injected doubt into his words and tone, but his dominant smile gave away his faith.
“What do you think, Vin?” Zach asked, turning to me with widened, bewildered eyes.
I silently cursed him out for putting me on the spot as I smiled and said, “Sure, yeah. She was pretty good.”
“You don’t sound convinced,” Z scoffed, rolling his eyes.
I could’ve punched him as my eyes darted to Greyson, then back to my brother. “I am, asshole. I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could push the debate further, I announced that I needed a smoke and excused myself from the dark theater.
Outside, standing on a sidewalk in the middle of the greatest city on Earth, I took a deep breath before digging out my pack of Marlboros. The air was balmy and stifling, thick with summer and sweat, but it was still easier to breathe out here than inside, where I was forced to put on a happy face and lie to my brother-in-law.
I wasn't good at a lot of things and lying was pretty high on the list.
“Jesus fuckin' Christ,” I muttered, loud enough for others to hear, but nobody paid any attention. Because this is New York City we're talking about here. Not a whole lot fazes us, and especially not some idiot talking to himself on the sidewalk. It's one of the things I loved about this place. Nobody looks and nobody judges.
But it could also be that nobody cares, and when I thought of it that way, I wondered if that was really something to love after all.
Pulling a cigarette from the pack and holding it between my teeth, I patted myself down in search of my lighter. “Where the hell did I put it?” I grumbled, becoming more frustrated with every passing second. “I just had the damn thing. What did I do, leave it at the freakin’ restaurant?”
“Well, it doesn't look like you have it on you, so I guess so.”
Startled—because why would I expect anybody to actually answer—I looked up from my swatting hands to a pair of laughing, blue eyes, behind a pair of thick-framed glasses and a glossy smirk. She stood against the side of the building, her back to the bricks and her hands dipped casually into her pockets. The smile she wore shrunk when she realized she had my dumbfounded attention, and she shook her head, breaking out in a nervous laugh.
“Sorry,” she said. “You asked a question, so I thought I'd answer.”
Chuckling brusquely, I nodded. “Yeah, thanks,” I replied, suddenly remembering the cigarette between my teeth as it tumbled to the dirty sidewalk. I stared at it, lying sadly in a puddle of rainwater and filth, and muttered, “Well, fuck.”
“Eh, you shouldn't smoke anyway,” she answered, and I looked up to watch her shrug. Her bare shoulders glistening with a golden tan beneath the venue's lights.
“Yeah,” I answered in a hoarse voice, clamping my lips shut before I went into a spiel about how it wasn't any of her damn business what I chose to do. Instead, I headed back toward the door and said, “Well, have a good night.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, just as my hand started to grip the metal door handle, surprisingly cool in the middle a heatwave. “You can't get back in.”
“What?” I tugged at the door to find it locked. I tugged again. “Why the hell not?”
“You can't leave the venue during a show,” she explained, wincing with apology.
“But, I have a ticket.” Then, I produced said ticket from my pocket and showed it to her, as if she needed proof. As if she could actually do something about it.
She stepped forward and took it from me, then pointed somewhere in the fine print. “Once ticket is scanned, you must remain inside the venue until the show is over. Re-entry will be denied,” she read.
“Get the hell outta here.” I took the ticket from her and squinted my eyes to read the tiny font, determined to catch her in a lie, but sure as shit, there it was. “Well, son of a bitch.”
“I thought you already knew that, since you were out here.”
Peering through the glass door and into the nearly empty lobby, I mumbled, “I just needed a smoke.”
“I guess this isn't your night.”
“Yeah, guess not.”
With a heavy sigh, I pulled my phone out and called Zach. What was to stop him from just opening the door and letting me back in? The one fat, old