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Before I could overthink it, I wrapped my arms around his neck. Thank you , I thought, and hugged him tightly.

He went rigid in surprise, his breath catching against my ear. Then he melted into my hug, and returned it, closing his arms around my waist. His hug was strong, and he smelled so good, like bergamot and oak, soothing and safe. “Does this mean you won’t throw me off the balcony now?”

I bit in a grin. We’ll see.

He huffed a laugh. “Also, your friend has been staring at us without blinking for a whole minute. Is she okay?”

We let go and I turned to find Gigi, still in the women’s dresses section, mouth open, staring at us like we were glowing neon orange. “Oh. Right. While you’re here, might as well,” I added, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him toward Gigi.

Be nice , I told him. She really, really loved you as a teen. Still kinda does, I think.

“A fan?” he asked, suddenly nervous.

She won’t be weird. She’s my best friend.

Regrettably, she was weird.

“Oh my god! You are so much … person-y-er in person!” she said, throwing out her arms. “Do you hug? I hug.”

Sebastian smoothed on a smile, looking to me as if I was going to save him.

Oh my sweet summer child, absolutely not.

There was seldom anything that could make me step between Gigi and whatever she loved—too much chocolate and her irresistible urge to want to pet a tiger, so far—and he would not join that list. So as he went in for a hug, she jumped at him, pulling him in so tightly I was half-afraid she’d snap his spine.

When she finally let him go, she turned to me and whispered, “He even smells nice!”

“Okay, calm down a little,” I advised. “You’re scaring him.”

“Sorry, sorry, we just don’t really get famous people around here,” she said to him, beginning to babble. “I mean, we get famous people, sure, but no one I really pay attention to. We get bands and things—I work at the Rev, you know? You’ve been to the Rev. Everyone knows you were at the Rev.”

You did make an entrance , I added when I heard him beginning to panic.

He cut his eyes to me.

Gigi stepped away, noticing the look. “I don’t mean everyone ,” she assured quickly.

“Just mostly Rev people. There’s, like, four of us.

And obviously everyone who took a photo with you, but word doesn’t travel that fast. No one comes to Vienna—” She was thankfully cut short by her phone, and quickly dove for it in her purse.

“Shit,” she muttered, pushing her tights into my arms as she stepped away to answer it.

“Gimme a sec? I’m so sorry. I’ll be back, just—just don’t go anywhere,” she added to Sebastian, and he crossed his pinkie over his heart.

Relieved, she left the shop to go pace back and forth on the sidewalk outside.

Sebastian asked, watching her, “So, that’s your best friend?”

“Best in the whole world,” I agreed.

He snapped his fingers. “‘Carve Out’ is about her, isn’t it?

The song you wrote for that pop-rock band.

Shit, I can’t think of their name, but the chorus went something like”—and he sang it, a bright, fast-paced tempo—“‘ friends to donors of shoulders and hearts, friends to nothing will tear us apart ’—one of my favorites.”

I stared at him like he’d grown another head. “You know my work? My other work, I mean.”

He grinned. “You’re blushing.”

I felt it. The hot rush on my cheeks. And I had nowhere I could hide. I tapped my cheeks, shaking my head. “I’m—I’m honestly sort of taken aback.”

“No one’s ever quoted you back to you before?”

“Well, one person did … but he was trying too hard,” I noted, and he gave a self-deprecating laugh.

“That would’ve been smooth to any other girl,” he said.

Well, sadly you got me.

His gaze searched my face. “I think I was just lucky.” Then he took a step closer, close enough to whisper secrets if we weren’t already in each other’s heads. “I think,” he said quietly, “if we get out of our own way, this could be good.”

This was the song. I knew this was the song, but a rebellious part of me imagined what else this could be—the electric space between us, the possibility.

The bad idea.

He tilted his head. “It doesn’t have to be—”

“Sorry!” Gigi said as she returned, and he slid away from me, from affectionate to acquaintances again, even though my heart was still hammering wildly in my chest. Gigi smiled at the two of us, oblivious.

“That was one of my clients. Apparently, Ron started second-guessing his vasectomy—he gets nervous around knives—but we got it on lock. Everything is A-OK and I’m gonna surprise them in the parking lot.

” Then, when she noticed Sebastian’s increasingly horrified look, she added, “I run a singing telegram business. It’s not as weird as it sounds. ”

“Oh—good. I was … worried.” He slipped back toward the rack of shirts, farther from me.

“So what song are you going to do?” I asked, achingly aware of how smoothly he’d retreated, confused that I cared at all. I didn’t care—I didn’t.

“I dunno,” Gigi admitted. “I’ve always done ‘Cuts Like a Knife’ by Bryan Adams, but …”

I scrunched my nose, thinking. “Hmm …”

“How about ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest,’” Sebastian suggested. “The Sheryl Crow version, obviously.”

Gigi’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s genius. ”

“That’s why she keeps me around,” he said.

I quirked an eyebrow. “Oh, that’s why, Sebastian?”

“You’ll find other reasons, I’m sure,” he added, and there was a playful flicker in his eyes. “And it’s Sasha, please.”

But that name felt too intimate, too friendly. Too dangerous.

So I feigned the barest shrug like I’d forgotten that he’d asked me, like it wasn’t a big deal.

Gigi didn’t notice our exchange, too in her own head, muttering the lyrics to the song as she grabbed her tights from my arms and shuffled to the register. When she came back, she said, “I probably should get going if I’m going to make that vasectomy. Want me to drive you home, or … ?”

And she shifted her eyes to Sebastian. Not very subtly.

She was mortifying sometimes.

Sebastian saved me from answering. “I’m heading out anyway. These shirts really aren’t my style. I’ll see you tomorrow? Bright and early at noon?”

“That’s not early.”

“It is to me,” he replied.

Gigi darted her eyes between the two of us. I could just imagine the thoughts running through her head. The AO3 tags. I would never hear the end of this, I could already tell.

“Fine, noon,” I agreed, and then added, Don’t be late.

“Perish the thought,” he replied happily, and nodded to Gigi. “It was nice to meet you.” Then, as cool and suave as he had appeared, he left the boutique and slipped into a black car, as if it’d been waiting there for him the whole time. Knowing him, it probably had.

Gigi opened her mouth to say something, but I pointed at her. “Not a word,” I warned. “It’s just business. ”

“Business my ass,” my best friend muttered under her breath as we left the boutique, too.