“What?” I ask anyway, but really I’m silently hoping he says okay and drops the conversation. I don’t want to be vulnerable tonight, and this day has already been humiliating enough.

“You know I went to Regency Prep with Simon’s daughter, right?”

That’s probably the last thing I expected him to say.

I push up on my elbows. “Uh, no.”

His eyes slip down to my exposed nipples as he shrugs with one shoulder. “I mean, it’s been a while, but I can text her if you want. See if she can put in a good word or something.”

He kisses my nipples, one by one, then draws back and lets out a contented sigh as the pillow absorbs the weight of his sculpted back again.

I haven’t blinked yet. I can’t tell if he’s messing with me or not. “You’re seriously cool with Taylor Van Doren?”

I don’t know why I sound like this, why her name came off my tongue in practically a whisper. Like she’s my idol or something. She’s not. I’m one of the two million who follows her on Instagram; I just eat up her style, or at least the kind of fashion she can afford. I barely know anything else about the chick.

“We graduated the same year.” He says it like it’s nothing.

But then again, he doesn’t know I’ve only been stalking her feed and the hyper-stylish crew she hangs with for almost two years. She’s been on my radar since before I even started interning at Van Doren. The first snap I ever saw of her was a pap shot of her stepping out of the obligatory you-can’t-sit-with-us, cool-girl spot, Mr. Chow’s. She was rocking an emerald green Valentino statement coat, unbuttoned, with nothing but heels and a resplendently bitchy closemouthed smile. It was more than a fashion moment; it was everything I wanted to be. That amount of confidence, the undeniable but not in-your-face femininity, she was goals on so many levels. I had no choice but to stan. I instantly joined her legions of voyeurs and voraciously scrolled through her entire three-year-old feed, obsessed with everything she wore, her incredible eye for styling even the most outlandish of pieces. The girl will wear a Chanel visor with a band T-shirt and over-the-top Versace heels and somehow pull it off. A pair of sequined Isabel Marant jeans with clear Yeezy boots.

I know Nate is friends with some cool people, but he’s never mentioned her. He doesn’t really talk about any of the famous or celebrity-adjacent people he knows; only tells a brief anecdote if they happen to come up, mostly stories from high school or people his dad knows. I usually appreciate this, but right now it kinda feels like I’ve been slighted.

So he and Taylor went to Regency Prep together.