The only thing inside is a new key card.
Chapter 15CHECK
I try to give himthe jacket back. I leave it folded at his doorstep the following day, only when I return from a shopping trip that evening, it’s still there. Folded. Slightly dimpled, like someone tried their hardest to step around it. With a frown, I pick it up, find a clothes hanger in my room, and leave it on his doorknob.
Before my morning run, I find it hanging off my door instead. Still on the hanger, zipped.
I give up on the second full day of clothes hanger shuffling. Safe in the privacy of my own room, I slip the jacket back around my shoulders. It isn’t the worst thing in the world to have, if Faust is making me keep it. The collar smells like trees, like him, and there’d been a receipt from a pharmacy in Algarve in the pocket. I don’t translate it.
I’d ask him what he was doing, if we talked like that, or at all. Who knows what’s going on in his mind?You have given me too many clothes. Now, I give you my gray polyester bomber jacket that’s vaguely workwear-inspired but decidedly not a Carhartt.That’s frustrating,too—most of the text has been rubbed off the labels, rendering it brandless and extra mysterious. At best, the thing looks like he thrifted it for twenty bucks. Sixty, in a major city. So, I don’t think it was, like… a pity jacket. If he’d been overly worried about me that night, he would’ve brought out a blanket or woken me up.
Still, though.
It was a nice thing to do.
And I really—really—don’t know what to do with that fact.
So, the night of Bernard’s gala, I do everything that makes me feel like me again. I put on ABBA and take an absolutely everything shower—clarifying shampoo, hair mask, body scrub, the whole nine yards. I paint my nails, spend too long blowing out my hair, and find a dress I know will make him die and then die again. Red silk, vintage Valentino, bias cut, with delicate straps that melt into a neckline almost too cruel to wear out. The gala is at an event space close to the circuit. Formula 1–related iconography dots the posters lining the steps up to the building, and while it’s weird to see the fusion of luxury and celebrity and the sports brand itself, it isn’t surprising. Bernard meets me by a table inside, and he looks as perfectly handsome as any magazine spread—there’s an uncanny-valley quality to how slicked back his pale orange hair is.
“Cat, my dear friend,” he says, holding out his arm. “So happy you’re here.”
Taking a breath, I give him an awkward half hug. “Hi, wow. This place is beautiful.”
“Isn’t it? Tickets cost an arm and a leg.” He winks. “But for you, anything.”
I always wish I could fast-forward through the mind-numbing small talk at parties like this. Each space is beautiful. All the colorful lighting is pretty. There are curtains draped off the ceiling, and isn’tthat so special? Don’t they ever get bored of perfection? Nothing is beautiful when you smooth every rough edge off.
We land at our table. There are five other people seated with us; I assess them long enough to jot their descriptions down later. We discuss racing, the weather, the cherry blossoms, Bernard, other people’s jobs. I tune it out as soon as our meals arrive. There’s a space in the middle of the tables, lit with slowly swirling lights. A dance floor. I watch a purple spotlight trace across the ground as couples meander toward it, and it’s riveting, comparatively.
“Want any champagne?” Bernard asks. He’s next to me, his arm surprisingly not on the back of my chair.
“None for me.” I drop my voice, tilting my head toward him subtly. “I want to remember tonight.”
He beams like I’ve kissed him. “Maybe I’ll skip it, too.”
I smile—and that’s when I see it. One banner, tucked behind an ice sculpture of an F1 car. There’s a line in Japanese and then, below that, in English:
TONIGHT IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY LOCKLAND PUBLIC.
HEALTHCARE WITH A HUMAN TOUCH.
I stop breathing. Feel a dizzying, needling rush. “Actually,” I say. And then I’m standing, though I’m not sure where my feet are. On the ground? Maybe? I can sort of feel the floor under my heels. “Could we—do you want to dance?”
I don’t meet Bernard’s surprised gaze, only watch his freckled smile from the corner of my eye. “Of course. Now?”
“Yes, please.”
He leads me to the dance floor, though I feel like I’m watching it happen from a hundred miles away, his hand finding mine, hisarm slipping around my back. I’m not really here. When Bernard murmurs in my ear, “Is everything all right?,” I don’t know if he’s asking the actor that’s clinging to his arms or me, the woman staring at this slow-motion car crash.
“I’m—yeah. I’m just. I’m nervous.”
His arm tightens around me. “Don’t be.”
We sway in a circle, and there’s the banner again. Everything else is in shadow, like I can only see those two words.Lockland Public.“How long?”
“Hm?”
“How long have you worked with the sponsor for tonight?”
