Page 135 of Suite 7

He looks easy in the way he always does between crises, shoulders settled, no urgency in the way he lifts his glass. He reads me in approximately four seconds.

“You’re distracted.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mmm.” He accepts his bourbon, takes a sip, studies me. “You’ve checked your phone three times since I sat down.”

“Work.”

“Right.” His tone says he doesn’t believe me for a second. “How is it? With Vera. Still calling it an arrangement?”

“No.”

He looks at me. Sets his glass down. “Since when?”

“Last week. We talked. Put a name to it.”

“Last week.” He says it without inflection. “And before that you were calling it an arrangement for what — a month?”

“Five weeks.”

“Five weeks of arrangement. And now it’s real.” He picks up his glass. “When are you telling Sloane?”

“We agreed. Soon.”

“Set a date. An actual date. Not a concept — a day.”

My phone rings.

A call. Sloane.

The timing is so exact I stare at the screen for a full second.

“Answer it,” Marcel says.

I pick up. “Sloane?”

“Kane.” Her voice is wrong. Tight and fractured at the edges. “Thank god.”

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just—“ A shaky breath. “That client I told you about? The rebrand? They fired me today. Said my work wasn’t aligned with their vision.” A pause. I can hear her trying to hold it together. “Three months, Kane. Three months I gave that account.”

“Sloane—”

“And I know it’s stupid to be this upset over one client, but—“ She’s crying now. “I needed my best friend tonight and Vera’s not answering her phone.”

I’m the reason my sister is crying alone tonight.

“She’s probably busy,” I hear myself say. The lie is automatic.

“She’s always busy lately.” Sloane’s voice cracks. “I’ve been trying to reach her all evening. And I know she’s seeing Gerald, and I’m happy for her, I am, but I feel like I’m losing her. Like she’s somewhere I can’t follow and she doesn’t even notice I’m being left behind.”

She doesn’t know she’s describing me. She has no idea she’s telling me exactly what I’m doing to her.

“I’m sure she’s not doing it on purpose.”

“I know she’s not. That’s what makes it worse.” She takes a shaky breath. “She’s in that honeymoon phase where nothing else matters. And I get it. I do. But I miss her. I miss my best friend.”