Ravi scratched his ear, ready to move on to something that felt less telling. "I'm famished. What do you say we grab some lunch?"

Sora glanced at Hana where she was communing with Narsi and the others in the corner. Ravi had successfully dodged this meeting.

"Are you sure you don't want to take this chance to have lunch with Hana?"

"Nah, she already ate. I want to eat with you, it'll give us time to catch up. You can vent about the Board again."

"I don't complain that much."

Ravi tipped his hand back and forth in a middling gesture.

"Okay, but they're really aggravating."

"I'm sure they are. If it bothered me, I wouldn't be inviting you to share a meal with me. I know what I'm getting myself into."

"Who am I to resist such a welcome invite? I'll go get changed."

"I'll wade into the lions' den and see what the lions have to say."

"Play nicely," Sora cautioned.

"No promises." He squeezed her hand to see her off. "Hurry back."

Ravi hopped off the stage where Narsi and Hana were waiting.

"First things first. I'd say the fitting went well. I've got a couple of other garments I wanna lay out for my client, but they can wait until we meet next week. The ivory dress is out, the blue is in."

Narsi frowned. "I liked both."

"The white's for Sora. You saw her, she looked like a dream in it; I can't sell that to another woman. The blue is still in play for the time being."

"I'm not sure I agree."

"Couture is what I do. I've met my client, I've met Sora. Trust me, she doesn't best Sora."

Hana decided to make her feelings known.

"Ravi knows what he's talking about, honey. If he says Sora wore it better, who are we to argue?"

Ravi wavered on the spot. "...Thanks."

Narsi shrugged. "If you think you can produce another gown equal or better than the one you're giving away, go for it, but this I'll definitely have to see." With that parting shot, he left Ravi and Hana to their uneasy silence. Ravi waited for the other shoe to drop.

"A Ravi Misra original is some gift. She must have been a very good friend to earn that."

There it is.

"She is a good friend, she's an all-around good person. But that isn't why I gave her the dress. I gave it to her because I knew immediately that nobody could wear it better. That's a fact."

"It's not like you gave anybody else a chance. Freddie's right over there," Hana nodded toward where Frederica was consorting with Pedro over his camera. He might have photographed Sora, Ravi didn't know.

"It's like I said before, Sora was the best candidate."

"I'm sure she was."

Ravi exhaled deeply. "Gallegos, that wasn't intended as a slight to you, it had nothing to do with you."

"Didn't it?"

Sora returned from backstage, her business casual elegance restored.

"I can't have this conversation right now. I'm going to lunch—but thank you for earlier. It was ...nice."

...

After his aborted lunch with Sora, Ravi went to his bolthole in the Hollywood Hills to think over his predicament.

Hana looked me in the eye and told me a lie. This was what had felt wrong between them since he'd come home. She'd been obscuring salient details by telling the truth. If he had thought to dig that much deeper, he'd have uncovered all this weeks ago.

"None of this felt right."

Nothing had since he returned home. This was the reason why. Every encounter that seemed peppered with honesty was run through with mistruths. He had felt that and that feeling in his gut told him to keep his distance until he was sure. Ravi had had lived with a lot of uncertainty in this last sixteen months, he wasn't up to facing more with the rest of his life to lose, or worse, to waste.

I can't do this anymore.

Ravi didn't need time, he needed to tell Hana. He'd give her that courtesy.

He arrived at Hana's after a long drive where the wind was the only station on the radio. He sat outside until he'd hammered out the words he wanted to say exactly. He walked to her door thinking he was prepared for anything, but what he wasn't prepared for was Hurricane Sora.

They collided painfully not twenty feet from his destination.

He swore, staggered backward and only just managed to keep them both from meeting the ground.

"Whoa, slow down. Where're you off to in such a hurry?"

Sora backed up, wiping her face ineffectually. Her shoulders shook under the strain of trying not to cry. "Just to my car. I have a meeting, and then I need to make dinner for Tommy."

Ravi was skeptical as to whether she could find her car with those tears in her eyes.

He faltered, wanting to fix something but unsure if he could. "You look...You don't look good. You shouldn't be driving in that condition."

Sora flapped a hand at his objection. "I'm okay. Just something Hana said."

Ravi had some choice words of his own for the woman in question, but those could wait. Ravi knew he and Hana had much to talk about in the coming months, but he wasn't up to the task today. Sora needed him. It was time he stood by the people who seemed determined to stand by him.

"It's always something. Come on, let me take you somewhere."

...

Ravi drove Sora back to Hana's to pick up her car after an hour sitting on the hood of his. She was quiet for most of the trip, folded into the passenger seat staring out at the view. He thought she must have been all cried out over whatever had hurt her. He wasn't positive that was an improvement. Sometimes you're too tired to cry anymore, it's more than enough to just keep going.

"You all right over there?"

She sniffed and turned to look at him. "I'm okay. I'm...pulling it together. She doesn't even know when she's twisting the knife in. I probably seem like a basket case every time she and I have a conversation. She's Hana and she thinks she's harmless."

"She doesn't think that. She'd like to, but she doesn't. Don't let her fool you."

"This act she puts on about how remorseful she is gets under my skin. All I can hear is people telling me to just let this go, to forgive and forget and move on. They don't see how much I'm trying."

Ravi took the curve of the mountain road to Hana's slow and easy as he considered his next words.

"I see it. I've seen it from my first day back."

"That makes you a party of one." She rubbed her eyes and slumped back to watch the road ahead.

"Nobody likes to hear that the healing process for hurts we cause is long and slow and riddled with setbacks. We like to hear that somebody got over it in a day, so they'll love us again like we're used to."

She pillowed her head on her hand. "That's not real life; people aren't rubber made to last. They can be wounded beyond repair or forgiveness."

"Yes, they can," he acceded. "Hana hasn't accepted that yet. She'll have to."

"So I should give her time?"

"You don't have to give her anything you don't want to."

"She has everything already."

"She doesn't have me."

Sora gave him an anemic smile that was nothing compared to what she was capable of.

"That's not a coup if you get hurt, too."

"My feelings aren't what's important here. Yours are." Ravi was still trying to parse his own; he'd have to before he and Hana spoke next.

They pulled behind Sora's car in the round outside Hana's place. Sora was out of the passenger seat before Ravi could come around to let her out.

Sora hesitated at the foot of the path to Hana's door as if she might try again.

"I don't even know what I'd say to her. I might tell her I forgive her or I might tell her to get out of my life and never darken my doorway again. I'm not sure which is worse."

Ravi rubbed her shoulders in solidarity. "Don't make a decision on a heavy heart. Come back another day when you're feeling more in control."

"She shouldn't be able to hurt me like this. I'm forty-three years old with a son and a job millions—billions of people would kill for. And yet, she makes a crack and I feel like a gangly six-year-old in glasses with Hana and Aiko's hand-me-downs, as if nothing's changed."

Ravi turned her from Hana's door.

"Forget what Hana said, listen to what I'm saying: You're a special person. You can be loved, you will be loved by someone who will honor and cherish you."

"I thought I was." The turmoil in her voice caused a painful twist in his chest.

"I'll give Himura the benefit of the doubt. He really loved you, I believe that. He just didn't love you as much as he loved himself, and that's the rub. It may have involved a different woman, but this was always going to come down to narcissism. You just got unlucky enough to be stuck in the middle."

Sora swiped her hair from her eyes. "I don't care what he does anymore or who he chases or who she chases, I just want to be okay again."

He kissed her forehead and pulled her into his arms.

"You'll be okay, and you'll be loved, I promise."

Ravi realized at this very moment that Hana was wrong. Trying to do the right thing wasn't enough. You have to do the right thing. And that was what Ravi intended to do, whatever it took and however long. He only had one life to live, he was sure now who just he wanted to share it with.

...

...