The tray goes sideways and there is nothing I can do about it. One moment I am navigating the crowd with six flutes of champagne balanced like I have been doing this for years — because I have, because catering gigs are what keep the lights on when the pastry work dries up. The next moment, a man in a tuxedo steps backward without looking, clips my elbow, and the entire tray tilts. The champagne doesn't splash. It cascades. All six glasses, directly onto the man standing closest to me. The man turns slowly. He is tall in a way that reorganizes a room, broad through the shoulders, with a jaw that looks like it was cut rather than grown. Dark hair, close-cropped. A bespoke suit that probably cost more than my father's entire debt — now soaked through from collar to chest. His eyes find mine immediately, and they are the color of deep water and just as unreadable. I notice his hands first: still, loose at his sides, the kind of still that isn't calm so much as controlled. I wait for the explosion. It doesn't come. Every guest on the rooftop is staring. The string quartet has stopped. Someone near the bar makes a soft sound of horror. I stand there holding the empty tray, champagne dripping from his lapel to the marble floor in a steady, damning rhythm. "I'm so sorry," I say. "I'll — I can get someone —" "Don't." His voice is quiet. Not angry. That's what stops me. "Don't apologize yet." He looks at me the way people look at something they have been expecting to arrive. Not surprised. Not annoyed. His expression is almost — satisfied, like a man who set a table and is watching his guest sit down. "Do you know who I am?" he asks. "No." A lie. I've heard the name Rafe Calloway three times tonight from the other catering staff, always in a hush. Something moves at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Not yet. "Don't leave," he says. "I want to talk to you." "I should really find my supervisor —" "Nadia." He says my name. My full name, precise and unhurried, like he has said it before. I haven't told him my name. My name tag only says *N.* "Stay." The quartet starts again. The guests look away. The moment closes around us like a door. He smiles then — slow, deliberate — like a man who has been waiting for this exact moment and is glad it has finally come. ---