Page 45 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper

Chloe tried to defuse what was probably not going to be a pretty situation by hurrying toward Zac and the woman who’d accompanied him. Maybe she could steer them away before Zac’s vision adjusted to the dark and saw there had been someone else here on the rooftop with her.

“Zac! I didn’t know you were already here.”

“I texted you. My flight got in early, and Julie said she thought you were on the roof, so I—”

The clouds shifted and moonlight cut through the mist, illuminating Oliver.

Zac froze. “Are you up here with him ?”

Oliver took a step closer. “Of all the people in New York, he’s the one you’re dating?”

Chloe looked from one man to the other. “You know each other?”

Zac and Oliver scoffed at the same time.

“We work together. Unfortunately,” Oliver said.

“He’s the prick I told you about at work,” Zac said.

“What? Me, the prick? You’re the one constantly undermining everything I do.”

Despite herself, Chloe started laughing. “Oh my god. You’re the nefarious nemesis Zac has been telling me about? He paints you like such an evil villain. And how can you possibly hate him ? Zac is so charming.”

“Not at the office, he’s not,” Oliver said.

Zac narrowed his eyes. “What the bloody hell are you doing up here with Chloe?”

The woman who’d come up in the elevator with Zac said, “Oh… this is going to be good.”

“Stay out of this, Julie,” Oliver said.

Chloe reached out to Zac, trying to touch his arm, but he was just out of reach. “Funny story…” she said. “Oliver’s actually—”

“Did you hear me, Tolly?” Zac shouted. “I asked you a question.”

Oliver put up both hands in surrender. “Just catching up with an old friend. Clo and I knew each other back in Kansas—”

“If I find out anything happened…”

“Nothing happened.”

Julie pulled out her phone and started recording.

“Please put that away,” Chloe said.

Julie pretended not to hear, and Chloe didn’t have time to deal with her, because Zac started stalking toward Oliver.

“Zac!” Chloe said. “Come on, stop. Let’s go back downstairs to the gala.”

“Not looking like that, you’re not.” He gestured at her drenched gown. He ripped off his tuxedo jacket and tossed it at her. “Put this on.”

Chloe winced at his tone.

“Look,” Oliver said. “There’s no need to escalate things. Let’s just all walk away.”

“What did you do?” Zac asked, closer to Oliver now. “Did you bring her up here so she’d be alone and you could take advantage of her?”

“I didn’t—”

“Because Chloe’s sweet,” Zac said. “And trusting. But she doesn’t know you like I do.

You’re a pompous asshole, Tolly. You think you can drop into any situation and take whatever you want, don’t you?

Like the quant program, which I’d been working on well before you showed up. And Chloe, who I found first.”

“Technically,” Oliver said, “ I knew her first. We met in first grade. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because Chloe’s not property.”

Zac snarled and swung his fist.

Chloe screamed.

But Oliver dodged neatly, and before anyone else knew what was happening, he had Zac in a choke hold, pinned to the ground. It all happened in a flash.

“Please don’t hurt him,” Chloe said. This was not a situation where she wanted one of them to win and the other to lose. She just wanted it to stop, to rewind the night and make it all go away.

“I’m not actually choking him,” Oliver said. “He’s just immobilized, and I’m going to keep him like this for a minute until he calms down and promises not to launch himself at me again.”

“Screw you.” Zac struggled to free himself.

“It won’t work,” Oliver said. “I’m a second-degree black belt. I can stay here all night like this if you want.”

After a few more cursory attempts to wriggle free, Zac realized he really was trapped, and he spat at Oliver but gave up trying to escape.

Chloe looked back and forth between the two men in her life. What the hell was she supposed to do?

But she couldn’t leave it up to them. She had to be the one to decide.

“Oliver…” she said. “I think you’d better go home.”

“What? And leave you with him?”

“You hear that?” Zac said. “She chose to stay with me.”

Chloe sighed. “Actually, I’m not staying at all. I’m just making sure you both leave separately so there isn’t another fight as soon as I turn my back. Oliver, you go first. Please. Then once you’re gone, we’ll wrap things up here.”

Oliver chewed on the inside of his cheek. But then he released Zac, and Oliver got up off the ground in one fluid, graceful motion. Chloe couldn’t help being mesmerized for a second. It reminded her of an old Bruce Lee quote, “Be like water.”

“I’ll, um, talk to you later, okay, Clo?” Oliver asked.

She nodded. She didn’t know when that would be, though, because her mind was a hurricane, whirling through what had happened tonight.

Chloe felt Zac’s eyes, watching her watch Oliver as he walked away. She hated that Zac had had to suffer tonight, and she wanted to touch him and assure him everything would be okay.

But she couldn’t, because she also felt the gravitational pull of Oliver, like her soul wanted to follow him off this roof and into the elevator. There was a reason they’d found each other again and again here in New York.

Chloe closed her eyes.

When she opened them, Oliver was gone.

“Did it really have to be him?” Zac asked, rising and attempting to brush clean his ruined tuxedo shirt. Julie was standing a short distance from them, still filming.

Chloe shook her head and sighed.

“I can’t talk about this right now, Zac. I think… we should call it a night.”