Chapter 7: Wife

The lounge was in a basement on a street I'd never walked down.

A steel door led in, with a hostess and a clipboard behind it.

I wore a black slip dress under a long coat. I had spent two hours on the eyeliner.

The hostess drew back a velvet curtain, and I stepped into amber light and low bass.

There were four leather booths. The nearest one held eight people, and the two in the middle were Brett Bingham and Zara.

I stopped walking.

Brett's arm was around Zara's shoulders. She was wearing the pale green scarf with the gold horses.

I looked for Quincy's dark head in the crowd. I didn't find it.

I decided I'd read the pin wrong.

I turned to go.

"June?"

Zara's voice carried across the whole booth, bright with shock.

Every head swung to the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" she said.

I turned back around, slowly, and I made myself stand with my shoulders square.

I hadn't done anything wrong in any part of this. I wasn't going to be the one who ran.

"Hi, Zara," I said. "Hi, Brett."

Brett's face did something complicated. "June. Wow. Hi."

A guy at the end of the booth lifted a glass. He had a birthday sash over his shirt. "Wait, who's this?"

"Zara's roommate," someone said.

"Oh, the roommate." He grinned. "The one who pretended to be her."

A few people laughed.

"I'm not pretending anything," I said. "I got an invitation."

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