She gripped the chair.
Let go of all the noise.
She took an even deeper breath, as if she could expel the ringing in her ears caused by so much conversation.
Unclench your jaw.
Muscles loosening, Vivian’s breathing steadied. She stopped hearing her pulse pounding against her eardrums. The urge to tear off clothes that felt like a straitjacket eased.
It had been so many years since Vivian had been in a setting like this. She had no way to describe the crush of cannibalizing energy. The active siphoning of her soul. The revolting sensation of so many eyes on her, the whispering about her like rats scratching the inside of her skull.
You’re doing so well. Keep breathing.
All she had to do was keep breathing. If she kept breathing she’d stop seeing them. All the faces trained on her. The eyes that took and took even when they knew they’d already had their fill. Took until she had nothing left.
That’s it, baby. You’re doing so well.
Believing Bryn’s manifested voice, Vivian opened her eyes. She didn’t feel like taking off in a sprint anymore, but she was tired. She checked her phone.
Bryn had only been networking for an hour. Harvey, loving to hear himself talk, had probably only introduced her to a couple of people. He’d know exactly who she needed to meet and loved getting to escort the rising star he plucked out of the darkness. She debated going up to her room but didn’t want to risk Bryn seeing her sneak away.
Thinking of Bryn chased away the lingering discomfort in her tense belly. Part of Vivian wanted to keep her away from the piranhas, but the other part of her was so proud of her. So excited for all the success yet to come. Bryn was going to have a meteoric rise, and she seemed to have the maturity to endure it.
“Here you are!” Bryn’s voice cut through ambient city sounds.
“Jesus!” Vivian clutched her chest, heart hammering against her palm.
“What are you doing out here?” Bryn looked around the terrace, which was little more than a few chairs positioned in front of a hedge poorly concealing a massive pumping system and an unnecessary ground floor railing. Vivian imagined it was the kind of place she would have found to smoke her Marlboro Lights in the 90s.
Vivian uncrossed her legs. Looking at Bryn and her bright eyes and infectious energy, she couldn’t find the will to say something snappy. To answer her question with another.
“Maybe I’m listening to more Kelly Craves audios,” she said like a fisherman casting a line into an ocean so vast it felt like providence that a fish would be crossing the right lure at just the right moment.
Bryn didn’t shy away or blush or stammer, although Vivian wasn’t sure why she’d expected that. There was such a surprising confidence in Bryn. She was at once the self-doubting novice that hadn’t known to read an entire book before performing and the voice that had made Vivian feel more connected to her body than she ever had.
Bottom lip trapped between her teeth, Bryn grinned. “Yeah?” She stepped closer, prompting Vivian to stand. “Which one?”
Vivian leaned against the railing, cool metal hard against her lower back. “The one with the wife coming home to a massage after a long day.”
Bryn’s expression gave everything away, like it had never occurred to her to conceal her true thoughts. Like she’d never once paid the price for sincerity. “You’ve really been listening?” She took another step forward.
It was reflex to answer with a quip. As natural as a porcupine raising quills. But Vivian ordered the archers on the wall to stand down.
“Yes,” Vivian admitted with all the valor of a deserter, tone too soft. Too revealing.
Even without moonlight, Bryn’s beautiful face seemed to glow. She was radiant, Vivian realized. All the times she’d stood across from her in the booth, when her gaze had gotten trapped in the perfection of Bryn’s features. She’d been unable to pinpoint what it was about her. But now that there was no light to illuminate her, Vivian understood.
Bryn was radiant. Radiant in the nearly literal sense of the word. She was light burning inside a gemstone, bright and mythical and real.
“Why?” Bryn took another step.
Her proximity was too real. An archer knocked an arrow before Vivian could stop it.
“Maybe I’m trying to determine whether you’re acting or if it’s performance art.” She hated herself for deflecting. For finding the light unbearable after such a long period of seclusion.
“Well…” She neared, only an inch from Vivian. Close enough that if anyone caught them like that, there would be no innocent reason for Bryn’s proximity. Not when Vivian was pressed against the railing. When her heart was pounding and her body was screaming for Bryn’s touch. But it wasn’t an observer Vivian feared. “Magic only works if it’s a mystery.”
All Vivian wanted to do was lean in. To feel the magic of her lips again. No, not magic. Magic implied illusion and sleight of hand. In a lifetime of glittering artifice, Bryn had been the most real. As real as earth and precious metal.
