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You sound like Matteo.

I'm offended.

It’s a compliment, Matteo is a babe..

Matteo might wind up fired up if you keep calling him things like that.

Don’t worry, Mr. Sterling. You’re the only one I think about in bed.

I groan and push the heel of my palm into the problem growing behind my zipper. This fucking woman is going to kill me.

The only way it should be, baby.

I put the phone down. Pick it up. Read the conversation again from the top. Put it down.

Pick it up.

Saturday. The Gala. Anna in a dress.

Caleb was right. I'm not prepared for this.

I'm not prepared for any of it.

And the terrifying part — the part I'm only now starting to understand, sitting alone in an office on the Black Floor with my tie discarded and my Austen novel and a text thread I'm going to read fourteen more times before I sleep — is that I don't want to be prepared. I don't want the armor. I don't want the control.

I want everything.

Anna

Evie shows up at my apartment four hours before the Gala with a garment bag and a makeup case and I seriously consider pretending I'm not home.

I open the door anyway because Evie has a key. She stole it from my landlord during some transaction I don't fully understand and don't want to.

"No," I say.

She's already inside. Three steps and she's done the full tour of my apartment because my apartment is essentially a hallway with a bed in it. She hangs the garment bag on the bathroom door, which is also the only door, and turns around.

"Lola approved a dress budget. I handled it."

"Evie, I can't— what if I spill something on it? I’ve already done that to Danny! I destroy things. I destroy everything. I got soy sauce on a library book last month. I had to pay for it!”

“Put the dress on, Anna."

She unzips the bag and pulls it out.

Green. Dark green. The kind of green that makes you think of old jewelry and expensive curtains and the booths downstairs where men worth more than some countries sit and drink whiskey that costs more than my weekly groceries.

Danny told me to wear green.

"How did you know to get green?" I ask.

"Danny told Matteo. Matteo told me. Communication in this building moves faster than WiFi." She pushes the dress toward me. "Bathroom. Go."

The bathroom is roughly the size of a coffin. Getting into the dress involves banging my elbow on the towel rack twice, stepping on the hem, almost putting my foot in the toilet, and a full minute of wrestling with a zipper that seems to be on the wrong side. When I finally get it on and open the door, Evie is sitting on my bed eating a granola bar she found somewhere.

She looks up and instantly stops chewing.

"What?" I say. "Is it bad?"