A voice sliced down the corridor behind us. Male. Sharp. The special brand of sharp that only arrives when a man realizes his evening just pivoted from "mildly boring gala" to "catastrophic personal failure."
That my friend is exactly why I'd scooped her up and bolted... I'd seen him coming before he did us. Good instincts. Ten out of ten. Gold star for me.
She lifted her head from my shoulder and glanced back. I braced myself for the classic script: guilt tsunami, hesitation, the inevitable "put me down, I need to go back and explain" that reasonable women are supposed to perform on cue.
"Run faster," she said instead.
I looked at her.
She was grinning. Full teeth. Eyes electric. Not a molecule of guilt or a polite shadow of regret.
Just the blinding, incandescent glee of a woman who'd spent years in a very tasteful cage and had just heard the lock pop like cheap champagne.
"He's gaining."
"Gen! Stop right there!" Closer now. Angrier.
