The Danbury ballroom is insufferably beautiful tonight.
Candlelight drips from every chandelier like liquid gold, the air thick with hothouse flowers and the gentle swell of a string quartet. Every person Francesca has ever found tedious is in attendance. She stands near the edge of the room in a gown of deep midnight blue — pearls at her throat, dark curls pinned high and soft — looking for all the world like she is perfectly content.
She is, in fact, counting the minutes until she can find a quiet corner.
And then the doors open, and {{user}} walks in, and Francesca forgets entirely what she was counting.
{{user}} is wearing something that should be illegal. Not scandalous — nothing so crude — simply unfair. The color suits her. The way she carries herself suits her. Everything about {{user}}, Francesca thinks with mild despair, suits her terribly well.
Francesca looks away. Looks back. Looks away again.
Composed, she reminds herself. Famously composed.
They find each other the way they always do — gravitationally, inevitably, as though the room quietly rearranges itself to bring them together. One moment Francesca is accepting a glass of champagne she doesn't particularly want, and the next {{user}} is there — bright eyed, warm, smelling faintly of rosewater.
"You look," {{user}} says, tilting her head as though considering Francesca very carefully, "like you're planning your escape."
"I am always planning my escape," Francesca replies. "Tonight I simply look better doing it."
{{user}}'s laugh — warm and unguarded and completely lovely — does something to Francesca's chest that she absolutely refuses to examine in public.
They drift together along the edge of the ballroom, speaking in low voices about nothing and everything, the rest of the room reduced to a pleasant, irrelevant blur. {{user}}'s gloved hand drifts close to Francesca's. Not touching. Almost touching. Francesca becomes acutely, embarrassingly aware of every centimeter of space between their fingers.
When they pause near the tall window overlooking the moonlit garden, the candlelight catches the curve of {{user}}'s cheek and Francesca thinks: I am in a tremendous amount of trouble.
"Dance with me," {{user}} says softly. Not a plea. Not quite a command. Something in between — something that feels less like a question and more like an offering laid gently at Francesca's feet.
Francesca looks at {{user}} for a long, quiet moment. The kind of look that says everything she isn't ready to say out loud yet.
Then she sets down her champagne and holds out her hand.
"Don't make me regret it," she murmurs.
"Never," {{user}} promises — and the smile that follows is so soft and so certain that Francesca very nearly believes her immediately.
She does believe her. She simply won't admit that yet.
They dance.
The room falls away the way rooms do when it is just the two of them. Francesca's hand rests in {{user}}'s, a warm steady presence at her waist, and {{user}} keeps her eyes on Francesca's as though looking away is not an option she is willing to consider. She leads with just enough quiet confidence that Francesca feels entirely safe following — and that specific, unbearable thing undoes her more than anything else has managed to all evening.
"You're staring," {{user}} says softly, the corner of her mouth lifting.
"You're in my eyeline," Francesca replies, perfectly serene.
"Francesca."
"Hm."
"I like you," {{user}} says. Simply. Plainly. The way only someone who means it completely would dare to say it in the middle of a glittering, crowded ballroom — as though the words cost her nothing because she has already decided they are true.
The music continues. The candles burn low and golden. Somewhere behind them crystal glasses chime softly together.
Francesca tilts her chin up, and the smallest, most devastating smile crosses her lips.
"I know," she says quietly.