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Knox’s thumb moved against the fabric at her waist, an involuntary gesture. Lucy’s breath caught, a small sound against his collarbone that he heard because the distance between them had narrowed to almost nothing.

“This doesn’t count,” she said.

“Understood.”

“I mean it. Tomorrow this didn’t happen.”

“Noted.”

Her fingers tightened on his shoulder. His hand pressed closer against her back. The song was ending. He could feel it winding down, and some part of him that had been keeping time his entire life was already counting the measures until she stepped away.

The last note hung in the room.

Lucy pulled back. Her hand slid from his shoulder. She held his gaze for one beat, her eyes bright and furious, and something raw underneath that she covered so fast he almost missed it.

“That didn’t happen,” she said.

She returned to the table, picked up her jacket, and said goodnight to Tessa in a voice that didn’t shake, which would have fooled anyone who hadn’t been holding her thirty seconds ago.

Devney intercepted Knox on the way to his coat, carrying two glasses of limoncello.

“Don’t chase her,” she said and handed him one of the glasses.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Good. Because Lucy runs when she’s scared, and the worst thing you can do is follow. The best thing you can do is still be here the next time she walks in.”

Knox took the limoncello and didn’t drink it. “You’re giving me advice.”

“I’m giving you information. What you do with it is your choice.” Devney clinked her glass against his. “For the record, I’ve never seen her dance with anyone. Not at my wedding. Not at her sister’s graduation party. Not once in six years of friendship.” She took a sip. “Take that however you want.”

She walked back to Ronan, who was attempting to fold his toast folder into his jacket pocket and failing with quiet dignity, refusing to acknowledge spatial limitations.

Knox stood in the clearing between the tables. Gabriel caught his eye from across the room and raised his glass, the slightest tilt, an acknowledgment. Ronan, beside him, was writing in the margins of his toast folder, SUPPLEMENTARY OBSERVATION, RE: KNOX, SEE APPENDIX C.

The night air hit Knox as he stood on the sidewalk, cool and sharp and nothing like the warmth he could still feel against his palm where her back had been.

It had been five weeks since she’d grabbed his tie, five weeks of pretending it didn’t happen, and the dance had only made it worse.

He walked twelve blocks before he hailed a cab. He needed the distance. He needed the motion. He needed something between himself and Lucy Wang’s voice saying “that didn’t happen” while her hand tightened on his shoulder like she meant the opposite.

The cab took him back to Manhattan. He loosened his tie in the dark hallway of his building and let himself into an apartment that was clean, orderly, and completely empty of anything that mattered.

His phone buzzed.

Gabriel: You okay?

Knox: Fine.

He erased it and typed again.

Knox: No.

He erased that too, thumbed the screen dark, and poured a glass of water he didn’t drink.

The apartment was silent. His hand was warm.

He could still hear the music.