Then gently, so tentatively, he brushed his lips to hers. Was it a kiss? Or did their mouths just accidentally pass each other? Every touch was a featherlight question. Had he grazed her breast? Did he brush her hips? Was that his breath on the slope of her shoulder? It was perhaps better that his touch was so light as to be indiscernible. Liza feared Dorsey might brand her if he touched her with any deliberate pressure.

His expression changed, and he released her suddenly. Liza felt like she’d suddenly burst out into oozing sores the way Dorsey acted. David’s slurred voice sounded through the door.

“I found them in the stairwell!”

Liza saw Jennifer stride toward them with eyes full of questions, then halt and pretend to check her phone messages.

She’d give a million dollars to get into that woman’s head. What made smart, capable women like her chase men who were only interested in themselves?

Dorsey straightened his trousers and smoothed imagined wrinkles from his shirt. “Like I said, this is silly. I am an adult. You would do well to remember that.” The chill in his voice was definitive. His tone was an ice pick popping the fizzy bubble of warmth that had formed around them.

I guess he suddenly remembered I’m not Ms. Venezuela.

How dare he make her feel childish and stupid and unattractive in one dismissive sentence. Liza cocked her head. He had tricked her somehow, and now she was angry at herself.

“You know what your problem is?”

Dorsey pulled the door open wider, nudging her to exit the stairwell.

“You mean besides being a friendless, vain sociopath?” he offered wearily.

“Oh wait, I actually think that covers it,” Liza snapped. Where is that smoldering man from just two minutes ago? Liza, Hot Waiter does not exist.

“I went downstairs to get her,” Dorsey said, his voice cracking slightly. “She would have been hiding on the eighth floor for days.”

What made his pronouncement more peculiar was that there was no audience for his big fake show of joviality. Janae and Jennifer were scrolling on their phones, and David had already passed out again on the chair.

“Do you know what your problem is?” Dorsey whispered to her.

He had been thinking of a comeback. Ha! Slow on the draw. He turned on his heels so swiftly that Liza stepped back to anticipate him falling.

“You let your first impression be your only one. It’s incredibly shallow and intellectually lazy,” he told her.

“Oh, so now I’m lazy.” Liza rolled her eyes. “Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah, that’s right—the cotton field.” There, that’ll sting him.