen people who couldn’t rest until I did.
But I couldn’t shake knowing that time was burning out from under me. It was the end, or near enough to be a rounding error. My thumb stroked along the back of Amber’s hand and I fought the urge to press kisses to her neck. It was getting close to inexcusable. The gala was thinning out, our audience was leaving, and our agreement ended in a few short hours. A traitorous part of my mind pointed out that sharing my bed had never been in the contract — that it had certainly been against any sensible provisions someone with more integrity would’ve included — but there wasn’t any reason to think Amber saw it as more than a circumstantial perk.
Despite what Carrie or Dahlia or my exes would say, I wasn’t quite arrogant enough to believe that every woman in the world was in love with me.
And I wasn’t quite oblivious enough to ignore that I’d managed to fall in love with Amber.
She adjusted easily when my grip tightened on her, brought her closer. It would have been simple to pretend it was all exactly as it seemed from the outside. Just a matter of pretending that Vesuvius wasn’t erupting scant miles away, that the rock and ash weren’t getting closer every breath. That everything was fine.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t much for pleasant lies. Not even for myself.
“We should leave,” I murmured above the strains of the band. “I’ll have Stevens bring the car around.”
Either my hands trembled or a shiver trailed down Amber’s spine, exposed by the low back of her dress, and I tried not to read anything into it. It didn’t matter.
I tur
ned to leave the dance floor.
* * *
THE DRIVE to Amber’s apartment was silent. The gala had ended and taken our easy conversation with it. It was ridiculous. Since that first planning session three weeks ago, my time with Amber had been marked by unburdened conversation. Chatting about changes in the industry, social media memes coming onto her radar, books we’d read and loved or hated.
It had taken nothing to set us off. We’d hear a partial song lyric or see an advertisement along the street and it would spark something that trailed easily into a thousand other topics.
But we rode to her apartment in silence.
Stevens stopped the car outside her building and I lifted a hand to keep him from getting out to open Amber’s door. I would do it. I’d take any last scrap of time I had with her, wasted or not.
There was something indescribable in Amber’s eyes when she looked up at me, when she took my hand and let me pull her to her feet. My hand dropped to my side, slipping from the brunette’s skin once she’d gotten out of the car.
“So this is it,” she said. Her voice was quiet. Was she somber, or was that deference to the late hour and the closeness of her neighbors?
“Thank you,” I said, too abruptly, too loudly. Practice kept my cringe entirely internal and left my shell smooth. “For your help with all of this. You were the right person for the job.”
“Oh, no,” Amber shook her head and offered me a smile. “It’s — you don’t need to thank me.”
“I’ll make sure things are settled up quickly,” I continued, barreling forward because that was what I always did. I didn’t hesitate, didn’t turn back. I kept moving in the direction I’d picked because indecision was worse than being wrong. “I’m certain Carrie has payment arranged.”
Brown eyes went slightly wide and I carefully didn’t bite my tongue. Stupid. It was a stupid thing to say.
The silence stretched between us, getting heavier with each beat of my hummingbird heart. Amber looked up at me, something behind her lips that she wanted me to know but couldn’t set free. She looked at me like I should know what it was.
