Antonio slammed his shoulder into the door of his apartment to open it, still trying to catch his breath from charging up the stairs instead of waiting for the freight elevator. He hurled his work laptop onto the bed, which startled Catstance and sent her skittering to the other side of the apartment. She shot him a stern look and padded into the bathroom as though that had been her intent all along.

Antonio sank back against the door, unwilling to regulate his breathing and calm himself. Constance hated him, so his plan was to be a dick to Frank and Stephanie and make them hate him too? Great. Brilliant. That was exactly the bullshit behavior that made Constance hate him in the first place. At this rate, he was going to die alone in this apartment and no one would think to look for him until Catstance had already started eating his corpse.

He let out a long exhale, the air hissing slowly between his teeth. Well, he had gotten along this far without depending on a clique or a girlfriend, hadn't he?

He watched Catstance emerge from the bathroom and leap onto the window perch he had installed for her. It must be nice to be a cat, Antonio thought. The most dramatic thing that could happen in Catstance's day would be for a pigeon to land on the air conditioner.

He went into the bathroom, pausing for a long time in front of the mirror. Well, maybe if he didn't look like such a tramp she wouldn't hate him so much. Antonio raked his hair away from his face. When he had first met Constance, it had been pretty short but for the side-swept bangs that he constantly had to brush out of his eyes. That had been months ago, at Joe's birthday party. It must have been more than a year since Antonio had last been to the barber; his hair covered his ears now. Of course, the bangs had gotten him into the habit of gelling his hair back in the morning to keep it out of his eyes, so he hadn't realized how much it had grown in all this time. He smoothed the sides back with both hands and discovered that he could just make a tiny ponytail at the nape of his neck. Maybe Constance had taken one look at him and thought he looked like a hobo with all this hair. It looked like he had put on some weight, too. Antonio locked eyes with his reflection and scowled at it. "You idiot," he muttered. If he were a character in a movie, he would have punched the mirror right now and shattered it, fracturing the image of himself. Instead, he trudged back to his bed and opened his work laptop. He had used his lunch hour to take the PATH train back to Jersey so he could work from home that afternoon. After the spectacle he had caused in the studio, he wasn't willing to face Stephanie again today. Maybe it would be easier if he never had to face her again.

As soon as he booted up his work laptop, Antonio found that she had sent him an email: "Are you ok?" was typed into the subject line with nothing in the body. He hated it when people did that. Antonio hit reply and stared at the blank template for a while before deleting it instead. He had always been a dick to Stephanie, anyway. Maybe today would finally teach her to stop forgiving him.

There were no customer emails in his inbox and he couldn't find anything on TV. Antonio laid back across his bed. He tried closing his eyes, but when he did the image of Constance's curled lip and dark glare waited for him. Then when he opened his eyes he saw Stephanie's frantic expression and Frank's furrowed brow against the blank ceiling.

Antonio sat up so quickly that Catstance made an inquisitive noise that was half-purr. He tapped her nose before pulling off his dress shirt. Avoiding Stephanie wasn't the only benefit to working from home, he reminded himself, shedding his trousers and changing into pajamas. He left his clothes bunched in the middle of the floor before crawling onto the bed again.

Still no emails. Antonio laid back once more, and this time he let the image of Constance resurface. Why had it hit him so hard? He had been telling himself for months that she must hate him. Apparently he had been stupid enough to hold out some hope that it wasn't true.

Or maybe it was because throughout all the hours they had spent together during lunches, weekends, and that heady night she had passed sleeping next to him, he had never seen Constance stare at anything as coldly as she had stared at him that morning by the elevators. The realization sunk into him like a chill. Antonio tried to exhale slowly again, but his breath left him in a long shudder. "Shit," he muttered, grinding his palms into his eyelids. When he took his hands away, colors seemed to bloom across the plain ceiling.

Antonio slid this thumb down his wrist, tracing the lengths of his old scars. How long had it been since the last time he considered hurting himself? It was before Constance, certainly. Maybe it was the night after his fight with Lorenzo. The events of today seemed worse. Antonio sat up again, casting a long stare toward the cabinet above his refrigerator. The old pencil box must still be there with his stash of blades inside. He hadn't given it much thought in the past year or so.

He rolled onto his stomach, resting his forehead on his crossed arms. He wanted to tell himself that she wasn't worth it, that he had been doing just fine without her. Then again, if all it took was a dirty look from Constance for Antonio to turn around and sabotage everything, maybe that meant he didn't deserve any of it. Stephanie, Lorenzo, even Frank-now they would know what he was really like. He was petty, emotional, and deeply untrustworthy. He was disloyal. He was a liar.

The sudden weight of Catstance stepping onto his lower back took Antonio by surprise. She wasn't a kitten anymore, and though she was smaller and scrappier than most cats, her feet still felt a lot pointier than they looked. She walked gingerly up to his shoulder blades, her rattly purr switched on suddenly, then settled right in the middle of his back. He sighed, slowly so as to not disturb her. Now he couldn't go get the pencil box from the cabinet above the fridge. Not yet, anyway. He slid one arm out from under his head and tried to reach the cat, succeeding only in grabbing one of her feet. "Would you mind if I changed your name?" he asked, his voice muffled by the bedspread.

Catstance yanked her foot away, but her purr grew even louder for a few beats.

Antonio crossed his arms under his head again, trying not to jostle Catstance too much. He could just see his laptop screen from here: the inbox was still empty, of course. He closed his eyes. If something happened to Antonio, would Frank take care of his cat? He had a dog and a cat already. What if they didn't get along with her? He imagined Frank delivering the cat back to Constance in a little carrier, the two of them meeting on the sidewalk out front of the bar. Maybe Wolfgang Mozart would be there, an arm slung possessively around Constance's shoulders. How would she react? Maybe she would refuse to take the cat back until Frank admitted that Antonio had killed himself. What would Constance do then? Would she feel guilty? Would she regret disappearing from his life the way she had? Or would she be relieved to be rid of him?

He sighed again, feeling the cat's weight roll slightly on his back as he exhaled. He closed his eyes. With his arms crossed beneath his forehead, the lights of the room were blocked out and his breath made the air seem hot. Was it possible to suffocate this way? He had seen people on TV dramas commit murder by holding a pillow over someone's face, but had never heard of anyone dying from lying face-down on their stomachs. Maybe it had been a plot point in the Elephant Man; he wasn't sure. It was probably possible to keep his own face in bathwater long enough to drown, if it came down to it. There was also something about an oven, but if it involved blowing out the pilot light he didn't want to risk an explosion that might hurt the neighbors or Catstance. Maybe he could just lie here until he starved to death. There was something soothing about breathing this hot, stifled air with his nose and mouth pressed against his quilt.

Antonio didn't realize he had fallen asleep until someone started pounding on his apartment door and Catstance launched herself off of him, stabbing him with her back feet as she jumped. He grunted in surprise, rubbing his face and discovering that he had actually drooled a little on his comforter. He scrubbed his face with his palms and smoothed his hair, mumbling, "Hang on!" as he staggered toward the door. His visitor kept banging frantically at it even while Antonio was audibly drawing the latch. As soon as the door was open Frank rushed into the apartment and wrapped Antonio into a tight hug.

"What-?"

"Don't run away like that! Do you know how worried we've been?"

"What do you-?"

"Did you turn off your phone?"

"My phone? I don't think so. Is it dead?"

Frank released him from the hug only to cup Antonio's face in his hands and study him. "Are you still upset? It's fine, Antonio. Your buddy Rosenberg tried to run to the CEO with some story about the rehearsals being a waste of time, but he was in a meeting and the receptionist wouldn't let him in. Everything's just fine."

Antonio pulled away, closing the apartment door. He started to latch it but changed his mind. So Frank wasn't even angry at him for making a scene at the rehearsal? He didn't care that his little brother had mouthed off to Wolfgang Mozart, lead singer of the Divine Libertines and effectively Frank's boss?

Somehow, knowing that Frank had forgiven him made Antonio angry. "Did you talk to your buddy Mozart?" he snapped.

Frank's dimple disappeared as it always did when Antonio went down this line of conversation. "You know what? Wolfgang actually did ask me if you were okay after the rehearsal. He isn't the person everyone thinks he is, and I wish you would stop acting like-"

"So he didn't mention the little scene he caused in the hallway? He didn't tell you why he was late this morning?"

"Okay, I'll bite. What happened in the hallway, Antonio?"

"Why don't you ask Rosenberg? He was there! Or Kavalieri? Because as far as any of us are concerned, he's exactly the person everyone thinks he is!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Constance!" Antonio blurted, his voice breaking around her name. "I told you all along that he took her from me. We were on a date when they met! We were on a date! She knew that I worked in that building! And then for everyone to see the two of them-" he broke off, unwilling to put it into words.

The way Frank was staring at Antonio, he looked like someone who was having to mentally translate everything he heard into his native language. "Wolfgang was with Constance today?" he finally asked.

"She knew that was my office," Antonio repeated, a new realization taking hold. "They did it on purpose."

"But that isn't Wolfgang," mumbled Frank. He reached into his pocket. "I'll text him."

Antonio grabbed his brother's wrist, squeezing a little tighter than necessary.

Frank released his phone. "Okay, kid. I'm sorry. I'll stay out of it."

"Never," Antonio said levelly, still gripping Frank's arm, "never mention my name to Wolfgang Mozart again. I'm done with both of them."

By the end of the following week, a mock-up was ready to be presented to the Kia marketing team to see if they wanted to buy Stephanie's Seraglio commercial. The atmosphere in the office was particularly bright all morning; even Joe was seen sauntering through the grid of customer service cubicles whistling to himself at several points in the day. Antonio kept his office door closed until lunch, at which point he found the quickest path to the kitchen blocked by Joe and one of the cute temps deep in conversation. Rather than risk engaging either of them, Antonio took the long route through accounting. He slowed as he neared Rosenberg's office: the door was open, and he could hear the senior accountant's voice coming from inside. If he was on a call, Antonio could probably sneak by without getting roped into whatever gossip Rosenberg was dealing in that day. But would he be wiser to slow his pace so that his footsteps would be softer or to speed up and minimize his visibility?

While he was hesitating, he clearly heard Rosenberg say his name. Antonio froze, but it became apparent that he was still talking on the phone and hadn't spotted Antonio at all. In spite of himself, Antonio lingered, straining to hear the conversation.

"-right, they're presenting the mock-up this afternoon and the whole office is waiting to see what will come of it like it's the event of the year!" Rosenberg was saying. "And you know that jackass Salieri will be like-" here, Rosenberg dropped his voice to a measured, low tone- "'Oh, you'll see, Mr. Rosenberg, the music will be too overpowering, the commercial will be off-message, and everything will fall apart on its own! You'll see!' Well, what if it doesn't? What then, jackass?"

Antonio bit back a laugh. He glanced around the department: neither of the junior accountants had noticed him lurking outside their boss's office yet.

"No, no, I admit, the Divine Libertines have some good songs, of course they do! There's the one about- no, no, not that one, that one's good too, but have you heard the one that comes after it?"

And to Antonio's utter shock, Rosenberg began singing one of the songs from the album the Divine Libertines had released a year ago word-for-word. It wasn't one of the popular tracks that was always on the radio, either. There was no way he had learned this song without buying the album himself.

When his little recital had ended, Rosenberg seemed to realize notice the time: "Listen, it's time to go to lunch, and you know what I've got to do," he told the caller. "Of course. No, it's no trouble at all. It'll be worth it to save our reputation, anyway. Talk to you soon."

Antonio took another step forward and leaned casually against the door frame, arms crossed. The accountant was rummaging through a drawer, only the bald spot at the top of his head visible from the other side of his desk. When Antonio cleared his throat, Rosenberg yelped in surprise and nearly tumbled right off his chair. "Oh!" he cried, "Tony! Have you, uh, have you been waiting there long?" he stammered.

"Not really. This jackass was just heading out for lunch and stopped to hear your little performance," Antonio said coolly, fighting to hide his amusement as Rosenberg's eyes bugged out. "I didn't know you were such a big fan of the Divine Libertines."

"No, not at all, not at all!" insisted Rosenberg, leaping to his feet. He rushed over to shut the office door behind Antonio. "Not at all!" he said again. "In fact, I was just complaining about this whole foolish business. You know, Stephanie's team presents their mock-up this afternoon, and if the Kia team buys the commercial I'll look like an idiot for opposing it!"

"So you have a plan, I take it?"

He nodded fervently, leaning in and dropping his voice. "I have a friend on the Kia marketing team who's willing to strike a deal," said Rosenberg. "If I bring him two tickets to a Broadway show for this weekend when his mom is in town, he'll refuse to approve the commercial at the meeting this afternoon. I'm on my way to the box office now."

"That might actually work," said Antonio. He tried not to imagine the look on Stephanie's face if the commercial she had been pouring her heart into for so long ended up being rejected by Kia. They had already sunk a lot of money into working with the Divine Libertines. Worse, she had been taking the train back and forth between the New York and Philadelphia offices several times a week as she tried to oversee both her old role and her new one, staying with Lorenzo whenever she was in the city. The poor thing would be an absolute wreck if Rosenberg sabotaged her commercial at this stage.

"And you told me to sit back and see what happened!" scoffed Rosenberg. "Now, if you'll excuse me."

Antonio stepped aside, wondering if he should approach Joe now before it was too late. Maybe if Rosenberg was called into a surprise meeting with the CEO, it would keep him from getting up to the theater and buying the tickets. "Which show does your friend want to see?"

"Oh, that famous one, you know. Hamilton?"

"For this weekend?" Antonio asked. "And you're going to the box office now?"

Rosenberg tapped his forehead with one finger. "You see? Nothing to worry about. Enjoy your lunch, Tony."

Antonio shook his head as the accountant swept past. "Good luck with that, Rosenberg."

The meeting had probably only been over for a few minutes when a text from Stephanie lit up the group chat: 'It's a hit!'

'Proud of you, babe! x' came from Lorenzo a moment later.

Antonio smirked at his phone. So Rosenberg hadn't been able to find two Hamilton tickets for tomorrow night after all. What a shock.

Another text from Lorenzo: 'Pokédrinks?'

Ever since the weather had turned too cold to meet in parks and hunt Pokémon, the group had taken to hanging out in coffee shops that happened to be adjacent to Pokéstops or gyms and bringing the game indoors. Stephanie and Lorenzo would viciously turn the place Red and defend it all evening while Frank and Antonio nursed drinks with names that sounded as fake-Italian as the Kia Seraglio.

'We're having an after party! Join!' came Stephanie's reply followed by an address. According to google maps, it was only a couple stops north of the office on the E. He would have to drop by for a while. Stephanie and Frank had been too busy with the commercial to come out to lunch all week, so it would be nice to see them again. As soon as Rosenberg or Joe showed up, though, Antonio would probably announce that he had to get home to feed his cat and make a graceful exit.

He took the subway with Lorenzo, regaling him with the story of Rosenberg's attempt to sabotage the commercial on the way. It didn't go over quite as well as he hoped, since Lorenzo's thoughts went to the slight against his girlfriend a lot faster than Antonio's had that afternoon. Antonio still thought it was funny, anyway.

Google maps led them to a kitschy restaurant with a German name and relentless accordion music playing over the speakers. Antonio dropped his forehead onto Lorenzo's shoulder and groaned when he saw that the waitstaff were dressed in cheap dirndls and lederhosen, some of them with plastic flower crowns pinned to their hair.

"This place better be one hell of a Pokéstop," Lorenzo muttered, checking the address Stephanie had provided again.

They found Stephanie in a back room with a few of the other people from marketing. Based on the volume of her voice and the empty glasses clustered on the table, the party started some time ago. Stephanie lurched to her feet when they arrived and threw one arm around Lorenzo's neck. "Come drink to our lovely victory!" she said, pulling Antonio further into the room with her free hand.

Lorenzo kissed her forehead. "Looks like it'll take us a little while to catch up to you."

Antonio spotted Frank on the far side of the table and made his way back to the empty seat at his brother's side. There was an entire bottle of wine at this end of the room, but it didn't look like Frank had made much headway on it. He started pouring Antonio a glass as soon as he saw him enter.

"Congrats," said Antonio as he dropped into the chair. He wondered if Frank would enjoy the story of Rosenberg's Hamilton odyssey any more than Lorenzo had. He held his tongue, worried that Frank would take offense as well. Everyone had been going out of their way to avoid discussing the commercial in front of Antonio since his meltdown last week in the studio.

Frank slid the glass of red wine over to him. "So, did you hear they're releasing a holiday Pikachu wearing one of those red Santa Claus hats?"

"Santa hat electric rat?" Antonio replied with a grin.

"Dude, you can't say things like that before you've even started drinking."

"Says the guy who calls Exeggcute 'The Breakfast Club'."

"Come on, that's a good joke!" protested Frank. He finished his glass in one long sip and leaned in conspiratorially. "What do you think Lorenzo and Stephanie are catching right now?"

Antonio looked up: on the other side of the room, Lorenzo had taken a seat and Stephanie was straddling his lap. Her long, brown hair had come loose and was curtaining their faces, but they still looked like a pair of horny teenagers at a movie theater.

Antonio snorted into his drink. "We've been here ten minutes! I get that Stephanie's drunk, but Lorenzo-?"

"Drunk on love," Frank crooned.

"On power," said Antonio. "She was already the golden child at work. She's unstoppable now. She could probably bang Lorenzo on the couch in Joe's office and nobody would say anything."

Frank cleared his throat, running two fingers around the rim of his glass. "Isn't she going to have to go back to her job in the Philly office, though?"

They glanced over at their friends again; suddenly the desperate makeout session seemed bittersweet. Antonio grabbed the wine bottle and refilled Frank's glass just to give himself something to focus on. Philadelphia was only an hour and a half away by train, and Stephanie's new job had come with a huge raise. She and Lorenzo could still see each other on the weekends. But the idea of their lunch group being reduced to three weighed on his mind. Without Stephanie, who would lead them on Pokémon hunts or excitedly tell them what obscure national holiday it was every day?

Frank had been fiddling with his phone when he suddenly straightened up and dropped it onto the table. "Um, Antonio?"

"What's wrong?"

He slid the phone over to him and pointed at the text he'd just received. It was a group chat between the members of the Divine Libertines. Antonio clenched his jaw when he saw the most recent text from Wolfgang Mozart: 'Just found a parking spot! Be there in a minute!'

Antonio's eyes darted toward the door. Wolfgang Mozart was coming here? If he was already parked, it would be impossible to leave without passing him.

"I'm sorry, Antonio. I didn't know he was coming too or I would have warned you."

Antonio nodded, still scanning the portion of the bar that was visible from the back room. The bartender was a broad-shouldered man in a frilly white blouse who kept sneaking sips of something from an old-fashioned beer stein. Behind him was a door that probably led to the kitchen. Could a customer go through there? He was afraid to ask.

"You want me to leave with you?" Frank asked.

Antonio got to his feet, tugging his sweater down anxiously. "I'll just go to the bathroom," he muttered. After Mozart joined the party in the back room, maybe Antonio would be able to slip out from there unnoticed.

It was too late: before Antonio had even pushed in his chair the singer bounded through the door. He threw out both arms and beamed at the assembly like they were fans at one of his concerts. "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at your service!"

Antonio dropped back into his seat, ducking his head to hide the flush that must be spreading over his cheeks. Dammit.

One of the kids from marketing knocked over their glass when Mozart appeared, soaking Lorenzo and Stephanie. The couple broke apart (with a yelp from Stephanie) and the frantic kid scurried off in search of napkins. They were lucky they worked for Stephanie and not someone like Rosenberg, Antonio thought. Was spilling water on your boss at an after-hours party a fireable offense? Stephanie excused herself to the restroom, smoothing her hair back into the red ribbon Lorenzo had removed as she left. There was a large wet spot spreading across the back of her blazer where the water had hit her, but Lorenzo's clothes were dry. He kept his seat, gingerly crossing his long legs and wiping Stephanie's lipstick off his face with the back of one hand.

The other people from marketing had Mozart surrounded, their eyes and phone screens glowing as they prepared to ask for photos. Now there was no way to get out of the back room without pushing through the little crowd, which would definitely catch Mozart's attention. Maybe he wouldn't recognize Antonio? After all, it had been more than a week since the incident at the studio. How good was Mozart's facial recognition, anyway? Antonio grimaced. Well, he had picked Constance out of a screaming audience at Madison Square Garden after not having seen her for a decade. Was his ex-girlfriend's kid sister more or less recognizable than his colleague's kid brother who had acted like an idiot in front of his entire band?

On the far side of the table, Lorenzo stood up, clearing his throat in the general direction of the crowd. "Excuse me? Could I talk to Mr. Mozart?"

The musician took one last picture before breaking free. He grinned widely at Lorenzo and stuck out one hand. "Wolfgang Mozart," he said, though he had already announced his name to the entire room once.

"Lorenzo Da Ponte," said Lorenzo shaking his hand, "I'm a marketing manager at Imperial Marketing & Advertising."

"Wow, do they only source marketing managers from Italy?" Wolfgang teased. "Buonasera, Signor Da Ponte!"

Antonio let out his breath in a hiss. So Mozart must have remembered his Italian-sounding name and his position at the company too. Great.

Lorenzo pulled a tight smile that Antonio knew well. They had both been teased about their names their entire lives; it was one of the things that had brought them together at school. It was kind of rich coming from somebody named 'Wolfgang', though.

"I'm sure Stephanie has told you that she'll be transferring back to the Philadelphia office starting next week?"

Wolfgang appeared to nod and shrug at the same time.

"I'm taking over her projects. If Kia needs anything further from us, you'll be working through me, so I wanted to introduce myself. Sorry, I know it's not the best time."

"It's always a good time for music!" Mozart announced theatrically. "I actually had a few ideas I wanted to discuss. Have you heard about their new electric cars?"

Mozart dropped into a seat at the table, gesturing for Lorenzo to join him. The kid who had spilled water was back, covering the puddle with paper napkins and shooting nervous glances in Mozart's direction.

Antonio eyed the distance between the backs of Lorenzo and Mozart's chairs and the wall. Could he slip by unnoticed? If he went around the other side of the table, would he be more or less likely to catch their attention? Frank had offered to walk him out; maybe it would be best to take him up on it. Hell, maybe he should whittle the stem of his wine glass into a shiv and dig a hole out beneath one of the floorboards. He eyed the bartender out in the main room, who seemed a little less steady on his feet than he had been when they arrived. Maybe Antonio should try getting staggeringly drunk himself, blacking out, and waking up on this bartender's couch tomorrow morning. That had worked out so well for him before.

He watched the bartender pour a patron a generous refill, draining his own wine glass and serving himself another. "Who chose this place?" he asked Frank.

"Stephanie did. Apparently she and Wolfgang have a running joke about being German twins?"

"German twins?"

Frank shrugged. "Wolfgang's middle name is Amadeus-"

"Pretentious. Go on."

"-and Stephanie's last name is Gottlieb. They both translate to the same thing I guess, so... German twins."

Antonio rolled his eyes, taking a long sip of wine. "Gottlieb, Da Ponte, and the Salieri boys... when Stephanie goes back to Philly, we need to replace her with someone named Jane Smith."

He ended up staying at the party longer than he expected he would even before Mozart had arrived. The singer spent the rest of the evening basking in the adoration of the flustered junior marketing team, leaving Antonio and his friends free to catch up at the back of the table. The bar had turned out to be a level 8 Instinct gym, which Stephanie and Lorenzo had quickly begun battling while Frank discreetly tried to defend it under the table. Once or twice, Antonio had looked up and caught Mozart staring at him over someone's shoulder, but by then he had had enough to drink that his dislike for the lead singer of his favorite band was less important than spending some extra time with his clique.

It was so late that Antonio was getting drowsy when Stephanie and Lorenzo, who had successfully taken over the gym and celebrated by making out for half an hour, decided it was probably time to relocate the rest of their evening to Lorenzo's place. They hugged Antonio and Frank before leaving hand-in-hand. Antonio had switched to water about the time that Lorenzo had switched to Stephanie's spit, so his head was clearing and he was ready to make his way to the PATH himself. Catstance should have been fed two hours ago and was probably tearing his apartment to shreds. Frank decided to go to the bathroom before they left. While he was waiting, Antonio thumbed through his wallet in search of a cash tip he could leave the waiter who had been bringing them drinks all night. Sure, Stephanie had already paid for the back room and open bar, and had probably included a generous tip as well, but he never felt right if he wasn't contributing his own twenty percent. He found a ten and a five and was positioning them under the empty wine bottle when a voice by his ear said, "Antonio, right?"

Antonio jolted so badly he nearly knocked over the bottle. As soon as Frank was out of the room, Wolfgang Mozart had slipped into the empty seat at his side.

The musician was studying him inquisitively, his brown eyes ringed with their customary copper eyeshadow. Why was he sitting so close?

Antonio's pulse and mind were racing. Why had he approached him? Had Frank said something since the incident in the studio? Had Constance said something? Was he going to say something about Constance? Antonio shot a quick glance at the wine bottle, suddenly furious that it was already empty. "Mozart?" he finally answered, unsure what his own tone should be.

"Hey, aren't you dating that other Italian guy? Lorenzo?"

"What?" Antonio blurted.

Mozart shrugged. "I thought you two were dating."

"He- he's been with Stephanie for almost a year," Antonio heard himself say. Why was he telling the lead singer of the Divine Libertines about his best friend's love life right now? What was happening here?

For some reason, this information seemed absolutely baffling to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He cocked his head to one side, brow furrowed. He looked like he was trying to do a math problem in his head. Across the table, members of the junior marketing team were pretending to play on their phones or talk to each other, but Antonio could feel their eyes on him and Mozart. Where was Frank?

"You were never with him?" Mozart persisted.

Antonio finally snapped. "No! What business is it of yours?"

At that, Mozart simply shrugged. "Just wondering," he said. He got to his feet and started fishing around in his pocket for his phone as he made his way back to the other side of the table. "See you later, Antonio."

By the time Frank returned from the bathroom, Mozart was flirting and preening in front of the junior marketing team like nothing had happened. Antonio collected his briefcase and stood by the door while Frank bid his boss goodbye with a one-armed hug, but quickly turned away when Mozart winked at him over Frank's shoulder.