I bought the champagne myself. Moët, because Graham always said the cheap stuff gave him a headache. I carried it up in the elevator with my coat still on, the bottle cold through my gloves, thinking about the skyline at midnight and how we'd watch the fireworks from the terrace like we did last year.
I had my key out before I reached the door. I could already hear laughter inside.
I thought it was the TV.
I opened the door.
Presley Tran was standing in the middle of our living room — my living room — in a red wrap dress that barely qualified as one, her arm drawn back, a dart between her fingers. Pinned to the wall, right over the console table where I kept my keys, was a photograph. An eight-by-ten print of my face. My work headshot, the one from the Parker Enterprises website.
She threw the dart. It hit just below my left eye.
She laughed. Bright and open, head tipped back, like it was the funniest thing she'd seen all year.
Graham stood three feet away, a glass of something amber in his hand, watching her with that easy half-smile he used at parties. The one that meant he was comfortable. Entertained.
I stood in the doorway for exactly three seconds.
I know it was three seconds because I counted. Old habit. My archery coach used to say that the pause before you draw is where the shot actually happens. Most people rush it. I never did.
I set the champagne down on the entryway table. Carefully. Then I walked in and closed the door behind me.
"Celeste." Graham said my name like I'd interrupted something.
"What is that?" I asked. My voice came out even. I was a little surprised by that.
Presley pulled the dart from the wall and turned around. Her eyes went wide and soft, the expression she'd perfected — the one that made her look like a startled deer instead of the person who'd just put six holes in my face.
"Oh my God, it's just a silly game," she said. A small laugh, self-deprecating, designed to make me feel like the problem. "Can you not take a joke?"
I looked at Graham.
He sighed. Actually sighed. Like I was the inconvenience in this room.
"Here we go," he said. He took a drink. "Celeste, you're being dramatic again."
"There's a picture of my face on the wall."
"It's a joke. Presley's just messing around." He gestured vaguely, the way he did when he wanted a conversation to be over before it started. "She's like a sister to me. You know that. This insecurity thing — I'm not going to keep managing it every time she comes over."
Managing it.
That was the word he used. Managing.
I stood there and I heard all the other times underneath it. Every time I'd said something felt wrong and he'd called it insecurity. Every time I'd asked for something simple and he'd called it exhausting. Every excuse I had made for him, stacked up neatly in my chest like old receipts I'd never thrown away.
I felt them go.
Not with a crash. Not with heat. It was quieter than that. Like a thread pulled cleanly from a seam.
Presley was watching me with that careful blankness she wore when she was deciding how much she'd won. Graham was already turning back toward the bar.
I looked at the darts in her hand.
Something settled in me then. Very still. Very clear.
I walked over to the board. I pulled out the remaining darts one by one, slow and deliberate, and I turned them over in my fingers. They were cheap bar darts, blunt tips, bad weight distribution. I'd thrown better in my sleep.
Four years on my university's archery team. Three years as captain. I never once mentioned it to Graham. He never asked.
I smiled. Not the polite smile I'd been wearing for two years every time Presley walked into a room that used to feel like mine.
A different smile.
"Let's make it interesting," I said. "Proper rules. High stakes. Truth or dare for every round you lose."
Presley's eyes flickered. Just for a second. Then the performance came back up. "Oh, that sounds fun." She glanced at Graham with a small, conspiratorial smile. We both know how this ends.
Graham shrugged. He looked almost amused. "Sure. Why not."
They exchanged a look over my head. The kind of look that assumed I wouldn't notice. Or that it didn't matter if I did.
I noticed everything.
I set the darts down on the console table beside my keys. I took off my coat. I folded it over the chair.
Mochi padded in from the hallway and wound around my ankles, and I reached down briefly and touched the top of his head. The little camera on his feeding station blinked its steady green light in the corner.
Still recording.
Good.
"Ladies first," I said.
