Page 62 of Mister St. James

I consider this. “Pleased, or smug?”

“Both,” Aiden says, and we share a laugh.

We riff on Marcus for a while, inventing elaborate scenarios. Harper is an international arms dealer, or a polyamorous data scientist, or the actual ex-wife he’s never mentioned. Aiden’s dry one-liners make me wheeze-laugh, the kind that comes out in bursts and leaves my face hot. We have a contest to see who can come up with the worst possible dinner conversation, and I win with “So how do you two know each other?” delivered in my best polite midwestern mom voice.

He grins and squeezes my ankle. “You’re a menace,” he says, and for some reason this hits me sideways, almost tender.

The movie ends and neither of us notices. The wine is gone, my head pleasantly swimming, and the only light is the soft glow of the city and the TV’s silent credits.

I think about saying it. Not just “I love you,” because that feels insufficient, a platitude. I want to say: I’ve built whole fortresses to keep people from knowing me, and now I’m building them out of your books and my laundry and our dumb in-jokes. I want to say, I used to believe that belonging was a trap, a way to get yourself marked for erasure, and now I am terrified of not belonging here, in this exact air, with you.

But instead I just lie there, my feet tangled in his lap, his thumb making lazy circles on my skin, and let it settle into the air between us.

There’s no panic, no “what if” contingency plan running in the background. Just this, wine-warm, ankle in hand, the night thick with the certainty that I have never, ever been so completely in the right place.

We stay there, quiet and inert, the city blinking through the window and the clock advancing unnoticed. I know eventually I will say the words out loud, and it will matter, and it will be a new kind of fight to see who can admit it first. But for now, I just let myself be in love, and trust that it’s enough.

When I wake in the gray pre-dawn, I’m in bed. The mango throw is tucked around my shoulders and my shoes are on the floor, placed side by side, and Aiden is asleep beside me with one arm thrown over his eyes. I don’t remember any of this happening. I lie still for a moment, listening to him breathe, and think about a man who carries you to bed and takes your shoes off and doesn’t make it a thing.

Outside, the city is just beginning to suggest itself. I close my eyes again and let it.

Epilogue: Aiden

Perfectly Bound

Standing at the kitchen counter with the French press, I depress the plunger slow, letting the grounds settle before pouring out exactly twelve ounces. The whole place smells like coffee, but also a little like mango, and a little like whatever plant hormone Cat uses on her window army. The mug is hers, white with an overbaked cat meme printed crookedly on the side. I used to drink out of heavy glass, something about the heat transfer, but I let her mug infiltrate the cabinet. It didn’t matter at first. Now, I use this one, every morning.

The penthouse has a different gravity now. Instead of the surgical silence I spent years constructing, there is a thrum, a low-level static that runs through the apartment. The evidence is everywhere. Cat’s books wedge themselves between my technical manuals, slouched and sun-bleached, nothing alphabetized, each one with a warped spine and a napkin or receipt for a bookmark. I don’t try to fix them anymore. I just let the chaos accumulate.

A teal throw droops from the charcoal sofa. I used to keep the couch bare, not even a cushion or accent. Now, the colorful threads glow even in low light, a persistent suggestion that my taste was always temporary. There are three abstract prints, all hers, in the living room, big and brash, painted with brushstrokes that look reckless from two feet away but line up, almost symmetrically, if you squint from across the room. She hung them while I was in Munich last quarter, sent me photos of the process. I made a show of hating them, but she called my bluff. They are the first thing you see when you enter, a triple assault on the monochrome.

The windowsill is full-scale invasion. Cat’s plants, succulents, a trailing pothos that’s already tangled around my Bluetooth speaker, two cacti and a squat little jade march along the full length, sipping at every inch of sun. I stopped trimming the blinds because the plants liked them open. When the sun sets, the leaves catch the orange in a way that almost tricks you into believing it’s a design feature.

I set my mug on the marble and walk to the bedroom. The closet, once an exercise in repetition, charcoal suit, navy suit, white shirt, black shirt, repeat, now has a rogue element. Her leather jacket, the old kind with fraying at the seams and a ripped lining, swings on the end of the rail. Two pairs of her jeans, hung next to mine, the kind with the intentional holes at the knees. There’s a grey henley I never bought but apparently own now, folded with the rest of my shirts. And at the far left, the deep burgundy dress shirt she made me buy for her cousin’s birthday, which I’d never have picked for myself, but which gets more compliments than everything else I wear combined.

I pull the henley and run a hand over the collar. The tag is gone, snipped off with nail scissors, but it’s unmistakably hers in origin. I slip it on. It fits better than it should. In the mirror, I look…unremarkable. Like a person who lives here, instead of just occupying it. The transformation is incremental but total.

I go back to the kitchen and top off my mug, staring out at the skyline. The sun is setting fast, gold bleeding into blue. I check my phone; it’s almost time. The club opens at ten, but I want to get there early.

Cat is in the bathroom, humming over the whine of her blow dryer. Her prepping ritual is military in its focus, exfoliation, toner, some sort of moisturizer, foundation mixed on the back of her hand. She doesn’t let me watch, claims it would ruin the “transformation,” as if I haven’t seen her sweat and cry and flush and fuck. I humor her anyway.

I take a moment to walk the perimeter. Cat’s keys are on the counter, next to a half-finished crossword in Spanish. Her shoes, the ones with the chipped red paint, wait by the door, already aimed toward exit. She leaves little notes on the fridge, not for me, but for herself. Today’s says: “Buy more lemon. Remember what you are.” I don’t ask.

In the study, my desk is unchanged, but the bulletin board above it is littered with her sticky notes: reminders, quotes, phone numbers, a calendar with hearts marking every Wednesday. It started as a joke, but now we always have dinner on Wednesdays. No matter what.

Tonight is not Wednesday, but it is exactly one year since the first time she let me tie her at the Velvet Stag. I never forget an anniversary, especially not the ones that matter.

I walk back to the closet and grab my jacket, the real one, for the club. Inside the breast pocket, I check for the envelope: a folded note, sealed with the Veil’s own wax stamp. I open it. The manager’s handwriting, confirming that the black box is already staged in the voyeur room, just as I asked. I feel the box in my hand, the reassuring weight of the thing. My pulse jumps, but I ignore it.

On the way out, I catch my reflection again. I look like a man who is about to do something irreversible.

Cat appears in the hall, masked, in black silk, a red cord at her wrist. Her hair is perfect. Her lipstick is war paint. She looks at me, and it’s the same look she gave me in that mirror-box room a year ago—hungry, certain, and just a little dangerous.

“Ready?” she asks.

I nod. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

We lock the door behind us. The city is waiting.