Chapter 44 Needed An Exit?

• The noise was quieter up here, but not gone. It hovered beneath the rooftop like a muffled orchestra warming up: the distant pop of flashbulbs, the occasional spike of laughter, someone shouting a name that definitely wasn’t Rosie’s.
• She nudged the door shut behind her with a heel and stepped into the semi-dark. No signs. No velvet ropes. Just a few paper lanterns strung haphazardly overhead, probably added by a stylist or production intern who thought “ambience” meant “something vaguely glowing.”
• Her gown—floor-length, too structured, too slippy in the chest—whispered as she walked. Her clutch felt like a brick in her hand. And her hair, artfully pinned and sprayed, had started to itch somewhere behind her left ear, which seemed like a betrayal. They’d spent a full hour getting that hair to “fall naturally.”