“Because,” she says calmly, “there’s blood on my dress.”
So there is. He hadn’t noticed it last night, but in the brilliant light of day, his eyes draw down to the rust-red stains in the white fabric, the bloodied fingerprints that have dried like a morbid pattern around her waist. Criminal evidence of everything that had happened to them, and between them.
“Sorry,” he says, meaning it. “Was the dress new? I can wash it for you.”
“Oh no, you can’t wash this dress. You can’t actually clean it at all. You’re not even really supposed to wear it outside—it’s very delicate, this fabric.”
He frowns. “What’s the point of a dress you can’t wash or wear?”
“It’s fashion,” she says, like that explains it. “Though this was from last spring, so it’s about time I retired it anyway.”
He opens his mouth. Realizes that any questions he asks now will only lead to more questions, and that he really isn’t interested enough in the world of clothing to find out. “I’ll get you a shirt,” he says instead.
In his bedroom, he rifles through his limited selection of T-shirts and tank tops, all black and dark gray, no branding or logo or even a splash of color on any of them. The opposite of Chanel Cao’s closet. He picks out his newest shirt, his favorite one, and heads back out into the hall—
Then freezes.
She’s standing with her back turned toward him, her dress lifted over her head. He catches a flash of her shoulder blades, elegant and symmetrical as butterfly wings, the moon-white skin between them, the smooth indents at the base of her spine, before he averts his gaze, his blood beating too hot and thick through his veins. The shirt is crumpled in his hand, and he’s wondering if he should just set it down somewhere and leave when he hears her footsteps approaching.
“You’re allowed to look if you want,” she says casually, her dress falling with a faint rustle onto the floorboards behind her. She makes no attempt to cover her body as she steps into his line of view and takes the T-shirt from him. “What?” she asks, her gaze fastening on his as if daring him to break eye contact. “Don’t tell me you’re suddenly shy.”
“I was trying to be a gentleman,” he says, and is aware that the quality of his voice has changed.
Her brows arch. “Didn’t seem that way last night.”
She’s slow to put his clothes on, bunching her hair up and pulling it free from the collar. As he’d expected, his shirt is far too big for her, the short sleeves hanging loose around her arms and the hem falling past her bare thighs.
The sight of it makes him want to do something awful and irrational, like kiss her again.
“Think I can pull this look off?” she asks him, gesturing to herself.
The answer slips from his tongue: “You can pull anything off.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s clearly biting back a smile. “I know. Where’s the bathroom, by the way?” she asks, stepping past him. “I’m going to get ready.”
“It’s first to your right, down the hall,” he says. “Do you have your things?”
“Yeah, I bring my makeup bag everywhere with me.”
He contemplates the possibility that he’s still sleeping, that this is all a dream, as he watches Chanel Cao get ready from the bathroom doorway.
She ties her hair at the base of her neck with a ribbon. Sets her phone down on the bathroom counter, scrolls through her Spotify for a good few minutes until she stops at the right playlist, presses Play. An upbeat Chinese pop song he’s heard at a restaurant before blares through the tiny speaker. Then, shoulders moving naturally to the music, she dumps the entire contents of her makeup bag out on the other side of the counter,letting the mascara and eyeliner and other pencil-like products he doesn’t know the names of spill over the marble.
He watches her dab mysterious white powders onto her skin, cover the lines under her eyes with a brush, then carefully draw the lines again with a darker brush. That seems to be the pattern here: erasing the shadows around her nose, then retracing it. Blotting concealer around her eyelids, then smearing a dusky brown dust on top of it. He doesn’t understand it, but there’s something ritualistic about the whole thing, and oddly intimate too—witnessing Chanel transform into Chanel Cao before anyone else can see her.
So he continues watching, mesmerized, careful not to even breathe too loud.
She takes her time, her movements sure and deliberate, her eyes focused on her reflection. Both sharply aware of herself and unselfconscious in a way that he’s come to realize is rare for her.
When she’s almost done, she frees her hair from the ribbon, runs her fingers through it to comb and fluff it out until it falls over her shoulders in glossy black waves. Uncaps the Chanel No. 5 perfume bottle, adjusts the nozzle, and spritzes it behind her ears, on the pale underside of her wrists, at the hollow of her collarbones. He can smell it from here, the floral curl of jasmine and the warm vanilla notes beneath.
Two fresh bruises bloom like small violet flowers against the skin just above her chest. She seems to notice them too. She doesn’t try covering them up, but rather tugs the collar of her shirt down an inch farther, tracing over the bruises with her fingers. His blood quickens at the memory of his lips there.
Then her gaze swings to him in the mirror.
“You want to help me?” she asks, in the voice of someone offering a once-in-a-lifetime deal he’d be a fool to miss out on.
He pauses with one foot over the threshold. “Help you how?”
