Page 60 of One More Time
‘You know what I miss?’ Lucy said softly.
‘What?’
‘Smoking.’
‘Oh, God. Me too.’
‘It was so fucking relaxing.’
‘And fun.’
‘Yeah,’ she sighed dreamily.
Nicky reached over to the coffee table and picked up his phone. Tapped a few buttons.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, her eyes cracking open just a sliver.
‘Nothing,’ he said, not at all subtle with the lie.
Still, she just hummed again and closed her eyes.
Then, he clicked a few buttons on the TV to cue theinternet up to a site he’d been damn near obsessed with since he’d found it a few years back.
As soon as the voice started up introducing the show, Lucy’s eyes opened up.
‘120 Minutes?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, discovered the Internet Archive on a long flight from Prague to Brisbane and I can’t seem to stop.’
‘I’ve dug into the Archive for research, but not120 Minutes, and never just for fun. It’s brilliant,’ she said, rolling her head to smile right at him.
Really, watching the MTV of his youth was self-indulgent and a little bit pathetic if Nicky thought too hard about it. So, he justdidn’t.
‘Nineties commercials!’ she exclaimed, her face scrunching up with delight.
‘Sometimes,’ he replied. ‘You never know. It’s like pulling the prize right from the top of the Cracker Jack box when you get ’em.’
‘Amazing,’ she breathed, fully entranced by a thirty-year-old Frosted Flakes commercial.
A quiet knock came at the door.
‘Don’t move,’ he said before popping up.
On his way to the door, he found his wallet on the entry table, and pulled a crisp hundred-dollar bill from the fold. He opened the door and made a quick exchange before heading right back to Lucy.
Her eyes lit up as they landed on the pack of cigarettes and lighter in his hand, then at the shit-eating grin on his face.
‘How the hell?’ she asked.
‘Concierge.’
‘You have the concierge on speed dial?’
‘We call it text here in the twenty-first century, but yeah.’ He held his empty hand out to her. ‘Come on.’
Without balking for a second, Lucy slipped her hand in his.
They bounced through the suite, hand in hand, like a couple of teenagers. Into the primary bedroom where Nicky slid open the balcony door. The tiny outdoor space wasn’t exactly luxurious. Not a stick of furniture, a temperature just a touch cooler than the surface of the sun, and glass safety panels that extended up five feet, but it was something.
