Exhibit A

Sierra’s POV:

“Of course,” the scarred man says, with a polite little nod.

“Congratulations to you both.”

And then drifts back into the crowd.

Julio’s arm is still around my waist. My mouth is still tingling like I’ve been licking a nine-volt battery. And “girlfriend” is bouncing around inside my skull like a pinball.

“Bathroom,” I say.

“Sierra...”

“Bathroom, Hayes. Right now, before I stab you with a cocktail skewer in front of three photographers.”

“Is that a clause seven situation or a regular situation?”

I don’t answer. I just walk, fast and smooth, with my chin up like my knees are about to start shaking.

The marble ladies’ room is empty, thank God, so I lock myself in the farthest stall and sit on the closed lid in this ridiculous gown. The first thing I do is press the back of my hand against my mouth.

It’s still warm. WHY is it still warm?

Okay. Okay, okay, okay.

Breathe, Rosso. Think like a lawyer. A lawyer would say it was a tactical kiss executed under duress to divert a hostile witness. A lawyer would not say that she grabbed his lapels like she was drowning and he was the last piece of driftwood in the building.

I kissed back.

I kissed BACK.

Not a polite, professional, clause-three-compliant peck, either. I opened my mouth like I’d been standing at a bus stop for three years and the bus had finally shown up, with leather seats and a really good jaw.

Ugh! Unfair.

The door open, and two sets of heels click in with the unmistakable squeal of women who’ve been holding it something in.

“Oh my GOD, did you SEE that?”

“I was ten feet away! Ten! He just grabbed her!”

“Like in a movie. Like the rain scene, but indoors and with more tongue.”

I close my eyes and take in a sharp breath. God, is this some kind of sick joke.

“She looked like she got hit by a truck, though.”

“A HOT truck.”

“A very hot truck with a hockey stick.”

The both squeal again and laugh.

Ugh, enough! “It was a Zamboni,” I say, loud and flat, through the stall door.

There's a 20 second silence (I counted). Then a very small, very careful voice asks, “…Sorry?”

“If you’re going to do a metaphor, be accurate. A truck hits you and it’s over. A Zamboni rolls over you slowly and leaves everything damp.”

There’s a pause, then a scream so high it could break metal at this point.

“Oh my God, it’s HER!”

I unlock the stall, walk to the sink with all the dignity I can scrape off the floor, and start washing my hands. One of them already has her phone up.

“Delete that.”

“It’s for my group chat!”

“No, it'll be for my restraining order. Delete it.”

She deletes it, but not before whispering, “You’re literally trending,”

Julio is waiting outside the door with my coat draped over one arm, so tall and very snug.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Rule two.” I snatch the coat. “No improvising.”

“There was a guy in a trench coat who said your major, Sierra.”

“He was making conversation.”

“He said your research. Nobody makes conversation about a stranger’s research unless he’s planning to do something with it.” He lowers his voice as a waiter passes with a tray. “I had a plan.”

“You had audacity, which is not the same thing.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“That wasn’t a clause-three peck, Hayes. There was tongue.”

“There wasn’t tongue.”

“There was, at minimum, the possibility of tongue, and the possibility of tongue is a violation.”

His lip twitches, and I hate that I notice. “You kissed me back.”

“I committed to the bit.”

“The bit?"

“Yes. That’s what professionals do.”

“Oh, so you’re a professional.”

“I’m a professional at anything I’m paid to do.”

His jaw tightens, just for a second, and something in his face goes quiet in a way I can’t begin to understand. A small, mean part of me says good. A bigger, stupider part of me wants to take it back.

My phone buzzes against my hip before I can.

*Vance*: Are you two still on the property

*Vance*: DON’T answer that

*Vance*: The clip is at 40k views and a woman in Ohio named you Hotbrain

*Vance*: Whatever you did, don't stop doing it.

“What does it say?” Julio asks.

“That I should quit.”

“Does it?”

“It says it in spirit.”

The drive home is eleven minutes long, and Julio uses ten of them to say nothing, which, for a man who’s narrated every other moment of our short and miserable acquaintance, is a personal best.

He pulls up outside my building and leaves the engine running.

“He knows who you are, doesn’t he?” he says, eyes on the windshield. “The guy with the scar. That’s why you went white.”

“It’s a gala, Julio. Everyone knows everyone.”

“Sierra.”

“Goodnight.”

“I’m not asking tonight.” He finally looks at me, hazel eyes steady in the dashboard glow. “But I want it on the record that I’m asking eventually.”

I get out of the car with my coat clutched like a shield and say, because I can’t stop myself, “Noted.”

***

At 1:40 a.m. I’m cross-legged on my bed in an oversized T-shirt, laptop balanced on my knees, notebook open beside me, doing what a responsible professional does after a hostile encounter: I’m reviewing the evidence.

The clip has 2.1 million views now. Somebody captioned it GOLDEN BOY BLINDSIDES HIS MYSTERY GIRLFRIEND, and somebody else turned my face into a reaction GIF, and I’m not going to think about that.

First, the facts. The scarred man knew my name and my research. The list of people who knew what I was working on before anybody got cornered in a parking garage fits on a sticky note.

I write them down.

David (clerk). Scared enough to sell me out? Probably.

Mama. Thinks “tort” is a dessert. Crossing out.

Professor Micheal.

I look at that last one for a long time. Micheal would eat his own gavel before he’d hand my name to Marcus Stirling. I cross it out, too, and the pen leaves a clean, thick stripe, and I feel better.

Then I press play again.

On the fifth watch I’m studying the lighting. On the ninth I’m studying body language. By the fourteenth I’ve stopped lying to myself, and by the eighteenth I’m pausing on my own hand, the one curled into his lapel, white-knuckled, not pushing him away...holding on.

“Evidence,” I whisper, to nobody.

On the nineteenth watch, I finally look at the background.

Everybody in the frame is doing something. Phones up, mouths open, a woman clapping, a man with his champagne tipped sideways onto his shoe. Everyone except one person near the pillar, in a navy suit.

Marcus Stirling isn’t filming, he isn’t clapping, he isn’t even surprised.

He’s standing perfectly still, looking straight at my face.

I pause the clip.

For the first time all night, I’m not thinking about the kiss at all.