of champagne. Sloane’s face was hot. She smiled at a woman who told her—tears in her eyes—that they were a “perfect couple,” thinking of one of the recent articles about Matt that had called their relationship “perplexing.” It was affixed to their refrigerator because Matt had thought it was amusing.
Sweat rolled down her stomach to her bellybutton. She searched the crowd for Albie and found him near one of the large pillars, talking to a woman in a tight black dress with her hair pinned up on one side. Sloane excused herself from the teary-eyed woman—who was recounting the story of her own engagement, twenty years before—and set her champagne down on one of the empty tables on her way to Albie.
When she reached him, she drew him in close so she could speak right into his ear. “I have to get out of here,” she said. “Want to come?”
“Uh,” Albie said, looking over his shoulder at the gala. “Yeah. Sure. What about Matt?”
Sloane looked for Matt in the crowd. He wasn’t hard to find. His smile alone was a beacon, and then there was the glittery gold of his bow tie. Fondness pierced the mire of anxiety within her. He was good at this. He had always been good at this. “He’ll be fine,” she said. “Coat check. You got a five?”
Albie was digging in his pocket for his billfold as they marched out of the ballroom together. The coat check was a gap in the wall manned by a postadolescent with gel in his hair playing a game on his phone. As he shuffled away to find their coats, Sloane hiked up her skirt to undo the delicate straps of her shoes. She would be faster on flat feet.
“Spotted,” Albie said under his breath. Coming out of the ballroom was a couple in matching white tuxedos, their eyes fixed on Sloane. She grabbed her stomach impulsively and hunched, pretending to be sick. Albie grabbed the coats from the shuffling attendant, tipped him five dollars, and put a hand on Sloane’s back reassuringly.
“Let’s find you a bathroom,” Albie said as they passed the two men near the ballroom doors. He glanced at them. “Avoid the spanakopita.”
The men looked at each other, stricken. She and Albie limped along toward the hotel restaurant, bent and huddled into each other, and once they were out of sight of the ballroom doors, she laughed and dragged him toward the kitchens.
Both of them had had their strengths, and Sloane’s had been getting out of bad situations. She was always looking for exits, even when there weren’t any. On a few occasions when Matt had dug in and decided it was time for them to make their heroic last stand, she had helped them escape instead. It was the only time she had ever felt like she really was a Chosen One.
And now that skill was helping her escape conversations. Not exactly how she had imagined putting it to use.
“Hello, hi! Ignore us, official hotel business!” she chirped once they were in the kitchen. She slipped behind one of the line cooks, lurched away from the heat of a pan fire, and ducked under the arm of someone opening the deep freezer. Albie apologized in her wake. She pushed the door to the alley open and drank in the cold air, her shoes dangling from her fingertips by their straps.
“God, don’t tell me you’re going to walk barefoot in an alley,” Albie said, offering her her coat.
“I mean, I’m going to try to avoid broken glass,” she said, shrugging the coat on. Her smartphone was in the pocket. She took it out to use the flashlight on the ground and found a hopping path over garbage and puddle and early frost. They went past a line of dumpsters, and when they reached the corner where alley met street, Albie grabbed her elbow to stop her.
“Okay, there’s a shitty dive bar around the corner,” he said, pointing to a pin on his phone map. “But we’ll probably have to take it at a run so nobody spots us.”
Sloane grinned. “This feels like old times, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, except without the threat of imminent death,” Albie said, snorting. “Let’s go.”
Together they ran down the sidewalk and around the corner toward the sign for Fred’s that was rendered in green neon lights in a window. The place was empty and smelled like a gym. Peanut shells cracked under Sloane’s bare feet as she and Albie walked to the bar.