Page 62 of One More Time
He found Lucy on her back on one side of the bed, eyes closed again, one hand to her middle. He resisted the urge to stand there and stare at her like a weirdo, and instead placed the washcloth on her forehead. He slid into the spot on the bed right beside her, before pulling the comforter up over them both.
He folded the fingers of his left hand through the fingers of her right, and squeezed.
‘I’m too young for the midday nap,’ she grumbled – half-laugh, half-groan.
‘Relax, baby,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t let them issue your AARP card while you’re out.’
Nicky held tight to Lucy’s hand and listened as her breathing evened out into the long, slow murmur of sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LUCY
Lucy’s eyes shot open with a start. She had no idea what time it was, and only a vague notion ofwhereshe was. The room was familiar, but the bed was positioned differently to the window than what she was expecting. The weird abstract hotel art was the same, but alsonot. Catching a glimpse of her black T-shirt, worn and faded to buttery softness, she remembered lying on the bed with Nicky, his hand in hers.
She spotted her phone and a bottle of water sitting atop a piece of hotel stationery on the bedside table. A note there read,Had to go do a thing. If you wake up before 5, come meet me in the Scala Theater. I promise to feed you after. x, Nicky.
Lucy opened her phone and saw that it was 2:30 in the afternoon. She’d slept for hours. She texted to the group chat with Chloe and Kim to inform them that she wouldn’t make their scheduled girls-only pool and cabana time.
They both replied immediately with a string of eggplant and peach emojis.
Then, she folded up Nicky’s note, chiding her own sentimentality even as she slipped it into her bra. It was the kind of reminder she didn’t have of their first time together all those years ago. Unless you counted ‘The Breathing Room.’ (She didn’t.)
Lucy traipsed to her room in Nicky’s sweats. She showered and shaved. Exfoliated every damn thing she could reach. Applied three different lotions and mascara. She threw on her own joggers, which were a sexy/comfy combo, and topped it with an old Foo Fighters concert tee – unable to resist subtly needling Nicky about Dave Grohl just a little more.
Helpful signs led Lucy through the main part of the casino to the theater, which was down a long corridor set away from the blinking slot machines and crowds of people willingly parting with their life savings at the craps tables.
She had to try several of the hulking main theater doors by their giant-sized brass pulls before finding one unlocked, then slipped through as quietly as she could.
The theater was mostly dark, with the house lights completely dimmed. LED strips of a muted amber lined the aisles, and she could just make out several stories of box seats behind lavish Italianate arches. The proscenium and stage were lit up, and one of the best-selling, highest-grossing bands in history was on the stage making discordant, incomplete musical sounds.
The shock of it – therealityof it – made Lucy’s emptystomach drop out like she was being launched from the top of a roller coaster.
A man stepped out of the shadows to her right and approached.
‘You must be Lucy,’ he whispered. ‘I’m Jacob, one of the tour managers. Have a seat anywhere and enjoy the show. Shouldn’t be more than another hour at most.’
‘Thank you,’ Lucy whispered back.
Lucy tiptoed down the aisle, willing herself smaller and more mouse-like. She shimmied her way down a row so that she was precisely at center stage and midway into the section. If she was in for a private show, she was going to make the most of it.
She took a moment to look around her and spotted maybe five or six other people in the theater. Each of them had an iPad or a clipboard. Some wore headsets. It seemed that Super had a skeleton crew, and an audience of exactly one.
When she glanced back at the stage, Lucy caught Nicky looking up from his guitar with a deep, concerned furrow between his brows. The second he saw her, though, the lines on his face smoothed and he smiled, wide and guileless. Because of her. Lucy was fully fucking slayed by that smile. She was surprised to look down and see her legs still there, not melting to a puddle.
Nicky strummed another chord on his guitar, then silenced it with a slap to the frets. He called out to the cluster of people at stage right, ‘Finn, the sound is still weirdly hollow. You get me, man? Like an echo, but notan echo. I think it’s the room, not the IEM. But it could be the IEM.’
‘Working on it, Nick,’ came a grumbly voice from behind one of the iPads.
Behind Nicky, the drummer, a man she knew was named Gill (because she was a woman of a certain age and those guys were justthatfamous) spoke up: ‘If we really go hard it’s going to sound like a mess.’ Then: ‘I like Nick’s idea of being closer to the audience for this whole thing but, as it stands, they’re gonna get nothing but a wall of formless sound.’
‘And leave deaf,’ added the rhythm guitarist, a guy named Hooper, sporting a man bun and almost as many tattoos as Nicky.
‘More sound-deadening or something?’ Nicky asked. ‘This theater was built for a lounge singer or a string quartet.’
‘Maybe we should just do the whole thing acoustic?’ asked the bassist, Vinny.
‘If you guys stick me back here with some brushes and a single fucking snare, I will murder you in your sleep,’ said Gill.
