Front row.
Not front rowyet, but he could fix that.
He started shoving.
Politely.
Mostly politely.
Smiling the whole time.
"Excuse me. Sorry. Just—big fan. Huge fan. Excuse me—"
He wedged himself as close to center as the crowd would tolerate, phone already out, ready to capture the moment.
This was it.
This was everything.
He was going to see thisbeforeit went viral.
Before everyone else knew.
That made him special.
April
APRIL SLIPPED BACK into the ballroom on legs that still felt like they belonged to someone else.
The emerald silk was still doing its job. The necklace still sat heavy at her throat. But April felt like she'd been factory-reset somewhere between the bathroom and here: all the external upgrades intact, none of the internal certainty.
Quiet started at the edges and pulled inward, expensive with anticipation. Jiro was on stage. He stood at the microphone like he'd been born there, and April had the deeply unhelpful thought that some people looked like they belonged everywhere and the rest of us looked like we were faking it until someone checked our credentials.
"I met someone tonight." His voice carried across marble and champagne and silence that cost money. "Wrote something about it. Thought I'd share."
April felt something flutter. Anticipation, maybe. The smallest, most ridiculous hope that "someone" might mean her. Which was absurd, obviously, because Jiro was a literal celebrity and she was a woman who’d only recently escaped the lemon-scented humiliation of a janitorial closet.
But still. There was a tiny, traitorous corner of her brain that whisperedwhat ifbefore logic kicked it back into place.
Don’t be ridiculous.
Jiro started scanning the crowd. His eyes moved methodically. Like he’d lost something in the dark and wouldn't stop until he found the glint of it. Hunting.
April recognized the difference. She’d spent enough time being looked through to know when someone was actually searching.
And then— Her particular disaster refracted. Under the chandelier light, the oil slick of her soul caught at exactly the angle that split the glare into a rainbow.
Their eyes met. The song started. The kind of song that made you forget you were standing in a room full of people who treated gossip like a competitive sport. Devastatingly, unfairly beautiful. April felt it settle into her chest. The melody wrapped around her. Jiro’s voice—smooth and rough in all the right places—pulled her in.
He had the frosting, the flavor, the gold
A love story better than the ones ever told…
April’s eyes widened. The lyrics pricked at something buried.Too specific. Too sharp.
Now he’s watching the wreckage of his life unfold
It’s just a prank, babe, why the serious face
