Her lips curve, fragile around the edges. “Tonight,you’re not playing a part. You’re supporting the event and me.”
Her hand squeezes mine gently, and that small pressure threads straight through my ribs. She’s reminding me she trusts me, that she needs me steady, and she believes I can be.
“I can do that,” I tell her.
“Good,” she says, glancing toward the photographers. “Because the second we step into that light, they’re going to decide what they see. We need to make sure they see what we want them to.”
I lean in, voice low. “You mean, I can’t just stand there and look pretty?”
Her laugh breaks out immediately, melting half the tension in my chest. Then she turns forward and guides us toward the velvet rope, her hand still locked in mine, like she’s not letting go for anything. The cameras fire before we even reach the rope line.
“Kyle! Over here!”
“Alycia, look this way!”
“Is this official?”
She leans in just slightly, our shoulders brushing like it’s nothing, but it sends a hot line of awareness down my spine. “Ready?”
But I hear what she’s really asking:Can you handle this with me?
I angle my body toward hers, thumb tracing a slow circle at the back of her hand—not for show, just for her. “Yeah. I’m right here.”
Her breath catches, but she doesn't pull back. Wehit the carpet, and the world splits open—lights, shouts, flashes—but she holds my hand like none of it can reach her as long as I stay close. She holds my hand like we’re not faking a damn thing. If she’s nervous, I’m the only one who can feel it. Her palm presses more firmly into mine when someone shouts “Kiss!” but she stays poised and anchored to me. I swear that one point of contact threads through my entire body like a live wire.
“Let them talk,” I murmur, mouth brushing the shell of her ear. “You and I know what’s real.”
Alycia’s fingers tighten around mine like she’s bracing for something she can’t name yet. She doesn’t look at me, but I feel everything she’s trying not to say in the way she leans a fraction closer instead of pulling away.
“You can’t say things like that,” she whispers, but the tremor in her voice gives her away.
“You want me to lie?”
Her fingers flex again, a tiny tremble I feel down to my ribs. “I want tonight not to be complicated.”
“Too late,” I say softly.
She looks up at me then—hesitation, want, and fear all tangled together. And as the crowd flashes white light over us, she turns away, but she doesn’t let go of my hand. Her thumb grazes mine, a quiet confession of its own.
“Okay,” she breathes, so quiet only I hear it. “Then we stay like this.”
“Like what?”
“Together. Even if we’re the only ones who know what that actually means.”
It’s the closest thing to an admission she’s given me. I squeeze her hand once, like a promise I’m not brave enough to say out loud. “Then together it is.”
She nods, pulling me forward with her like she already knows I’ll follow. Inside, the ballroom glows gold and white and champagne-soft, but it feels like the threshold between two worlds: the one where we still pretend, and the one we’ve already slipped into without meaning to.
“Look at you two,” someone calls as we cross the entrance. “Power couple of the night!”
Alycia gives a polished laugh, warm but distant. I turn toward her, bending my head just enough to catch her eyes. The moment she meets my gaze, something inside her eases. This isn’t the version she shows donors, reporters, or executives. This is the version from last night, who let me steady her without pulling away.
“Are you still okay?” I ask her quietly.
Alycia nods once, but her fingers shift in mine, gripping tighter. “Only because you’re here.”
That one sentence nearly knocks the breath out of me. Maybe she feels the way my pulse stutters because she looks away quickly, like she’s afraid she’s already said too much. I want to tell her it’s too late for that because everything changed the moment she let herself lean into me instead of away. But the room is watching. The job is watching. Her future is watching.
