15. Vera
Thursday night at Maggio’s, the restaurant is warm and close around us, and I’m lying to my best friend. It’s getting easier. That’s what scares me most.
Sloane is telling me about her nightmare client who wants to rebrand their entire company three weeks before launch, and I’m nodding in all the right places, making sympathetic sounds, playing the supportive best friend I’ve always been.
While hiding that I’m sleeping with her brother. And that I can’t make myself stop.
“I swear to God, Vee, if this client changes the logo one more time—” She stops mid-sentence, narrowing her eyes. “You’re not listening.”
“I am.” I set my wine glass down. “Client. Logo. Changing things.”
“What’s the company name?”
Shit.
“You weren’t listening.” She leans back, arms crossed, still smiling. “What’s got you distracted?”
My phone buzzes on the table between us. I reach for it but Sloane leans in at the same moment, quick and shameless, her hand coming down on my forearm with playful pressure, not grabbing the phone, just pinning my arm long enough to read the screen.
Her eyes go wide.
She leans back, slow and satisfied, like a cat who has just located the treat she knew was hidden somewhere.
“Gerald,” she says.
“Sloane—”
“Gerald.” She says it again, tasting it, like she’s checking whether it’s real. The triumph on her face is enormous. “That’s him. The mystery man. His name is Gerald.”
“I’m not confirming—“
“You don’t have to.” She picks up her wine, serene. “I was not expecting Gerald. I had him as something architectural. A David. A Sebastian. Something with sharp edges.” A pause, almost reverent. “Gerald is so much better.”
I pull my phone toward me.
On the screen:
Gerald: How are you?
And the thing is — I’d laughed when I changed it.
Standing in my kitchen the night after Sloane had called asking about my Thursday availability, realising Kane Sinclair was the first name in my recent contacts and that was a problem.
I’d scrolled to his name and stared at it for a long moment, thinking: something safe, something that won’t give anything away if she glances over.
And then I’d thought of the cactus on his windowsill, the one I’d named in his home without meaning to, and I’d typed Gerald and laughed out loud, alone in my kitchen at eleven PM.
I’d felt so clever.
Sloane is beaming across the table, delighted with herself, certain she’s finally cracked something open.
And I’m holding a phone with her brother’s name on it, grateful she can’t see past the joke, hating that I needed one.
I type back before I can feel it any more than I already do.
Me: Good. At Maggio’s with Sloane. What are you doing?
Gerald: Just finished at the gym.
Me: Tough workout?
Gerald: Brutal. Ran six miles. Weights after.
Me: Show-off. Are you completely disgusting right now?
Gerald: Completely.
Me: You should be on one of those gym calendars.
Sloane cranes her neck shamelessly. I angle the screen away.
“So?” She props her chin on her hand. “Is Gerald coming to meet me?”
“No.”
“Does Gerald know about me?”
“Sloane.”
“I’m just saying.” She picks up her wine, smiling into it. “Gerald. I really did not see that coming.”
I look at her — this person who knows me better than almost anyone, who would do anything for me, who told me once that honesty is the thing she can’t survive without — and I smile back.
“You’ve got it bad,” she says, flagging down our server for another bottle of wine. “I’ve never seen you like this. Not even with Damon.”
“That’s because Damon was an asshole who didn’t deserve me.”
“True. But this Gerald...” She studies my face. “He makes you happy. I can see it. I can’t wait to meet him.”
She has no idea she’s already met him. Already loves him.
I set my phone back down on the table between us. Normal. Casual. Like I’m not hiding the one thing that would change the entire shape of this dinner.
My phone buzzes again.
A photo this time.
The screen lights up with his name, and I freeze. The image loads before I can move.
Kane in the gym mirror. Post-workout. Tank top showing his shoulders, his arms, the definition in his chest. Hair damp with sweat. Those gray eyes that I know in entirely different contexts.
Gerald: You’re welcome.
I did not expect him to answer the calendar joke with a photo.
But the phone is face-up on the table. Between me and Sloane.
“Ooh,” Sloane leans forward, squinting at the screen, and every muscle I have goes rigid.
“No!” I snatch it back so fast I nearly knock over my wine glass, clutching the phone to my chest. My heart hammers against my ribs. Cold sweat prickles down my spine. The edge of the phone digs into my sternum and I don’t care, I can’t care, I can barely remember how to breathe.
“Whoa!” Sloane’s laughing, but her eyes are sharp with curiosity now, darting between my face and the phone pressed against my chest. “What was that?”
“It’s private.”
“I barely saw it.” She tilts her head. “Why are you white as a sheet?”
“I’m not—“
“Vera.” Her voice sharpens, amused but watchful. “You literally gasped.”
I did. I know I did. Because for one fractured second I saw it play out — her leaning forward another inch, her eyes landing on the face she’s known her entire life, the questions that would follow, the expression that would follow the questions.
Everything unravelling right here, in this booth, over a bottle of wine neither of us would be able to finish.
“He’s —“ I force a breath. Try for casual. Probably fail. “I wasn’t expecting it.”
Sloane studies me for a moment. Her head tilts slightly, a flicker behind her eyes that isn’t quite satisfied with that answer.
“You’re being weird about him.”
“I’m not weird, I just—“
“You literally turned green.”
“I did not turn green.”
“Okay, you went gray. Which, full disclosure, is a good color, obviously—” she gestures at herself, “—but not on you, in that context.”
She’s smiling. But she’s still watching me.
“Was that Gerald, again?” she says finally. “Vera Beckett, is he sending you thirst traps?”
“It wasn’t a thirst trap.” Barely steady. “He was answering a question.”
She’s grinning again, the watchfulness sliding back into delight — but not all the way. A question still sits behind her eyes. “He is absolutely into you.”
She didn’t see. Didn’t recognize him.
My hands are still shaking as I set my phone face-down on the table.
“You’ve been seeing him for what, a few weeks?” Sloane says. “And you still won’t tell me anything real about him.”
“It’s new. I’m being careful.”
“Or you’re falling for him and it scares you.”
I take a sip of wine instead of answering.
The server arrives with a fresh bottle, giving me a moment. Sloane pours for both of us, then fixes me with that look.
“Okay. Give me something. What’s Gerald like?”
How do I describe Kane to his own sister without her figuring it out?
“He’s...” A careful pause. “Tall. Really tall. Dark hair. Gray eyes.”
“Gray eyes?” She takes a sip of wine, and then her grin turns absolutely wicked. “You know what? Obviously a good sign. Gray eyes are clearly superior.”
She gestures to herself with her wine glass, then waves it vaguely at the air. “I mean, I have gray eyes. I’m amazing. Ergo, gray-eyed people are inherently amazing. It’s science.”
I force a laugh. My ribs feel too small.
“It’s the Sinclair family curse,” she continues. “We’ve been told they’re striking. Allegedly we should be insufferable about it.” Another sip of wine. “And honestly? I think we absolutely are. Well, I am. Can’t speak for everyone, but I definitely lean into it.”
My heart stops for a full second.
She doesn’t notice. She’s already reaching for the bottle, still smiling, completely unaware that she just described him exactly. That I’m sitting here nodding along while her brother’s gray eyes are the last thing I saw this morning.
I breathe.
“So tell me more,” she says.
“He can be intense,” I say.
“Intense how? Like creepy intense or—”
“No. Focused. Present. Like you’re the only thing that matters when you’re talking to him.”
“Okay, I’m swooning and I haven’t even met him.” She takes a sip of wine. “What does he do?”
“He’s an architect.” Sloane’s face stays open. No flicker.
“Smart and intense,” she says. “That’s a dangerous combination.”
“Tell me about it.”
She grins. “When do I get to meet him?”
“It’s still new...”
“But eventually, right?” Her expression doesn’t flicker. “I want to vet him. Make sure he’s good enough for you. You deserve someone amazing.”
I reach for my wine glass and drink more of it than I intended.
“You know,” Sloane says, voice going softer, “I had a best friend in high school. Sidney. We were inseparable. Closer than sisters.” She’s looking at her wine glass now. “We had this pact. Ride or die. Never lie. No matter what.”
My stomach drops.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I lost her.” Simple. Final. “It was — complicated. A lot of things at once.”
The waiter arrives with our appetizers. Sloane’s face closes, and I watch her decide, visibly, to let the interruption be an exit.
When he leaves I lean forward. “Sloane—”
“Not tonight.” She shakes her head. “I’ll tell you the whole thing another time. I promise. Tonight I just—“ A breath. “Tonight I don’t have it in me.”
I nod. Let it close.
Sloane reaches across the table and squeezes my hand before she picks up her fork.
“What I need you to know right now, the reason I brought her up, is that ride or die, never lie thing? That’s us. That’s what we have. And I need that. After Sidney, I need to know the people I love are honest with me.”
My throat closes.
I should tell her. Right now. This is the moment.
Sloane. Gerald is Kane. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.
The words are right there. In my mouth. Ready.
But then I think: tell her what, exactly?
That I’m in an arrangement with her brother?
That’s what it is, what we agreed to, what we named it, what it has been from the beginning. An arrangement.
Which means it has terms. Which means it has, somewhere, an end.
We haven’t discussed an end date. We haven’t discussed what happens when the arrangement runs its course, when one of us decides the terms no longer serve, when the thing we’ve built reaches its natural conclusion and we go back to being Sloane’s brother and Sloane’s best friend who argue about architecture and pretend the whole thing never happened.
Arrangements end.
I don’t want it to end.
That thought arrives so clearly it stops everything. I don’t want it to end, which is not something you’re supposed to feel about an arrangement, which is precisely the kind of feeling that means maybe it already isn’t one. And that’s exactly the kind of thought I’m not ready to look at directly.
So I don’t.
But even setting that aside. Even if I knew what this was. Even if I were ready to say this is real, this is the person, I need you to know — what does that conversation actually look like?
Sloane, I’m seeing Kane.
Kane your brother.
We have a negotiated arrangement. Where he’s my Dom and I’m his submissive. And we scene at Eclipse, which is a BDSM club, or in a room in his penthouse that he built himself.
That’s the true version. The only honest version.
And I can’t tell it.
Eclipse is Kane’s — his membership, his history, his identity.
That’s not information I get to hand to his sister without his knowledge, without his consent, without a conversation we haven’t had yet.
The moment I tell Sloane, she asks how did you meet, how long has this been going on — and every answer leads somewhere that belongs to Kane first.
We haven’t agreed on what’s shareable. Haven’t even acknowledged out loud that this conversation is coming.
I can’t tell her until he and I have talked about telling her.
That’s not cowardice. That’s sequencing.
Except the sequencing argument is getting harder to make. Looking at Sloane’s face across this table, hearing the way her voice landed when she said I need to know the people I love are honest with me.
The logic gives a small, terrible lurch. Like a step that gives slightly more than you expected, and reminds you the ground isn’t as solid as it looked.
I’m lying to myself almost as fluently as I’m lying to her.
Almost.
Sloane picks up her wine glass. She’s smiling again. Genuinely. The Sidney pain packed away, inaccessible.
“Let’s toast to Gerald. May he continue to make you smile like an idiot.”
I clink my glass against hers. The lie tastes like ash. The justification too, if I’m honest, which I’m apparently not capable of being tonight.
When we hug goodbye outside, Sloane whispers into my hair: “I’m happy for you, Vee.”
I hold on a beat longer than usual.
You won’t be happy when you find out.
I sit in my car for a long time before starting the engine.
The rain has started, a mist, the kind that blurs the streetlights without quite falling.
I watch it through the windshield and think about Sidney.
About the fact that every day this continues, the thing I’m protecting gets a little smaller and the thing I’m risking gets a little larger, and at some point the math stops working.
I already know which direction it’s going.
I sit with that for a moment. Let it be true without doing anything about it.
Then I start the car, and drive home.