Bruce obliged, offering them an easy grin. He knew he photographed well—long and lean, his blue eyes dark as sapphire against his white complexion, his black hair perfectly smoothed back, his suit tailored and oxfords polished. “Good evening,” he said as he stood for a moment in front of the car.
“Bruce!” one paparazzo shouted. “Is that car your first purchase?” He winked. “Enjoying your trust fund already?”
Bruce just looked at him steadily, refusing to take the bait. “This is the newest Aston Martin on the market, fully equipped with WayneTech safety technology. You are welcome to explore its interior tonight for an exclusive first look.” He held his hand out toward the car, where one of his suited guards had opened the door for the press to peek in. “Thank you all for covering my mother’s benefit tonight. It means a lot to me.”
He continued talking for a bit about the charity that the event would support, but everyone shouted right over him, ignoring his words. Bruce faced them wearily, and for an instant, he felt alone and outnumbered. His gaze scanned past the tabloid paparazzi, searching for the journalists from official papers. He could already see the headlines tomorrow: BRUCE WAYNE BLOWS NEW MONEY ON MILLION-DOLLAR CAR! TRUST FUND BABY WASTES NO TIME! But interspersed with those would hopefully be a few true headlines, detailing the work being done at WayneTech. That was what mattered. So he lingered, enduring the photos.
After letting the cameras flash wildly for a few moments, Bruce made his way up toward the hall’s entrance. Other guests mingled at the top of the stairs—members of Gotham City’s upper class, the occasional council member, clusters of admirers. Bruce found himself categorizing everyone in the crowd. It was a survival skill he’d learned since his parents’ deaths. There were the people who’d invite him to dinner only in an attempt to get gossip out of him. The people willing to betray friends in order to become his. The occasional wealthy classmate who’d spread lies about him out of bitter envy. The ones who’d do anything to get a date with him and then share the details with the rags the next morning.
But on the surface, he kept his cool, greeting everyone politely. Only a few more steps until he’d reach the entrance. All he had to do was make it inside, and then he could find—
“Bruce!”
A familiar voice cut above the chaos. Bruce looked up to where a girl was standing on tiptoe and waving at him from the top of the stairs. Dark hair skimmed her shoulders, and the hall’s floor lights highlighted her brown skin and the round curve of her hips. There was glitter woven into the fabric of her dress, shimmering silver as she moved. “Hey!” she called. “Over here!”
Bruce’s careful demeanor dissolved in relief. Dianne Garcia. Category: genuine.
As he reached her, she instinctively turned her back on the crowd stuck behind the velvet rope at the bottom of the stairs in an attempt to shield him from the flashing cameras.
“Fashionably late on your birthday?” she said with a grin.
He gave her a grateful wink and leaned down closer to her ear. “Always.”
“This benefit is epic,” she went on. “I think you might set a new record for how much money it’ll raise.”
“Thank god,” he replied, throwing an arm around her neck. “Otherwise I’d have put up with all the cameras down there for nothing.”
She laughed. This was the girl who had once punched a tooth out of a kid for harassing her friends, who had memorized the entire first chapter of A Tale of Two Cities in senior-year English to win a bet, and who could spend an hour staring at a menu only to order the same burger she always got. Now Dianne shoved him off in affectionate protest, grabbed his arm, and led him through the open doors of the hall, leaving the paparazzi behind.
Inside, the lighting was dim, an atmospheric blue, and chandeliers hung from the high ceilings, glinting bright silver and white. Ice sculptures and spreads of food covered long banquet tables, while another table was lined with rows of auction items, all trembling slightly from the beat of the music.
“I thought you had a college interview today,” he said over the noise as Dianne swiped a lemon tart from one of the dessert stands. “Not that I’m complaining about you being here, of course.”
“It was earlier,” Dianne replied through a mouthful of pastry. “It’s okay. My lola needed me home in the afternoon to pick up my brother, and besides, I couldn’t bear the thought of robbing you of my company tonight.” She leaned in, her voice dropping to an ominous whisper. “That was my way of saying I didn’t get you anything.”
“Nothing at all?” Bruce put a hand over his heart in mock pain. “You wound me.”
“If you’d like, I could always bake you a cake.”
“Please don’t.” The last time Dianne had attempted to make cookies, she’d set Bruce’s kitchen on fire, and they’d spent the next hour hiding the scorched kitchen drapes so that Alfred wouldn’t know.
Dianne squeezed his arm once. “You’ll just have to settle for diner food tonight, then.”
Years ago, Bruce, Harvey, and Dianne had all agreed to forgo birthday presents in exchange for an annual date at their favorite local diner. It would be where they’d meet up tonight, too, after the benefit ended, and Bruce could shed the billionaire and just be a boy on the cusp of graduating from high school, getting teased by two of his best friends over fat burgers and thick milk shakes. He smiled in anticipation at the thought.
“Well?” he asked Dianne. “How’d the interview go?”
“The interviewer didn’t faint in horror at my answers, so I’m going out on a limb to say it went well.” She shrugged.
And that was Dianne’s way of saying she’d aced it, just like she aced everything else in life. Bruce had come to recognize her shrug whenever she tried to downplay an achievement—getting a perfect score on her entrance exams, being admitted to every university she applied to, and speaking as their class valedictorian at graduation next month.
“Congratulations,” he said. “Although you’ve probably already heard that from Harvey.”
She smiled. “All Harvey’s done tonight is beg me not to leave him alone on the dance floor. You know how much his two left feet love to dance.”
Bruce laughed. “Isn’t he alone on the floor right now?”
Dianne grinned mischievously. “Oh, he can survive for two minutes.”
The music grew louder and louder as they neared the dance floor, until finally they stepped through a set of double doors and onto a balcony that overlooked a packed space. Here, the music shook the floors. A haze of mist hugged the ground level. On the stage below was an elaborate stand, behind which stood a DJ, bobbing his head in time to the beat. Behind him, an enormous screen stretched from floor to ceiling and played a series of moving, flashing patterns.
Dianne cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted down at the crowd. “He’s here!”
An enormous cheer exploded from the dance floor, drowning out even the music. Bruce looked on as the crowd’s roar of “Happy birthday!” filled the room. He smiled and waved, and as he did, the DJ sped up the track. Then the DJ dropped the beat hard, and the crowd became a sea of pumping limbs.