"She's going to think I'm insane."
"Also true."
MY APARTMENT LOOKEDdifferent these days.
Same converted warehouse. Same three flights of stairs, same exposed brick that held the ghost of red spray paint under the tapestry I'd decided to leave hanging. But the locks were new -—Heartline's finest, installed while I was out shooting the week after the ball. Motion sensors on the windows. A camera in the hallway that fed to an app on both our phones.
And then there were the smaller changes. The ones that had crept in without announcement or negotiation. His jacket on the hook by the door. His coffee mug in the dish rack -—plain black ceramic, because of course it was. A second toothbrush in the bathroom. His go-bag, tucked against the wall in the bedroom instead of beside the couch where it had started.
He hadn't officially moved in. We hadn't had the conversation. But his keys were on my counter and his shampoo was in my shower and he'd fixed the radiator last Tuesday without being asked. If that wasn't moving in, the English language needed better terminology.
I showered, dried my hair, and stood in front of my closet trying to figure out what you wore to meet your boyfriend'smother when your boyfriend was a former Marine and you were a paparazzo with a rap sheet of light felonies.
Boyfriend. The word still felt foreign, like a wig that didn't fit right. I tried it on anyway.
The Walsh indictment had come down three weeks after the ball. Federal prosecutors built the case in record time -—June's evidence package had given them everything tied with a bow. Kiser's network cracked open behind it. Five arrests. Three guilty pleas already. Morty had run the story under my real byline. Charlotte Collins, not Scarlett Sinclair. Traffic had crashed the site for six hours.
Some journalism council had nominated me for an award. I'd emailed back that they could shove their award up their collective -—actually, I'd been more polite than that. Barely. But I'd kept the letter. It was in my desk drawer, under the stack of takeout menus and a broken lens cap.
Deb Hoyle had checked into rehab in late February. I'd heard through the gossip circuit, not through Cupid Confidential. I didn't run that story. Some things weren't mine to tell.
Travis had moved. Somewhere in Colorado, according to the last thing he'd posted before deleting all his accounts. I hoped he was okay. I hoped he found someone who wanted what he wanted. I hoped he'd stop watching buildings from across the street.
I picked a green dress. Simple. Not trying too hard. A dress that saidI'm a normal person who doesn't own seventeen wigs.
Dominic appeared in the bathroom doorway while I was putting on earrings. He'd changed into a dark button-down, sleeves rolled to his forearms. No tactical gear. No holster. Just a man picking up his girlfriend for dinner.
He looked at me in the mirror. "Green."
"Is that a color commentary or a status check?"
"Both."
"Then green. On both counts."
LORRAINE KNIGHT WASfive-foot-two of sharp brown eyes and zero tolerance for bullshit.
She hugged Dominic at the restaurant door and then turned to me with the assessing look of a woman who'd raised a Marine and could spot evasion at fifty paces.
"So you're the one who's been keeping my son from calling me back on time."
"In my defense, he's terrible at texting."
"He gets that from me, actually. We're a family of terrible texters." She pulled me into a hug before I could prepare for it. Firm. Brief. Real. "I'm glad you're here, Charlie."
The restaurant was Italian, small, a place where the owner came to your table and the bread was still warm. Lorraine talked with her hands. She asked about my work without flinching at the wordpaparazzo.She told a story about Dominic at seventeen trying to sneak back into the house after curfew and being outsmarted by a motion-sensor light she'd installed that afternoon.
Dominic took it with the quiet patience of a man who'd heard the story forty times and still let his mother tell it. He sat close to me, his hand on my knee under the table. Steady. Present.
After dinner, Lorraine caught me alone by the restrooms. The hallway was narrow, dimly lit, and she blocked my path with the casual authority of someone who'd been steering conversations since before I was born.
"He's never brought anyone to meet me before."
I'd expected this. Didn't make it easier.
"I know."
"I don't say that to pressure you. I say it so you understand what it means that you're sitting at that table." Her eyes were kind and absolutely serious. "Don't break his heart."
