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“I’m Norah,” I say, holding out my hand, wanting to avoid another opportunity for Henry to not claim me as his.

Those two words are probably the most I say to another person for the entire meal.

It’s clear that everyone here is incredibly fond of Henry, and no one cares to get to know a single thing about me. Which would be fine if that was what I knew this was going to be like. But I thought we were going to a friend’s house. I thought this would give me some insight into who Henry is outside of our bubble.

And I guess it does, in a sense, but not in the way I imagined.

Several different people whose names I never learn tell me he’s brilliant. I nod and smile, and drink their expensive red wine to compensate for Henry’s lack of drinking so he can drive, and eat the rib eye that was prepared by a professional chef in the kitchen down the hall. Henry smiles, laughs, tells stories, but makes no move to include me in anything that’s going on. I thought my role here tonight was as Henry Cole’s girlfriend, not some arm candy who doesn’t open her mouth.

I keep checking my phone under the table, watching the estimated travel time increase as dinner drags on. An hour and nineteen minutes to get to Brooklyn. An hour and twenty-seven. An hour and forty. As it gets later, and the dinner doesn’t seem to be winding down, even after plates have been cleared, I nudge Henry under the table. He nods curtly at me, raising a finger that says hold on, and I think I might hate him a little in this moment. That dismissive nod. I lean over to him, and whisper, “Maybe I should just call a cab and go meet my friends alone,” but he says, “No, no, we’ll go shortly,” and it’s another forty minutes before we finally have our coats.

I do the calculations as we get into the car. Traffic seems to have somehow died down slightly since I last checked, and we can probably get there before midnight, but the imbalance of the night and time in his world versus mine is abundantly clear. I’m frustrated, but I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to ask if they had been expecting Genevieve. I don’t want to get into how the last few hours made me feel.

He must be able to tell that I’m stewing a bit because Henry takes my hand as he starts to drive. “Thank you. I know that wasn’t the most fun way to spend the evening, but it meant a lot to me. The rest of the night—all about you, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.

I don’t know why that word agrees with me the way that it does. I release the tension in my jaw.

“Luisa’s gonna kill me if we miss the countdown.”

“We won’t,” he promises.

And I trust him.

Henry explains that Alexander was his first boss in Los Angeles after he graduated from UCLA. His mentor. Alexander split his time between coasts, but when he ultimately came to New York full time, he brought Henry with him. And when his good friend, Joel Karlin, had an opening at his office that was better than what Alexander could offer, he called Joel personally on Henry’s behalf.

A lot of pieces fall into place in that moment.

“I’m here because of him,” Henry says simply. “I’m in New York because of him. In a way, I have you because of him. So try not to hate him too much. Or me.”

And I can’t. Because even in those moments where I do kind of hate Henry, I love him so much more.

* * *

Henry navigates the agonizing traffic like a true New Yorker and gets us to Sick Hypnotic faster than I expect, with half an hour to spare before midnight. In a miracle, he finds a parking spot up the block. The line outside the unmarked building hosting my favorite dance party is daunting, but I text Luisa and she pokes her head out, screaming something to the bouncer, who ushers us in, groans and drunken slurs shouted at us by the people who were diligently waiting. It seems like the night has finally turned around.

Henry and I dance with my friends in a circle. We move close together, his hands on my hips, mine in his hair, sweaty, happy.

The power surges and cuts out for just a moment. People around us grumble, stop dancing, shout at the DJ, but Henry just presses closer, pulling me into his chest. That’s the moment I feel the word bubble up, ready to break free.

I’m breathing heavy. “Henry, I lo—”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I hear to my left, interrupting the moment. A voice that’s familiar but I can’t place it in this second where I’m finally ready to tell Henry that I love him.

I turn, and there’s Rob. His sandy hair is slicked back, arms crossed over a maroon button-down and sparkly vest.

Shit.

It shouldn’t surprise me that he’s here. I should have realized that this was a possibility. I met him at the Sick Hypnotic Halloween party. That was the first time of many that I went home with him over the course of our two-month fuckbuddyship.

I break away from Henry as the lights flicker back on, telling him, “One sec,” and walk over to Rob. “Hey” is all I can muster. I see the hurt all over his face as he looks between me and Henry.

“You’re a real asshole, Norah,” Rob says when I raise my arms to entertain the idea of a hug.

I drop them, immediately clear that he does not want my touch.

“I know. I’m sorry about how it all…” I search for the words that will make this better, but they don’t come. “How it all went down.”