The silver hair artfully wrong.

The voice that cracked, perfectly, on exactly the right syllable.

“Ivan, thank God you were on rotation, thank God,” he said, and crossed the room and gripped my shoulders, and his hands were warm and strong, and I had to use every muscle I own not to recoil from them.

“What happened to Jessi?

The paramedics called me — they said she just collapsed at the club.

Please, what happened?”