“Who said that? Voltaire?” Sean teased.
“Emerson, I think,” John replied. “All I mean is, can’t we just enjoy tonight? An appreciative audience, a job well done, time enjoyed with friends.”
“Yeah, live in the moment, guys,” Akiko said sternly, then giggled as she passed the bottle to John.
“Tiny Dancer, don’t shit on our dreams of fame and fortune. Allow us our great expectations,” Sean said theatrically, as he threw an arm around John’s neck, then ruffled his red hair. John shoved him off, but his mouth twitched into a reluctant smile. With the surname Elton, John had picked up his fair share ofnicknames around college, but “Tiny Dancer” was the one that stuck. Given he was tall, reserved, and rarely danced in public, it didn’t suit him at all. But perhaps that was what made it so funny.
Chloe watched her friends play-fight, while Akiko swung her legs back and forth like a child. She tried to capture the moment, take a mental Polaroid.
Then,whoosh. A softthudechoed below.
“Whoopsie,” said Akiko.
They all peered over the railing to see one of her silver heels sitting in the middle of the stage.
A stagehand looked up and pointed. “Hey, you lot, get down from there!”
Akiko yelped, covering her mouth with both hands.
“Clumsy Kiko strikes again,” Chloe groaned.
“That’s one way to get a man’s attention, bludgeon him in the head with a shoe,” Sean said with a sigh.
“And so, it was ever thus. We’d better go down,” John said, pushing himself up on the metal railing, then offering Kiko a hand. “If you ever want to play Cinderella, I think you’d be a shoe-in.”
“Har de har,” Akiko muttered, pulling a face at him, then tugging off her other shoe so she could walk without hobbling. They started along the bridge and John moved aside to let her go first down the ladder. Chloe turned to follow them, but then Sean caught her hand.
“Wait,” he said. She looked back at him. His eyes dropped to the walkway beneath their feet. “I want to tell you something,” he said quietly, then pulled her into a hug. “I’m so proud of you, Chlo.”
“Ah, thanks, Seany. I’m proud of you too,” she said, smiling into his damp shoulder, his shirt sweaty from the performance.
“No, I mean it.” His voice was serious now. “You come up with these ideas, and you make them happen. You bring out the best in everyone. We make a good team, don’t we?”
“We do,” she said, feeling a shift in the air. Sean was never sincere, not like this.
“You light up the stage,” he said, leaning back just enough to look at her, and his eyes were glassy now.
“Thanks,” she murmured, beginning to pull away, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he slid his arms down around her waist, holding her there, eyes locked on hers. And then, slowly, he leaned in.
Chloe didn’t move. She felt herself brace. Was this what she’d been waiting for? Or had she always known this moment would come and hoped, blindly, that it wouldn’t? It was a running joke that Sean and Chloe’s friendship was the most drawn-out courtship in history. “When are you guys just going to sleep together?” was a constant refrain in Deepers, the Lincoln bar. She usually laughed it off; so did Sean, insisting they were nothing but friends, the best of collaborators.
And yet—there had been moments. The late nights. The Imp’s notes. That feeling of being known. Sean was handsome, with his floppy dark hair, his kind eyes, that warm, electric energy that could charge a whole rehearsal room. He pushed her as a performer, as a writer, as a person. In many ways, they made perfect sense.
But now, as his lips touched hers, dry and hesitant, his hands fumbling at her waist, Chloe felt a coldness rising up her spine. A sinking in her chest, then some instinct buried deep within her that told her,Not this.Not him.She pulled back sharply.
“No, Sean, I can’t.”
3
“Chloe, how many times needI remind you?” Mr.McKenzie said, looming over her desk and waving a yellow script at her. “These brass fasteners are only to be used on scripts going toclients. Anything else gets a hole punch and string.”
“Sorry,” Chloe said, switching to mouth-breathing to avoid the dense cloud of her boss’s body odor.
On Chloe’s first day at McKenzie and Sons, she had learned that the “sons” in the company name were fictitious. Stuart McKenzie had no sons, only a daughter, Lydia. But he thought “and sons” better conveyed “wholesome family values.” To Chloe it conveyed he was an idiot. And yet, even though she had concluded this on her very first day, two years later, she was still, inexplicably, working there.
“And why is your desk covered in foliage?” McKenzie asked,jabbing a stubby finger at the two plants on her desk. Chloe kept her eyes fixed on the lower part of his face. If she looked at his hairline—the angry red mess of his not-quite-healed transplant—she would only wince, and her bosshatedit when people winced.
“Plants are proven to reduce stress and boost productivity,” she said brightly. “I could get you one, if you’d like?”
