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The gala had been going for two hours before Michelle admitted to herself that she was counting.
Not stars, not minutes. Him. The number of times Micah had crossed her line of sight without crossing the room. Six, now, if she counted the moment by the terrace doors when he’d looked up, found her, and immediately developed a fascinating interest in his comm unit, thumb scrolling through nothing at all.
She swirled the drink she wasn’t drinking, ice clinking softly against crystal, and watched him do it a seventh time.
The ballroom was too gold for her taste—gilt on every surface, chandeliers dripping light across marble floors polished enough to double as mirrors, the air thick with candle wax and crushed flowers and too many perfumes competing for the same three feet of space. Somewhere above them, painted figures reclined across the ceiling in various states of dramatic longing, gods or heroes or someone’s ancestors, she hadn’t bothered to ask. She’d looked up once, decided the whole thing was doing too much, and hadn’t looked again. Strings of music drifted from the far end of the hall, something slow and formal that nobody seemed to be dancing to properly.
Judah drifted past with two glasses of something sparkling, pressed one into her hand without asking, even though she hadn’t finished her first, and didn’t leave, propping his shoulder against the pillar beside her like he had all night to spend on this.
“You’re doing the thing,” he said, watching her over the rim of his own glass, far too pleased with himself.
“I’m standing.” She didn’t look at him.
“You’re standing very loudly.” He grinned when she finally shot him a look sharp enough to end the conversation with anyone smarter, and took a slow sip of his drink instead, gaze sliding across the room to where Micah stood with the open delight of a man watching a car crash he’d personally arranged.
“He’s working,” she said, before Judah could get there first.
“He’s hiding behind a clipboard.”
“It’s a tablet.”
“Same energy.” He bumped his shoulder against hers, light, familiar.
Michelle didn’t answer that, mostly because it was true. Micah had spent the last ten minutes “confirming perimeter checks” with a member of the household staff who had clearly finished answering his questions three minutes ago and was now just being polite, nodding along while glancing, every few seconds, at anything that wasn’t her.
She could have crossed the room. She’d thought about it—had, in fact, started toward him twice, close enough to catch the exact second he noticed her moving, close enough to watch him find somewhere urgent to be before she’d covered half the distance. The first time it had stung, a small, sharp thing low in her chest. The second time she’d told herself it was fine, that he had a job to do, that not everything had to mean something. By the third time she’d stopped pretending she believed that.
It would’ve been easier if she could just say it. She knew that. She’d rehearsed versions of it in her head enough times to have opinions about phrasing, standing in front of the mirror before tonight even started, practicing a sentence she still hadn’t managed to say out loud. But there was a version of tonight where she walked over, said the actual words, and he looked at her the way people looked at things they didn’t want—polite, careful, already halfway to an exit—and she didn’t think she’d survive standing there afterward with her face doing whatever it would do.
So instead she’d said things sideways. Mentioned, mid-conversation with Britney, voice pitched just loud enough, angled just right, that she hadn’t had anyone to dance with tonight. Told Josiah, well within Micah’s earshot, that it was a shame nobody around here knew how to hold a girl’s hand without treating it like a tactical maneuver, and watched, from the corner of her eye, the exact moment the words landed.
He’d heard both. She’d watched him hear both—something moving behind his eyes, quick and unmistakable, gone again before she could name it, right before he found a reason to be somewhere else.
It should have made her angry. Mostly it just made her tired, in the specific way of holding something up for a long time and finally starting to feel the weight of it in her arms.
“You could just tell him,” Judah said, far too casually for a man who’d clearly been waiting all night to say exactly that.
“I could.”
“You won’t.” He said it like a fact, not a challenge, which was somehow worse.
“Astute.”
He huffed something that might have been a laugh, shaking his head slowly. “You two are going to make me age badly.”
She rolled her eyes, “You’re already annoying at your current age.”
“I contain multitudes.” He nodded toward the far side of the room, where Micah was now very seriously discussing something with a member of the diplomatic delegation who did not look like he needed the help. “For what it’s worth—he’s not hiding because he doesn’t want to talk to you. He’s hiding because he does.”
Michelle didn’t have a response for that. It sat somewhere under her ribs instead, unanswered. Judah, apparently satisfied with landing the last word for once, pushed off the pillar and wandered toward the dessert table with the air of a man who considered his work done for the evening.
She was still turning that over, glass sweating in her hand, when the household coordinator found her—a harried older man with a headset askew and the specific panic of someone whose evening was not going according to plan.
“Lady Michelle—I’m sorry, we’ve got a discrepancy with the eastern corridor access, and Mr. Nelson said you’d have clearance to help sort it—” He was already gesturing toward the far hallway, breathless.
She didn’t need to ask which Mr. Nelson.
The corridor was quiet in the way the ballroom hadn’t been—cooler, dimmer, the noise of the party reduced to a low hum through the walls behind her, the marble floor here plainer, unpolished, meant for staff rather than guests. A single access panel blinked amber near a side door, and Micah was already crouched in front of it, tablet propped against his knee, when she rounded the corner. The overhead light buzzed faintly, one bulb dimmer than the rest.
He looked up at the sound of her footsteps, and something in his shoulders went very still. He didn’t reach for an excuse to leave this time. There wasn’t anywhere left to go.
“They said there was a clearance issue,” she said, stopping just inside the doorway, arms crossing loosely over her chest.
“There isn’t.” He didn’t look away from the panel, thumb tapping absently at the screen for something to do. “I mean—there was. I fixed it two minutes ago.”
Michelle stopped a few feet from him, studying the careful, deliberate way he kept his eyes on the tablet instead of her. “So why am I here?”
Micah didn’t answer right away. When he finally stood, he did it slowly, unfolding out of the crouch like his body was buying him time his mouth wasn’t ready to use, tablet held loosely at his side like he’d forgotten what it was for.
“Judah,” he said finally, dragging a hand back through his hair, like the name explained everything, which—annoyingly—it did.
“Of course.” She let out a short breath through her nose, something that wasn’t quite a laugh.
Neither of them moved toward the door. The overhead light kept up its faint, uneven buzz, the kind of sound you only noticed once conversation stopped giving you somewhere else to put your attention.
“You’ve been finding reasons to leave every time I get close tonight,” Michelle said, voice flat, the way she said things she’d already decided were true and had stopped needing to prove.
Micah’s jaw worked, his gaze finally lifting to hers and then sliding away again just as fast. He looked like a man weighing several answers and disliking all of them equally.
“Yeah,” he admitted, quiet, dragging the word out like it cost him something. “I have.”
“Why?”
For a second she thought he’d deflect—fall back into logistics, into we should get back to the party—and braced for it, jaw tightening. He didn’t. “Because I keep hearing things tonight that sound like you telling me something,” he said, voice dropping lower, rougher than before, eyes fixed somewhere over her shoulder rather than on her face. “And every time I think that’s what’s happening, some part of my brain informs me I’m making it up. That I want it enough to have invented it.”
Something in Michelle’s chest went tight and warm at once, a startled ache blooming right under her sternum. She hadn’t expected him to just—say it. Not like that, not plainly, not without her having to drag it out of him first.
“You’re not making it up,” she said, softer than she meant to.
“You say that like it’s simple.” His mouth twisted, something bitter and self-directed in it.
“It could be, if you stopped running every time I got within ten feet of you.”
That got something out of him—not quite a laugh, more the ghost of one, there and gone before it fully formed. “I wasn’t running.”
“You absolutely were,” she shot back, one eyebrow lifting.
“That’s unfair.”
“It’s accurate.”
He huffed, and the tension in his shoulders eased half an inch, like the familiar shape of teasing gave him somewhere safer to stand than honesty had. Michelle let him have it for a second, watching the corner of his mouth twitch toward something almost like a smile. Then she took the step forward she hadn’t let herself take twice already tonight, close enough now to see the faint, unsteady rise and fall of his breathing.
He didn’t retreat from this one.
“I wasn’t being subtle earlier,” she said, closer now, low enough it belonged only to the two of them, her voice dropping to something private. “Any of it. I wanted you to hear.”
“I heard.” His voice had gone rough at the edges, throat working like the admission cost him something to let out. “I just didn’t trust myself to be right about what I was hearing.”
“You’re not wrong. You haven’t been wrong all night.”
Micah’s hand came up toward her jaw and stopped halfway, hovering, fingers curling slightly in midair like he wasn’t sure he’d been given permission for that yet. Michelle closed the last of the distance herself, and his breath caught audibly when her hand found the front of his jacket, fisting lightly in the fabric.
“Michelle—” Her name came out barely more than a breath, unsteady.
“Don’t,” she said, before he could talk himself back into the corridor’s shadows. “Not this time.”
She’d meant it to come out certain. It did, mostly. But her own voice wavered on the last word, and Micah’s hand—finally landing at her jaw—was shaking. Not badly. Just enough that she felt it, the faint unsteadiness of his fingers against her skin, like he was doing something he’d rehearsed exactly zero times and was fairly sure he’d get wrong.
He didn’t kiss her so much as arrive at it—a half-second of hesitation where his forehead nearly touched hers first, his breath uneven against her mouth, like he was giving her one more chance to stop him. She didn’t take it.
When his mouth finally met hers, it wasn’t smooth. His nose bumped hers first, and he made a small, startled sound against her lips, adjusting, one hand still trembling faintly where it cradled her jaw. Michelle felt the hitch in his breathing, felt him hesitate again halfway through like he was waiting for some sign he’d gotten it wrong—and it was that, more than anything, that undid her. Not the confidence she’d braced for. The lack of it.
She’d had a version of this ready. Something composed, something she could walk away from with her chin up. That version hadn’t accounted for the way her own knees went unreliable the second his other hand found her waist, uncertain, fingers spread wide like he didn’t know if he was allowed to hold on or just rest there. It hadn’t accounted for the small sound she made against his mouth, low and unguarded, nothing she’d have permitted herself if she’d had any say in it—or the way Micah’s hand tightened at her jaw in answer, breath stuttering, like her reaction had finally convinced him this was real.
His other hand found the small of her back, hesitant even now, thumb pressed lightly against the fabric of her dress like he was testing whether that, too, was allowed. She could feel his heart going fast where her fist was still curled in his jacket, could feel the faint tremor still running through him even as the kiss deepened, unhurried now, both of them slower and more careful than the first startled press of it, her fingers curling further into his lapel, his thumb finally settling still against her waist.
When they finally broke apart, neither moved far. Micah’s forehead rested against hers, his breathing still not fully settled, his hand still at her waist like he hadn’t decided whether he was allowed to keep it there. Neither of them said anything for a moment. It didn’t feel like there was anything to say yet—just the two of them, too close, breathing like they’d run somewhere, the corridor light buzzing faintly overhead like nothing had happened at all.
“That was—” Micah started, and then didn’t finish it, his hand flexing slightly against her waist like he’d lost the rest of the sentence somewhere between his brain and his mouth.
“Yeah.” Michelle’s voice came out smaller than she meant it to, breathless in a way that embarrassed her a little. She was still holding onto the front of his jacket. She hadn’t let go yet either.
He huffed something that wasn’t quite a laugh, more like air escaping all at once, and dragged a hand back through his hair with the other. “I don’t—I had a plan. For this. If it happened. I had a whole—”
“You didn’t,” she said, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth despite herself.
“I did.” He looked almost offended at the accusation, though the effect was ruined by how flushed he still was. “It wasn’t—it didn’t involve nearly bumping your nose.”
Michelle’s face went warm despite herself, biting back a laugh. “You didn’t bump my nose.”
“I did, a little.” He said it with such genuine chagrin that she couldn’t help the laugh slipping out anyway.
“Micah.”
“I’m just saying I had a plan.” He was fighting a smile now too, some of the earlier tension finally easing out of his shoulders.
“Your plan is currently not working.”
“No,” he agreed, voice still faintly dazed, “it’s... really not.”
She let out a breath that was almost a laugh, and some of the tightness in her chest eased, just slightly. He still hadn’t moved his hand from her waist. She still hadn’t let go of his jacket. Neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to fix either of those things. “I don’t want to go back to before,” Michelle said, and immediately felt too exposed saying it, the words coming out faster than she meant them to, her fingers tightening reflexively in the fabric of his jacket. “The—whatever we were doing. The hints and you finding every possible excuse to be somewhere else.”
“I don’t either.” He said it too quickly too, like it had been sitting right behind his teeth waiting. “I just don’t—I don’t really know what this is supposed to look like. Now.” He stopped, jaw working, eyes dropping briefly to where her hand still rested against his chest. “I haven’t done this part before.”
“Neither have I,” she admitted, quieter, some of her usual composure slipping.
That seemed to help, somehow—the admission landing between them like something they could actually stand on.
“Okay,” he said, and it came out more like a breath than a word, some visible weight lifting off him with it.
“Okay,” she echoed, not entirely sure what either of them had agreed to, only that neither of them had let go.
Micah’s thumb moved slightly against her waist—not quite a caress, more like he didn’t know what else to do with his hand and that was the only motion available to him. Michelle was aware of it in a way that made it hard to think about anything else, warmth spreading slow through her chest at the small, absent gesture.
“So,” she said, and then stalled, because she didn’t actually know where the sentence was going.
“Yeah?” He tilted his head slightly, watching her with something soft and expectant.
“Nothing. I don’t—I lost it.” She let out a small, embarrassed laugh, shaking her head.
He huffed, something almost like a laugh of his own. “Same.”
The corridor light buzzed on. Somewhere behind the wall, the party continued, oblivious. Michelle found herself looking at his mouth again before she’d consciously decided to, and when she glanced up he was already looking back at her the same way, caught, neither of them bothering to pretend otherwise, some fresh color rising in his face.
“We could,” she started, and then felt her face go warm at how it sounded before she’d even finished it.
“Could what?” His voice had gone low, curious, a hint of a smile already tugging at his mouth.
“Nothing.” She looked away, suddenly very interested in the buttons of his jacket.
“Michelle.” He ducked his head slightly, trying to catch her eye again.
“I was going to say we could—try that again. See if you still bump my nose.” She said it too fast, aiming for dry and landing somewhere closer to flustered, glancing up at him through her lashes despite herself. “For research.”
Micah stared at her for a second like she’d short-circuited something, brows lifting. “Research?”
“Purely academic.” She managed to keep her voice mostly even.
“Right.” His hand tightened slightly at her waist, thumb pressing in. “Very scientific of you.”
“I’m a very scientific person,” she shot back, chin lifting.
“You once threatened to shoot a man for looking at a spreadsheet wrong.”
“He deserved it,” she said, without an ounce of remorse, and something in her tone finally cracked the last of his composure.
He was smiling now, the real one, the one that made him look younger than the rest of the night had allowed for—and Michelle didn’t let him finish whatever he’d been about to say next, closing the distance herself before either of them could overthink it again.
This kiss didn’t have the same startled edge as the first. It was slower, both of them paying closer attention now, learning the shape of it—his hand sliding fully around to the small of her back, hers moving from his jacket up to the back of his neck, fingers catching lightly in his hair. He made a low sound against her mouth that seemed to surprise him as much as it did her, and Michelle felt it everywhere, a warmth that had nothing composed left in it at all, her own breath catching sharply when his hand pressed flatter against her back, pulling her closer.
They’d gotten thoroughly distracted—her back nearly against the corridor wall, his hand still hesitant everywhere except where it currently was, his mouth trailing briefly to the corner of her jaw before finding hers again—when a voice cut through the buzz of the overhead light like a dropped plate.
“Oh, thank god. Finally.”
They broke apart fast enough that Micah’s shoulder hit the wall with a dull, undignified thud.
Judah stood at the end of the corridor, arms crossed, wearing the specific expression of a man who had been vindicated after considerable suffering, eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline. “Do you know how long I’ve had to listen to both of you dance around this?” he said, pushing off the doorframe and sauntering closer, entirely too pleased with himself. “I engineered an entire fake clearance error for this. I deserve applause.”
“Judah—” Micah started, voice cracking slightly on the second syllable, one hand coming up to drag through his already-mussed hair.
“I’m not apologizing. I’m taking full credit.” He glanced between them, smug and delighted in equal measure, gaze lingering pointedly on Micah’s crooked collar. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
Michelle, still catching her breath, still very aware of exactly how close Micah was standing, found she genuinely did not have the energy to be irritated about it. “Go away, Judah.”
“Absolutely not. This is the best thing that’s happened to me all week.” He said, though he was already backing away down the corridor, grinning ear to ear. “Take your time. I’ll tell people the panel’s still broken.”
He vanished back around the corner, footsteps unhurried, whistling something jaunty and entirely too pleased with himself. Michelle looked at Micah. Micah looked at her, ears faintly red, hand still not quite steady where it rested at her waist, mouth twitching between a wince and a smile.
“He’s never going to let this go,” he said, voice rough, still slightly breathless.
“No,” Michelle agreed, laughing despite herself, some of the night’s tension finally, fully dissolving. “He really isn’t.”
Neither of them moved to follow him back to the party just yet.