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“Right. So you’re not free tonight?”

Deacon’s voice echoes in the back of my head. Should I spend more time with Bray? Is that what he’s saying?

“I could do next week?” I suggest.

Realistically, I could do tonight. There’s nothing to say I have to go back home to Avril tonight. But I’ve planned something for this evening and I’m low-key looking forward to it.

“Yeah, next week is good.”

The tone of his voice is a little less cocksure than it usually is.

“Or I might be able to do the day after tomorrow?” I suggest.

Maybe Deacon is right and I’m not good at letting people in. Actually, I know he’s right. But the only way you can have everyone like you is for no one to really know you. It’s a lesson I learned early. I knew I had to keep myself at a distance if I was going to create the kind of network I envisioned for myself. I had to be the version of me that whoever I was talking to would connect with. It’s not that I’m faking it, I’m just curating myself to ensure whoever I’m interacting with likes and trusts me. With Bray it’s a little different, because he’s known me a long time. Maybe that’s who I need to be around. Maybe that will pull me out of the funk I’ve been in these past few weeks.

“It’s okay,” he says. “It sounds like you’re really busy.”

“No,” I interrupt. “I had something cancel the day after tomorrow. Come over. Or we can eat out. What time?”

“Six? Seven?”

“Six thirty. At that sports bar you like.”

“You hate that place.”

“You’re right. I do. We’ll have one drink there and then go and grab dinner.”

“Okay,” he says, sounding skeptical.

“Okay,” I say. I don’t know why, but I feel a little lighter when I hang up.

EIGHTEEN

Avril

I stand at the doorway to Ben’s apartment waiting for the doorman to arrive. He just buzzed up to tell me that he has a package Ben asked him to deliver. The elevator doors ping open and I smile at the now familiar face of Billy the doorman.

“Good afternoon,” he says, coming out of the elevator backwards. He’s pulling something and then I realize it’s one of those clothes racks on wheels. “Would you like me to bring it into the apartment?”

“That would be great, thank you.”

There are hangers on the rail but all that’s visible are black garment bags. There are at least ten. Is Ben getting a new suit or something?

“Where would you like it?” he asks.

I haven’t been into Ben’s bedroom since I moved in, so I tell him to leave it just inside the door. Ben can decide what he wants to do with it when he gets back. We’re going on a date tonight and I’m looking forward to it more than I should be. I like talking to Ben. I feel like I’ve gotten to know him quite well over the last few days. There are chinks in those affable, charming walls of his and I quite like what’s on the other side.

When I close the door to the concierge, my phone buzzes. It’s a text from Ben.

I’m running a little late. Choose what you want to wear for tonight from the rail. I’ll be there at 7 to pick you up. Don’t get haughty that I bought you clothes.

Haughty? Is that even a word? His vocabulary is making me haughty.

Choose what I want to wear from the rail? I eye up the delivery the concierge just made. Does he mean this rack? What other rail could he mean?

Tentatively, I unzip one of the garment bags a couple of inches. What’s inside? I can’t see much, so I keep pulling down the zipper.

It’s a cocktail dress. Simple. Black. Very New York. I pull off the garment bag completely. It’s beautiful. The fabric is light and soft, and the way the seams are hemmed, I can tell it wasn’t cheap.