“The VIP event’s upstairs.”
The doors slid open. People got out in their black ties and sparkly gowns, tittering and slurring, holding up purple tickets.
A man in a burgundy jacket stood by the elevator control panel. “Do you have a ticket?” he asked me.
“I do.” Dash took out his ticket. “The lady’s with me.”
Burgundy Jacket turned around, took a look at Dash, and nodded. The doors slid closed. “Yes, sir.”
The elevator whooshed, and I felt the enormous pressure under the soles of my stilettos. We stood side by side, facing the door, arms pressed together. He was an immovable wall against me, all muscle under his tux.
“Rule-breaker,” I mumbled.
He leaned down to my ear, and I breathed in his cologne, memorizing it, shifting the angle of my chin just enough to feel the skin of his cheek on my jaw.
“You make me reckless.”
My knees went weak, and I lost the capacity for words just as the elevator stopped. I lost my balance, and Dash put his arm around my waist before I fell, drawing me close.
“You all right?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” I moved an imaginary piece of hair behind my ear.
“You’re blushing.”
I thought I’d been aroused before, but his words and his physical presence activated every nerve between my legs. I sucked in a breath to keep from moaning at the feeling.
Was he turning a little red again? Because I was for sure. The heat in my cheeks didn’t lie, nor did the deepening color of his.
What a strange man. What a bundle of contradictions. Like that slightly overlapping tooth in front. It was awkward but somehow a necessary part of the whole incredible package.
I wasn’t tall enough. Fit enough. Rich enough. Smart enough. Accomplished enough. Exciting enough. I was a dead weight to a man. Didn’t he know that? Couldn’t he tell I’d drag him down?
I wasn’t supposed to set my sights too high. My mother had told me so. My father—not my real dad but the man who had given me my DNA—had been “beautiful as a Michelangelo and smart as Einstein.” That was what my mother had always said. Even when I was only a first grader, she’d leaned over me as I ate my blueberry oatmeal and was very, very clear about how I was to react to that kind of guy.
“Don’t be fooled by the handsome ones or, God forbid, the rich ones,” she’d say. “Look for a beautiful heart.”
I was six. I remembered it because of her intensity. If she’d lived, she probably would have had to repeat it a hundred times before it stuck. But she didn’t live, so her advice went into the vault, only to be trotted out when a rich, handsome man like Dash Wallace held my hand and I didn’t know why.
But, Mom, I want to. Can I just do this one thing?
The elevator doors slid open, and I knew my mother would tell me it was all right.
Just this once.
eight
Vivian
The rooftop party was less carnival and more soirée. The winter night was cold for LA and clear by the same standard. When I looked up, I could see all of Orion, not just the belt.
Dash knew people. He waved, said a few words, but he kept his hand on either my arm or my back, subtly guiding me to the edge of the roof. He’d said he didn’t have a plan, but he knew where he was going and never deviated.
I pretended I belonged there, standing straight and holding my purse in front of me. I looked at all of the other women’s expressions and imitated them, faking it all the way. I didn’t fit in, but it didn’t have to be so incredibly obvious.
I may have been uncomfortable and self-conscious, but I was elated to be next to him. He took me to the edge of the roof that overlooked the city and held his hand out for me.
“You’re cold,” he said.
Understatement of the year. I hadn’t been prepared to go outside, and it had to be sixty degrees. “People from Minnesota would laugh.”
He shrugged out of his jacket and, in one fluid move, draped it over my shoulders.
“But you’ll be cold,” I said.
“This isn’t cold.”
Of course it wasn’t. Between rewatches of the Youder interview, I’d spent some time on Wikipedia, getting the facts on Mr. Wallace. He was from upstate New York. Albany or something. A small city so buried in snow it looked flat white in satellite pictures for a third of the year. His brothers threw snowballs, and he caught them.
“This doesn’t feel fair,” I said.
“How is that?”
“I know all kinds of things about you, and you don’t know anything about me.”
“Tell me what you think you know.” He put his elbow on the slate ledge and cupped his perfect chin in his perfect hand. His body was half-stretched out, half-curled in on itself, as if he was ready to spring for a grounder.
“You’re not cold because you’re from Buffalo.”
“Ithaca.”