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plans. I’m all yours.”
    Joseph’s mouth twitches, like he’s trying to repress a laugh. “Right,” he says, drawing the word out. He takes a step forward, hand brushing against the door. “I’m being given an award by the Whitehall Foundation. It’s bullshit of course, though it’s good PR for the firm. You should come along.”
    “Me?”
    He blazes past Ryan’s interruption like he hasn’t spoken. “Do you have a tux?”
    “Yeah, yeah, I do. But it’s at home. Do you need me to go get it?”
    “In Brooklyn?” Joseph snorts. “I don’t think so. Get yourself down to Bergdorf’s, ask for Alexandre. He knows what I like.” His gaze lingers on Ryan, runs up and down him like he’s trying to mentally calculate his inside leg measurement. He turns to leave. “You should go now,” he says over his shoulder.
    “Oh, wait, Joseph!” Ryan calls out.
    Joseph spins around, already looking irritated at being called back, but thoughts are buzzing around Ryan’s head, fragments of overheard bitchy conversations, Fiona saying Joseph was real friendly with him too….
    “Why… I mean… sorry, just, why am I going to this awards thing? Why do you need me there?”
    “I need someone who looks good in a tux,” Joseph answers smoothly. “And remembering the lilac ruffles, I have a feeling you’d fit the bill perfectly, Ryan.”
    Ryan freezes, gaping after him, feeling the color flood into his cheeks. He swallows and glances at his watch. Six p.m. already; he should get moving.
     
     
    A LEXANDRE IS professional, immaculately groomed, and a little insulting. He tuts and groans over the state of Ryan’s hair and skin, and insists on having one of their senior stylists wash and cut his hair, shave his face, cleanse and moisturize, and generally treat him like he’s on one of those terrible daytime makeover shows, before he’s allowed anywhere near the formal wear. Once Ryan is ready (and Jesus, they plucked his freaking eyebrows ; he’s never going to rag on Daisy again when she complains that women have it so much harder than men), Alexandre leads him to a rail of pants, dress shirts, dinner jackets, vests, shoes, and, to Ryan’s immense embarrassment, underwear.
    “How much is this going to cost?” he asks, as the guy holds out the fourth or fifth pair of dress pants against him and commands him to: “Don’t be shy! Tuck everything in!”
    “That’s not your concern,” Alexandre says, squatting down to grab onto the waistband of the dress pants and drag them up Ryan’s legs. His face is right in front of Ryan’s junk, which is carefully encased in some really fucking sculpted boxer briefs.
    Ryan lets his head fall back, stares up at the ceiling, and counts to ten while Alexandre zips up his fly.
    Alexandre finally pronounces him done, stepping back and nodding approvingly, eyes raking up and down Ryan’s body in a way that he’s not even finding uncomfortable anymore. Ryan finally allows himself to look in the mirror and he has to agree that, yes, perhaps Joseph is right, Alexandre does know what he’s doing. He looks… good. Successful and rich and professional, like the sort of person who regularly attends prestigious awards dinners alongside Joseph Van Aardt.
    Joseph’s driver picks him up in the town car and takes him uptown to Joseph’s apartment. That is, one of Joseph’s apartments; he apparently has one uptown and one downtown. Ryan thinks of Daisy, of how much she’s always wanted to move to Manhattan, and the tiny boxy rooms they’ve looked at in their price range. She was annoyed when he called her to say he couldn’t make it tonight, but changed her mind when he told her why not. “Oh wow, Ryan! Just think of all the people that are gonna be there. He must really like you, baby, to have asked you to something like that! He must really think you’re something special.”
    Her words don’t make the queasy feeling in his gut any easier to bear, neither does the way his brain