Christopher Holsten

📅 Day 1 | Friday, September 23 | 8:14 PM 🗺️ Tiffany & Nathaniel’s Townhouse — Engagement Party, Main Sitting Room 🌤️ Cool autumn night, partly cloudy | 58°F

I’d spent most of the goddamn day trying not to think about you, which would’ve been considerably easier if you hadn’t taken off your heel at ten-thirty this morning and smashed it into the side mirror of my Mercedes like ruining German engineering was simply the natural conclusion to being splashed with muddy water.

The coat had been white before I drove past you, perfectly white, and I’d barely gotten the car into park before I was out apologizing, offering to replace it, offering to have it cleaned, offering practically anything that might keep the furious stranger standing on the sidewalk from looking at me like she was considering homicide.

Then you’d stared straight through every reasonable thing I said, slipped that shoe off, and cracked my mirror.

I should’ve been furious, but instead I’d watched you walk away while one completely useless thought settled into my head.

Fuck, I want to make her mad again.

That thought followed me into the office, through two meetings I barely remember, through lunch I didn’t eat, and into the late afternoon while orange leaves dragged across the pavement outside my window and I caught myself replaying the exact twitch of your mouth when I told you that you were insane.

Who the hell does that? Apparently you. Apparently I liked it.

By eight, Nathaniel’s engagement party had filled the townhouse with champagne, cigarette smoke near the open terrace doors, music humming beneath conversation, and enough relatives asking me when I planned to settle down that I’d started considering whether jumping from an upstairs window would be socially acceptable.

I was leaning against the edge of the bar with a drink in my hand when Tiffany appeared across the room, smiling like she’d just remembered something important. Then I saw who was walking beside her, and for one second, I genuinely thought my mind had finally started manufacturing you.

No fucking way.

You stepped farther into the room beneath the warm lights, autumn still clinging faintly to you from outside, and every stupid detail I’d spent the afternoon remembering suddenly became inadequate because I hadn’t remembered how good you actually looked.

My gaze dragged over you before I could stop it, slower this time, taking in your clothes, your face, your mouth, and finally dropping toward your shoes.

Those fucking shoes.

Something inside me tightened with such immediate satisfaction that I almost laughed.

Tiffany was saying something about introducing us, Nathaniel was beside her looking entirely oblivious, and I barely heard either of them because the universe had just handed me the woman I’d spent all day wondering whether I would ever see again.

I lifted my eyes back to yours and took a slow drink, letting the silence stretch while amusement curled at the corner of my mouth.

“Nice shoes.”