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"I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, bunny. Don't forget the Jell-O."

***

Danny texts at seven that evening.

Can I see you tonight? I'd rather do this in person.

I look at it for a long time. I think about him in that penthouse, pacing probably, or worse — sitting perfectly still, which is what he does instead of pacing, and somehow that's more alarming.

Tomorrow?

I promise. I just need tonight.

Three dots. They go on forever. Whatever he drafts and deletes, what arrives is:

Okay baby. I’ll give you tonight. But that’s all the space you’re getting, even if I have to throw you over my shoulder.

That makes my thighs clench. Damn this man.

And then, a minute later:

Tomorrow. Goodnight, Anna.

He's learning.

Monday. I go to work that night and I avoid him anyway.

I know. I know. Mom said deal with it and Evie would say deal with it and the dress on the door says deal with it, and instead I send Kira to table four with his Yamazaki and hide behind the bar like a coward with a tray.

Because knowing what to do and doing it are different sports.

Danny's text from an hour ago sits on my phone:

I need to talk to you tonight. It's about the journalist. It's important.

I watch Kira set down his drink. I watch him look at the glass, then look up, scan the floor, and find me. Across the whole room, past forty tables, straight to me, like I'm the only thing in the building with a heat signature.

I turn around and reorganize the garnish station. The garnish station does not need reorganizing. I reorganize it anyway. Limes by size. It's fucking deranged.

Matteo watches me do this and says nothing, which is how I know it's bad. Matteo has commentary for everything. Matteo once critiqued the way I hold my pen. Matteo going silent is the bartender equivalent of a smoke alarm.

Two hours of this. Me, avoiding. Danny, sitting. The whiskey, untouched after the first sip, because he's not here for the whiskey and we both know it.

At midnight I'm in the locker room with my forehead on my knees.

Evie sits down next to me. I didn't hear her come in. I never hear her come in. I'm starting to think she practices.

"Kira served his table," she says.

"Yep."

"He asked Matteo why. Matteo told him to ask you. And then you spent two hours alphabetizing fruit, so he couldn't."

"I was organizing by size, not alphabet."

"Oh, well, that's much more normal." She leans back against the lockers. "The journalist?"