“Focus, Celeste,” he says, taking one step closer to where I’m also frozen in place. Right underneath the stoop of my childhood front porch. “Theforwardpart—what does that mean?”
Right when I need her, Whit comes in clutch. Speaking to me through a sisterhood that clearly transcends death. She’s gone, yet she’s still sending love my way—in the twisted form of this man, who’s too young for me to make sense, and her baby, that would only be mine in the worst of circumstances. But it’s still…love isn’t it? Twisted, messy, new, and shaky. But real.
And then I hear her clear as day.Lessi, shoot your shot and hit that… Or I will.
I laugh to myself which must make me look unhinged, but I don’t care.Okay, Whit. Truth or dare. Truth? I want him. The dare? I’m going to do something about it.
“Saylor, it’d be a good time to ask me out again.”
“Oh yeah?” He takes another step closer.
The Westchester night is cool and dark and full of stars you can’t see from Manhattan. I feel like I’ve watched this scene a million times growing up, but I never really saw it. Not until now, with the right cast for what I’m praying is a happily-ever-after.
I fish my keys out of my purse and hold them out. Saylor closes the last sliver of distance between us. Cradles my keys in one hand.
“Celeste Brinley, do you want to go out with me sometime?”
I twirl a loose strand of my hair. “Oh my God, this is like so unexpected,” I say in my best impression ofClueless.
Saylor smiles with his whole damn face. Forehead crinkled, eyes clamped shut, uncontrollable joy.
“What do you say?” he asks again.
“I’d love to go out with you sometime.”
He kisses my forehead and it already feels different. Familiar. Possessive. Like someone can claim you with their lips pressed just below your hairline. How beautifully simple.
We don’t have answers tonight. We’re eons away from making this make sense, but for right now, with my hand in Saylor’s walking toward my car like regular-enough people without a world of guilt and burden on their shoulders, it’s enough.
It’s more than enough.
It’s a start.
chapter 16
Saylor
The lobby of Celeste’s building has a waterfall. Strange, I didn’t notice this the first time I came by. I was too focused on slipping past security.
It’s not a decorative trickle or a tabletop fountain. A floor-to-ceiling sheet of water cascading down a slab of black marble behind the reception desk, the kind of architectural statement that exists solely to remind you that some people live in buildings where the lobby has its own water feature and you are not one of those people. There are orchids on the desk. Fresh ones. A concierge in a suit nicer than anything I own. And a security guard whose posture suggests he was either military or a ballet dancer, possibly both.
This time, I stop to give my name at the desk.
“Saylor Evans. I’m here to see Celeste Brinley.”
The concierge checks his screen. Types something. And then, without hesitation, without the skeptical once-over I’ve come to expect in buildings like this: “Of course, Mr. Evans. You’re on the permanent guest list. Elevator bank is to your right. Ms. Brinley’s floor is forty-seven.”
Permanent guest list. Not visitor. Not one-time access. Permanent. Celeste put my name on a list that lives in this building’s system, which means somewhere in a database behind that waterfall there is a record that says Saylor Evans belongs here, and the concierge treats this information as unremarkable, as routine, as if men in paint-stained boots walk through this lobby every day to visit the CEO on the forty-seventh floor.
I nod like this is normal for me. Take my visitor badge. Walk toward the elevator bank with the manufactured calm of a man who is not quietly losing his mind over the fact that Celeste Brinley told a building he was permanent.
The lift is mirrored on three sides. I press forty-seven and watch the numbers climb, my reflection staring back at me from three different angles. Boots. Jeans. Flannel rolled to the elbows. The paint that never fully leaves my cuticles no matter how hard I scrub.
The lift stops on fourteen. The doors open and a man steps in.
He looks mid-forties. Tall, sharp-jawed, wearing a suit that fits him so well no doubt it was tailored. Silver watch, little diamonds around the crest. Pocket square folded with geometric precision. The kind of tan that comes from a UV-lit bed, not from actual time in the sun. He carries a tablet in one hand and a coffee in the other, and when he sees me, his eyes perform a full inventory in under two seconds: boots, jeans, flannel, cuticles. The assessment is instantaneous. The verdict, immediate.
I know who he is before he opens his mouth. I’ve only seen prom photos, but the jaw is the same, the posture is the same, and the smile he’s arranging on his face has the same overcompensating wattage I clocked in that picture on Celeste’s shelf. The question is…does he know who I am to Celeste? Hell, doIknow who I am to Celeste?
