Page 12 of The Pairing

I’m looking at the fountain, inventing names for the saints inside the niches—St. Edna the Indignant, patron saint of stabbing your ex with a chocolate spoon because you’ve been cast as quaint backstory—when someone says, “You lookreallyfamiliar.”

It’s one of the two twentysomething girls I noticed when I first boarded the bus, the shorter one with shiny black hair. I’m gathering that she and her friend are some kind of travel influencers.

“I don’t think we’ve met before,” I tell her, praying I’m not already two for two on getting clocked as a Flowerday.

“No, I think we have,” she says. “You were making drinks at the Coachella after-party at the Saguaro, right? The bar that was, like, in a big van?”

I blink a few times, amazed. Iwashired for that party. One thing about a freelance mobile bar in a Volkswagen Microbus is, influencers love it. I’d hoped one of them would book me for another job, but no one seemed to remember me.

“You were there?”

“Oh my God, yes!” She turns to her friend, a beachy blonde in a micro-cropped sweater-vest and cargo pants. “Ko! I wasright!”

The blonde pauses her scroll through her phone to regard me for one blank second over her skinny sunglasses.

“You made the best Bloody Mary I’ve ever had in my life,” she says in complete monotone. “I would literally kill for you.”

“That’s Dakota,” the first girl says. “I’m Montana.”

I instantly love this. Did they come as a combo pack?

“I’m Theo.”

“Theo! You’re so cool!” Montana says. “Who’s your brand partner? Do they rent that van out?”

“Oh, just me,” I say. “The bus is mine. I got it secondhand and converted it.”

“Wow, slay,” she says. “Listen, I go to a lot of parties with a lot of open bars, and you are literally so talented. That blood orange margarita, with the peppers? You should be doing, like, Bella Hadid’s birthday or something. Why aren’t you in LA?”

“Thank you, wow,” I say, meaning it. “But it’s honestly just a side hustle. Weddings, parties, catering on weekends. I have a regular job at a restaurant in Palm Springs.”

“I was telling Dakota—”

Over Montana’s shoulder, I notice Kit talking to Fabrizio. His voice separates from the chatter and drifts to my ears.

“—that’s what I think, at least,” he says.

“You know so much about the French pastry,” Fabrizio says. “How is this?”

“I’m a pâtissier at a hotel in the First Arrondissement,” Kit says. “I actually graduated from École Desjardins with Maxine.”

“Oh! You know our Maxine!”

“I know herverywell. I told her she should apply to be a local guide when the spot opened up. She might not show it, but she loves doing this.”

“Finally, I can thank someone for sending Maxine to us!” Fabrizio says. “She is a goddess.”

“Isn’t she?” I can hear the smile in his voice. The way he usedto sound when he talked about me.

The morning shifts into focus. I never needed to worry about Maxine falling in love with Kit. Maxine and Kit arealreadyin love. Their eyes probably met over a tart, and Maxine knew her life was about to turn to gold dust and candied petals, and now purple hairs cling to Kit’s shower curtain, and—

“—so anyway, now he’s on house arrest,” Montana is saying.

I snap back to our conversation.

“Sorry, who?”

“The guy who did Bella Hadid’s last birthday,” Montana says. “So there’s an opening, if you want me to ask my friendwho knows her friend?”

---