Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Every item of clothing Bryn had brought with her was splayed on her bed. Her attention darted between two final options: the one she wanted to wear and the one she probably should wear.
To hell with it.
She was having dinner with Vivian. Dinner on purpose and without the pretense of necessity or work. Her stomach fluttered so hard it made her laugh, alone and delirious. She picked the outfit she wanted to wear and hoped that in this instance she was giving Jenny Shimizu and not Diane Keaton.
Bryn grabbed her outfit and the steamer. After her shower, she slicked her wet hair back with product. Following a preteen’s tutorial, she applied copper shadow and black eyeliner. She didn’t look as stupid as she felt when she added a little metallic shimmer to the apples of her slim cheeks.
In the full-length mirror by the door, Bryn gave herself a nervous once-over. The tailored ivory flared pants were tight at the high-waist and a little more dramatic in their wideness at the bottom than Bryn had realized. But the tucked-in collared shirt and ivory skinny tie looked… not the worst.
Was she trying too hard? She was probably trying too hard.
But as she chugged water because her mouth was unbearably dry, she couldn’t convince herself that trying was a bad thing.
Shouldn’t Vivian know that Bryn cared about their date?
That she wanted to impress her because impressing her mattered?
Was it a date? A cold pang of doubt flashed in Bryn’s belly. What the hell else could it be?
She cracked open another bottle of room-temp water and guzzled. Eyes closed, she tried not to cringe with her entire body that she’d told Vivian she liked to bite. Who even says that?
Applying more mascara because she had ten minutes to kill, she talked herself down.
Vivian hadn’t recoiled at Bryn’s open flirting.
And Vivian was the one who’d practically growled in Seraphina’s face, all hot and territorial.
Vivian was the one who’d sent a reservation confirmation for an Italian restaurant.
Vivian had been the one to almost kiss her again.
She capped the mascara and took a deep breath. It didn’t matter if she was terrified or trying too hard. She wanted Vivian, and she was over pretending she didn’t.
* * *
Vivian: On my way down.
Standing near the hotel’s entrance, Bryn rocked in her chunky loafers. The June evening was stickier on the street than it had been on the roof the night before. Bryn was overthinking her outfit and hair and whether her makeup was going to melt off her face—then she saw her.
In a midnight-blue, empire-waist jumpsuit and her hair in a low bun, Vivian crossed the lobby like it was a runway. She was gold catching the noonday sun, conducting heat just to beam it straight into Bryn’s unprepared chest.
It was all Bryn could do not to sigh a mortifying wow when Vivian approached with a clutch tucked under her arm. Head high and posture commanding.
“I ordered a Lyft,” Bryn squawked instead.
Vivian’s glossy lips twitched into a smirk.
It disappeared when her attention drifted over Bryn’s clothes.
Over the outfit that felt like full-on Annie Hall cosplay.
Vivian wasn’t laughing when she reached out with both hands and straightened Bryn’s tie a fraction.
When her palms lingered on Bryn’s chest, warm and devastating.
Dark eyes locked on hers, Bryn couldn’t stop staring.
She was tempted to abandon their dinner plans.
To take Vivian’s hand and pull her back upstairs.
To bask in her light without all the prying eyes on her.
It wasn’t a mystery why Vivian never wanted to leave her house.
Even in the busy lobby, she was a glittering centerpiece drawing all the attention whether she wanted it or not.
“Too good to hail a cab?” she teased in a low, soft voice like she didn’t notice how the people around her had stopped talking above a whisper. Stopped moving like their orbit had been disrupted by a celestial body with more gravitational pull.
Bryn belatedly registered the words coming out of Vivian’s perfect mouth. “No, I just didn’t want to have to wait—”
Vivian stopped the rush of nerves primed to take over Bryn’s mouth and talk a mile a minute with a lopsided smile. “Then let’s not continue waiting,” she replied without the barrier of sarcasm.
The restaurant was dark and crowded. Bryn slid into her seat with her back to the dining room, guessing that Vivian would be more comfortable with her back to the wall.
Menus arrived, but before Bryn could crack hers open, Vivian ordered a bottle of wine in the sexiest Italian Bryn had ever heard. Not that she’d heard much in person.
“Don’t worry, you can order whatever you like. It’s a versatile wine,” Vivian said when the server left, as if that was the reason for her staring.
Grinning, Bryn leaned forward. “And here I thought you’d definitely order a bottom.”
Vivian rewarded her terrible joke with a single, sharp, hard exhale.
“God, I’m so nervous,” Bryn confessed after they’d ordered dinner.
Wine glass to her lips, Vivian furrowed her brow. “Why?”
Bryn took an undignified gulp of wine. “Don’t you get nervous on first dates?”
“A date?” Vivian’s eyes widened. “Is that what you think this is?”
If it weren’t for the playful energy swirling around Vivian like an addictive perfume, Bryn might have morphed into a dust cloud of shame.
But Vivian was swirling the rich red wine in her glass, and resting her chin in her hand, and gazing at Bryn like a birdwatcher spotting something unexpected through her binoculars.
Bryn leaned back, attention fixed on Vivian’s dark eyes. Synapses firing and nervous system so alive she was on the verge of seeing new colors, Bryn chuckled. She played with her tie, enjoying the way Vivian couldn’t help watching her fingers against the fabric.
“Are you saying I shouldn’t have willingly constricted my own airway for this?” She slid her finger over the tie’s simple knot. Vivian’s eyes tracked her every movement. Her unwavering attention was immediately intoxicating.
“Far be it from me to tell you how to dress.” It wasn’t what Vivian said, but the way she looked at Bryn when she said it that felt like nails scraping the back of her neck.
“When’s the last time you went on a date?” Bryn asked after the arancini appetizer arrived.
“Date is such an amorphous term.” She put down her glass like a taunt. Like a lioness toying with a mouse for sport. “What does it even mean?”
Bryn was no mouse. She grinned before asking, “When’s the last time you made plans with a person you were interested in seeing naked?”
Surprise was the color rushing to Vivian’s cheeks, making her almost too beautiful to look at. But Bryn couldn’t look at anything else.
Vivian settled back into her effortless ease before she stated, “I hadn’t heard that definition before.”
“Well, it kind of gets down to the point.” Bryn shrugged.
“Is that the only reason you spend time with a person? To see them in the nude?”
Bryn’s pulse jumped and she immediately regretted her choice of words. She didn’t want Vivian to think that was all she was interested in. She opened her mouth, desperate to get her foot out of it, but Vivian spoke first.
“If only nudity weren’t the easy part.” Vivian leaned forward. “Meeting someone I actually want to know…” She pinned Bryn down with nothing but her pause, making her a willing captive. “I can say it’s been quite a while.”
Bryn’s throat was so dry, she poured the rest of her wine down it but didn’t find any relief.
She wanted to know more about Vivian. Wanted her to answer in long paragraphs and not skimp on the details.
But she understood how important it was to pace her curiosity.
How critical it was to move at Vivian’s speed.
“I get that,” Bryn replied sincerely. “Dating can be exhausting.”
Bryn stepped up to the terrifying vulnerability plate first. If she wanted to get to know Vivian on a deeper level, she might have to show her first that depths weren’t always drowning hazards.
“The last time I went on a date was with a woman I met at a bar,” Bryn said.
“How retro.” Vivian made a gesture that meant go on.
“She was so cool.” She waited for Vivian to refill her glass and earn yet another gentleman point. “A bartender. Tattoos. Those piercings people get through their dimples. You know, like, that kind of hot where it’s like… annoyingly effortless?”
Vivian made a sound in her throat and emptied her first glass of wine. Bryn tried and failed not to allow Vivian’s barely concealed jealousy to warm her skin from the inside out.
“I never go to bars, but it was one of my roommates’ birthdays and I had no excuse for passing,” Bryn explained. “And when I asked this woman out, I didn’t really expect her to say yes.”
“But she did.”
“She did,” Bryn agreed. “Actually, she said yes several times.”
Vivian’s eyes widened and Bryn realized what she’d said.
“Several dates, I mean,” she corrected. “For three weeks, I matched her cool energy. If she took an hour to text me back, then I’d wait an hour and a half.
I pretended I had no opinion on where we ate or where we went.
I acted like I was this breezy, mysterious creature just casually moving through the world. ”
Vivian’s gaze swept over her, assessing. “What happened after three weeks?”
“I couldn’t keep up the act.” She smiled.
“I realized that I don’t actually care about being cool.
All I wanted was to tell her I really liked her.
I wanted to ask her about her relationship with her sister.
I wanted to be enthusiastic and myself at full volume.
” She shrugged. “Living on mute just seemed… I don’t know…
pointless.” She shook her head. “Like I know all the dating advice is like, ease people in, don’t reveal too much.
But I don’t know. I’d rather know upfront whether I’m someone’s flavor and the other way around.
Like, I’m Rocky Road, and it’s best for everyone if we know you’re allergic to nuts.
” She took a breath. “So I told her all that.”
“And what happened?” Vivian’s expression gave nothing away. If she was horrified or put off or proud, Bryn couldn’t tell.
“Nut allergy.” Bryn laughed. “She ghosted me.”
Vivian’s face hardened. In a shift so subtle it was nearly imperceptible, she went from stoic to angry. “Well, fuck her and her inferior immune system.”
Grinning, Bryn tried not to read too much into Vivian’s response. Tried not to let it course through her veins and pump oxygen-rich blood straight into her racing heart.
“Is the dish not to your liking?” The server interrupted.
They looked down at the untouched food between them.
“I can bring you something else—”
“Perhaps a side of pine nuts,” Vivian said.
* * *
Dinner was a three-hour blur that might have been longer if the manager hadn’t politely asked them to give up their table if they’d finished eating. Bryn had tried to pay, which Vivian took as a personal affront.
“Don’t think just because you paid for a wildly overpriced meal that you’re going to get lucky,” Bryn joked as they approached the hotel’s entrance.
Vivian held open the side door rather than walking through the revolving one.
Instead of making a snarky comment or rolling her eyes, she looked at Bryn.
Looked at her like there was no one else on the face of the planet and muttered, “Too late,” so quietly Bryn wasn’t sure she’d heard her correctly.
Pulse pounding, she wanted to ask Vivian to repeat herself, but the chaos of the hotel bar swallowed them whole.
Her mind was still processing when Vivian placed her hand gently on her lower back.
So gently that the touch shouldn’t have seared her skin through the fabric.
Shouldn’t have felt like an open declaration.
Shouldn’t have felt like safety and security.
“There’s Harvey,” Vivian said, lips nearly brushing Bryn’s ear and weakening her knees. “I want him to meet you,” she added, like Bryn was the prize.
Disoriented, she followed. But all she could think about was Vivian and all the things she might say in private. Something about her had changed since they’d been in Miami and Bryn was desperate to slip inside the gate while it was still down.
“Vivian, I don’t care about—”
“I do,” she insisted, hand sliding over and gripping her waist in an attempt to kill her.
“I—”
“Harvey.” Vivian interrupted a conversation like it wasn’t ongoing. “I have someone I want you to meet,” she said, putting Bryn in front of a nice-looking man in his sixties. And then she was swallowed up by the crowd, leaving Bryn instantly unmoored by the loss of her touch.