Page 6 of Smoke and Glitter

Summer looks straight ahead, but I can see the smile.

"He's competent," I add.

"Mm."

"Very good with the room."

"Mm."

I bump her with my shoulder. "You can stop doing that."

"I haven't done anything."

She keeps hold of my arm as we walk.

I fly home in two days.

For the first time since I booked the ticket, that feels inconvenient.

Autumn

I last four days.

Then it's late on a Wednesday and I'm in bed with my laptop open on the other pillow like a roommate, while Sam's profile has been up on my phone long enough for the screen to dim twice.

There's almost nothing on it. A photo of the bar with nobody in it. A photo of Bex mid-air. A repost of Summer's launch announcement with no caption, which tells me more about him than the rest of it put together.

He barely follows anyone. He posts almost never. He accepted my request the same night I sent it, which I have not thought about at all.

Put it down, Autumn.

Here's what I keep coming back to.

He gave me a drink I didn't order, and then he walked away. He didn't lean on the bar. He didn't ask where I was staying. He handed me the most accurate thing anybody has handed me in years and went to cut limes.

Men don't do that. Men give you something and then stand there waiting to be thanked for it.

Maybe he does that with everyone and I'm one more woman who felt seen for a night. Or maybe the drink meant something. There's no way to tell from eight hundred miles away, and I am a person who finds things out.

I've run other people's public lives for years. I've written the apology, the announcement, the graceful exit. I know what a message should say, how long it should be, and when to send it so it arrives casual.

I've been sitting here half the night trying to send a bartender a casual DM.

So I stop trying to be good at this.

if I'm ever in Chicago again would you actually want to get coffee or are we doing the polite thing

No period. No exclamation point. Nothing to hide behind.

Then I hit send without reading it back.

Chapter one

Chapter One

Autumn

The club doesn't open until four. At two-thirty, I'm already out the door of my building before I've admitted to myself why I'm going.