“You’re wrong.”

I drop my arms, which were motioning to the desk in the corner of my office, and swing my head to Mara with a strained smile. “I thought beauty was in the eye of the beholder.”

“It is. But good workflow is a science. Indisputable.” Her hands grip the edge of my desk and yank it across the carpet. “Every room has a natural flow to it, and you have to arrange things so they don’t hinder that. Like in a kitchen, you need paths from the fridge to the stove, to the sink, to the cabinets—”

“But this is an office. The only path is from the door to my desk chair. What’s there to fix?”

“You also have to focus on lighting and the space as a whole...and a bunch of other things. Thanks for helping, by the way. This wasn’t heavy at all.” She turns the desk until it’s facing the center of the room, then lets go with a sigh. “See? Now you can access the file cabinets and door just as easily, and sunlight won’t hit you right in the face while you’re working. And,” she adds, tugging on her shirt to fan herself, “that vent isn’t covered anymore. No more slaving away in a sauna.”

I try to protest again. True, I asked for her help, but I’m still having trouble accepting it. Even if she is, apparently, always correct.

“It...looks much better,” I mumble, and pull my chair over to the desk to sit. Like the couch in the living room, this one change shocks me with its impact.

“All right.” Mara flips her head upside-down and combs her fingers through her hair. The early sunlight makes it glow like honey. “What’s next? The master bedroom?”

The unblocked vent doesn’t stop my face from getting hot. I feel an itch crawl up my neck. “Uh…not today. I’ve got that bridal shower booked at noon.”

“I thought you just, like, oversee events. Cohen runs them now, doesn’t he?”

“He’s still technically on vacation until tomorrow. I usually don’t book Sundays anymore, but....”

But I need the money. I don’t say it. I’m tired of even thinking it.

“Well, if you need help,” she offers, sentence trailing.

“Thanks. But Andres and I should have it covered.”

Barely a minute passes before my phone rings.

“Hey,” Andres coughs, and I immediately go limp in my chair. I should have seen it coming. The last couple years, I’ve developed some transcendent ability to jinx myself. “I’m sorry, man, but there’s no way I can make that event today. I’m hacking up a lung, I think the kids picked up some virus at school—”

“It’s fine,” I say, lying through my teeth. Of course it isn’t fine, which Andres knows, but I know he’d never call in sick unless he felt like absolute shit. If he needs a day off, he really needs it. “Maybe I can get Cohen to come in today.”

“Already called him. Phone’s dead.”

My head lolls forward onto the desk. “Great.”

“If you need help....” Mara repeats this while perching herself next to my computer. When I look up at her, she inspects her nails.

“Don’t worry about it,” I tell Andres. “I’ve got somebody.”

* * *

Jinxing myself twice in one day. A new record.

My mistake this time was telling Mara, on our way into the restaurant, “This is a pretty straightforward gig: we’re just running a photo booth and the mimosa fountain. It won’t be hard.”

In a way, I was right. The tasks themselves aren’t hard at all, and it takes about five minutes to teach Mara how to work the equipment. The Fairfields Party Suppliers polo I gave her was too big, so she ran out and bought a simple black dress and gray sweater, along with new shoes. She looks and acts totally professional, from the minute we arrive.

The jinx comes in the form of Caitlin-Anne, my cousin.

“Look who’s here!” she calls, eyes glinting like a cat on the prowl. “Cleo didn’t tell me she’d booked you.”

Bullshit. I can tell from her face she knew I’d be here.

“You’re new,” Cait notices, as she turns her gaze on Mara by the photo backdrop. When she extends her hand, I see Mara’s eyes flit to mine before she takes it.

“Mara. Nice to meet you.”

“You, too. But...have we met before?” She tilts her head. “I could swear I’ve seen you, somewhere.”

I wait for Mara to mention Juliet and Cohen, the wedding, or even the bar, but she just smiles and shrugs. Cait stares another moment before freeing her hand.

“She doesn’t seem too bad,” Mara whispers, once enough guests have arrived to pull my cousin into her usual mingle-like-her-mother orbit.

“Give her time. I get the feeling she didn’t tell me the hostess was her friend for a reason. Probably promised her a discount or some shit I’ll have to apply at the last second.” I wave her into the photo area for one last test. She smiles, looking oddly insecure, hands clasped in front of her. I snap the picture.

We watch together as her face slides onto the printer tray.

I pick up the photo and inspect it. I’m supposed to be looking for technical quality: no spotty ink, no camera smudges, good lighting.

Instead, I study her face. That soft, restrained smile, so unlike the grin she flashes at any other moment.

For the first hour and forty-five minutes, everything runs smoothly. The bride-to-be and guests love the mimosa fountain (so much so, I have to refill it every twenty minutes), and the photo booth is a wild success. Mara’s design eye even comes in handy: she arranges women in flawless orders and poses, passes out props, and adjusts the spotlights when storm clouds outside cast the private dining room in darkness.

It’s those final fifteen minutes, when gifts have been opened and a few women have left, when things take a turn.

With a mimosa in one hand and her phone in the other, Caitlin-Anne ushers her friends into the photo area. All of them squeal and giggle like teenagers after homecoming. Champagne flushes their faces.

“Okay, everyone,” Mara smiles, and holds up the camera trigger. “One...two...three!”

The flash detonates in silence. The women gather around the printer while Mara sets the laptop to print seven copies of each, passes them out, then nods at their thanks.

“You’re really good at this thing.” I sidle up beside her. “It’s too bad business has slowed down so much. I could have used someone like you, back in the heyday.”

“Snapping photos in an outfit befitting a Mary Kay girl,” she jokes, holding up one hand, then the other, “or slinging booze for drunk jerks until my back is killing me.” She pretends to weigh them, the second hand creeping higher. “No offense, but bartending definitely wins.”

I smile. “None taken.”

While the party wraps up, we stand side-by-side, quiet, hands behind our backs. Guests stand in line to tell the bride goodbye; a few older women, most likely relatives, start gathering cups and wrapping paper for the trash.

And that’s when the jinx comes in.

“...no, I don’t think they’re together,” Cait tells her friends, two of the girls from the photo. They’re in the corner of the dining room, but still close enough to hear. Add in the fact that my cousin whispers like she’s in a play, and every word rolls toward us.

“Oh, no, I totally thought the same thing. Super pretty.”

I glance at Mara and elbow her. She blushes, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Well,” Cait adds, “except the scar. No, I know she has makeup on, I’m just saying, I still noticed. How could you not, when it’s, like, right there? Gillian said the same thing. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.”

My breath hits the back of my throat like a dart. I look at Mara again, just in time to see her pull her hair back over her face. Her blush goes from cute and pink, to blood red.

“We, uh...we should pack up now, right?” she whispers, hugging her arms to herself as she turns away from me. I watch her fingers fumble with the printer cable.

“Cait,” I bark.

Mara grabs my hand. “Levi, don’t.”

I pull it back and step away from her. “Cait,” I call again, until my cousin turns, scanning the room like she’s confused.

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me,” I hiss. Unlike her, I actually do whisper. “That was incredibly fucking rude.”

She looks at her friends, presumably so they can clue her in, which is so ridiculous I can’t even laugh about it. They’re about as empathetic and self-aware as their queen bee. “What?” she repeats.

“Talking about a person’s scar,” I prompt, folding my arms, “right in front of her?”

“It’s not like I said anything bad. I called her pretty.”

“Yeah—‘except’ for the scar.”

“What do you want me say, Levi?” Her mimosa sloshes onto the floor while she gestures. “That scars aren’t ugly? That I didn’t see it?”

“You should know better than to say anything at all,” I seethe, “when the person is standing in the same damn room.”

She cranes her neck to look behind me. “Uh...where?”

I turn. Mara’s nowhere in sight.

“See? She didn’t even hear me. You’re freaking out for no reason. Which makes me suspect something is going on between you two.” She pokes my shoulder with one manicured nail. “Come on, spill it.”

My blood pressure must be off the charts. I look at her again. “Sober up, Cait,” I tell her, and ignore her gasp—and her friends’ echoes—as I bolt into the main part of the restaurant.

Mara’s not in here, either, so I check outside. The smoker’s area, the patio, even the backdoor, where a crew is unloading produce crates. Nothing.

“Fuck.” I launch a crushed soda can into the air with my foot. It catches the wind, then rolls like a coin to the storm drain.

I wait until the party’s cleared out, save for the hostess, to go back inside. She hands me the last of the deposit with a smile, but I can’t even manage one back.

“Oh, and here,” she adds, palming me a folded-up twenty. “I don’t know if you accept tips or not, but....”

“Uh...I don’t, actually.” I’ve never let people tip me. It’s part of why I charge what I do, so that tips are essentially included.

I start to close the woman’s hand around it, politely declining without a word.

Then I think about Mara and all the work she put in today. All to help me.

“But,” I add slowly, “I guess I can make an exception this time. I’ll give it to that…my assistant.”

Never in my life have I packed equipment so fast. My arms ache when I slam my van doors shut, but not from the work. I’m furious and panicked and all I want is to find Mara.

When I finally do, the storm looming all weekend has touched down in the form of incessant rain. She walks with her head down and steps rigid, new outfit soaked through.

I ease up behind her and flash my lights. She starts, then turns. For a second, she doesn’t do a thing but stare.

The storm engulfs me as I lean out on my running board and call, “Get in!”

Mara glances around with a deep breath. Something tells me she’s not looking for other options—just coming to terms with the fact I’m her only one.

Her feet start through the mud and gravel.

“I’m sorry I didn’t help you pack up,” she says, after I’ve cranked the heat for her and pulled back onto the road. She shakes out her dripping hair and sits back, eyes trained on the river while we cross the bridge. The water churns in the wind, the color of coffee.

“It’s okay. Um...oh, here. The hostess gave you a tip.”

“I don’t want some fucking pity tip.”

“It’s not pity. She didn’t even know about the....” My explanation dissolves. If I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t take it, either.

The tires skid over a puddle on the exit ramp. I grip the wheel tighter.

“My cousin is the world’s biggest idiot. I’m sorry she said that shit.”

“You don’t have to apologize for her.” Mara wipes the water from her face. I wonder how much of it is rain. “And it doesn’t matter, anyway. I know the scar is obvious. I know it’s ugly. Like, what else would anyone say about it?”

“She shouldn’t have said anything. That’s what I was telling you about, she has no tact.”

“Agreed. But...you know, whatever. It’s not like it bothered me.”

I glance at her. Her legs bounce, either from nerves or the cold.

“Well...it would bother me.”

“Good for you,” she sighs, as she slumps in her seat and slips her feet from her shoes. They still streak mud across the dash when she props them up, but I don’t mention it.

We take the van back to the warehouse, where I show her how to clean the mimosa fountain. The hose splashes her twice, drawing out the faintest smile when I laugh.

“Thanks for helping me, today. I’ll get you a check next Friday.”

“I volunteered. You don’t have to pay me.”

I’m going to pay her; I don’t believe in help for nothing. The way she keeps moving her hair over the scar is the only reason I let it go, for now.

We switch to my truck when the equipment’s put away, the warehouse dark and humming under the rain. The drive to my house isn’t entirely silent, but I can’t remember what we talk about by the time we pull in the driveway. It’s all fluff. Beneath the forced banter and jokes, there’s a stack of questions I’m dying to ask.

“Cider?” I offer, while we shake the rain off in the foyer.

Mara’s sweater, still sopping wet, flings rivulets against the wall when the sleeve frees one arm, then the other. She balls it up and tosses it out onto the porch. “With brandy?”

I laugh. “Yeah. With brandy.”

While the water heats up, I listen to the sound of her footsteps overhead. I think of how quickly her expression fell when she heard Cait.

A chill runs down my back; the rain’s seeped through my clothes. I set the stove to simmer and head upstairs.

I don’t mean to look. The gap in her door is just narrow enough that I should glance, see that flash of bare skin, and know to move along, undetected.

But in those few seconds, I see so much more than Mara’s bare back. A patch of freckles, spilling down her shoulder blade like a paint drip. The bones in her spine shifting when she sniffs and wipes her eyes.

Another scar, biting into the skin along her ribs as she turns and looks right at me.

I pull out of view quickly. Then I do the only thing I can think of: I knock.

She hesitates. “Yeah?”

“Did you.... How much brandy do you want in yours?” My question presses into the air like that smooth, stunted mark in the space between her ribs. Embarrassment shuts my eyes, but I can’t unsee it. Cait was right about that.

“Surprise me.” A drawer screeches. We’re both so quiet, I can hear the fabric shifting as she dresses.

“Okay.” I make my steps heavier than necessary while I pass into my room. I’m about to reach for some khakis and a work polo, my go-to “off the clock” outfit, when I notice the shelf at the back of my closet. It houses some jeans I haven’t worn in years and a stack of cotton T-shirts, still in their retail folds.

“Wow, look at you,” she smirks, when we meet in the hallway. “Didn’t know you owned anything casual.”

“Forgot they existed,” I admit, then laugh when she yanks the price tag off my shirt.

I make the cider twice as strong as I normally would. Judging by the eyebrow she raises, it meets her standards.

“So.” She follows me into the living room. We sit in our usual spots: Mara on the chaise under a blanket, me in the corner. “Go ahead.”

“What?”

“Ask.” She sips and winces at the heat. “I know you want to.”

“I don’t.” I stare into my cider. Even saying I don’t want to ask, instead of pretending not to know what she’s talking about, gives me away.

“Get it over with, Levi,” she whispers. The words click in her throat.

I take a scalding drink and let the brandy spread through my chest. When her eyes meet mine, I ask, “How’d you get your scars?”

It takes me several seconds to realize my mistake, the plural hissing in the air between us long after I’m silent, long after Mara forces another smile and starts to answer.

“Short version,” she says, as thunder tumbles through the house, “my dad.”

The brandy makes me braver. It might be the way she turns to face me, feet tucked underneath her, chin tilting as she waits for the next question. The scar shines in the light, makeup washed away by rainwater.

I take another sip and grant her the favor of looking away. “And...the long version?”