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Daisy’s
wedding had been the ultimate boneheaded move on both their parts, and she
bloody well knew it. As soon as she’d floated back down to earth, as soon as the
pink cloud of champagne and wedding bliss wore off, she had felt a terrible
twist of foreboding in the pit of her stomach. In one foolish act, they had
changed their friendship irrevocably, and not for the better. Her father had
just introduced her to Mr. Wonderful; she needed to focus on Orlando, not get
drunk with Zach Alger.
    She hadn’t spoken to him since. He’d called a bunch at first,
sent text messages, and she finally texted him back and said, Don’t call me.
Don’t text me. Can we just leave it at that?
    His calls had stopped, and she told herself she was relieved.
There was nothing to say. What were they going to say? Sorry I screwed up a
beautiful friendship? Have a nice life?
    Willfully she pulled her mind away from the lost phone and
focused on the more immediate problem. The missing key. Now, there was a
boneheaded move for you. When your boyfriend finally gives you a key to his
amazing midtown east apartment, losing it immediately is a bad move. Sure, it
was an accident, but the symbolism was hard to ignore.
    On top of that, she was going to be late. Both her father and
Orlando were sticklers for promptness, yet somehow she’d fallen behind. And now
she didn’t even have a way to send Orlando a text.
    Her stomach clenching, she found a vacant seat and sat down.
Across from her sat a teenage girl and her mother. Sonnet studied their
reflection in the window glass of the subway car. The two of them looked alike,
except for the way the mother’s Nordic coloring and blond hair contrasted
sharply with the girl’s nappy hair and café-au-lait skin. She wore her mixed
heritage like an ill-fitting garment. Sonnet related to that kind of discomfort
because once, not so long ago, she’d been that girl—biracial and wondering just
where she belonged.
    The girl had her iPhone turned up too loud, and through the
earbuds, Sonnet recognized the thud and angry tones of Jezebel, the latest
hip-hop sensation. The chart-topping song was called “Don’t Make a Ho into a
Housewife” or some such nonsense. Though she was no fan of the genre, Sonnet was
aware of Jezebel from the scandal blogs and magazines. She was the latest of
many to be doing time for something or other.
    The girl listening to the music looked angry, too. Maybe she
was having a bad day. Maybe she was ticked off at her mom. Maybe she was
wondering why her dad only got in touch with her on Christmas and on her
birthday, and half the time he forgot the birthday. Maybe she was trying to
figure out what she was supposed to do in order to get his attention.
    In the window glass, her gaze met the girl’s. Both glanced
quickly away, perhaps recognizing in each other a kindred spirit.
    You’ll be fine, Sonnet wanted to reassure the girl. Just like
I’m fine. Fine.
    As she approached her stop on the subway, Sonnet tried to come
up with something plausible to tell Orlando about the key. Saying she’d dropped
it on the subway sounded so…so careless. And she did care. Having access to his
apartment, his private space, was a huge step for them as a couple. It meant
something, something big.
    The very thought of it made her heart skip a beat. To Sonnet,
this was not a pleasant sensation.
    * * *
    Zach Alger stared down at the screen of his iPhone. He
shouldn’t have sent that text to Sonnet. He really, really shouldn’t have sent it. What was he thinking? He wasn’t
thinking.
    Maybe being in church affected his judgment. Although he wasn’t in church, attending services. He was doing
wedding prep work at Heart of the Mountains Church, getting ready for a big
video job here. So at the moment, it didn’t count.
    He wrote down a couple of measurements—they were cramming too
many people into the sanctuary, but he’d deal—and then paused to check his
phone. Good, no reply. He scrolled to