9

Marianna

For exactly three seconds, I feel something like hope.

Then the confirmation email hits my inbox—Thank you for your application to Kinetic Performance Institute!—and the reality of what I just did crashes over me like a cold wave.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I just applied to work with Duane Richter's team. Professionally. On purpose. With my real name and my real resume and my real phone number that he could theoretically see if anyone ever bothered to mention it.

I throw the phone onto the bed like it's burning me.

It's fine. They probably won't even call. I'm entry-level, barely qualified, competing against dozens of candidates with actual experience and actual connections and actual lives that aren't currently in free fall.

The odds of getting this job are basically zero.

I tell myself this. Over and over.

Like a prayer. Like a mantra.

It's nearly 2 PM by the time I stop doom-scrolling job listings. I've been in this room for... I don't even know. Hours. The sun has moved across the sky, painting different shadows on the grey walls. My stomach is making sounds that suggest it's considering eating itself.

I haven't left the guest room since last night. Haven't seen Duane. Haven't heard him, either—his apartment is so big and so aggressively soundproofed that he could be throwing a party in the living room and I wouldn't know.

He's probably not here. It's Tuesday, and the Miami Grand Prix is next weekend, which means he's likely at the track doing... whatever F1 drivers do the week before a race. Practice. Media stuff. Looking devastatingly handsome while sitting in a car worth more than my entire family's combined net worth.

The point is: the apartment is probably empty. I can probably sneak to the kitchen, find something to eat, and sneak back without any awkward encounters.

Probably.

I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror and immediately wish I hadn't.

My hair has achieved a level of chaos that suggests I stuck a fork in an electrical socket and then slept on it wrong. There's a pillow crease running down my left cheek like a scar from a very boring knife fight. My under-eyes have that bruised, puffy quality of someone who's been crying or doing hard drugs or both—I haven't done either, but my face apparently didn't get the memo.

And I'm still wearing Duane's clothes from last night.

I find another hoodie in his closet—black, because Duane Richter has apparently never heard of colors—and pull it on over the t-shirt. The price tag is still attached. I check it, because I'm a masochist. $340. For a hoodie. That's my electricity bill for three months. That's forty-seven frozen pizzas. That's a hoodie that costs more than my entire wardrobe combined.

I swap the sweatpants for a pair of his joggers. I look like I'm wearing a fabric donut around my hips, and they're still pooling at my ankles like I'm a kid playing dress-up in her dad's clothes.

Except my dad wears New Balance and owns exactly one pair of jeans from 2003.

Whatever. It's not like anyone's going to see me.

The apartment is silent when I step out of the guest room.

"Duane?"

My voice echoes off the high ceilings, bounces around all that empty space, and dies somewhere near the windows. No response. No movement. Just the faint hum of the air conditioning and the muffled sounds of Miami existing twenty floors below.

I try again, a little louder. "Duane? You here?"

Nothing.

Okay. Good.

I find the kitchen after two wrong turns. Marble countertops that gleam like they've never touched a dirty dish, professional-grade appliances that probably require an engineering degree to operate, and a refrigerator so massive it could comfortably house a family of four.

I glance over my shoulder one more time, just to make sure I'm really alone, before pulling the fridge open like I'm about to commit a crime.

It's almost empty.

Of course it is. Duane Richter probably doesn't eat—probably sustains himself on protein shakes and the tears of his enemies and sheer force of will. There's bottled water lined up with military precision, some kind of green juice that looks like someone liquified a lawn and called it health food, a container of egg whites, and half a lemon that's seen better days. That's it. That's the whole fridge. No real food, nothing I can actually eat without feeling like I'm stealing his precious athlete nutrients or disrupting whatever insane meal plan keeps him functioning at superhuman levels.

My stomach growls again. Louder this time. More insistent.

Fine. Fine. I'll go buy something. There has to be a grocery store nearby. A cheap one, preferably. Somewhere that won't judge me for buying frozen pizza at 2 PM on a Tuesday while dressed like I raided a billionaire's closet.

I grab my phone—his phone, the cracked one—and my wallet, which contains exactly one debit card linked to an account that's about to be very, very unhappy with me.

The elevator requires a key card. Duane left one on the kitchen counter—a small mercy I hadn't noticed until now. I take it, trying not to think about what it means that he anticipated I'd need to leave.

The Whole Foods two blocks away takes one look at my outfit and silently judges me. Or maybe that's my imagination. Maybe the twenty-something cashier with the perfect blowout and the sustainable tote bag is actually very nice and not at all thinking about how I look like I just rolled out of a dumpster.

I walk past it anyway. Find a Publix three blocks further. The fluorescent lighting is aggressively unflattering and the floors are sticky in places, but the prices are almost reasonable and nobody here looks like they're about to lecture me about organic farming practices.

I buy a frozen pizza, store-brand milk, the cheapest bread they have, off-brand peanut butter, and a bunch of bananas—$18.96 total, which shouldn't make me want to cry at checkout, but here we are.

The walk back to Duane's building feels longer than the walk there. Maybe it's the grocery bag cutting into my fingers. Maybe it's the humidity—Miami in May is like walking through warm soup. Maybe it's just the weight of everything pressing down on me, making each step feel like wading through wet concrete.

I'm so lost in my own head that I almost don't notice.

The door to Duane's apartment is open.

Not all the way. Just a crack. A sliver of light spilling into the private elevator vestibule.

I freeze.

Did I leave it open? No. I definitely closed it. Definitely heard the lock click behind me.

Is Duane back?

My heart does something complicated. Something between hope and dread and a third emotion I refuse to name.

I push the door open slowly. Step inside.

And stop.

Because there's a woman standing in Duane's living room.

Alina Lindqvist.