“I’ll try,” I said, closing my eyes. But then I remembered something, and the corner of my mouth twitched. “Here’s something I should probably tell you, then. I’ll be seeing Ezra at the health benefit this weekend.”
To his credit, Mal didn’t wince. Instead, he pulled me farther into him, and I would not have noticed the tension in his arms if I hadn’t felt them bulge around me.
“I figured he’d be there. His mom’s running the event,” he said.
I closed my eyes in the safe space his body had created around me.
“I agreed to talk to him there,” I confessed.
“Hmm,” Mal said noncommittally. “About what?”
“Boundaries,” I said. I had a decent idea what was going to happen when I saw Ezra again. I would tell him that there was no need to force things. That, in telling him that I had once had feelings for him, I hadn’t intended to declare that we could only be in each other’s lives in a romantic capacity. I’d needed space to “find myself,” so to speak, and now that I’d accomplished that, there was no reason not to return to how things were. (Mostly. Sharing beds was pretty out of the question now that I was somebody’s girlfriend.)
When I told Mal this, he snorted.
“Wow,” he said. “You really are clueless.”
“What do you mean by that?” I said, pushing away just a little to make sure he could see my scowl.
Mal kissed the space between my eyebrows, smoothing out the furrow.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just that I trust you.”
We languished for a little while longer. I would have been content to spend the rest of the day in bed with Mal, being intermittently ravished, but I had a hair appointment in the afternoon, and if I was even two minutes late, Fatou would let someone else into her braiding chair. Mal offered to drop me off at home, and when we pulled up in front of my building’s sea-glass green entrance, I mourned our imminent farewell. I sighed my way through my braiding appointment, not even getting annoyed when Fatou took a forty-five-minute break to pick up Chinese food.
Liking someone is scary,I told Dahlia as Fatou flicked throughthe channels on a television that likely hadn’t been replaced since the ’90s.Because why am I smiling at myself like a dodo bird while this lady yanks out my hair follicles?
It’s that tru luv,Dahlia responded.You better make me a flower girl at the wedding.
With all the plucking, pruning, and preening I did over the next twenty-four hours, I certainly felt like a bride. It had taken me until medical school to realize that beauty by and large came out of a box, one that I built for myself back when I had nothing to my name but a paltry stipend and a vintage iPhone. My overnight transformation from a generous six to a humble eight had been like something from the movies: all it had taken was a little eyebrow threading, some falsies, the right sew-in weave, and judiciously applied makeup to turn me into someone worth looking at.
“You’re going to let Adelman see you like that?” Dahlia said, admiring me from her doorframe as I struggled to put on my heels.
“Ezra’s seen me in about a million dresses,” I said. Though, to be fair, this dress was different: red as sin, backless, figure-skimming. The kind of dress that would have made my old female attendings pull me aside for a lecture on professionalism. I’d bought it weeks ago, when I was still trying to hype myself up as a Hot Girl Who Was Totally Capable of Seducing a Certain Withholding Writer. “Shit. My ride’s here.”
“Wait wait wait,” Dahlia said, whipping out her phone. “Are you an influencer or not? Let’s get some evidence that you look good for the Gram.”
Laughing, I spun for her, falling quickly into three or four practiced poses.
“I really have to go,” I said when she started to push for a fifth.
“Fine,” Dahlia said. “Have fun! And don’t let Ezra mow you over!”
“I won’t.”
I blew her a kiss, and then flew out the door.
Operation Don’t Let Ezra Mow You Over started out as a success. Ezra had texted me earlier to suggest we share a ride: I was on his way, after all, and Harold, Renata’s driver, had been asking about me anyway. But I’d turned him down. The concept of spending twenty minutes trapped in an enclosed space with an Ezra who was clearly on the hunt was too obvious of a trap. He knew where all of my buttons were, and I knew that he would spend the entire journey pushing them.
I arrived at the venue with my heart in my throat. The Knydus Nest annual health benefit regularly raised upward of $5million for an underfunded disease of interest (this year, sickle cell anemia). Without an association with the Adelmans, I could never have afforded a ticket. When I reached the grand doors of the entrance, a man in all black opened them to let me in, another escorted me up the stairs to the event.
Renata wasn’t a big fan of red carpets outside of film premieres, so the Knydus Nest carpet was a rich velveteen blue that ended outside the open heavy doors that led to the ballroom. I stepped into line behind a dashing older couple, my fingers sneaking to my neck to check my thundering pulse.It’ll be fine, I told myself, as I waited for my turn in front of the expansive Knydus Nest logo.It’s just a conversation. You and Ezra have had a thousand of them. And a lot of them have been harder than this.
The older couple walked into the ballroom, and suddenly, it was my turn under the spotlight. I stepped into place, waving hello at Felipe, one of Renata’s go-to photographers.
“Beautiful dress, Josephine,” he responded, snapping away. “Let’s get a few more—”
Suddenly, a hand fell on the small of my back. I recoiled, ready to smack my assailant with my clutch, but when I looked up it was to a familiar set of smiling eyes.
