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I spot the guy who’s been eyeing me up all night. He’s got his shirt sleeves rolled back and is finishing a cigarette on the porch. When our eyes meet, he grins at me, and I answer by crooking my finger at him in a silent command. He straightens, standing to attention, and hastens to look for an ashtray in which to crush what’s left of his cigarette.

Elle and I watch him, and Elle says, “Him?”

“Why not? He’s tall, good-looking, and actually has interesting stories.”

“He’s not interested in telling you stories, he’s interested in shoving his tongue as far down your throat as he possibly can.”

“Excellent.”

Wrapping my hand over Elle’s, I raise her glass to my lips and take a sip of her eye-watering cocktail. Then I shakemy shoulders back, dab my lips with my fingertips and blow a kiss at Elle.

“Don’t wait up.”

LA guy is agood time, actually. He’s a little tipsy, and even though I’m not, it’s easy enough to get carried away by his good mood, his brash, showy American cheer. He leads me to the dance floor, and even though I’m not in the mood for dancing, I let him. I laugh at all his jokes—men’s version of foreplay—and when he touches my waist, I let him. I don’t bother to look around and check if Evan’s watching. It doesn’t matter if he’s watching. This isn’t about him.

When LA guy starts leading me away from the conservatory, I hesitate. I don’t want to go with him, but I have to. More importantly—Ican.

So I let him.

Why not? It needs to happen at some point. I need to do this because I’m not Alice Liu’s parents. I can’t spend the rest of my life pining for my first love, my complicated high school sweetheart. Real love is a myth that I’m too smart to believe, and if Evan wants equal investment, equal risk, equal pain and equal pleasure, he can get it from his cool new girlfriend.

Who cares? I don’t.

And then I find myself alone with LA guy in a small, luxurious coat room.

The room itself is warm, perfumed and claustrophobic, the walls upholstered in a deep, suggestive oxblood silk, the lights low, half-hidden behind fur coats and designer jackets, the plush carpet swallowing the sounds of our footsteps.

LA guy closes the door behind us and turns to me with a grin, his hands sliding down to my waist.

My heart seizes, a cold wave of anxiety crawling up my back. Shit, what on earth am I doing? Now that we’re alone here, I’m suddenly on the back foot. How can I make Evan jealous if he’s not here to see this? What’s the point of making out with this guy if I don’t get what I need out of it?

No—the goal wasn’t to make Evan jealous. It was to move on, right?

“Hey, you okay?” LA guy laughs nervously, reaching out to cup my cheek with his hand and raise my eyes to his. “You look like you’re a thousand miles away.”

“I overthink things,” I tell him.

“Yeah?” he laughs, and I envy how carefree he sounds. I smell the alcohol on his breath and wish that I’d downed Elle’s deadly cocktail after all. “You need help getting you out of your own head?”

That’s exactly what I need. Only, the tragedy of it all is that the person I need to get out of my head is also the only person whocanget me out of my head.

I let out a sharp, scoffing breath.

“You can try.”

“Oh, I will.”

The door opens.

It opens noiselessly, and we wouldn’t have noticed it if the coatroom wasn’t so small. We break apart slightly, my heart leaping into my throat. Evan doesn’t barge in: he leans in the doorway, arms crossed, his presence saturating the room like electricity before a thunderstorm.

He doesn’t seem angry, or even annoyed. His eyes lock on mine, curious and patient andunbothered.

He doesn’t even deign to look at LA guy. He looks straight at me, and there’s a shadow of a smirk on his face. He doesn’t demand to know what’s happening, doesn’t kick LA guy out, doesn’t ask a question, as if he already knows why we’re here, as if he’s been expecting this very moment. He tilts his head questioningly, mockingly, and speaks in a soft, amused tone.

“Don’t play dirty, Sutton.”

“I’mnot.”