“No. And I’m Will,” Franz says. “That’s just a fun little intro we like to do.”

“Oh, okay. Well, come on in.” I wave them into the bedroom.

“Where should we set up?” Will asks.

“The bathroom, maybe? It’s got plenty of room.”

He peeks his head in.

“Damn, girl. How many BJs you have to give to get a place like this?”

“Oh, um.” I struggle to answer because Barrett is my fake boyfriend but if people think he’s my real boyfriend, then I probably give him blow jobs on occasion, which would be fine because he’s my boyfriend, but he’s not and we don’t. What was the question?

“He’s kidding,” Hans says, unfolding what looks like a director’s chair and motioning for me to sit.

“I wasn’t really,” Will complains, opening the largest makeup case I’ve ever seen.

“We brought champagne.” Hans pulls it out of his bag. I wonder what else he’s got in there.

He pops the cork and I laugh, feeling at ease about the whole thing for the first time today.

“You just sit back and relax and we’ll work our magic.”

* * *

An hour later, Hans and Fr—Will are on their way out and I’ve pulled on the sapphire blue gown that matches my eyes. I love how I look, like me but with more sparkle. I’m excited to go to the event and I’m also a little tipsy from the champagne. But my bubble bursts when I descend the stairs to find Barrett waiting in the foyer, looking gorgeous in a fitted tuxedo, and he barely glances at me.

He’s a man of formalities, which I would think includes telling a woman that she looks nice, but he just stares at me, his jaw working itself over before he reaches for the door.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Mmhmm,” I say with pursed lips, because I know he hates when people mumble and don’t respond with a definitive yes or no. Which is funny, because I hear him do it all the time.

In the car he’s on his phone. I pull mine out, happy that I haven’t played today’s WordIt yet and have something to occupy the silence between us. I start with C O U N T, one of my starter words but have no luck. Then, I use S H A P E and the E is yellow so I know it’s in the word but not the right place. I find an L and a D but struggle to get the word.

“Hmm.” My brain is thinking hard out loud.

The car stops, I look out at our destination, a restaurant called Cipriani, located adjacent to the Chrysler Building. The driver door slams shut with Marcus’s exit.

“It’s ELDER,” Barrett announces and it catches me off guard.

“What is?” I ask.

“The WordIt today.”