Chapter Text
It all started with great-grandfather Santiago Vidal, a journalist so deep in Puerto Rico’s business, his name might as well have had a byline in history. He covered blackouts, uprisings and every political disaster imaginable, frequently from the center of the storm.
Word on the street is that he once snuck into a governor’s exclusive press conference by hitching a ride in the back of a mariachi band’s van. No one’s quite sure how he pulled it off, but three days later, the governor got impeached and Santiago’s story was front page news.
His son, Juan Miguel Vidal, picked up the pen where Santiago left off, becoming a household name in the ‘70s for his fearless coverage of the Puerto Rican independence movement and the government’s murkier dealings that most reporters were too scared, or too bought, to touch.
Then came Mateo Vidal, Rio’s dad, who brought the family legacy stateside and somehow turned sleepy Delaware into headline material. Whether it was a small-town mayor laundering campaign funds or a state senator caught pants-down with a lobbyist, he covered it all, and chased every story relentlessly, fearlessly, right up until the day he didn’t come home.
Three generations of ink-stained overachievers.
A family tree built on deadlines, bylines, and sheer journalistic stubbornness.
So, of course, everyone just assumed Rio would carry the torch.
And she would have. She badly wanted to.
She didn’t bust her ass through crappy internships and back-to-back shifts just to claw her way to a journalism degree at NYU for nothing. She meant it. She wanted to be the first woman in the family to out-report, out-write, and out-hustle every man who came before her.
But life, being the smartass it is, had other plans.
One botched coffee run, one misunderstood job listing she barely skimmed, and somehow Rio had ended up with “the job a million girls would literally kill for” — junior assistant to a woman known for her terrifying IQ, terrifying wardrobe, terrifying record of never losing an argument, and just being generally terrifying.
That woman is none other than Agatha Harkness , the famously brilliant editor-in-chief of Nocturne , the most iconic, glamorous, and unapologetically cutthroat fashion magazine on the planet. Neither Agatha nor the magazine had ever appeared on Rio’s radar until about five weeks ago. Not exactly the path she imagined when she dreamed of Pulitzer Prizes and hard-hitting journalism.
But then again, life rarely sticks to the script.
“Come on, dude! It’s one day,” Rio hears Alice yell over the blender, which sounds like it’s choking on a rock. “Just call in sick. Literally everyone does it. It’s not a crime. It’s basically a human right at this point." She pauses, only to smack the side of the blender like that’s gonna fix the dying noise it’s making. “And aren’t you, like, her baby assistant? You told me she barely knows you exist. She’ll be fine. She probably won’t even realize you’re gone.”
Rio drags herself out of her room, wearing an old sweatshirt two sizes too big and nothing but a pair of underwear underneath. She drops into a chair at the kitchen table and grabs the first fruit she sees. It’s one of those rare Sundays when her phone hasn’t already blown up with some kind of work emergency.
Peace, however fleeting, tastes like sleep breath and Granny Smith.
“You do realize who we’re talking about here, right?” she says, chewing on a bite of her apple. “I can’t just call in sick. I’ve only had this job for, like, five weeks. That’s like asking for vacation time when they’re still printing my ID. And sure, maybe Agatha won’t notice, but Jen definitely will. And she’d one hundred percent murder me.”
Alice pokes her head out from behind the blender, holding something green and pulpy.
“Okay, then let her! You don’t even like the job. You’ve been bitching about it since day one. You don’t care about fashion mags, you don’t even dress like you work at one, and you didn’t even know what a lookbook was when you got hired. So why are you still busting your ass for Satan’s mistress?”
She slides a mug of coffee across the table, and Rio catches it with both hands before it can spill.
“Because busting my ass for Satan’s mistress apparently looks great on a resume,” she explains with a straight face. “And as much of a stone-cold, succubus bitch Agatha is, I kinda need her recommendation to get taken seriously. I’ve got to make a solid impression if I even want a shot at The Times. A year at Nocturne and I can pretty much write my own ticket. You know that.”
Alice drops into a chair, arms crossed. “I mean, I don’t. But what I do know is you’re a damn good writer, and you deserve better than fetching coffee and answering calls for someone who probably doesn’t even know your full name.”
Rio shrugs, lips brushing the rim of her glass before taking a slow sip.
“It’s only for a year. I’m not planning on marrying the job or anything.”
Alice gulps down her green whatever-the-hell. “Yeah, well, a lot can happen in a year. And I still have no idea how you’re surviving a boss that hot. Evil or not, if I had to see her every day, I’d be completely useless, and I’d be drooling on the desk.”
Rio coughs out a laugh.
“Well, lucky for both of us, I’m not you. And Agatha’s about as straight as a ruler. She will not be distracting me in any way, because I don’t go for straight girls. And you damn well know that.”
“And what makes you so sure she’s straight?” Alice says, and Rio just scrunches her nose. “I’m serious. Everything about your boss screams dyke,” she goes on, gesturing with her drink like she’s pointing out obvious landmarks. “Did you not see that People cover? The suit? The pants? Those arms?” She shakes her head like Rio’s the one being ridiculous. “Come on, Rio. You’re not blind.” Then she grins. “And I’m, like, ninety percent sure it’s huge.”
Rio groans. “Okay, first of all, stop thirsting over my boss. Second, I’m around her pretty much all the time. I answer her calls, and the people calling are always rich guys, boring guys, every flavor of guy. I’m also the one who signs for the endless parade of flower deliveries. And guess what? The cards are always from dudes. Trust me, there’s nothing remotely gay about Agatha Harkness.”
Alice shrugs. “Fine. She’s your boss, you’d know. But that still doesn’t get you out of tomorrow. I’ve let you bail on, like, every gig, every show, every weird little queer thing I drag you to. But leaving me to go to Pride alone with Billy? That’s betrayal of biblical proportions in this friendship. I’m not babysitting a baby gay all day by myself. So take your pick: Monday at work, or Monday with me.”
Rio groans again, dragging a hand down her face.
“You can’t seriously make me choose.”
“I already am making you choose.”
“Now, that’s evil. You’re being evil, Alice Wu-Gulliver.”
But there’s nothing quite as devious as faking a cold and firing off a carefully crafted sick email at four in the morning, strategically late enough that her boss can’t respond with a no, but early enough to make it look like she tried. Evil? Maybe. But also kind of genius.
Because deep down, Rio knows she wanted this. Pride is fun. Pride has always been fun. And right now, that’s being confirmed in the loudest, gayest, most glorious way possible.
Rio’s practically singing and dancing down the street, high on the music, the heat, and the sweet freedom of not having to be anybody’s assistant today. She’s wearing ripped jean shorts and a thrifted crop top that says “eat your girl or i will” in cracked, glittery letters. There’s cheap rainbow face paint smeared across her cheeks, glitter in her hair, and someone’s Pride flag tied around her shoulders like a cape.
She’s flanked by Alice, decked out in red and razor-sharp eyeliner wings, and Billy, the gay kid from next door, who came out just last month: cheeks redder than the stripes on his flag but grinning like he’s finally figured out how to breathe.
The whole street smells like cannabis, sunscreen, body spray, cigarettes, and rainbow paradise cocktails. Basically, Pride in a bottle. And Rio, though she couldn’t explain it if she tried, just feels everything in her bones. Like home, but much noisier and happier.
Then a neighboring mob breaks into a chant, and without missing a beat, she and Alice jump in, singing like it’s some hallowed gospel handed down to them by their lesbian ancestors:
“Every woman is a lesbian at heart,
Every woman is a lesbian at heart,
Every woman is a lesbian at heart,
Including Billy’s mom!”
They practically scream their own version of the last line, pointing right at the teen walking next to them, who’s laughing so hard he nearly drops his tiny Pride flag.
“This is probably the best day of my life!” Billy blurts out.
Rio looks at him. He’s smiling in that stunned, too-happy kind of way, as if he doesn’t totally believe he’s allowed to feel this good. “Kid, you’re seventeen. You’ve had, what, like five good days total?”
“And this one’s number one!”
Alice laughs and throws an arm around his shoulders.
“That’s because you’re not stuck working for Satan’s mistress.”
Rio flips her off without looking. “I can hear you.”
Billy looks between them with that same wide-eyed, annoyingly earnest little smile.
“You guys are so lucky and cool. I wanna be like you when I’m older.”
“Oh god,” Rio mutters. “Aim higher, kid.”
He just grins, and for once, Rio’s got nothing to say. The kid gets on her nerves almost daily. Always glued to Alice’s hip, always running his mouth, always poking around in stuff that’s not his business, always hijacking the aux cord to blast Taylor Swift loud enough for her to hear it through her bedroom wall. But seeing him like this — happy, comfortable, finally himself — reminds Rio why she’s always loved going to Pride. And why calling in sick today was absolutely worth it.
They continue to move with the crowd, dodging between floats, flags, and half-naked strangers until everything suddenly slams to a pause. Something about a stalled float, or maybe a couple of homophobes playing human traffic cones. Whatever it is, the whole street bottlenecks right in the middle of 8th Street. But Rio doesn’t care. The sun’s on her face, the music’s still thumping, and she’s got a cold drink in one hand. She’s good. Totally fine.
Until, of course, Alice lets out a very loud and very theatrical, “Holy. Shit.”
Rio turns, brows raised. “What?”
Alice doesn’t answer. She just stands there, frozen, eyes locked on something past the crowd.
“Seriously, what is it?” Rio asks again, this time more annoyed.
Then Alice grabs her arm hard enough to nearly knock the drink out of her hand and points.
Rio follows with her eyes, peering over a sea of sequins, body glitter, and a bunch of shirtless guys passionately butchering ABBA. And there, maybe twenty feet away, walking through a break in the crowd like some terrifying fashion shark, is Agatha Harkness. Agatha freaking Harkness.
She’s in head-to-toe black and aviators, looking more like she’s on her way to a funeral than a Pride parade, with that usual look on her face like the world kind of grosses her out. But what really surprises Rio more is the girl hanging off her arm. A walking rainbow, all blonde hair, heart-shaped sunglasses, and a bubblegum pink romper, smiling like she’s never had a bad day in her life.
“Didn’t you say your boss was straight?” Alice says, eyes still glued to the scene in front of them. “Then why does someone who looks exactly like her just happen to be at Pride...with what looks a whole lot like a hot, gorgeous, probably very gay date?”
Alice’s jaw is on the pavement, and Rio’s stomach instantly drops like it just got personally yeeted into the underworld to be gnawed on by Hades and Persephone’s joint custody hellhounds.
“No,” Rio blurts, way too fast, whipping her head in the other direction. “That’s impossible. What the hell would she even be doing here? That’s definitely someone else.”
“I don’t think it is,” Rio hears Alice say, and she risks another glance, just to be sure. And if it is indeed her freakishly terrifying boss, they’re running. And sure enough, big mistake.
Because the second she looks again, those unmistakable piercing blue eyes lock onto hers. One second. Maybe two. But it feels like Rio’s entire soul just got siphoned straight out of her body.
Even behind those massive, unnecessarily intimidating aviators, Rio can tell Agatha is just as surprised. She’s only been working for her a little over a month, but she’s been observant enough to know the small tells. The tight clench in her jaw. The barely-there purse of her lips. The slight twitch of her eyebrow.
They’re all there. Right there. Flashing across her face in less than a second before she smooths it over with that usual picture of deathly calm and cold neutrality.
“Oh, shit. That is her, isn’t it?”
Alice nods and swallows, probably realizing she just dragged Rio straight to her doom.
Rio stares, wide-eyed, praying this is some kind of stress-induced mirage. But it’s not.
“I’m getting fired,” she mutters under her breath. “Fuck. I’m so getting fired.”
“Okay, stop overthinking,” Alice argues, not even slowing down. “She probably doesn’t even recognize you. Didn’t you say you’re not even sure she knows you exist half the time? So just act cool, man. Keep walking like we don’t see her. And for the love of God, don’t look her way.”
Billy, completely out of the loop, squints ahead. “Wait, who are we not looking at?”
“Just keep walking, kid,” Rio exclaims, yanking her pride flag around like it’s a damn invisibility cloak.
The universe, meanwhile, being the little shit that it is, laughs and refuses to let the crowd move. Some float’s still jammed up ahead, so no one’s going anywhere. Which means Rio is now standing exactly twenty feet — twenty painfully clear, obstacle-free feet — away from Agatha and her rainbow arm candy of a date. Rio clutches her drink closer, resisting the impulse to melt into the asphalt.
“Is she still looking?” Billy asks, not helping.
Alice slowly turns her head halfway, then snaps it back.
“Shit. She’s definitely still looking.”
“Of course she’s still looking,” Rio hisses. “She knows it’s me.”
Rio’s stomach once again drops straight into her Pride socks. She takes a slow sip of her drink and tries not to keel over. Her heart’s pounding in her ears, and the panic is crawling up her throat. She looks again. Agatha is still staring. Like she already fired Rio in her head and is now picking out the font for the email. Fired and probably blacklisted. Hell, she might not even be allowed to read The Times after this.
She swallows. Fuck. Why the hell would someone like Agatha Harkness be at Pride of all places?
The woman hates everything. She probably has a running list. She hates crowds. She hates fun. She hates loud noises, bright colors, glitter, children, brunch, small talk, joy in general. She probably hates the gays too. And now, thanks to Rio’s dumbass decision to fake a cold and show up here, she’s definitely been added to that list. Fuck. She is so getting fired tomorrow.
The next day, Rio walks into the office like she’s headed to her own funeral.
This is it. The end of her journalism career. Dead. Buried. Cremated. And it didn’t even get a chance to live. She’s packing up, moving back to Delaware, buying a chunk of sad dirt behind a Wawa, and becoming a goddamn farmer. A disgraced lesbian tomato farmer.
And sure, she likes her little window garden in their shoebox apartment, but she didn’t survive three unpaid internships and that one time she cried in a restaurant freezer just to end up growing kale for the rest of her life. But now it’s all over.
All because she straight-up lied to Agatha Harkness. A woman who considers lying a fucking felony.
By the time Rio drops into her desk, she’s already drafted six versions of her resignation letter in her head, ranging from formal and weepy to one that just says “sorry” in Comic Sans and a sad face.
But weirdly, spookily, horrifyingly enough, Agatha just strolls in like she didn’t catch her junior assistant gay-panicking twenty feet away at Pride yesterday.
Is it really possible she didn’t recognize her? No. That’s impossible. A woman like Agatha doesn’t forget a face, Rio thinks. Still, she clings to the microscopic thread of hope that maybe, just maybe, her boss didn’t clock her lie, and forces herself to get on with her day.
As usual, Agatha asks for her coffee. Agatha asks for the lookbook. Agatha tells Jen, and Jen tells Rio to email seven different people, find a photographer, and track down a vintage Galliano jacket that may or may not even exist. Which, in Rio’s personal dictionary of working for Agatha, translates to: business as terrifyingly, unnervingly, aggressively typical. Or so she thinks.
Because by the time lunch rolls around — if you can even call it that, since she never actually gets one — her phone won’t stop ringing. She’s got it pinned between her shoulder and ear, juggling fifteen garment bags like an overworked octopus while trying not to get flattened by traffic on Wall Street.
“Are you there yet?” Jen barks through the phone. “I swear, I don’t know why I have to keep repeating myself, but she wants fifteen of those pleated sculpted skirts from Calvin Klein. Fifteen, Rio. Do you have them with you? Please tell me you have them, because she’s suddenly in one of her moods again.”
“Yes, uh, I have them here,” Rio says, barely getting a breath in before Jen steamrolls right on.
“Oh, and Studio 5B needs to be booked for 8 am tomorrow, not nine. Let the downstairs team know about the schedule change. Also, tell Sue to rethink those shiny metallic purses Monica just sent over for the Pride shoot in Williamsburg. She took one look and said they belonged in a clearance bin at a gas station in Reno. Don’t actually say that to them, obviously, but you know the drill.”
Jen doesn’t stop.
“Also, tell Carol she’s taking Kamala for the run-through this afternoon if Kate’s still stuck in Tokyo. Unless Kamala’s eye is still twitching, if it is, forget it. You know how Agatha feels about twitchy interns. And while you’re out, swing by Hermès and pick up those thirty-five scarves we ordered for her last week.”
Rio moves the phone against her shoulder, trying to avoid dropping all fifteen garment bags or getting hit by a bike. She opens her mouth to ask a question, but Jen’s still going.
“And she stepped out to meet with Mr. Stark, but she’ll want another Starbucks when she gets back. Scalding hot. Like, burn-your-tongue-off hot, Rio. Not whatever sad lukewarm crap you handed her last week. And she needs you back here by one.” Rio checks her watch. It’s already 12:15. Fucking hell.
“But how am I supposed to—” and the line drops before Rio can even finish the sentence.
Okay. Maybe Rio was wrong earlier. Maybe Agatha did recognize her. Maybe Rio is really getting fired today. Maybe this is Satan’s mistress orchestrating her final punishment: one last impossible to-do list before she slams that termination letter on Rio’s desk and banishes her soul to fucking purgatory.
Rio stumbles back into the office at 1:10.
“Is there some world-ending reason why my coffee isn’t here yet? Did she drop dead or something?” Agatha sounds mad enough to murder. Unlike earlier, her office is now packed with people from downstairs doing some kind of run-through, and judging by the way her tone could kill a man, Jen definitely wasn’t kidding about her mood taking a hard left.
Before Rio can even catch her breath, Jen appears out of nowhere like a bat out of hell, snatching the coffee right out of her hand. “What the hell took you so long? Dump those bags in there before she sees you,” she snaps, already turning on her heel. Then, without missing a beat, she gives Rio a once-over and adds, “And for God’s sake, check a mirror. You look like shit.”
And Rio fights the overwhelming urge to curse, cry, or combust.
The rest of the afternoon feels like a slow, painful death by a thousand errands, which, to be fair, is pretty on brand for her job. She’s been at it for a while now. Five weeks is a while. And in all that time, Agatha hasn’t really spoken to her directly, hasn’t looked her in the eye, and pretty much acts like she’s invisible.
Today, however, feels unusually brutal and extra hellish, because Rio just knows, deep in her gut, that Agatha is now fully aware she exists. She’s a gut girl. Always has been. Her gut told her not to eat gas station sushi once, and it saved her life.
So, when her gut says Agatha knows, she believes it. And whatever this treatment is, her boss is doing it on purpose. Rio isn’t just being overworked, she’s being tortured. And somehow, this is worse than being fired on the spot.
By 7 pm, the floor starts to empty out. One by one, people shuffle off to their cats, their dinner reservations, or whatever it is that normal, functioning adults with salaries do after work.
Jen gets sent to meet a supplier on Bleecker Street, leaving Rio alone with Agatha, who’s in her office, probably nose-deep in her laptop or the so-called book.
Rio is used to waiting for her boss to leave before she does. She’s done it a hundred times. But tonight feels more loaded. Like she’s being led to her own execution.
And then, right on cue, it happens.
“Rio,” Agatha calls from her office.
And Rio pretends that hearing her name, maybe for the first time, from Agatha’s mouth doesn’t send a shiver down her spine. Of course Satan’s mistress finally learned her name. People always name their sacrifices before throwing them into the volcano.
Rio’s stomach twists into a pretzel as she stands in front of Agatha’s table, watching her read something with that unreadable expression. She feels like she’s about to be skinned alive and turned into a limited-edition handbag. For a solid five seconds, she actually considers making a run for it. Or hurling herself out the window. Whichever’s faster. Then Agatha speaks, still without looking up.
“You were editor-in-chief of The Washington Square back in college, is that correct?”
Rio blinks. The question visibly catches her off guard, not because it’s not true, but because it’s coming from her boss. Nonetheless, she manages a quiet, “Yes.”
Agatha still doesn’t look up. Just flips a page in the file she’s holding.
“It also says here you once won some national competition for college journalists. Something about undocumented workers in Sussex County. The piece that blew open that mess with the fake employment records from that state senator’s office. Is this true?”
Rio’s stunned for a second. She hadn’t expected Agatha to be holding her file, let alone to have actually read it. But she finds her voice, and manages another, “Yes.”
“Did I accidentally hire someone whose entire vocabulary is just yes?”
Rio’s spine straightens. “No. I mean, sorry. I just...I don’t know why you’re asking me all this.”
“Well, since you allegedly spent four years of your life devoted to journalism, I’m assuming you can name the first global charter of ethics for journalists. Should be floating around in that head somewhere, no?”
Rio nearly chokes. “What?”
Where the hell is she going with this?
“Haven’t you learned, in all your weeks here, that I don’t like repeating myself?”
Rio clears her throat, scrambling. “Right. I-I’m sorry. I think, um, I think there are sixteen core principles. The first one’s about respecting the facts and the public’s right to the truth and—”
Agatha leans back in her chair, looking vaguely satisfied. “The truth. There it is.”
And then, finally, their eyes meet. It’s only for a second, but it lands like a punch to Rio’s gut.
It’s the first time she’s really looked into Agatha’s blue eyes up close, and they’re somehow colder and more beautiful than she expected. She tries to hold the stare, but it’s like looking straight into an eclipse. Blinding, dangerous, and a little too breathtaking for her own good.
She drops her eyes to the floor before she forgets how to breathe.
“I actually spent all day wondering if I’d ever hear that word from you,” Agatha says calmly. “You know, considering you straight-up lied to me.”
Rio goes still. She tries not to picture Agatha thinking about her all day, because that would be stupid, especially given the impending doom she’s about to face. Her mouth opens, then shuts, then opens again like a broken vending machine. Not a single word comes out.
“What you do outside these walls is entirely your business,” Agatha continues. “You want to dance in the street? Wrap yourself in a rainbow flag? Paint your face and scream your lungs out to bubblegum pop at 2 pm? Go for it. Knock yourself out. I really don’t care what you do when you’re not at work. Spend them however you want. Glitter, flags, half-naked dancers, whatever. I truly don’t give a damn.”
There’s a pause, and Rio feels like she’s about to pass out.
“What I do care about is being lied to. And I do not tolerate being lied to.”
Rio swallows. God, this is humiliating.
“I know. I understand. What I did was really stupid. There’s no excuse for it. I lied, and I’m really sorry,” She hesitates, then adds, “And if you’re going to fire me, just please—”
“I didn’t say I was firing anyone.”
Rio’s head snaps up. “What?”
She blinks. That definitely wasn’t in the mental script she’d been rehearsing.
Instead, Agatha reaches into her bag, pulls out a sleek black envelope, and hands it to her.
“There’s a restaurant address inside. You’re going to pick up the most expensive bouquet you can find, go there, and give it to the person waiting. Tell them I’m running late because of a meeting, but I’ll be arriving shortly. Whatever happens, do not let them leave. I don’t care how you do it. Just make sure they’re still sitting there when I walk in. Got it? Or do I need to start repeating myself again?”
Rio blinks again. “You, uh, you want me to deliver flowers? Like, for you?”
Agatha’s eyes land on her again, like she’s seriously debating whether to fire Rio, just like she probably intended to in the first place. “Unless, of course, you’d rather be unemployed.”
Rio quickly shuts her mouth and grabs the envelope. “Nope. Got it. Flowers. Restaurant. Don’t let them leave.” She starts backing out the door, confused as hell but at least still in one piece.
Rio buys the flowers. Thank God her mom was one of those women who believed knowing your florals was just as important as knowing your algebra. So she picks out the biggest, most dramatic-ass bouquet she can find: peonies, lilies, and anything else that looks expensive. Something that screams, “Sorry I’m late, sorry I’m a bitch, but mostly sorry I’m late.”
She grabs a cab, rides with the bouquet squished awkwardly in her lap, and still has no idea what the hell she’s doing. She’s not fired, that’s the good news. The bad news is…well, this. Being Agatha Harkness’s personal gay flower courier apparently.
The restaurant is one of those obnoxiously fancy places that makes you feel poor the second you walk in. Rio asks the host for Agatha’s reservation and gets directed to a two-top with those ridiculously high-backed chairs that make it nearly impossible to see who’s actually sitting there. But as she gets closer, she finally gets a good look at Agatha's date.
Seated alone with her back to the entrance, nursing what looks like the last five minutes of a martini, is the blonde. Yes, the same blonde from the parade. Big smile, heart-shaped glasses, pink romper. Except now, the romper’s been swapped for something classier, the heart-shaped glasses are gone, and she looks thoroughly pissed off.
“You must be the messenger,” the blonde says as Rio walks up.
Rio clears her throat. “Hi. Um, yeah. Agatha sent me to let you know she’s still in a meeting and will be running a little late. But she’s definitely coming. She just has a full-on schedule today.”
The blonde just stares at her. “Of course she is. She’s always on her own damn schedule.”
She says it in a way that’s both calm and absolutely done. Like she’s been through this exact situation a hundred times. She picks up her drink, downs the last sip, then sets it down with a little clink like a period.
“She said she’ll be here shortly,” Rio adds, though she honestly has no idea if that’s true.
The blonde gives a short, dry laugh. “Tell her not to bother. Whatever this is, it’s done.”
“Wait, what? No, no, no, please. Just give her a few more minutes,” Rio stammers, stepping in like she might actually block the exit. Which, for the record, she’s about 80 percent ready to do. Legality pending. “She really said she’s coming. She wanted to see you.”
“I said, tell her not to bother,” the blonde says. “We’re done.”
“No, seriously. Just hang on a few more minutes. Please. She’s coming, I swear.”
“She always does this,” the blonde continues. “She says she cares. She makes the plans. And then she doesn’t show. And somehow, I’m the one left sitting here like an idiot.”
Rio opens her mouth, but the blonde keeps going.
“If she really wanted to see me, she’d be here by now. Not sending you, with an overpriced apology bouquet like that’s supposed to fix anything.”
“She does want to see you,” Rio insists. “I swear she does.”
But the blonde shakes her head, already standing. “Tell your boss I’m done. Done begging for scraps of her time. I’m done waiting around, pretending like I don’t see exactly where I fall on her list of priorities. If she ever wants real commitment in her life, she needs to figure out how to make people feel like they’re more than just filler in her fucking calendar. And maybe stop being married to her fucking job.”
She grabs her purse and slings it over her shoulder. “Hope she and her job have a nice life together. Really stupid of me to think I’d ever come first.”
And before Rio can think of anything else to say or do, like maybe duct-tape her to the chair, the blonde turns on her heel and walks straight out the door.
Rio is left standing there, holding $200 worth of flowers and looking like the last girl picked for dodgeball. She sits down slowly in the now-empty chair, plops the bouquet on the table, and exhales.
“Oh, I’m so dead.”
Almost an hour has passed since the blonde walked out, but Rio’s still parked in the same chair. Not because she wants to. But because she’s literally frozen in the goddamn chair. The flowers are sprawled across the table like a fainting Victorian lady. Even they seem embarrassed to still be here. She half-expects them to apologize for not doing a better job of keeping the blonde in her seat.
“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” Rio tells herself. She can’t call Agatha. That’s just asking to finally get fired over speakerphone. So she does the only logical thing left: she waits. Might as well get fired face-to-face, like a woman with dignity.
She sighs and opens her phone, mostly just to give her hands something to do besides sweat. She types in what little she knows: Agatha Harkness Dating History. And sure enough, the algorithm delivers. A few blind items on Reddit all seem to point to a Natalia Romanova. Dancer at the New York City Ballet.
Rio squints at the screen. The blonde finally has a name.
“Huh,” she mutters. “Gotta hand it to her. Agatha’s got taste.”
Then it hits her all over again like a glitter brick: Agatha. Harkness. Is. A. Dyke.
She slumps in her seat, almost horrified.
She should’ve known. God, of course Rio should’ve known. How could she have missed the very obvious fact that her boss might not, in fact, be straight? “What kind of lesbian am I?” she whispers to herself. “How the hell did I not know?” Then she turns to the bouquet next to her. “You knew, didn’t you?”
But before the bouquet of flowers can even start surprising her and magically sprout a mouth, a soft quick kiss lands square on Rio’s left cheek, and she instantly freezes.
“Sorry,” says a familiar voice. “Tony wouldn’t stop going on about her wife and—”
Rio whips her head around so fast her neck cracks. And there she is. Agatha. Agatha freaking Harkness. Her boss. Leaning in way too close, eyes just as wide and stunned as Rio feels.
“You’re not—” Agatha blinks. “What are you still doing here? And where the hell is she?”
Rio stammers, still recovering from the fact that her boss just kissed her. Planets have formed entire moons in less time than it’s taking her brain to reboot.
“She…she left,” Rio finally gets out. “Almost an hour ago.”
Something flashes over Agatha’s face.
Disappointment, perhaps. Or confusion. Perhaps both. There’s even a short epiphany of embarrassment, something Rio had no idea Agatha was capable of. But in true Agatha fashion, she snaps back quickly. She straightens her back, wipes the emotion off her face like she’s brushing away a stain, and just like that, she’s unreadable again.
“She left an hour ago and you didn’t think to tell me?”
Rio stumbles over her words. “I’m sorry. I was going to, but I just didn’t know how to tell you. I even thought about body-blocking her, I really did. I tried to stall, but she just wasn’t having it. I’m so sorry, Agatha. If you’re gonna fire me, I get it. I’ll write my resignation tonight and hand it in first thing tomorrow.”
She stands up, already picturing her career crashing in slow motion.
Agatha sinks into the empty chair across from her. “Why do you keep thinking I’m going to fire you?” she says, sounding more exhausted than angry. “Sit down.”
Rio stares. “What?”
“Did all the glitter from yesterday rot your hearing? I said sit.”
And Rio sits.
“I dropped a small fortune on this damn reservation,” she says, yanking a napkin onto her lap. “And I’m not about to sit here like some pitiful charity case waiting for a pity date. You’re going to eat, and you’re going to act like it’s the best meal you’ve ever had. That’s how you’re going to thank me for not firing your lying, barely-competent little ass. Are we clear?”
Rio stares at her, still stunned. “So, you’re not mad?”
“Oh, I’m furious,” Agatha replies, “But I’m also starving.”
Then she picks up the menu and flags the waiter down like the last two minutes didn’t even happen.
The wine arrives first, followed by the meal, and they just sit there, eating in a silence so thick, every clink of the fork sounds ten times louder than it should.
Across the table, Agatha eats with the slow, mechanical elegance of someone who’s been wealthy too long to chew with her mouth open. Rio keeps stealing glances at her, careful not to get caught, and says nothing. And for a second, she seriously contemplates faking her own death. It’s surely easier than whatever the hell this is.
By the time the check comes, she feels like she has aged ten years. They step outside together, awkward as hell, standing in silence at the curb while the valet calls for Agatha’s car. Rio clears her throat. “These were supposed to be for her,” and holds out the bouquet, as if her boss even needs reminding.
Agatha does not even look at it. “What exactly do you expect me to do with it? Water it with gratitude?” she replies, stepping forward as the car pulls up. “Just keep it. Put it in a vase. Or the trash. Whichever feels more appropriate.” Then she climbs into the car without waiting for a reply.
Rio spends the whole night thinking about Agatha.
Not that she didn’t try not to, but the stupid flowers on her nightstand make that mission impossible. They just sit there in a vase, smug and expensive-looking, like a scented reminder that her boss (who she has now officially confirmed is extremely gay) kissed her on the cheek and then practically blackmailed her into some bougie dinner. She keeps slapping herself in the face, counting sheep and regrets at the same time. This could’ve happened to any poor assistant, she tells herself. Over and over. Like a bedtime lie.
The next morning, and the five mornings after that, are pretty much the same. Agatha is still Agatha. Still terrifying. Still demanding. Still allergic to small talk. Still expecting her coffee exactly how she likes it. And Rio is still Rio. Still gets the coffee. Still grabs the lunch. Still answers the calls. Still de-coats and de-bags her boss like a very gay bellhop.
But now, for some reason, Agatha actually calls her by her name. Not Jen. Not Rachel. Not Renee. Not Riley or Rita. Not even “that girl who sits outside my office.” But just Rio. Like she finally decided to learn it, or worse, like she’d always known it and just didn’t feel like using it until now.
And God, Rio really loves the way her name sounds coming out of Agatha’s mouth. It’s like getting a gold star and a slap from a terrifying high school teacher who finally remembered she exists. Either way, it’s weirdly hot, and she’s absolutely not proud of that.
And another curiously specific thing Rio notices is that Agatha stares at her sometimes. And it’s not the usual terrifying, soul-piercing boss stare, but something else. Like she’s not just looking at Rio, but looking into her. And Rio has no idea what to do with that. Except, of course, allow her foolish, functioning heart to do that idiotic little skip it has absolutely no business doing.
“She just got in from Paris and now she wants the mock-up dropped off at her place tonight,” Jen says, tossing a key at Rio, who barely manages to catch it. “I don’t know what’s up with her lately, or what the hell you did, but whatever it is, guard that key, and the book, like your life depends on it, okay? I’m serious. Lose either, and we’re both dead.”
Even before Rio can get a word in, Jen’s already marching toward her desk. “Alright, listen up,” she says, snapping her fingers. “The book will be ready around ten. Maybe ten-thirty if the layout guys stop dicking around. But you wait for it. Then you grab it, pick up her dry cleaning from the front, and a car’s gonna take you straight to her townhouse.”
She plants both hands on Rio’s desk and leans in. “Agatha is a very private person. She doesn’t like other people in her space. Only a handful even know where she lives. So here’s what you do: you let yourself in, and walk straight through the front door. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t look at anyone. You’re a ghost there, Rio. A ghost. Got it?”
Rio nods. “Right. Casper my way in, Casper my way out.”
Jen just rolls her eyes. Rio knows the woman in front of her is probably still wondering how the hell Agatha ended up hiring her in the first place. Rio still remembers showing up to that interview: scuffed-up boots, black jeans, a wrinkled button-down she’d stolen from an ex, and the way Jen had looked her up and down like she’d just walked in from a hardware store.
“You go in,” she continues, “Hang the dry cleaning in the closet right across from the stairs. Drop the book on the table next to the flowers, and you leave. No wandering around. No poking through drawers. No snooping. And don’t even think about opening her fridge.”
“Jesus, okay,” Rio says, throwing her hands up. “I’m not trying to move in, Jen.”
Rio keeps Jen’s instructions in her head like a checklist. She waits upstairs for the book, and just like clockwork, it shows up at 10:15. She grabs it, heads downstairs, spots the black car already idling out front, and gets in. It’s a twenty-minute ride to the Upper East Side, and Rio spends all twenty of those minutes sweating bullets, clutching the mock-up on her lap like it’s a newborn.
When the car eventually comes to a stop in front of Agatha’s townhouse, Rio sits for a moment, squinting at it. She can’t help but stare at the house, which looks like old money had a baby with good taste and had no idea what rent was. The type of place which makes people forget about the garbage piles, subway rats, and existential anxiety, and fools them into believing New York is attractive instead of merely noisy, filthy, and ridiculously expensive.
When she gets to the front, she enters as discreetly as possible. The entire place is dead silent, making Rio instinctively walk on her toes, even though it doesn’t look like anyone’s around. She heads straight for the closet across from the stairs and hangs up the dry cleaning. Then she turns around and freezes.
There isn’t just one table with a vase of flowers. There are three. Three tables. Three vases. And one very stressed-out Rio frozen in the middle of the foyer. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mutters to herself, eyes darting between the three different floral arrangements.
She pulls her phone from her blazer pocket, ready to call Jen and ask where the hell this damn book is supposed to go, when voices from upstairs stop her cold.
“I don’t understand why you even bother coming here if all you’re going to do is criticize every choice I make,” Agatha snaps from upstairs. “I’m a grown-ass adult. I don’t need a running commentary from you every time I breathe. My life is perfectly fine. Why is that so hard to accept, like how normal parents do?”
There’s a pause, followed by the distinct sound of heels on hardwood and the colder, clipped accent of a considerably older woman. “Fine? This is what you call fine? Living alone in this city, squandering your potential, throwing away your education on useless periodicals, and running around with God knows who? You went to Harvard, Agatha, for God’s sake. This isn’t a real career. You should be helping your father. You should be home with us. Settling down. With someone appropriate.”
Rio hears Agatha let out a dry, bitter laugh. She knows she should move, leave, do anything but stand there frozen in the hallway. “Oh, of course it’s about that. It’s always about that, isn’t it, Mother?” She hears her continue. “You want me to come home so you can keep pretending nothing about me makes you uncomfortable. Well, newsflash, that part of me isn’t going anywhere.”
“You watch how you talk to me.”
There’s another beat of silence before Agatha’s voice cuts through again.
“Just please leave. I’m asking you nicely while I still have an ounce of respect left for you as my mother. But if you ever show up uninvited again, I won’t think twice about filing a restraining order. You really want your church friends and country club pals to find out your own daughter had to legally cut you off? What do you think God would say about that?”
Another beat of silence, then: “I should’ve done something the second I saw the signs,” her mother spits, voice dripping with disgust. “I kept praying you’d grow out of this...monstrosity. But you’ve only gotten worse. Sometimes I wonder if the Lord only gave you to us just to test how much shame one family can take. You’ve been nothing but a disappointment. Right from the start.”
Rio feels something twist hard in her chest. She hadn’t even realized how tightly she’d been clutching the book until the words sank in. How the hell does a mother say something like that to her own child?
Then she hears footsteps coming down the stairs. Rio stands frozen, holding her breath, until Agatha’s mother materializes. The old woman gives her a brief, cold look, as if she wasn’t surprised someone else heard her say all that. Like Rio was just part of the furniture.
Then she walks right past without saying a word.
Just as Rio’s about to step back, Agatha appears at the top of the stairs.
Rio freezes again when their eyes meet. Agatha looks shaken, clearly still reeling from the fight with her mother, and genuinely surprised to see her there. For a brief moment, something passes over her face, as if she’s trying to figure out how much Rio has heard. “What are you doing here?” she asks.
Rio swallows hard. She pushes down the wave of pity climbing up her throat and tries to keep her face neutral, though she is aware, she’s doing a terrible job of it.
Because this isn’t the Agatha she knows. This isn’t the commanding, unshakeable editor-in-chief of the most cutthroat magazine in the city. This Agatha is barefoot, clad in a silky floral kimono, her hair falling in loose, unkempt waves. She doesn’t look the least bit terrifying. She looks like a kid who just got yelled at and is trying really hard not to fall apart. Or cry.
“I-I was just dropping off the book,” she explains, “You asked Jen to have it delivered tonight, but I wasn’t sure which table I was supposed to leave it on so—”
“Just leave it in there,” she says, tilting her head toward the living room. She doesn’t sound angry. Just tired. Bone-deep tired, the kind Rio’s never heard from her before.
Rio nods without saying anything and walks over. She sets the thick book down on a table beside a vase of flowers: azaleas, she realizes right away. Her mami’s favorite too. Then she turns and heads back to the foyer.
Agatha is standing by the door, arms folded and staring straight ahead. Rio knows she should just walk past. That would be the wise thing to do. But she has never been good at shutting up when it matters. And something about seeing Agatha like this prompts her to speak.
“You’re not a disappointment,” Rio says gently. When Agatha doesn’t reply and keeps her eyes ahead, she adds, “I know I haven’t worked for you that long, but I’ve seen enough to know that.”
She watches Agatha’s jaw clench. A breath, then a small shake of her shoulders as she brushes her hair back. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” Agatha says bluntly. “And now that your task here is done, I’d appreciate it if you could see yourself out.” She doesn’t wait for a response. Just turns and walks back up the stairs without looking back.
The day after that, Rio’s running stupidly late for work. Because of course, the one day the MTA decides to throw a tantrum is the exact day she’s supposed to be in the office by 8 am. Sharp. The Starbucks line doesn’t help her either. Some poor intern behind the counter messes up three drinks in a row and nearly starts a riot. People were two misspelled names away from flipping tables.
By the time Rio gets her order, she’s practically sprinting the last few blocks, trying not to spill scalding coffee all over herself. She rushes into the building and bolts straight for the elevator, only to find Agatha already inside, and alone. And that’s the thing. Agatha is always alone.
It’s basically gospel across all forty floors of Stark Publishing that no one rides the elevator with Agatha Harkness.
Doesn’t matter what department you’re in, how high up you are on the masthead, or if you're two minutes from getting fired.
If she’s already in there, you wait for the next one.
Rio hesitates, fully expecting a death glare or maybe just the doors to slide shut in her face. But instead, Agatha gives her a single look, rolls her eyes like it physically pains her, and tosses her the world’s tiniest nod. Still, Rio takes it like a golden ticket and slips inside before she can change her mind.
The doors swing shut, and just like that, the air goes dead silent. Thank God for the cheesy elevator music, Rio thinks, though under normal circumstances, she would rather be hit by a bus than willingly enjoy smooth jazz. They’ve barely made it to floor 20 when Agatha finally says something.
“From now on, you will be the one bringing the book to my house at the end of each day,” she says, as if the decision has already been made and Rio is simply catching up. “The key that Jen gave you is now your responsibility. I expect it to remain safe with you, and that there will be no incidents involving burglary, murder, or anything else that might warrant police attention.”
Rio blinks, about to say something, when Agatha raises a finger without even glancing up. “I’m not finished.” Rio's mouth shuts instantly. “You will bring the book to my place every evening. I’ll go over it, leave notes, and it’ll be back on my desk by morning. From now on, that is the new routine, well, yours anyway. The book doesn’t end its day here. It sleeps at my place. Make absolutely certain that happens without fail. Understood?”
“Y-Yes. Yes, Agatha,” Rio answers, dumbfounded, and still convinced she’d fucked up the job last night.
The elevator dings.
“Good.” Agatha steps out. “I do love a girl who knows how to take simple instructions.” She says it without turning around, but Rio swears there’s a hint of something else in her tone that makes her forget how to breathe for a second. Then, over her shoulder, she adds. “And Rio?”
“Yes?”
“That coffee better still be scalding when it reaches my desk. We’ve got a long day today.”
By the end of another week, Rio has the routine down to a rhythm. Pick up the dry cleaning. Wait for the book. Let herself into Agatha’s townhouse. Drop it off in the living room. Then head home. The incident from that first night, or anything even remotely like it, never happened again.
And every time since, the house has always been dead silent whenever she slips in, except for that one time she found Agatha in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the couch, completely absorbed in a thick book. She didn’t even look up, and Rio didn’t stick around long enough to see what the cover said.
Every day starts feeling like the exact same loop, until a random Tuesday, when Agatha doesn’t show up to work. And that never happens. Because Agatha does not miss work. When she’s not out of the country for Fashion Week or off at some exclusive invite from the Met or Anna Wintour herself, she practically lives in her office. She doesn’t take days off. Not for birthdays, not for holidays, not even during that suspicious package scare in the building last year, according to Jen.
Still, Rio follows the routine. Picks up the dry cleaning, waits for the book, grabs it, heads downstairs, slides into the car, and makes her way to Agatha’s place. It’s supposed to be like every other evening.
But the second she steps inside on that same random Tuesday and heads to the living room, she knows something’s off. Things look different. There’s a trail of used tissues leading from the couch to the floor, a half-drunk mug of tea sitting cold on the table, and a blanket crumpled in a sad little heap near the rug.
She debates whether to just ignore it and do what she came here to do. But then she notices the door to Agatha’s home office is open. She knows she shouldn’t, but the word just slips out before she can stop it.
“Agatha?”
No one answers, so Rio steps in farther, her shoes tapping softly against the hardwood like a metronome for her rising panic. That’s when she sees Agatha, lying facedown on the floor.
Rio drops the book without thinking, already rushing over. “Holy shit,” she breathes, heart kicking hard against her ribs as she drops to her knees beside her. “Agatha? Hey, Agatha, can you hear me?” Rio spends the next five seconds in full-blown panic, until a low groan rises from the floor.
“Why are you yelling…”
Rio exhales as if she had been holding her breath for a year. “Jesus, I thought you were—” She breaks herself short, staring down at her boss. Her skin is flushed, her hair is a mess, and, dear god, she’s wearing a worn-out Harvard sweatshirt and a pair of baggy sweatpants.
“You don’t look so good,” Rio says, dumbfounded.
Agatha doesn’t even lift her head. “No shit.”
Rio has to blink a few times, because she’s not entirely convinced this is real. The same woman who once shut down an entire shoot because the lighting was “too pedestrian” is now facedown on the floor of her home office. Rio has to snap herself out of it. “What the hell are you doing on the floor?”
But before she can even move to help, Agatha suddenly pushes herself up, stumbles to the nearest bathroom, and slams the door shut just in time to throw up.
Rio rushes after her. “Agatha? Are you okay?”
Another round of vomiting seems to answer Rio’s question. She winces at the sound and hovers uselessly by the door. “Do you want me to call someone?” she adds, flinching again as more retching echoes back, unsure if Agatha can even hear her over the sound of it all, then comes the flush of the toilet a few seconds later.
“Just leave the book and go.”
She hears Agatha say something else after that, but doesn’t catch it, because the next round of vomiting is louder, more violent. There’s no way that’s normal, Rio thinks. “Okay, I can’t just leave you like this,” she says, giving the door a soft knock. “Can I come in?”
“No!”
Then silence. And after a few seconds, the toilet flushes again.
“Agatha?” No response. “Agatha?” Rio tries again, already pulling out her phone. “Okay, that’s it. I’m calling Javier. We’ll take you to the hospital right now.”
“No, you’re not doing that. I’m fine,” Agatha says hoarsely, though her voice is paper-thin and fraying. After a pause, she adds. “Could you just…grab me some blankets? They should be in the linen closet, just off the service corridor by the laundry.”
Rio nods, already stepping back, then stops. “Right, uh, where exactly is that?”
“Past the kitchen. First door on the right.”
Rio sprints down the hall, finds the linen closet, and grabs a couple of blankets before rushing back.
“I’ve got the blankets. I’m coming in, okay?” She calls out, but when there’s no answer, she pushes the door open anyway, and there’s Agatha, sitting on the floor by the toilet, shivering and almost ghost-pale.
Without saying a word, Rio kneels beside her and gently drapes the blankets over her shoulders and Agatha pulls them tight around herself.
“If you don’t want to go to the hospital, can you at least please tell me what’s going on?” Rio asks carefully, trying not to piss off her already sick-looking boss.
“That godawful restaurant on Thompson Street,” Agatha mutters hoarsely. “Have someone file a complaint and get in touch with my lawyer. I’m pressing charges, or whatever it is people do when they’ve been poisoned.” She leans back against the wall, eyes closed. “God, I don’t know what that man was thinking. Dragging me to that place just because his mistress happened to be at the next table. And for what? Mediocre food and puking my guts out? That man is going to be the death of me.”
Rio puts the pieces together as she realizes Agatha must be talking about Tony Stark, owner of Stark Publishing. She remembers noting that dinner meeting on Agatha’s calendar a few days ago.
“I really think you should see a doctor,” she says gently.
“And I really think you should mind your own business,” Agatha blurts out, then pauses, realizing how harsh that might have sounded. She adds, “I said no. I’m fine.”
“You’re clearly not fine.”
“If you’re going to keep insisting that, then just leave.”
“No. I’m not leaving you like this,” Rio snaps. Okay, maybe not the best way to talk to her boss, so she quickly softens. “You look one vomit away from dehydration, and we don’t even know if this is something worse. If you won’t go to the hospital, at least let me stay and help.”
Agatha sighs like Rio’s the biggest inconvenience in the world. “Fine. There’s some fluids in my room upstairs. First door on the right. If you’re so hell-bent on playing Florence Nightingale, be my guest.”
Rio gets up, heads up the stairs, and finds the IV bag sitting neatly on the bed, because of course Agatha has her own personal rehydration kit. Ultra-rich, nepotism-soaked people and their ridiculous perks. She snatches it up and hurries back downstairs. More retching. Then the toilet flushes again.
Rio taps lightly on the bathroom door. “I’ve got the IV.” Agatha’s still on the floor when she steps in, head resting against the wall, eyes shut. “I’ve got it,” she repeats, holding up the bag.
“Just give it to me.”
“I can do it.”
Agatha cracks one eye open. “Do you even know how?”
“Don’t worry, my mom was a nurse,” Rio tells her. “I used to watch her do this all the time.”
Agatha doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t protest either. She sighs, raises her arm.
“If you mess this up and I die, I’m absolutely firing you.”
“Whatever you say, Agatha,” Rio quips, carefully setting up the line and hanging the IV on the rack above the toilet. “If my mami were your nurse, she’d probably roll her eyes at you. She never had much patience for mouthy adult patients who acted like kids when they were sick.” She snorts.
Agatha just watches her for a second, then closes her eyes again and lets her arm rest in Rio’s hands.
After a few more rounds of throwing up and a bit of back-and-forth bickering, Agatha finally lets Rio help her upstairs.
She’s still wobbly on her feet, wrapped in a blanket like some grumpy burrito, leaning into her assistant more than she probably realizes. Rio, meanwhile, keeps one hand on the IV bag and the other on Agatha’s back, partly to guide her, and mostly to make sure she doesn’t suddenly faceplant.
Once they reach the bedroom, Agatha sinks onto the edge of the bed and mumbles, “I need to change.”
Rio just blinks at her. “Okay,” she says. And then just stands there.
Agatha slowly lifts her head and gives her a look.
“I said I’m going to change. Are you seriously thinking about watching your boss strip right now?”
Rio nearly dies on the spot. Her brain, unhelpfully, flashes an image of Agatha in literally any state of undress, and she immediately wants to sink through the floor.
“What? No, I wasn’t. God, no!” she stammers, whipping around to face the wall. “I’m just gonna, uh, go check downstairs if there’s any food you can eat,” she blurts, eyes glued to the paint, and practically side-stepping out the door.
Rio heads downstairs and pokes around the kitchen, figuring soup might help. Something hot and easy to stomach.
She’s sure Agatha has ingredients lying around to make a proper one. But when she opens the fridge, she immediately scrunches her nose. It’s packed with microwave meals. Rows and rows of them, neatly stacked and organized by flavor and brand.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Is this seriously how rich people eat?” she mutters to herself, grabbing a chicken noodle soup, pouring it into a bowl, and popping it into the microwave.
As it heats, she remembers Jen once telling her never to open Agatha’s fridge under any circumstance. Rio snorts. She hadn’t even expected to be the one microwaving soup for her tonight, but here she is, doing exactly that.
When Rio heads back upstairs, she finds Agatha in a fresh set of silk pajamas.
“I would’ve made something more decent, but this is literally all you have downstairs,” she says, setting the tray of soup and water on the bedside table. “Do you ever keep real food in your fridge?”
Agatha just shrugs and mumbles something about barely being home and not seeing the point of groceries. She doesn’t even protest when Rio insists she eat. She just picks up the spoon and slowly brings it to her mouth like she doesn’t have the energy to be her usual terrifying self.
Once Rio’s sure Agatha’s eaten enough, she heads back downstairs. She drops the used bowl in the sink, shrugs off her blazer and tosses it over a chair, then ties her hair up, now just in a tank top and jeans. She ends up tidying a bit: tossing the trail of tissues, rinsing the empty mug and bowl, and folding the random blanket left on the floor.
Once the mess is mostly dealt with, she heads back upstairs.
She finds Agatha fast asleep, curled up on her side with the blanket pulled tight around her. The soft golden light from the nightstand spills across her face, making her look calm, almost delicate, but there’s still a faint paleness in her skin that makes her look cold.
Rio stands there for a second, unsure what to do, then quietly grabs another blanket draped over the chair and lays it gently over her, careful not to disturb her sleep.
Rio props herself on the little loveseat by the door, pulling her knees up and hugging a throw pillow to her chest. For a minute, she just watches Agatha. Head tilted, chin resting on the armrest.
From this angle, it almost feels like they’re lying in the same bed.
Agatha looks so peaceful. Not like the boss-from-hell who stomps through the office and scares grown adults into crying. Not the woman who can ruin a career with just one look. Agatha looks totally harmless, softer, and almost unreal, if Rio’s being honest.
What kind of cosmic glitch landed her here, sitting and watching her terrifying boss sleep like some love-sick weirdo? Rio immediately straightens up the moment she realizes where her thoughts are headed. No. Absolutely not. She’s not going down that rabbit hole.
Rio looks up at the clock and sees it’s already close to midnight. She should probably go home, get some rest, and try to reset for tomorrow. But something in her gut won’t let her leave, not when Agatha’s up here alone and sick. It simply doesn’t seem right.
Instead, she lets her eyes wander around the room. It’s the first time she’s really taken a good look at it. It’s bigger than it seemed earlier. Very Agatha.
The curtains are long and lavender, the sheets look pristine and probably cost a fortune. There are a few black-and-white photos on the wall, most of which are of buildings and city shots. No people in any of them. Even her room feels kind of cold and fancy, just like Agatha. Still, Rio doesn’t hate it.
She gets up quietly and walks over to the shelf under the TV, picking out one of the books lined up there. She flips through it without really reading, just trying to stay awake. She yawns. Her eyes are starting to feel heavy. Then she yawns again. And before she even realizes it, her head leans back against the pillow, and the last thing she sees is Agatha, half-covered in a blanket, fast asleep.
Rio wakes up with a stiff neck and a dull ache in her back. Her cheek is stuck to the cushion, and when she pulls away, there’s a suspiciously damp patch.
Oh god. Had she been drooling?
She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, mortified, and slowly sits up. There’s a blanket draped over her shoulders, definitely not something she remembers grabbing before falling asleep.
The thought alone of who might have put the blanket over her makes her ears warm. She blinks a few times, letting her eyes adjust before looking at the clock over Agatha’s bed, which is now empty.
Rio stands and stretches, her body stiff from even that short hour of sleep, then pads quietly out of the room. The house is silent until she reaches the bottom of the stairs, where light spills out from the kitchen and she hears the faint sound of typing.
She finds Agatha perched on a tall stool at the kitchen island, still in her silk pajamas. She is wearing a pair of thin reading glasses, hair pushed back, and is typing calmly on her laptop like it’s just another Tuesday afternoon, and not, in fact, the middle of the night.
Without even lifting her head from the screen, Agatha says, “And here I thought I was the one who’s sick.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” Rio scratches the back of her neck as she regards the woman in front of her. Just a few hours ago, she was hugging the toilet and looking half a breath from death.
Now she’s back to work like nothing happened.
Does this woman ever rest? Rio wonders.
“Anyway, you seem fine now. I should get going.” And then, betrayal in its purest form, her stomach growls loud enough to rattle the walls. The silence in the house also does nothing to save her dignity.
Rio winces, suddenly remembering she hasn’t eaten a thing since she left the office.
“Someone’s hungry.”
Rio feels her ears burn. “I’m fine. I-I’ll just eat at home.”
“And when’s that going to be? After almost an hour’s drive?” Agatha says. And Rio tries not to dwell on the fact that Agatha might’ve somehow found a way to learn where she lives. “Stay. I already ordered some food,” she adds, shutting her laptop with a soft click. “Real food,” she reiterates, giving Rio a pointed look as if she clearly remembers what she said earlier.
Rio frowns. “At this hour?”
Agatha crosses her arms and rolls her eyes.
“Oh, please, darling. I’ve made way more impossible things happen before breakfast.”
Not five minutes later, the doorbell rings, and Rio blinks like she’s in a fever dream as a delivery guy in a sleek black uniform hands her a paper bag that smells like heaven. Inside: steak, truffle mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, and a tiny chocolate cake that looks too pretty to eat.
Rio stares at the spread as she slides onto a stool. “Which Michelin chef did you blackmail for this?” she asks, still in awe. Agatha simply arches her brow like she’s above answering, and the two of them begin to eat in complete silence across from each other.
Every so often, Rio sneaks glances across the island.
Almost without meaning to, she catches the way Agatha’s brows pinch slightly as she scrolls through something on her phone, the way she absentmindedly pushes her glasses up her nose. She’s still a little pale, clearly not fully recovered, and her hair’s a bit of a mess, but somehow, she still looks effortlessly put-together in a way that Rio will never understand.
Again, the question from earlier drifts back in: what kind of cosmic glitch landed her here?
“If you’re planning to keep your eyes glued on me the entire time, the least you can do is turn it into a conversation,” Agatha says, still not looking up. “So whatever it is you’ve been dying to ask, just ask. I’m in a very generous mood.”
“What makes you think I have a question?” Rio coughs on a bite of cake.
Agatha finally looks up, and for a second, Rio forgets what planet she’s on. Her eyes, God, those eyes, are like the ocean right before a storm. Dark, cold, and impossible to reach. And yet, some part of her still wants to dive in. Like if she just swims far enough, she might definitely find something worth drowning for.
“Am I wrong?” Agatha asks, like she already knows she’s not.
Rio shakes her head and sets her fork down.
“It’s just...I still don’t really get why you didn’t fire me when you had the chance. You caught me lying, like, straight to your face, and any other boss would've fired me without thinking twice. But you didn’t. You still let me keep the job. And even before that, I’ve always kind of wondered why you hired me at all. I’m nothing like the other girls at that company. I didn’t even know who you were when I applied, but you still gave me the job.”
Rio catches herself, hearing how that must have sounded, so she adds, “Not that I’m ungrateful, because I am. I am grateful. I mean, at the time it was either Nocturne or Drive Monthly, so believe me, I know I got lucky. I’m just...curious, that’s all.”
Agatha studies her for a moment, then slips off her glasses and sets them neatly beside her plate.
“You’re right,” she says. “I always hire the same type of girl. Polished, put-together, breathes and bleeds the magazine, practically have themselves foaming at the mouth to please me. Normally, I would’ve ended the interview the moment you admitted you didn’t know who I was. You didn’t know fashion, and clearly, that hasn’t changed, though I did hope you’d have made some sort of effort by now.” Her eyes drift briefly to what Rio’s wearing, and Rio suddenly becomes very aware of her tank top and jeans.
“Anyway,” Agatha continues, “I do hire the same kind of girl. And they always end up disappointing me. But then you walked into my office with your impressive resume and that little speech about your so-called work ethic, and I thought, what the hell, maybe I’ll take a calculated risk. And for a while, you didn’t disappoint. Not until that moment.” She pauses, and Pride comes rushing back to Rio.
“But even then, I told myself: I’m not going to fire someone just for having the guts to do what I’ve never been able to.” She pauses, and Rio doesn’t know what to say to that. “I wasn’t even supposed to be at that parade. But the woman I was seeing at the time. Let’s just say she manipulated my schedule, and made sure I ended up there. And I was livid, not at her, not really. I was more angry at myself. Because standing in that crowd, all I could think was, why can’t I be like everyone else? Why can’t I be out there, unapologetic, proud, free?” She then lets out a breath. “So no, I didn’t fire you. Maybe it’s not the most professional call I’ve ever made, but hell, call it gay solidarity or whatever. That’s the real reason. Whether I liked it or not, you reminded me of a version of myself I’ve never quite had the courage to be.”
Rio is suddenly speechless, still taking in everything Agatha just said. It’s strange, hearing someone who seems so in control, so powerful, so untouchable, speak like that. As if she wasn’t made of steel after all. And before Rio can stop herself, it leaves her mouth before she can catch it.
“Then why haven’t you come out yet? Like…really come out?”
Agatha doesn’t answer right away. Her fingers tap lightly against the edge of her plate.
“Because it’s not that simple,” she says. “Weren’t you there during that conversation with my mother?” She pauses again, then looks back at Rio. “I built this career from the ground up. Every inch of it. I clawed my way into rooms no one wanted me in, earned respect from people who would have laughed me out of the building if they knew everything about me. I’ve worked too hard to have what I have now reduced to a headline. My job is all I’ve really had. I can’t risk it, not for something that will always be true anyway. I’ll always be gay, even if I never say it out loud on some front page. And maybe it’s not ideal, but I’ve made peace with living in the in-between.”
“But isn’t living in the in-between kind of lonely?” Rio asks.
“Some days more than others." She reaches for her glass of water, takes a sip, and sets it back down. “But it’s the kind of loneliness you eventually get used to.”
Sensing the conversation might’ve drifted somewhere a little too personal, Rio clears her throat and tries to steer them back to safer ground.
“So, let me get this straight: you hired me because I’m smart. And didn’t fire me because you found out I’m gay,” she says, piecing it together out loud. “Cool. I think I’ll have that engraved on my tombstone some day.” She lets out a chuckle, and it actually earns the tiniest twitch of Agatha’s lips.
“Well,” Agatha says suddenly, “I do like smart gay girls.”
And Rio’s chuckle falters just slightly as she looks at Agatha, who seems to realize at the same moment what just came out of her mouth. She clears her throat and immediately straightens in her seat.
“Right. Anyway, I think I’ve paid my dues for the night. Have Javier come pick you up and take you home,” she says, already standing. "And don’t worry about the mess, I’ve got someone coming tomorrow.”
“Right,” Rio mirrors, grabbing her blazer and slipping it back on. “I should go.”
“Yes. And I should get back to bed,” Agatha says, already moving out of the kitchen.
Rio follows her into the hall.
At the stairs, Agatha pauses and looks over her shoulder.
“You can see yourself out?”
“Of course. I’ll just lock the door when I leave.”
Agatha nods and turns to head upstairs, but before Rio can even touch the doorknob, her voice floats back down. “And, Rio?”
Rio turns. “Yeah?”
Agatha hesitates for a beat. She opens her mouth like she might say something else, but instead, she settles on, “Don’t be late. Just because you played nurse all night doesn’t mean you get a pass.”
Rio offers a small, sheepish smile, hands tucked into her pockets.
“Right. Sleep well, Agatha. Or what’s left of the night, anyway.”
Agatha just gives her a look, but there’s something a bit soft buried in it. For a moment, it seems like she might say something, but then she changes her mind, says nothing, and disappears up the stairs.
Hours later, Rio finds herself in the dreaded weekly editorial conference. It’s the all-hands meeting where every editor, section head, creative lead, and senior contributor squeezes into the glass conference room to finalize the end-of-month Pride issue.
It’s the magazine’s first time releasing one, and Rio, running on barely four hours of sleep and a large coffee, is doing everything she can to stay awake.
She hides each yawn behind her notepad, but at one point, Jen would lean over, and would subtly pinch her arm, and shoot her a look. If only Jen knew why Rio was up so late, she’d be gagged. Hell, she could barely believe it herself.
At the far end of the table, Agatha is in full business mode. A far cry from the woman curled up on the bathroom floor last night. This version of her is sharp, composed, and articulate as she addresses the room, while Rio and Jen sit off to the side, silently taking notes.
Most of what’s being said goes in one ear and out the other for Rio, but she catches snippets. Something about an out-and-proud lesbian actress requesting her cover story drop the same week as her film release. Agatha, unimpressed, shoots that down with a curt, “We’re not rearranging our editorial calendar around some actress’ press tour.”
Then she taps on a layout spread. “The Pride fashion feature looks like a department store flyer. And worse, like it was designed by someone still halfway in the closet. It needs edge. Energy. Make it bolder. Louder. Make it unapologetic.”
Then she flips through the next set of proofs and frowns. “We’re pulling the nightlife feature. It’s falling flat, no depth or angle worth keeping. I want something that actually says something about queer spaces right now, not a roundup of where to get overpriced cocktails. Also, lose the dating app essay. It’s tired. We've read that story a hundred times, and this version doesn’t even add a single new thought to the discourse.”
She flips to one last page and exhales sharply. “This History of Pride column. What is this? It reads like someone copy-pasted from a goddamn Wikipedia page. It’s dry, too careful, too clinical, and completely devoid of voice.” She tosses the proof back on the table with a groan. “Did anyone actually show up to work today? Because everything I’ve read so far is underwhelming at best.”
The room falls silent.
“Miss Vidal,” Agatha says, formally. And just like that, every eye swings to Rio. Good thing she isn’t mid-yawn. “I saw you read the History of Pride piece earlier this week. What do you think it’s missing?”
Rio looks up like she’s just been called on in class without raising her hand.
“Me?” she croaks.
Agatha blinks once. “Yes. You.”
Rio had read the piece. Thought it was dull by the end of the first paragraph. But she’s still an assistant, barely six weeks into the job, and it’s not exactly her place to say anything about it.
Still, she clears her throat. “Um…I personally think it’s trying too hard to be polite. It wants to include everything, but, unfortunately, it ends up saying nothing. It lists events, but there’s actually no story here. Just dates and names. Basically, a summary. But Pride isn’t a summary. It’s people. It’s supposed to make you feel things. And you don’t feel anything in this.”
Agatha keeps her eyes on her. “So, what would you suggest?”
Rio hesitates for half a second, then speaks. “Maybe it needs to start with a person. A real moment. Something that pulls you in. Like…imagine opening with a teenager at their first Pride parade. They’ve spent their whole life thinking they had to hide, and now they’re standing in the middle of a crowd that’s loud and joyful and unapologetically themselves. Maybe they hear people cheering, and for the first time, they realize the cheering includes them. That they belong in it. That they’re not alone.” She pauses, then adds, “That’s what Pride is. Not just history. It’s a memory. People just don’t remember timelines. If you want the reader to care, you have to make them feel something first. A heartbeat.”
The room falls into a quiet pause. Jen looks halfway to gaping, and a couple of senior editors glance at each other and lower their pens. Across the table, Agatha just stares at Rio for a long, unreadable beat. Then she gives a small, simple nod.
“Have someone redo the piece,” she says, turning to the editor beside her. “Use that note. Start with a heartbeat. I want that tone in the rewrite.” And just like that, she flips to the next page and keeps going.
The butterflies in Rio’s stomach don’t ease up, even hours later. She’s just settling back at her desk after a quick errand downstairs when a cup of coffee suddenly lands in front of her. She looks up, just in time to catch the unmistakable back of her boss, already walking into her office without a word.
Rio quite literally forgets how to breathe. She stares at the cup for a long second, only snapping out of it when Jen gives her a confused squint from across the desk. Rio can practically hear what she’s thinking, so she shrugs and tells her, “Maybe it’s because of what I said earlier.”
But deep down, a sneaky part of her wonders if this cup of coffee has less to do with her input, and more to do with the fact that Agatha’s the reason she’s running on fumes, and she might’ve seen Rio yawning halfway through the meeting.
Everyone had gone home. The majority of the building is now dark, except for a few low strips of light still glowing along the floor, the soft hum from Rio’s desk lamp, and the warm spill of light from Agatha’s office. It’s just the two of them left on the entire floor again. Rio, waiting for the book, and Agatha, probably still finalizing the last pieces to go in it.
Rio is halfway through going over Agatha’s schedule for the week, cross-checking meetings and interviews with her color-coded sticky notes, when she hears her name.
“Rio?”
Rio gets up and makes her way to Agatha’s office. “Come in for a second,” the other woman says, not looking up right away. She’s standing at her long worktable, sleeves casually rolled to her elbows, surrounded by a sea of printed photos, page layouts, and headline drafts. Her glasses are slipping a little down her nose, and she’s holding a red pen like she’s been deep in editing mode for hours.
“I need to finalize the replacements for the pieces we cut this morning,” Agatha adds, her eyes still on the scattered pages. “I’ve narrowed it down to six. I want you to help me decide which ones go in.”
Rio hesitates, still a little surprised every time Agatha asks for her opinion on anything. But she steps closer to the desk, eyes scanning the pages spread out. There’s a long-form draft on Gen Z drag artists thriving in conservative towns. A raw photo series of queer-owned barbershops in the South. An interview with a newly out athlete who just signed a major pro deal. But Agatha gestures to a few printouts.
“There’s a photo essay on underground ballroom culture. Great and strong visuals, but not much context,” Agatha says, tapping one page. “And this one on queer-owned vintage shops in Brooklyn. It has potential, but the angle’s a bit weak. What do you think?”
Rio reads through the first paragraph. “What if it focused more on sustainability? Not just queer-owned, but also fashion-forward and ethical. It would fit better with the Pride issue’s bigger message.” Agatha looks at her so Rio continues. “Right now it feels like a listicle, but if the angle is more about identity and conscious fashion, it could feel like a real movement. Not just a shopping guide.”
Agatha makes a thoughtful sound, her eyes returning to the spread as if reevaluating it through Rio’s suggestion. “Okay. If we tighten the intro and cut some of the fluff, it might actually ground the culture section better than what we had before,” she says, then adds, almost offhand, “Hmm. That could work.”
And Rio nods like that didn’t just set off a small firework in her chest.
“Your professors must’ve either adored you or wanted to strangle you.”
Rio chuckles. “Most of them actually liked me. I toe the line just enough to be endearing.”
They stand there a little longer, going over the other options side by side. Rio leans in to point at something on the page, and Agatha moves closer to get a better look. Suddenly, they’re almost shoulder to shoulder, heads tilted toward the same spot. That’s when Rio catches the soft scent of Agatha’s lavender perfume. She looks up without meaning to, only to realize Agatha’s already looking at her.
And for one dizzy second, Rio’s pretty sure she sees her blue eyes drop down to her lips.
Rio tells herself not to read into it. Not to freeze. Not to stare. But something in her doesn’t listen. Because all she can think about now is how close they are. How Agatha’s lips look even softer up close, just barely parted, like she’s about to speak or forgot how to. And somehow, in the middle of all that thinking: Rio realizes, really realizes, how badly she wants to know what it feels like to kiss her. What it would be like to make someone like Agatha lose control, even just once.
And before she can stop herself, she leans in just enough to cross that thin line between looking and wanting. Her breath catches. She doesn’t even know what she’s doing anymore. It’s like something else is taking over. And to her surprise, Agatha doesn’t even move away.
And then…
A knock at the open door.
Both of them flinch at the same time, like teenagers caught doing something they shouldn’t. Rio straightens up so fast she almost knocks the papers off the desk, while Agatha clears her throat and turns away, her expression snapping back into something more neutral and composed, but also a bit pissed off.
Rio recognizes the face as one of the new junior editors. He’s poking his head through the glass door like he’s not entirely sure he should be doing this.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” he says, and Rio can already tell that he’s probably never spoken to Agatha before. Maybe someone from layout dared him to be the messenger. “Just wanted to give you a heads-up. The book might be a little delayed tonight. One of the printers downstairs is acting up. We’ve already called maintenance, but—”
Agatha doesn’t even look up from the spread.
“And what exactly do you expect me to do with that information?”
Rio watches him instantly freeze in the doorway.
“I—I just thought you should know.”
Rio hears Agatha let out a dry, humorless laugh. The kind that doesn’t mean she’s amused at all. She shakes her head slowly like she’s trying to hold onto her patience by a thread.
“Why?” she says, finally looking up at him. “Did you honestly think I’d be thrilled to hear that? Or were you hoping I’d roll up my sleeves and fix the printer myself?”
The whole room goes still, and Rio watches the poor junior editor shrink two inches on the spot. He opens his mouth, then clearly thinks better of whatever he was going to say.
“What’s your name?” Agatha asks.
“Um. Dylan.”
Poor Dylan, Rio thinks, wincing a little on his behalf.
“Well, Dylan,” Agatha says, drawing out his name like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. “Let me make something very clear. If you’re going to knock on my door, don’t walk in here just to hand me a problem, unless it’s a problem that’s already been fixed. Otherwise, don’t come in at all. Am I making myself clear?”
Dylan nods quickly. “Yes, absolutely. Sorry. I’ll, uh, I’ll just go now,” he stammers, turning on his heel so fast and practically speed-walking. Rio’s sure she hears a tiny whimper as he disappears down the hall.
Agatha exhales through her nose, pinching the bridge of it. “Why is basic competence so rare?” she grunts, more to herself than to Rio, before walking over to her other desk and sinking into her chair.
Rio doesn’t say anything. She just stands there, still stuck on what almost happened before someone walked in and cut it short. Her mind keeps replaying it, trying to make sense of what just happened. She swears she didn’t imagine it. Agatha didn’t pull away. She didn’t even stop her. She was leaning in too. Right? Or is Rio just sleep-deprived and starting to lose her mind?
Before the silence can stretch too long and turn weird, Agatha clears her throat.
“I’ll take the book with me tonight. You don’t have to wait around for it.”
“Are you sure? I really don’t mind waiting—”
“You’ve done enough,” Agatha says, her tone a little too close to the one she used on Dylan just seconds ago. And even though Rio tells herself not to take it personally, it still stings. “You’ve had a long day,” Agatha adds. “Just go home. Get some rest.”
Rio hesitates, still feeling something humming under her skin from that almost-moment. But she lets it go. “Alright,” she says carefully. “Goodnight, Agatha.”
Agatha doesn’t even look up. Doesn’t say anything back. Just stays hunched over her desk, flipping a page like nothing happened at all.
“What if I just quit?” Rio calls out from the bathroom, a toothbrush hanging from her mouth.
Alice, somewhere in the kitchen probably making her usual peanut butter and jelly sandwich, yells back, “Honestly? I’d say it’s about damn time.” Then there’s the unmistakable clink of a butter knife against a jar. “But didn’t you say there’s been some progress with you, like, finally speaking up at meetings and having opinions and whatever?”
Rio spits, wipes her mouth on a towel, then pads barefoot into the dining room in an old NYU hoodie and a pair of boxers that definitely shouldn’t count as pants. “Yeah, I was. I mean, I am. But I don’t know. I don’t think I like it there anymore. Lately, it’s been hard to focus. Too many distractions.”
Alice pokes her head out from the kitchen, peanut butter knife in hand. “Distractions?” she repeats, suddenly very interested. “What kind of distractions?” Rio says nothing as Alice narrows her eyes, then her jaw drops. “Holy shit. You slept with your boss. You slept with her, didn’t you?”
Rio’s mouth falls open. “Jesus, no! I didn’t sleep with anyone!”
“Is that why you came home so late the other night?”
“No!” Rio groans and covers her face. “No, Alice. I didn’t sleep with my fucking boss!”
Alice hurriedly walks into the dining room and drops onto the chair across from her.
“But you want to. You’ve been thinking about it.”
Rio doesn't answer.
“Oh my god. You want to get into her designer pants. I knew it! You’ve had that look on your face for days every time her name comes up. You want to climb that terrifying woman like she’s a jungle gym.”
Rio glares at her. “Alice, do you even hear yourself right now?”
Alice just grins.
“Look, I get it. I mean, I was a little worried natural brunettes might not be her type, but you’ve got a thing. Kinda weird, kinda intense. Most girls dig that. And you’re hot. Very hot. And charming. And smart. She’d be out of her mind not to want you. And you’d be even hotter if you went blonde again, by the way.”
Rio hides her face again, but the pink creeping into her cheeks gives her away.
“Alice, can you not?” she grumbles. “And you’re right. I’m not her type.”
“But you like her.” Alice smirks. “Admit it. You’ve always had a thing for older women.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh yeah? What about the adjunct professor from junior year with the motorcycle? The 40-year-old tattoo artist who drove a hearse? And that divorcee from Brooklyn who made you vegan brownies and cried so hard when her cat died?”
“Okay, okay, stop. Fine. Maybe I like her. A little. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sleep with her. There is no sleeping. There is no sex. Zero. None. Absolutely no boss-fucking.”
“Who’s not fucking their boss?” Billy announces as he walks through the open door
“Jesus, kid. Ever heard of knocking?” Rio groans.
“Sorry. But your door’s open,” he shrugs, then steps back out just to knock on it. Rio flips him off as he strolls to the table and flops into the chair beside Alice. “So. You’re not doing your hot boss from Pride?”
“I swear to God, I’m gonna strangle both of you,” Rio hisses. “And no, I’m not doing my boss. And stop calling her hot. And can you not insert yourself into grown-up conversations?”
“I’m seventeen. I’m legally allowed to have opinions on sex,” Billy argues.
“And apparently, none on volume control,” Rio retorts.
Billy lunges forward and grabs the sandwich Alice hands him.
“So, if you’re not sleeping with her, maybe it’s because you don’t exactly look like someone she’d want to sleep with. No offense. You’re definitely hot. Even my lesbian friends say so.” He takes a bite, completely unbothered, and Rio instantly regrets showing up to one of his school plays last month. “Hot in a scary, slightly threatening sense. But if you want her to see you differently, you’ve got to look the part.”
“I don’t want her to want me, okay?” Rio says through gritted teeth. “I don’t even have the part.”
“I think you do,” Billy insists, dead serious. How old is this kid again? “And I can help. Alice and I can help. You’ve got the raw materials. Cheekbones, bone structure, and all that. But you dress like you’re Shane’s mechanic in that lesbian show my mom won’t shut up about. Clothes matter, okay? Trust me.”
“The kid has a point.” Alice sips her juice. “About the wardrobe, I mean. No offense. You know I love you.”
“And I fucking hate you right now,” Rio says, squinting at her. Then she turns to Billy. “And don’t you have better things to do? Like wash your mom’s car, text that guy you keep pretending you’re not into, or livestream yourself ranking every Taylor Swift bridge in chronological order?”
“Did all three earlier,” Billy shrugs. “I’m free now. So if you want, we can go out, check a few places. Just see what we can find. Give your closet a little…glow-up or something.”
Rio’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Absolutely not. There is no way I’m letting a seventeen-year-old play dress-up with me. I’d rather chew glass. I will rip out my own eyebrows with pliers before I let either of you give me a makeover.”
But a few hours later, Rio walks out of the salon with fresh layers and curtain bangs she never asked for, but secretly kind of loves. She’s got three thrift store bags hanging from each hand, while Alice and Billy trail behind her, grinning, arms full of their own haul.
Weirdly enough, Billy and Alice forcing a makeover down Rio’s throat the day before turns out to be freakishly well-timed. Agatha, apparently still in Miami but will be flying back shortly, had called Jen to say that Rio will be tagging along to the annual benefit tonight, helping Jen make sure every guest on the list would think Agatha knows exactly who they are.
Billy, of course, had treated it like he’d been training his whole life for this, practically shoving Rio into a midnight blue suit, tailored fit and a plunging neckline, like some dangerously hot, gender-bent version of Cinderella on her one shot at the ball.
Billy had said she looked great. Alice had said she’d turn heads. And that’s what Rio keeps repeating to herself as she steps out of the car and walks toward the venue. Jen’s already by the bar, champagne flute in hand, clearly waiting for their boss. She gives Rio a once-over and lifts her glass, “You clean up alright.”
They stay like that for a while, keeping their drinks slow, just sober enough not to lose their jobs, while watching the crowd swell with stylists, models, writers, sponsors, execs, and even interns.
The lights get warmer, the music louder, and half an hour goes by. Then, like a flip of a switch, heads suddenly turn toward the entrance, and a swarm of photographers rushes toward the doors in a whirl of shutters and shouts of “Miss Harkness! This way, Miss Harkness!”
Agatha walks in wearing a black satin gown, her hair falling in soft waves, lips painted a sharp, perfect red. She smiles for the cameras, greets a few guests, and takes photos with some.
All eyes are on Agatha, but hers ultimately settle on just one. Blue meets brown, and for a second, she slips. As if she forgets to hide it. The surprise. The softness. That stunned little breath she takes, like she wasn’t prepared to see Rio like this.
The night drags on with Jen and Rio trailing closely behind Agatha.
Jen spends most of it leaning in to whisper names into Agatha’s ear just in time for each handshake, saving their boss from blank stares and awkward greetings.
Here and there, Rio helps out too, usually when Jen’s caught up somewhere else. But every time she gets close enough to whisper, she catches that now-familiar scent of lavender clinging to Agatha’s skin, and it takes everything in Rio not to stupidly lose her composure right there.
The benefit wraps up right at midnight, and to Rio’s surprise, it ends with Agatha leaning in close, her breath warm against her ear as she whispers words Rio didn’t expect.
“If you were trying to make an impression, then consider me...thoroughly impressed.”
And it requires every bit of strength Rio has not to think about it for the rest of the night.