"Sir, if you're not registered, I can't let you in."
Through the glass walls, I spot them. Lacy and Evan at a high-top table, surrounded by people in expensive clothes making expensive conversation. She's nodding at something a woman in pearls is saying, but her smile looks tight. Practiced.
Evan's hand rests on the small of her back.
Something hot and stupid floods my chest. The kind of anger that doesn't think, just acts.
I push past security.
"Sir! Stop!"
But I'm already through the doors, crossing the polished floor with footsteps that echo like thunder in the carefully curated space. Conversations pause. Heads turn. Someone gasps.
I don't care.
"Lacy."
She spins, eyes going wide. "Stone? What are you doing here?"
"Could ask you the same thing." I glare at Evan, who's watching with an expression I want to introduce to my fist. "Thought you had meetings."
"I do. This is one of them." Her voice is low, urgent, embarrassed. "Stone, you can't just?—"
"Can't just what? Show up uninvited like some kind of spectacle?" The words come out bitter, louder than I mean them. "That what I am to you? The project you handle in private while you smile pretty for him in public?"
"That's not fair."
"Fair? You want to talk about fair?" I'm aware of phones lifting, cameras focusing, but the anger has me now and won't let go. "I'm wearing this ridiculous suit trying to be small enough for your world, and you're here with the guy who wants you to erase me completely."
Evan steps forward, all smooth confidence and territorial posturing. "I think you should leave."
"I think you should take your hand off her."
"Stone." Lacy's voice cracks slightly. "Please. Not here."
"Where then?" I spread my arms, suit jacket straining across my shoulders. "Where am I allowed to matter? Your apartment after dark? Your back room when no one's watching? Where do I fit in the version of your life that looks good for the cameras?"
Her face goes pale. Around us, the crowd has formed a loose circle, phones out, capturing every awful second.
Security arrives, three of them this time. Hands on my arms, pulling me back.
"Don't touch me." I shake them off, not violently but firmly enough that they stumble.
More gasps. More phones.
"Sir, you need to come with us."
Lacy's eyes are shining with tears she won't let fall. Not here. Not in front of these people who are already judging every choice she makes.
"I'll go." I straighten, pulling what's left of my dignity around me like armor. "Wouldn't want to embarrass you further."
I turn and walk out. The crowd parts like I'm contagious.
Behind me, I hear Evan's smooth voice already doing damage control. "So sorry about that. You know how these placements can be. Cultural differences and all."
The night air hits my face like a slap.
My phone is already blowing up before I reach my car.
