Steve’s promised single drink at Blush turns into something far less controlled when he joins Chloe Bennett and her four girlfriends—Nat, Tori, Sofia, and Maddie. Nat immediately interrogates him, Tori provides dry legal commentary, Sofia quietly notices everything, and Maddie creates a winged tax accountant named Dennis. Chloe, meanwhile, keeps watching Steve with a warm, focused interest he initially refuses to interpret.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the group’s overlapping conversations, affectionate insults, and constant interruptions, Steve realizes their rhythm feels familiar. His own family communicates the same way: argument without danger, insults without injury, noise without hostility. When Nat pushes too far into his dating history, Steve tells her to stop. She immediately does, apologizes, and the group moves on, deepening his unexpected sense of belonging.
Then Chloe asks him to dance. Steve expects his complete lack of skill to provide the evening’s necessary failure. Instead, Chloe teaches him to stop predicting her movements and follow. He relaxes, laughs, and discovers he is genuinely having fun.
Watching from the table, the others debate Steve’s identity and Chloe’s obvious attraction, eventually recognizing that whatever assumptions are in play, Chloe genuinely likes him. Steve reaches the same realization from the opposite direction: Chloe is flirting with him and may believe he is a woman. Uncomfortable benefiting from an uncorrected assumption, he decides he needs to tell her privately. Unfortunately for Steve’s carefully controlled evening, he also likes Chloe, likes her family, and no longer hates dancing.
Steve discovered within approximately ninety seconds that Natalie Mercer asked questions the way other people committed burglaries.
She didn't announce anything.
She just got inside.
He wasn't entirely certain how he'd ended up at their table in the first place.
There had been a bartender. A beer. A perfectly reasonable plan to sit at the end of the bar for the duration of one drink and then leave with sufficient evidence to demonstrate that Brittney's social experiment had been completed according to specification.
Then there had been Chloe.
And now there were five of them.
Steve sat at the open end of a low rectangular table tucked against one of Blush's curved booths, his beer in front of him and the room moving warmly beyond them. Purple light edged the shelves behind the bar without quite reaching their corner. Here the illumination came mostly from a small amber pendant overhead and the candlelike lamp in the center of the table, enough to put faces into relief without making anyone look as though she were being interrogated.
Which was ironic.
Because Natalie Mercer was absolutely interrogating him.
She sat across from him, one elbow planted on the table and her chin resting on her hand, looking far too glamorous to be this nosy.
Steve had already learned that she worked in Sales, which explained several things.
Nat's femininity was bright, deliberate and impossible to miss: fitted dress, long legs crossed beneath the table, high heels that looked expensive enough that Steve had already caught himself inspecting the construction, gold at her ears and wrists, hair styled into the sort of loose perfection that probably required more engineering than people admitted. Her makeup was polished without being theatrical, her mouth expressive enough that Steve suspected she could conduct an entire argument without speaking.
She also had the restless energy of someone who considered silence an equipment failure.
“So,” Nat said, resting her chin on one hand. “Software engineer.”
Steve took a drink.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
He told her.
“Doing what?”
He told her that too.
Nat nodded thoughtfully.
“How long?”
“Six years.”
“Before that?”
Steve frowned.
“Are you hiring?”
“No.”
“Then why do you need my résumé?”
“I like knowing things.”
To Nat's left, Tori didn't look up from her drink.
“She means she likes acquiring information people haven't decided to give her.”
Tori Sinclair had been the easiest one for Steve to categorize initially and the quickest to make him distrust the category.
Attorney.
That part was obvious even before somebody told him.
She sat with elegant posture that never quite became stiff, one hand around a stemmed glass, dark skirt falling neatly over crossed legs beneath the table. Her blouse was soft rather than severe, fitted beneath a beautifully cut jacket she'd folded over the booth beside her. Pearls sat at her throat—not tiny apologetic ones either, but a clean strand that looked intentional against her skin. Her heels were narrow, her nails immaculate, her makeup precise.
Nothing about her was masculine.
Nothing about her was timid either.
Steve had spent enough of his professional life around people who confused volume with authority to recognize the difference immediately.
Tori did not need volume.
“I asked,” Nat said.
“You ask in sequences designed to make the next question feel inevitable.”
Nat looked delighted.
“Thank you.”
“That wasn't praise.”
“I accept it anyway.”
Steve glanced between them.
“Is she always like this?”
“Yes,” Chloe said.
“No,” Sofia said at exactly the same time.
Steve looked at Sofia.
She smiled.
“Sometimes she's worse.”
Sofia Reyes sat tucked comfortably into the corner of the booth beside Chloe, one arm draped along the backrest as though the furniture belonged to her personally. She was beautiful in a warmer, softer way than Nat's sharpened glamour: dark hair styled with glossy care, makeup emphasizing rather than transforming her features, earrings that moved when she laughed. Her dress followed her body without looking remotely uncomfortable, and the heels visible beneath the table had been kicked halfway off her feet.
Steve had noticed her hands first.
Not because there was anything unusual about them.
Because her nails were perfect.
Not nice.
Perfect.
Shape, finish, cuticle work, everything.
He'd been trying to decide whether they were salon-done when Sofia caught him looking and said, “Yes, I own one.”
Apparently Steve's face was less private than he'd believed.
“Okay, wow.”
Nat put a hand to her chest.
Maddie looked up from the cocktail napkin.
“She's being protective.”
The table went quiet.
Maddie Hart occupied the remaining stretch of booth like somebody who had arrived in the middle of getting dressed for three different occasions and somehow made the result work.
Her dress was soft and feminine, patterned rather than solid, with a cardigan hanging open over it. One shoe was currently dangling from her toes beneath the table while the other remained properly on her foot, which Steve had initially assumed was accidental.
He was becoming less certain.
Her hair had the slightly escaped quality of hair that had definitely been styled earlier and had since been repeatedly touched, tucked, pushed back and forgotten. A collection of delicate rings occupied several fingers. There was ink on the side of one hand.
She had been drawing on cocktail napkins since Steve sat down.
Not doodling.
Drawing.
There was apparently a distinction.
Nat turned slowly toward her.
“Maddie.”
“What?”
“You don't tell the person you're interrogating that you're interrogating them.”
“Oh.”
Maddie considered this.
“Sorry.”
She looked at Steve.
“She isn't being protective.”
Steve nodded.
“Much better.”
“Thank you.”
Tori pinched the bridge of her nose.
Chloe took a drink.
Sofia was trying not to laugh.
Steve looked at Nat.
“Protective of what?”
“Chloe.”
“Why?”
Nat stared at him.
Steve stared back.
Then Nat looked at Chloe.
Then back at Steve.
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“You really don't know.”
“Know what?”
Chloe said, “Nat.”
Steve looked at her.
Again.
That was becoming a problem.
Chloe Bennett was sitting beside Sofia, angled slightly toward Steve despite the fact that the table did not require it.
She was twenty-nine, he'd learned somewhere during the introductions. Project manager at another software company. Regular here.
And beautiful.
Not generically beautiful either, which Steve found inconvenient because generic beauty was easier to ignore.
Chloe was high femme in a way that seemed almost absurdly natural on her. Her dark dress was fitted and clean-lined, short enough to show a considerable amount of leg without looking like she'd dressed for anyone's approval but her own. Her heels were elegant and high, the kind that changed the entire line of someone's posture. Jewelry caught the low light at her ears and throat. Her hair had clearly been styled, not merely dried and hoped for, and her makeup was deliberate enough that Steve could see choices in it—defined eyes, careful lips, skin finished with the kind of skill that made the work disappear.
She looked put together.
Completely.
And yet nothing about her felt fragile.
That was the part Steve kept getting stuck on.
She was composed without Tori's formality, confident without Nat's performance, warm without Sofia's immediate ease. There was something dry sitting behind her eyes, as though she were constantly one sentence away from saying something terrible and had simply developed excellent quality control.
Steve liked that.
Which was irrelevant.
Obviously.
“I haven't done anything,” Nat said.
“You're about to.”
“You don't know that.”
“I've known you for eleven years.”
“That seems circumstantial.”
Tori finally looked up.
“It is not.”
Steve leaned back slightly.
There was something happening again.
Apparently this table had several simultaneous conversations occurring beneath the audible one, and everyone except him had received documentation.
He didn't like undocumented systems.
“What exactly am I missing?”
Chloe looked at him.
“Nothing.”
Nat made a noise.
Chloe didn't even turn.
“Make another sound.”
Nat pressed her lips together.
Maddie whispered, “She's going to make another sound.”
Nat made another sound.
Chloe closed her eyes.
Steve laughed.
He couldn't help it.
The laugh escaped before he had time to decide whether laughing at five strangers he'd known for less than ten minutes was socially advisable.
“You people are ridiculous.”
Five faces turned toward him.
Steve realized what he'd said.
“Sorry.”
Tori's eyebrows rose.
Nat looked offended.
Sofia looked delighted.
Maddie said, “Oh, good.”
Steve frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“No. I've learned what ‘nothing’ means at this table.”
“It means something,” Maddie said.
“Thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
Chloe's mouth had curved again.
That was another thing.
She smiled at him too much.
Not constantly.
That would have been easier to categorize.
Instead it happened at odd moments, usually when Steve said something he hadn't intended to be funny.
He was beginning to suspect she found him entertaining.
Possibly in the way people found videos of raccoons attempting to wash cotton candy entertaining.
Steve looked around the table.
“Okay. Fine. Since apparently I'm under investigation, can I at least know the charges?”
Nat sat up.
“I like him.”
“Nat,” Chloe said.
“What? I do.”
“That is not helping.”
“It wasn't supposed to.”
Steve pointed at Nat.
“See, that's honest. I appreciate that.”
Nat pointed back.
“Thank you.”
“Don't encourage her,” Tori said.
“Too late,” Sofia said.
Tori sighed.
Steve grinned.
This was—
Well.
This was actually kind of fun.
Which was irritating.
He had come here to have one drink, establish that Brittney was wrong, and leave with documentary evidence.
Instead he'd somehow become involved in a committee hearing where nobody respected the chair and he wasn't entirely certain who the chair was.
Probably Tori.
Except nobody appeared to listen to Tori.
Possibly Chloe.
Except Nat seemed constitutionally opposed to governance.
Sofia could probably run the entire table if she wanted to, which meant she probably didn't.
Maddie was drawing something again.
The music changed behind them, bass settling into something heavier. Someone at the bar cheered. Glassware clinked. A woman passed their table carrying four drinks with the focused expression of a bomb technician.
Steve leaned toward the napkin.
“What is that?”
“Dennis.”
“The tax accountant?”
Maddie looked pleased.
“You were listening.”
“I have several questions.”
“Don't,” Tori said.
Steve looked at her.
There was genuine warning in her eyes.
He looked back at the napkin.
Dennis now had a briefcase.
And wings.
Steve sat back.
“Understood.”
“Coward,” Maddie said.
“I've known you nine minutes.”
“And already you've abandoned Dennis.”
“I never accepted responsibility for Dennis.”
“Typical.”
Steve looked at Tori.
“You did this.”
Tori's composure cracked.
Just slightly.
“I did nothing.”
“You warned me.”
“I attempted to save you.”
“From the horse?”
“Pegasus,” Maddie said.
“Tax accountant,” Nat added.
Sofia put her head down on Chloe's shoulder and started laughing.
The movement looked practiced.
Not staged.
Not intimate in a way intended to be observed.
Just easy.
Chloe shifted automatically to accommodate her without interrupting anything else she was doing, one hand briefly touching Sofia's arm.
Steve looked at Chloe.
Chloe looked back.
There was something very strange about her eyes.
Not strange.
Focused.
She had been doing that periodically since he'd sat down.
Looking at him like—
No.
He wasn't going to invent things.
Chloe was a lesbian.
Chloe had four girlfriends.
Chloe was being friendly.
Nat was insane.
Those were the available facts.
He took another drink.
“So how do you all know each other?”
“Oh, no,” Nat said. “You don't get to reverse the interrogation.”
“Why not?”
“Because I'm better at it.”
“That remains unproven.”
Nat sat forward.
“Oh, we're doing this?”
“We were apparently already doing this.”
“Fine. Relationship status.”
Steve blinked.
“That escalated.”
“Answer the question.”
“Single.”
“How long?”
“Objection,” Tori said.
Nat looked at her.
“On what grounds?”
“Relevance.”
“Chloe.”
Tori paused.
Her eyes flicked toward Chloe.
Then toward Steve.
“Withdrawn.”
Chloe stared at her.
“Tori.”
“What?”
“You're supposed to be the responsible one.”
“I am an officer of the court, not your mother.”
Maddie looked up.
“You'd be a very pretty mother.”
“Thank you, darling.”
Steve glanced between them.
That was the first time he'd seen Tori's entire face change.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
The attorney vanished for a second.
There was just a woman looking at Maddie like Maddie had said something wonderful instead of completely nonsensical.
Then Tori caught Steve watching.
The attorney returned.
“Continue.”
Steve smiled.
Tori narrowed her eyes.
He liked her too.
Shit.
Not like that.
Just—
They were interesting.
All of them.
They fit together in ways that weren't immediately obvious.
Steve had known they were a polycule because somebody—Nat, probably, because Nat appeared to consider private information a renewable resource—had explained it shortly after he'd sat down.
Five women.
All together.
Closed relationship.
Complete before Steve arrived.
It should have been the most remarkable thing about them.
Somehow, after nine minutes, it wasn't even in the top five.
“What was the question?” he asked.
“How long have you been single?”
Steve shrugged.
“A while.”
Nat waited.
Steve waited.
Nat continued waiting.
“You know,” Steve said, “silence isn't actually a question.”
“Works, though.”
“Not on me.”
“Three years?”
“No.”
“Five?”
“No.”
“Ten?”
Steve took a drink.
Nat's eyes widened.
“Oh, honey.”
“Don't.”
The word came out sharper than the rest of the conversation had been.
Not loud.
Just finished.
Sofia reached across and smacked Nat lightly on the arm.
“He said don't.”
“I heard him.”
“Then don't.”
Nat stopped.
Immediately.
Steve noticed that.
No argument.
No joke.
Just stopped.
Interesting.
The table's rhythm changed with her.
Not much.
But enough that Steve felt the difference.
“Sorry,” Nat said.
And she meant it.
That was interesting too.
Steve shrugged.
“It's fine.”
“No,” Nat said. “I pushed.”
“You did.”
“I'll do it again.”
Tori sighed.
“But not about that.”
Steve looked at her.
Nat smiled.
“Deal?”
He considered her.
“Deal.”
Something relaxed.
Not just Nat.
The table.
It was subtle, but Steve felt it.
As if he'd passed some kind of test by telling her to knock it off.
Which made absolutely no sense.
Except—
Actually, it did.
Brittney would push until somebody pushed back.
Liz too.
His mother had once started an argument over whether Steve needed a winter coat and ended it by making him take home three containers of lasagna.
There were families where disagreement meant rupture.
His had never been one of them.
Apparently neither was this.
“Okay,” Sofia said. “Our turn.”
Steve looked at her.
“Your turn?”
“You asked how we met.”
“Oh.”
“College,” Chloe said.
“Sorority,” Nat added.
Steve looked at Tori.
“You were in a sorority?”
Tori stared at him.
“What exactly about me makes that surprising?”
Steve's brain offered several answers.
None survived legal review.
“Nothing.”
“That was too fast.”
“I reassessed.”
“You panicked.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
Maddie leaned across the table.
“Tori was terrifying.”
“I was not.”
“You wore pearls.”
“I still wear pearls.”
“Exactly.”
Steve looked at the strand at Tori's throat.
Maddie had a point.
He wasn't entirely certain what the point was.
But it existed.
Steve looked at Maddie.
“And you?”
“Tori hated me.”
“I did not hate you.”
“You thought I was unserious.”
“You attended a chapter meeting wearing two different shoes.”
“One was more comfortable.”
“You changed which foot it was on halfway through.”
“The other foot became jealous.”
Steve looked at Tori.
Tori looked at Steve.
There was a long silence.
Finally Steve said, “You married this?”
Maddie gasped.
Tori's mouth fell open.
Nat slapped the table.
Sofia made a noise somewhere between a shriek and a laugh.
And Chloe—
Chloe doubled over.
Not a polite laugh.
Not the controlled little smile Steve had been collecting from her all evening.
She actually folded forward, one hand catching the edge of the table, shoulders shaking.
For reasons Steve could not explain, that felt like winning something.
Steve realized his mistake.
“Wait. Are you married?”
“No,” Tori managed.
“Okay, good. Because that would have been incredibly awkward.”
“You think?”
“I made an inference.”
“You invented a fact.”
“I had supporting evidence.”
“You had no evidence.”
“I had pearls.”
“That is not evidence!”
Maddie was delighted.
“You sound like us.”
Steve stopped.
It was a little sentence.
Probably meaningless.
Maddie was already looking at Dennis again.
But something about it caught.
You sound like us.
Steve looked around the table.
Nat was still laughing.
Tori was telling Maddie that footwear jealousy was not a legally cognizable defense.
Sofia had stolen Chloe's drink.
Chloe stole it back without interrupting her conversation.
Nobody seemed concerned that three conversations were happening at once.
Nobody seemed concerned that people were interrupting.
Nobody seemed concerned about much of anything.
Steve knew this.
Not them.
This.
The rhythm.
Brittney telling a story while Liz argued with an aunt across the table. Somebody getting up to bring more food nobody had asked for. Three people yelling about something stupid and then immediately coordinating who was driving Grandma home.
Argument without danger.
Insults without injury.
Noise without hostility.
He knew how to do this.
Apparently he had known the entire time.
Around them, Blush kept moving. A burst of laughter came from the bar. Someone missed a pool shot badly enough to produce sympathetic groans from three tables. The dance floor had filled while Steve wasn't paying attention, bodies moving beneath warmer light threaded with violet.
The place no longer felt like a room full of lesbians.
It was becoming a room full of people.
Which was probably how rooms worked.
“You okay?”
Steve looked up.
Sofia.
Not staring.
Not making a production out of it.
Just asking.
“Yeah.”
She held his eyes a moment.
Then smiled.
“Okay.”
And went back to telling Nat she was wrong about something.
No follow-up.
No demand.
Steve liked that.
He liked—
Fuck.
He was liking entirely too many things about this evening.
He checked his beer.
Still the first one.
Technically.
He had not violated the agreement.
Yet.
Chloe stood.
The movement drew Steve's attention before he had time to pretend otherwise.
Standing changed the whole composition of her. The fitted dress, the heels, the long clean line of her legs—details he'd registered separately now assembled themselves into one annoyingly coherent person.
Steve looked up.
She held out her hand.
“Come on.”
He looked at the hand.
Her nails were polished a deep glossy shade he couldn't identify in the lighting.
Then at her.
“Where?”
“Dance.”
Steve laughed.
Chloe didn't.
“Oh.”
“That's your answer?”
“I don't dance.”
“You have legs.”
“That is an extremely low qualification standard.”
“Blush is inclusive.”
Nat made a choking noise.
Chloe pointed at her without looking.
“Don't.”
Nat raised both hands.
Steve looked toward the dance floor.
Then back at Chloe.
“I really don't.”
“Neither does Nat.”
“Fuck you,” Nat said.
“You jump rhythmically.”
“I dance.”
“You've injured people.”
“One person.”
“Two,” Sofia said.
“The second one was drunk.”
“So were you.”
“That's irrelevant.”
Steve looked at Chloe's hand again.
She hadn't withdrawn it.
Hadn't turned the invitation into a joke because he'd hesitated.
She was simply waiting.
This was a terrible idea.
He had no idea what he was doing.
She was going to discover this approximately six seconds after they got out there.
Which meant—
Actually.
Fine.
Good.
Useful.
The evening had become dangerously successful.
A little controlled failure might restore equilibrium.
Steve put his hand in hers.
Her fingers closed around his.
“Fine.”
Chloe smiled.
“Fine.”
She led him away from the table.
Steve followed her into the shifting light.
Behind them, Nat waited exactly until they were out of conversational range.
Then:
“What the fuck?”
⁂
Tori took a slow drink.
Sofia turned in her chair so she could see the dance floor.
Maddie picked up Dennis.
Nat looked around the table.
“Are none of you going to say it?”
“Say what?” Sofia asked.
“Oh, bullshit.”
Tori set down her glass.
“I assume you're about to tell us.”
“Chloe is dancing with a straight girl.”
Tori's eyebrows rose.
“Evidence?”
Nat pointed toward the dance floor.
“That.”
“That establishes neither heterosexuality nor gender.”
“Her name is Steve.”
Tori stared at her.
“And?”
“And it's Steve.”
“Women can be named Steve.”
“Name one.”
“Steve.”
Nat looked offended.
“You cannot use the disputed person as your example.”
“I just did.”
Sofia was still watching the dance floor.
“She's cute.”
Nat turned.
“Whose side are you on?”
“There are sides?”
“There are always sides.”
“That's because you make them.”
Maddie looked up.
“I don't think she's straight.”
Nat pointed triumphantly.
“Thank you.”
“I think she's a lighthouse.”
Silence.
Tori closed her eyes.
Nat slowly lowered her hand.
Sofia looked at Maddie.
“A lighthouse.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Maddie shrugged.
“She keeps telling everybody where the rocks are.”
Tori opened her eyes.
For perhaps half a second, something passed across her face.
Then it was gone.
Nat pointed at Maddie.
“We are not discussing maritime infrastructure.”
“You asked.”
“I absolutely did not.”
Sofia laughed.
Then she looked back toward the dance floor.
Chloe had one hand in Steve's.
The other rested lightly at his waist.
And Chloe was leading.
That, by itself, meant nothing.
Chloe liked leading.
Chloe liked knowing what she was doing.
Chloe liked—
Sofia's smile changed.
“Oh.”
Nat caught it instantly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Fuck you. What?”
Sofia nodded toward the dance floor.
Nat turned.
Tori turned.
Maddie was already watching.
Steve had been right.
He did not know how to dance.
At least not at first.
For the first few measures he was visibly thinking about it.
Watching his feet.
Trying to anticipate Chloe instead of following her.
Chloe said something.
Steve answered.
Chloe said something else.
Steve rolled his eyes.
Then Chloe laughed.
And Steve stopped trying.
It happened almost all at once.
His shoulders loosened.
His attention moved from his feet to Chloe.
She guided him.
He followed.
No contest.
No awkward attempt to take over.
No visible concern about who was supposed to be doing what.
Chloe turned him.
Steve came back laughing.
Nat's mouth opened.
Sofia said, very softly, “Yeah.”
Tori's expression had become unreadable.
Maddie smiled.
“I told you.”
“You said lighthouse,” Nat whispered.
“I know.”
“That doesn't mean anything.”
“It does to me.”
Nat looked back at the dance floor.
Chloe was smiling in a way Nat knew very well.
“Oh, shit.”
Tori looked at her.
“What?”
Nat pointed.
“That's the face.”
“What face?”
“Chloe's face.”
“She has several.”
“Not that one.”
Sofia laughed quietly.
“Oh, that's definitely the face.”
Tori looked again.
Longer this time.
Then:
“Oh.”
Nat slapped the table once.
“THANK YOU.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Why? We're in a nightclub.”
“Because Chloe will murder you.”
“Worth it.”
Sofia tilted her head.
“She's having fun.”
“That's not the problem.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“Because,” Nat said, with the patience of someone explaining gravity to a child, “Chloe Bennett has never touched a penis recreationally in her entire life.”
Tori nearly inhaled her drink.
Sofia slapped a hand over her mouth.
Maddie frowned.
“You don't know that.”
Nat stared at her.
“What?”
“You said recreationally.”
Tori put her glass down very carefully.
“No.”
Maddie continued.
“There are medical reasons—”
“No.”
“Accidents—”
“No.”
“Maybe somebody handed her one once.”
Sofia collapsed against the table.
Nat looked horrified.
“Who is handing out penises?”
“I don't know. I've never been to medical school.”
Tori was laughing now.
Actually laughing.
Head down, one hand over her eyes.
Nat looked around at all of them.
“You are deliberately avoiding the point.”
Sofia managed, “Your point was Chloe's gold-star status.”
“Thank you.”
“Which is an incredibly stupid thing to care about.”
“I don't care about it!”
“You brought it up.”
“Because it's funny!”
Tori recovered enough to speak.
“Gold-star lesbianism is an absurd and occasionally offensive cultural artifact.”
“Yes.”
“Sexual history does not determine the legitimacy of someone's orientation.”
“Yes.”
“And Chloe's attraction to one person would not require her to surrender her identity.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Nat leaned toward her.
“But it would be fucking hilarious.”
Tori considered this.
“Yes.”
Nat sat back triumphantly.
“Thank you.”
Sofia shook her head.
“You're terrible.”
“You love me.”
“I do.”
“Therefore I'm right.”
“That isn't how love works.”
“It's how Sales works.”
From the dance floor, Chloe turned Steve again.
This time he didn't even hesitate.
He followed her, came back close, and said something that made Chloe throw her head back laughing.
The table went quiet.
Not suspicious.
Not anymore.
Something else.
Sofia saw it first because Sofia usually did.
Chloe wasn't merely flirting.
She liked him.
Already.
Maybe not enormously.
Maybe not importantly.
Maybe this would be one funny night and a story they'd tell later.
But Chloe Bennett was interested.
And the person in her arms looked happier than he'd looked since sitting down.
Sofia watched Steve's face.
There was no calculation there.
No conquest.
No straight guy who'd wandered into a lesbian bar hoping to get lucky.
If anything, Steve seemed faintly bewildered that Chloe continued to be interested in him.
“Nat,” Sofia said.
Nat looked over.
“Ease up when they come back.”
Nat's expression changed.
“I wasn't—”
“Yeah.”
A beat.
Nat nodded.
“Okay.”
Tori glanced at Sofia.
Sofia shrugged.
Maddie folded the napkin with Dennis on it and placed it carefully in the center of the table.
“For evidence.”
Tori looked at it.
“Of what?”
“We'll know later.”
Tori stared at her.
Then, despite herself:
“Fine.”
⁂
Steve had made an important discovery.
He did not hate dancing.
He hated not knowing what he was supposed to do while dancing.
Those were apparently different things.
Chloe had solved the problem by telling him to stop trying to lead.
“I wasn't trying to lead.”
“You were trying to predict me.”
“That's different.”
“It isn't when you keep stepping where I'm about to step.”
“I was modeling your behavior.”
“You were stepping on my foot.”
“Once.”
“Twice.”
“The second time was statistically related to the first.”
“That sentence means nothing.”
“It means I was already off balance.”
“It means you're bad at dancing.”
“I told you that before we started.”
“And yet.”
She turned him.
Steve followed.
Easily this time.
That had been the trick.
Not technique.
Not memorizing anything.
Chloe gave him information through her hand and the movement of her body, and once Steve stopped trying to solve the next three seconds before they happened, his own body apparently knew enough to cooperate.
Annoying.
He liked systems that admitted they were systems.
This one seemed determined to function through vibes.
When he came back, Chloe was smiling.
“See?”
He hated that smile.
Mostly because he liked it.
“Don't.”
“You're dancing.”
“I'm being moved.”
“That's dancing.”
“That's kidnapping with music.”
Chloe laughed.
Steve smiled.
He had noticed earlier that Chloe was beautiful.
That had been an observation.
A fact.
Like noticing good tailoring or an interesting car.
This was becoming less academically useful.
Up close, the details were harder to file away. The way her eyes changed before she laughed. The tiny shift in her mouth when she knew she was about to annoy him. The warmth of her hand around his. The light touch at his waist that never pushed harder than necessary.
She smelled good.
That was particularly unhelpful.
Something warm and clean beneath whatever she'd put on before coming out, noticeable only when the dance brought them close.
Steve firmly declined to investigate further.
This was ridiculous.
He was dancing with an extraordinarily beautiful lesbian in a lesbian bar after being sent there by his lesbian sister and her lesbian wife because they thought he needed to get out more.
And—
Wait.
Chloe's hand was on his waist.
His hand was in hers.
She had asked him to dance.
Nat had yelled that Chloe was flirting with him.
Steve had dismissed that because Nat appeared to have been assembled in a laboratory to create problems.
But Chloe was looking at him again.
That look.
Focused.
Warm.
Interested.
Oh.
Oh, shit.
Steve missed a step.
Chloe caught him.
Her hand tightened at his waist, steadying rather than pulling.
“Hey.”
“Sorry.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
Steve looked at her.
Really looked.
Chloe waited.
No joke this time.
The music and conversation seemed to recede a fraction—not actually quieter, just less relevant.
He nodded.
“Yeah.”
She accepted that.
Then the music changed.
Slower, though not slow enough to create a crisis.
Probably.
Chloe didn't let go.
Steve's stomach did something stupid.
That was inconvenient.
Because Chloe was a lesbian.
Which meant—
Well.
There were several possibilities.
None of them were particularly comfortable.
Maybe she knew.
Maybe she didn't.
Maybe she thought—
Steve looked down at himself.
Dark shirt.
Black jeans.
His stupid narrow boots.
The body underneath all of it that had spent thirty-five years refusing to provide strangers with the information Steve thought should have been obvious.
Then back at Chloe.
Oh.
Fuck.
People did.
All the time.
And he'd walked into a lesbian bar.
And Chloe had met him here.
And Chloe was flirting with him.
And he had let her.
Not knowingly.
But now he knew there was at least a possibility.
Which changed things.
Steve felt the evening shift under his feet.
Not catastrophically.
Just enough.
A bad assumption had entered the system.
And now that he'd noticed it, leaving it uncorrected would be a choice.
Chloe smiled.
“You disappeared.”
“What?”
“You went somewhere.”
“Sorry.”
“Don't apologize. Just come back.”
Steve looked at her.
Something about that sentence landed harder than it had any business landing.
Just come back.
No demand to explain where he'd gone.
No attempt to drag the thought out of him.
Just—
Come back.
So he did.
For the rest of the song.
He stopped analyzing Chloe's hand.
Stopped calculating what she might think he was.
Stopped trying to decide what Brittney would say if she could see this, because whatever she would say would be unbearable and probably accompanied by Liz making that suspicious fucking cough.
He let Chloe lead.
Once, she turned him and he came back too close.
For half a second they were nearly chest to chest.
Steve froze.
Chloe didn't.
She simply smiled and gave him enough room to decide what happened next.
Steve stepped back into the dance.
No joke.
No embarrassment.
No correction from her.
Something in his chest loosened.
He didn't examine that either.
Across the room, he could see the table now and then between other dancers.
Nat was talking with both hands.
Tori appeared to be objecting to something.
Sofia was laughing.
Maddie had placed a folded napkin in the middle of the table with ceremonial seriousness.
Steve had no idea what had happened while they were gone.
He was suddenly certain it had been about him.
That should have bothered him more.
Instead he laughed when Chloe caught him looking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“Oh, no.”
“What?”
“I know what ‘nothing’ means at your table now.”
That got her.
Chloe laughed again.
And there it was.
That stupid little sense of victory.
Steve smiled despite himself.
This was—
Fun.
There was no qualifier available.
Not tolerable.
Not fine.
Not productive.
Not interesting in the technical sense.
Fun.
He was having fun.
Brittney could never know.
That was essential.
National-security essential.
He would lie under oath.
Tori was a lawyer, though, so perhaps not literally under oath.
The song began winding down.
Steve became aware of that with an unexpected little flicker of disappointment.
Which was ridiculous.
Songs ended.
That was one of their defining characteristics.
Chloe's hand loosened at his waist.
Steve's fingers shifted in hers.
For a moment neither of them moved away.
Then Chloe smiled.
“Still hate dancing?”
Steve considered lying.
“No.”
Her smile widened.
“Thought so.”
“I said I don't hate it. That's not the same as liking it.”
“Of course.”
“Those are distinct states.”
“Obviously.”
“You're mocking me.”
“A little.”
“Good. I was worried I'd misread the tone.”
Chloe laughed and started leading him back toward the table.
Steve followed.
And as the space between them increased, his brain—apparently offended by being ignored for an entire song—came roaring back online.
Chloe was a lesbian.
Chloe had been flirting with him.
Probably.
Almost certainly.
Fuck.
The closer they got to the table, the clearer the problem became.
He liked these women.
That had happened with alarming speed.
Nat was invasive but stopped when told.
Tori was terrifying in a way Steve found reassuring.
Sofia noticed things and didn't weaponize them.
Maddie had created a winged tax accountant named Dennis.
And Chloe—
Steve looked at her from the side.
She was still holding his hand.
Chloe was—
No.
That was exactly the problem.
If Chloe thought he was someone he wasn't, she deserved to know before either of those things went any further.
Steve had spent enough of his life correcting strangers after ma'am.
Usually it was easy.
A sentence.
Sometimes just his voice.
A brief awkward moment.
Then everybody updated the file and moved on.
This shouldn't be different.
Except it was.
Because for once, the mistake had worked in his favor.
And Steve hated that realization immediately.
He didn't want to benefit from something Chloe hadn't agreed to.
Whatever the hell was happening here, she deserved accurate information.
They reached the table.
Nat looked at them.
Then, with visible effort, looked at absolutely anything else.
Steve noticed.
Of course he noticed.
Tori's expression was neutral enough to qualify as suspicious.
Sofia smiled.
Maddie pushed a folded cocktail napkin toward the center of the table.
Chloe released Steve's hand.
The absence of it registered immediately.
Also inconvenient.
Steve sat.
His beer remained where he'd left it.
Still the first one.
Technically.
He wrapped one hand around the glass, though he wasn't thirsty.
He had a problem.
A correctable problem.
That was all.
Steve was good at correctable problems.
He just needed to say something.
Not now.
Not in front of the entire committee.
Jesus Christ.
Nat would turn it into congressional testimony.
But soon.
Before Chloe misunderstood anything further.
Steve glanced at her.
Chloe was already looking at him.
That warm, focused look again.
She smiled.
Steve's stomach did the stupid thing again.
Fuck.
Yes.
Definitely soon.