“What were you going to say?”
He came closer, slowly enough to give her room to retreat. “That I have had a very difficult year, and you are not helping.”
The line was so dry she laughed. Then she saw he meant it.
Taylor was in a black tuxedo, simpler than usual, tie perfect, hair trimmed shorter than she liked because it made him look too controlled. But his control had become easier to read these past months. Tonight she saw the strain under it immediately.
“You’re nervous,” she said.
He blinked. “About a gala?”
“About me being at one.”
His shoulders lowered a fraction. “Yes.”
Maya set down her lipstick. “I’m nervous too.”
He nodded. “Then we’ll be nervous in a highly coordinated way.”
At the ballroom, the first thing she noticed was that no one laughed.
Of course they still looked. People like this always looked. But looking was different from dismissal. And the women who had once treated her like a social error now came armed with admiration so polished it almost passed for sincerity.
