“How’d we do?” I ask, having changed, standing in the doorway to her tiny office.

Amy taps away at her keyboard, frowning at her computer screen. “Good,” she says, absently. “Okay,” she amends.

“Good.” I’m choosing to focus on the positive right now. I walk around the desk. Still she doesn’t look up. Her swivel chair creaks as I turn it, leaning on the arms. “How should we celebrate?”

“Sophie.” My name gusts against my lips but not in the breathy, lust-filled way I’d hoped.

Amy sits back in the chair. “We shouldn’t.”

I straighten. “We shouldn’t?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.”

My face burns hotter than it ever did in the kitchen tonight. “You wanted to talk about how we shouldn’t?”

“Sit down.” She points to the chair by the door.

I do, because my legs are suddenly weak, the flush of embarrassment apparently sending my body into a state of shock and pulling all my blood back to my vital organs. Not because she told me to.

She takes a deep breath, her chest rising and falling. “I think you should take the other job. The sous-chef job.”

“I...what?” My stomach churns. I rack my brain. At any point tonight, did I describe out loud what Amy would wear on her wedding day and scare her off? “But...the show?”

She bites her lip, looking anywhere but at me.

Paul took me to some television event once in New York. There were a lot of high-powered execs and behind the scenes professionals but not a lot of actresses or on-screen talent at the event. I’d always assumed that it was us, the contestants, the actors and hosts, who got the rowdiest when free coupes of champagne were offered up in a pyramid. But that night it was the suits who lost control. A director, drunk from too much whiskey and high from too many trips to the bathroom, pulled a glass from the bottom of the champagne tower and it was all in slow motion, watching the glasses of overpriced grape juice cascade to glittering shards on the floor. That’s what this feels like, the realization sinking slowly then all at once, that Amy is letting me down gently.

“There’s no point,” she says. “In us. In doing the show.”

There’s no point in us. “Right. Of course.” I nod fast; hopefully the action keeps the tears at bay. I fall hard. I fall fast. I imagined Amy on her wedding day, for god’s sakes. I should have expected this.

“Sophie.”

“I agree. You’re right. We should be...circumspect.”

As I stand, cool air hits my midriff. This crop top is beyond ridiculous. Who’d wear such a thing after a night of working in a hot kitchen? No one is breezy enough for a crop top after that. There’s only enough energy for a beer and bed.

I’m moving too fast and maybe it’s good that she’s the one letting me down, rather than having me be the one to make the mistake again.