I do a lap around the concourse to make myself feel like I’m doing something other than spiraling. I stop at a table with hockey-puck-shaped cookies and pretend my interest is purely culinary.
Tess appears at my side like she sensed the shift in my mood from across the room. “Ready to leave?” she asks.
“So ready,” I say immediately.
Leo is ten feet away, trying to make eye contact with Rex Chen like a man picking a fight at a dog park.
“Leo!” Tess calls.
Leo turns, already smiling. “What?”
“We’re leaving,” Tess says.
Leo blinks. “But…”
Tess’s expression is calm and deadly. “We’re leaving.”
Leo’s mouth opens, then closes. He looks at me, and something shifts in his face, concern sliding in beneath the mischief.
I look away quickly and say, “Let’s go before you decide to start a war.”
Leo sighs dramatically. “Fine. But Rex is lucky.”
Tess mutters, “Rex is not lucky. Rex is exhausting and is going to get karma someday. Just not today.”
We walk out together, the cold night air hitting me in the face the second the doors open. My breath fogs in front of me. The city feels quieter out here, less amplified, less echo.
My shoulders drop a fraction.
In the parking lot, Leo peels away to charm a valet situation into submission. Tess turns to me.
“Talk to me,” she says gently.
I blink at her. “About what?”
“Anything,” she says.
I open my mouth to make a joke.
Then I close it.
Because Tess is looking at me like she’ll accept the joke and still wait for the truth afterward. Like she has time.
Like I’m worth it.
“I don’t like being… noticed,” I admit, my voice low.
Tess nods slowly. “Ok.”
“I know that sounds pathetic,” I rush, reflexive shame rising. “I’m fine. I’m not, I mean, I talk to customers all day. I can do people. But this was different.”
“Because it was about you,” Tess says quietly.
I swallow hard.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Because it was about me.”
Tess’s face softens. “You did it anyway.”
