“Hello,” he said, biting his lower lip as his eyes studied me, puzzled.

“You’re here!” I managed to squeak out, still laughing. This night. I shook my head.

“Were you waiting for me?” he asked with a smile, looking down at the huge wet spot seeping across his shirt and then back up to meet my eyes.

“Oh my god,” I said again, waving a hand at where he was now dabbing his chest with a cocktail napkin. “I’m sorry about…that. I just wasn’t expecting—”

“To ever see me again?” His gaze was hard, and the edges of his lips curled into the smallest hint of a smile, which felt more sinister than sweet.

“Well. Yeah.” I laughed as I said it, because it was true. I glanced at the spill again and noticed that this time he wasn’t buttoned up within an inch of his life in some bespoke suit. Instead, he was in a heather-gray T-shirt that was damp across his chest, in spots where my drink hadn’t splattered. “Why aren’t you in a suit?”

I could have sworn that in the darkness, he blushed. “I don’t only wear suits.”

“You have every time I’ve seen you. That’s, like, your thing, right?” He was somehow even more handsome dressed casually; not that I’d ever tell him that.

“I have other things.” He ran the back of his hand across his lips. “I was out for a run and decided to stop by to check on my—”

“Excuse me!” We were interrupted by a woman with short blond hair leaning back in her chair, waving us over toward her table. “I know you. Both of you!”

I tried to place her, racking my brain to remember everyone I’d attended class with in college, or maybe met during an internship somewhere. Did I work with her at Spayce?

“Subway QTs!” The woman next to her clasped her hands together as she shouted, figuring it out in real time.

“Oh my god,” shrieked the third member of their group. “Oh my god! I followed that whole thing!”

She lifted up her phone and took a photo of us.

“Can I take a picture with you guys?” the blond woman asked, and before either of us could answer she had chucked her phone at her friend and shimmied out from her seat. She wedged her body between us, slung an arm around my waist, and twisted her body to the side to get what I assumed was her preferred angle. I could smell the wine on her breath as she smiled.

I glanced over at Hayes, who was not looking toward the camera. Instead, his gaze was aimed toward where Lola sat in the corner.

“Hayes?” I heard a voice say at the same time as the woman holding the phone directed, “Look here!”