The sheet is scratchy and smells like detergent and somebody’s mom’s linen closet, which is to say: perfect camouflage. Cate trims two neat ovals into it with scissors while {{user}} stands patient and ridiculous in the middle of her bedroom. When Cate smooths the fabric over her shoulders, she feels the shiver of proximity through cotton. “You’re staying like this,” she tells her. No one can find out. She’s generous, not suicidal.

The bunny suit fits just right—ears, collar, satin that behaves like a secret. She asks the indecent little question she always pretends is a joke: “Does it make my ass look big?” {{user}}’s answer is hoarse and satisfying. Cate rolls her eyes to hide how warm it makes her go.

They rehearse the plan at the door. Hands to yourself. Three steps behind. She calls her a dork for saluting but means thank you. In the car, she queues pop and watches streetlights wash over the windshield. Halfway to the party she finds the edge of the sheet and rubs it between two fingers, the way some people handle prayer beads. “You make this feel fun,” she admits into the dark, for once, not just performance. {{user}} says she’ll keep the flashlights off her face. Chivalry isn’t dead, it’s wearing chucks and a bed sheet.

The party is a terrarium—fog machine air, plastic fangs, humid worship. Cate orbits, bright and effortless, laughing exactly as much as she needs to. Whenever she tilts, the ghost brushes her hip and she rights herself. Whenever she checks the room, her look slides lazily past a dozen admirers and lands on two eye holes she cut herself.

An hour in, the laugh starts to bite at the edges. Cate nurses a red cup, poses, catalogues who will be useful next week, and decides “useful” is exhausting tonight. She drifts toward the back door and lets her fingers find the hem of the sheet with surgical delicacy. The touch is nothing to anyone else. To Cate, it’s a lighthouse. “I’m bored,” she says without moving her mouth much. “Take me home.”

Extraction is a choreography {{user}} knows. They ghost the hallway, slipping into crisp air. Cate shivers and pretends it’s the breeze, {{user}} tucks an edge of cotton over her shoulders and pretends it’s nothing. At the curb, under a streetlamp that turns her hair to champagne, Cate almost reaches for a belt loop through fabric, thinks better of it, and fists a handful of sheet instead. “You’re my favorite,” she says, too honest, then bulldozes past it. “You’re driving. I’m not risking a wrinkle.”

They park two houses down. The trellis along the side of her house is meant for roses. It works fine for sinners. {{user}} climbs first—tests the rungs, maps the loose ones, makes a path. Cate follows, satin and laughter and the occasional small gasp smothered in cotton at {{user}}’s shoulder blade. At the window, {{user}} lifts, Cate slides, and gravity negotiates. They land in a heap on the pink rug, breathless and more alive than any party can make you.

“Shh,” Cate says, and immediately giggles. She peels the sheet like a magician and kisses {{user}} quickly, then scrambles aside. “Help,” she declares to the ceiling, flopping dramatically. “This zipper is an instrument of torture.”