She pretended to check her non-existent watch and said "Wow, not even
a full 48 hours before you threw that back in my face! Most
impressive!" She saw in his eyes widen at the impact he realized he
had. He apologized with his whole heart, and then said he had fucked it
all up. "It's fine," she said, "I know you were joking." Her voice was not convincing enough.
"That's
not anything to joke about though, and I should know that, god!" He
exclaimed. "I just made it so awkward!" It was nice that he felt so
bad about it, but he was clearly getting more upset than he needed to.
Despite the narrowness of the sidewalk, she slipped beside him and
looped her arm through his. It was an easy fluid motion, and felt very
natural. "Listen," she started, trying to console him.
"--Excuse
me, do you have any spare change?" a homeless man interrupted. She started to speak an apology, but KSL broke away from her and reached for his
wallet. "Here you go man, my last two dollars. Spend it well."
They started to walk again, and she said "I want to tell you something PJ said to me--"
"Speak
of the Devil, hey PJ, Hey AB! We'll see you inside in a minute, we are
gonna go get a drink from the bar." KSL yelled out to the couple. They
waved wordlessly and slipped inside the theatre. KSL slipped into the
bar and up to the ATM to take out cash. She leaned up against it and
told him about The Potential
conversation. She was animated and he was animated back, to an
outsider they looked drunk-happy. Halfway through the story she noticed
their old director out of the corner of her eye. The one KSL had made
out with on New Years. The story faltered, and she finished up without much detail.
KSL never noticed her, and walked right past her up to the bar. She kept her mouth shut. Why not let her enjoy the show?
"Do
you want anything?" KSL asked her once they reached the bar. "Mmm, not
from this bar." She wrinkled her nose. It was her least favorite dive
bar. She already wanted out of there before her whole body smelled like
cigarette smoke.
"Come on, I'm buying. I still feel bad." He made puppy dog eyes at her until she cracked a smile.
"Alright,
get me a dirty martini so I don't have to feel the sting of your comments anymore. If they ask how dirty, say about as dirty as
their bar. I'm going to the theatre to go to the bathroom before the
show."
Of course there was someone in the bathroom, so
she instead greeted PJ and AB, waved to a local photographer, kissed her
BFF on the cheek, then put her stuff down and went to the bathroom.
While inside she heard the old director starting the pre-show talk, and hurried out.
KSL
was seated away from where she had set her stuff down, and she looked
up at him with a "WTF?" look. She had forgotten he liked to sit higher
up. She grabbed her stuff quickly and headed up to meet him before the
lights went down.
"I knew you were going to do that." BFF hissed as she walked past.