Sterling and Sloane

The Mistake We Meant

I wake up because the sun is rude.

The Vance glass mansion has no curtains. Of course it doesn't. Billionaires love natural light and no privacy.

For three seconds, I don't know where I am.

Softest sheets I've ever felt. Ocean view. A suit jacket that smells like cologne and pizza hanging off a chair. And a hand resting very lightly on my waist over the covers.

Oh no.

No no no no.

Memory comes back in flashes. Not explicit flashes, my brain mercifully deleted the details, but flashes of talking, laughing. His sketchbook. My five-year plan. Him saying "You make me feel normal." Me saying "You don't have to be the disappointment son tonight."

And then both of us saying at the same time: "We shouldn't do this."

And then both of us saying: "Do you want to?"

And both of us saying: "Yes."

It was not a drunk mistake. That's the worst part. I had one glass of wine at 9pm. He wasn't drinking at all. We were sober. Awake. Conscious. We made a choice. A mutual, clear, adults-making-a-bad-decision choice.

Which makes it so much worse. If we were drunk, I could blame the alcohol.

I can't blame anything except that for three hours on that balcony, I actually liked him.

Sterling is still asleep. He looks... different while asleep. Less like the mysterious hot heir from the Balcony. More like a guy. His hair is messed up. His mouth is a little open. There's a faint line between his eyebrows even when he sleeps, like he's worried about something even in his dreams.

On his nightstand: a folded piece of paper with my name on it. He wrote it last night before we fell asleep and shoved it at me.

I open it.

SLOANE,

In case you try to do the dramatic sneaky exit thing, please don't. Stay for breakfast. Kevin makes terrible pancakes but he tries. From Sterling.

I smile before I can stop myself. Then I immediately stop smiling because what am I doing? Smiling at a billionaire heir who I just...

No. Five-year plan. Columbia Law. Bar prep. Public defender. No billionaires.

I have to leave. Right now. Before he wakes up and this becomes awkward and he does the "Hey, last night was fun but..." speech. Or worse, before he is sweet and I have to pretend I didn't feel anything.

I find my dress. My shoes. One earring missing. Leave it. It's a sacrifice.

I find a pen on his desk; a fancy one, probably costs more than my laptop, and I flip his note over.

I write fast, my hand shaking:

Sterling —

This was a mistake. A mutual, we-both-meant-it, but still a mistake. Let's not make it weird. Please don't try to find me. There were 200 people at your party. Let's pretend I was one of them.

- Sloane Parker.

I place it on the pillow where my head was. And I run.

I open the bedroom door and immediately slam into a solid wall of... pizza smell and bedhead.

Kevin Park is standing in the hallway in pajama pants with dinosaurs on them and Sterling's $900 loafers, holding a plate of what I can only describe as burnt circles.

He stares at me. I stare at him. My dress is wrinkled. My hair looks like I was electrocuted. I am holding one shoe.

He stares down at the plate.

"Oh," he says. "You stayed. For the pancakes."

"Those are pancakes?"

"They were supposed to be," he says, looking deeply betrayed by his own creation. "Sterling said you like public defending and hating parties. Do you like burnt pancakes? That's like, my love language."

Before I can answer, a door down the hall bursts open and Maya appears. Her hair is everywhere. She's wearing an oversized t-shirt that says VANCE HOTELS STAFF.

"Maya?!" I whisper-shout.

"Sloane?!" she whisper-shouts back. "You stayed!"

"I... You stayed!"

"Kevin said I could crash in the guest room because I was too drunk to Uber and then we stayed up until 5 AM watching him try to order McDonald's on the hotel TV remote!" She looks at my dress, at the bedroom door behind me. Her eyes go wide. "OH. OHHHHHH. You and Sterling... "

"Nothing!" I say too loud. "We talked! We just talked!"

Kevin squints at me, then at the door. Then he gasps.

"YOU DID THE THING!" he yells. Then claps both hands over his mouth. "The adult mutual choice thing! Bro! My best friend finally... "

"SHHHH!" Maya and I both lunge to shut him up.

Too late. The bedroom door behind me opens.

Sterling stands there. Awake now. Hair still messy. Wearing sweatpants low on his hips and no shirt. Sleepy, confused, and looking directly at me holding one shoe and his note.

"Sloane?"

My heart drops into my stomach.

He looks at my face. At the note in my hand that I forgot to leave on the pillow. At Kevin with the burnt pancakes. At Maya in his staff shirt.

He reads the room in half a second.

He picks up the note I dropped. Reads my messy handwriting.

This was a mistake... Please don't try to find me...

His jaw tightens. That tired line between his eyebrows comes back.

"Okay," he says quietly, looking at me. Not angry. Just... disappointed. "Got it. Mistake."

It's exactly what I wanted him to say. So why does it feel like someone kicked me?

"Bye, Sterling," I whisper.

I grab Maya's hand and we run. Past Kevin, who whispers "But the pancakes... " past the glass staircase, past the pool full of empty cups from last night, out the front door into the cold Hamptons morning.

We get into Maya's beat-up Honda. I don't breathe until we're on the highway back to Manhattan.

"Okay," Maya says after ten minutes of silence. "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much of a mistake are we talking?"

"It was mutual. It was sober. It was a choice. It was a mistake we meant," I say, staring out the window, still smelling his jacket. "So... a 10. It's a 10 out of 10 mistake. It will never happen again. I will never see him again."

Maya glances at me.

"Sloane," she says slowly. "You have his jacket."

I look down. I'm wearing his suit jacket. The $5,000 one. Over my $40 Zara dress.

I want to scream.

4 Weeks Later

The jacket is still hanging in my closet. I never returned it. I tell myself it's because I forgot.

I'm in the third stall of the Columbia Law library bathroom, holding a plastic stick, while Maya bangs on the door.

"SLOANE PARKER IT'S BEEN FIVE MINUTES, OPEN THE DOOR, YOU'RE SCARING ME!"

I look down.

Two pink lines.

The mistake we meant just got a consequence.