During a lull between the nine o'clock wave and the late crowd, Lorenzo drifts over to the bar where I’m restocking bottles. He leans against the counter beside me, close enough that I can smell his cologne cutting through the noise, and pulls his phone from his pocket.
“Hey. Did you manage to look into any other names from the list?”
My hand stills on a bottle. “Not yet.”
“No rush. I called a few this morning, but they weren’t the right fit—too tied up in Voss’ circle, like you said.” He scrolls through his phone. “I was thinking I could take this part off your plate. You’re already running the floor, fixing the card readers, and keeping Oliver from reorganizing the stockroom by color every other night. Let me handle the investor outreach.”
His offer hits me in the chest like a fist. He’s standing here offering to carry the one thing I volunteered for, the one contribution I was supposed to make that mattered. He doesn’t know I already found the answer. He doesn’t know I called the right guy, set up the meeting, walked twelve blocks to the coffee shop…and froze on the sidewalk. He doesn’t know I got scared.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say, clearing my throat when it starts to close.
“I know I don’t have to, gorgeous. I want to. Wilson, you’re doing so much for us already. This morning I practically had to drag you away from a spreadsheet to eat eggs.” He smiles. “Let me carry this one.”
At that, I crack open. I face him directly, my hands pressing flat against the bar. “I had a name. Therightname. Nicholas, right? I called him, set up the meeting, walked twelve blocks to a coffee shop, stood on the fucking sidewalk—and I couldn’t go inside.”
Lorenzo doesn’t shift his expression, but his body goes still, his phone lowering to the bar.
“I lied to Oliver a few hours ago when he bothered me about where I went and told him there was traffic.” A nervous laugh tumbles from my lips because that lie was so fucking obvious. “There was no traffic. I was across the street, staring through a window at a man I haven’t spoken to in two years, and my legs wouldn’t move. I turned around, came home, and lied about it because I—”
My throat seals as my vision blurs, my fingers digging into the edge so hard the wood bites into my palms. Lorenzo’s hand is on the back of my neck before I even register him moving. His palm is warm, his fingers pressing into the muscle on either side of my spine.
“I’m sorry.” My voice cracks. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t do the one thing that would actually help and I’m sorry I lied about it and I’m—”
“Wilson.” His voice is low, close to my ear, pitched beneath the music. “Stop. Breathe.”
“You needed me to do this one thing—”
“I need you to breathe, gorgeous.” His hand presses firmer against my neck. “Whatever happened at that coffee shop, whatever stopped you, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out a different way. Together. You don’t owe us a panic attack as payment for a job.”
The shaking starts in my hands and moves up my arms as Lorenzo holds the back of my neck and waits for me to calm. A clank of glasses brings me out of my head just long enough to see Oliver standing three feet away with a rack of glasses balanced on his hip. His gaze moves from my face to Lorenzo’s hand on my neck and something shifts in his expression. He sets the rack down and leans close.
“Wilson.” His voice is soft. “The name on the list. Nicholas Cavallero. Who is he to you?”
My jaw locks.
“Because that’s not an ex’s brother reaction.” Oliver’s blue eyes hold mine. “That’s not a business meeting you couldn’t make. Who is he?”
“Someone I can’t talk about right now.” The words come out barely above a whisper. “Please.”
Lorenzo shoots Oliver a glare before his hand lifts from my neck. He squeezes my shoulder once and steps away, folding back into the rhythm of the floor like the last three minutes didn’t just crack me open at the bar.
The next hour passes in the mechanical haze of work. Pour, wipe, stack, pour. My hands know the motions well enough thatthe rest of me can sit inside the hollow space behind my ribs and try to reassemble the pieces that just fell out of me.
At 9:17, the front door opens.
Nicholas steps through in a dark jacket, a security badge already clipped to his belt, those god awful glasses I used to love so much hanging off his nose. He stops at the threshold to scan the room and then grins at the team lead near the entrance.
I hear him say, “Reporting for duty,” his voice carrying over the music before the team lead laughs and hands him a radio. Nicholas clips it to his belt and starts to turn toward his usual post. Then his eyes find me.
His grin changes. The easy warmth collapses into something unguarded as he goes perfectly still in the doorway. Behind his glasses, his eyes widen, locked on me across thirty feet of crowded dance floor.
I clamp my hands around the edge of the bar. Amber and sandalwood drift to me from across the room, threading through the sweat and the bass, and I lean into it before I can stop myself. Oliver gently nudges my side, reminding me that he’s been in and out from behind the bar all evening, his sweetness pressing against my left side.
“Wilson,” Oliver starts. “Who is he to you? Because that look on your face right now is not an ex’s brother look.” It’s the second time he’s asked and I still don’t know how to answer, nor do I want to.
My feet move before I catch myself in a lie, past the bar, past the hallway, and past Oliver shouting my name. A narrow corridor between the back office and the emergency exit swallows me, the music dropping to a muffled pulse through the walls. Except, the footsteps following me tells me Nicholas wasn’t just going to let me disappear. Again.
“Will.”
