Page 51 of About to Fall

Théo squeezed my shoulder and held my gaze for a moment. “Good to see you, Nico,” he said, softer than anything he'd used at dinner. Then quieter, “If Zhao gives you any trouble, you tell me. You shouldn't have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

The everything else hung in the air between us.

“I can handle Adrian,” I said.

“I know you can.” His hand lingered on my shoulder. “But you don't always have to handle everything alone. You know that, right?”

“Yes. And you know it applies both ways?”

“Take care of yourself, Nico.”

“You too. Goodnight, Théo.”

I turned toward the elevators and heard footsteps behind me.

Adrian. Of course. Because the universe apparently couldn't grant me ten minutes alone to decompress.

The elevator ride was silent. The hallway was silent. I unlocked the door and walked in and set my keycard on the desk and pressed my fingers against the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath.

Adrian closed the door behind him and I heard the lock click and the sound of his jacket hitting the back of a chair.

“Well, that was a shitshow,” he said.

The pilot light in my chest caught again and my annoyance flared into anger.

“And whose fault was that?”

“I can’t help that Théo hates me.”

“You were antagonizing him.”

“I said his skating was better. That's literally a compliment.”

“You called him robotic.” I turned around. He was leaning against the desk with his arms crossed, looking annoyingly at ease for someone who had just spent an entire dinner making my life exponentially harder. “You can't just say whatever pops into your head, Adrian. Other people have feelings.”

“I said he used to be robotic.”

“That's not—”

“You spent the entire dinner making sure everyone else was comfortable. You complimented Théo on his program music. You managed Sabrina's feelings about her costume. You ordered dessert to defuse the tension.” He was ticking items off on his fingers, each one landing like an accusation. “And not a single person at that table asked how you were doing. Not once. And you didn't even notice because you were too busy shrinking yourself down so everyone else had room to breathe.”

“Don’t—”

“You do this thing where you disappear in plain sight. You're right there, smiling, nodding, asking all the right questions, and there's nobody home. You're just—performing. The perfect dinner guest. The golden prince. The guy who smiles until his face hurts because the alternative is having an honest reaction to something and God forbid Nicolas Fontaine has an honest reaction—”

“I. Said. Don't.”

“What are you going to do about it?” He pushed off the desk and took a step toward me. Not aggressive—curious. That gleam in his dark eyes, the one that meant he was poking and poking and waiting for whatever I was hiding to come crawling out. “You'll do what you always do. Take a breath. Say something diplomatic. Go to bed and lie there hating me in silence because actually saying something honest might—”

“Kiss my ass, Adrian! You don't fucking know me.”

The words left my mouth before my brain approved them. Raw and hot and completely unfiltered, in a voice I barely recognized as mine—lower, harder, stripped of everything I'd been wearing like armour since dinner.

The room went very still.

Adrian looked at me. Something moved across his face—surprise, then heat, then something darker that settled into his expression like it had been waiting for exactly this reaction.

“I'd rather kiss your mouth first,” he said.