She splutters a laugh; the entire idea embodied in his words is hilarious. “Sure, okay.” She steps a little closer to him, looks up to see that his eyes are intensely blue. “I don’t think anyone’s on the balcony right now … “
This is the point where he’ll laugh at her, mock her for even pretending to take him seriously — basically backpedal furiously. She’s prepared to be amused as hell at whatever excuse he comes up with.
The corners of his lips twitch upwards when her laugh rang through the air, though they dropped as she moved closer, his whole body growing stiff. His personal bubble just about trumped the size of his ego. “And if they were…?” He managed to muster, turning towards her in the means of gauging her reaction.
“Ladies first,” he said, after awkward silence settled over them for a few beats, gesturing towards said balcony.
Ah. It’s going to be one of those types — the kind that say ‘no’ with their bodies, but not with their words, and it’s left to her to decide which answer is correct. (It’s always what the body says. Bodies are subconscious.) Summer shifted back a little, just enough to concede the silent argument.
“If there were, I guess you would just have to wait for that inspection,” she says back, over her shoulder, making sure to give him his arm’s length of space as she slips outside.
There’s no one out there, of course — nobody here smokes, they all vape because that’s more trendy and can be done inside out of rain or cold or heat. She’s seen them, comparing their e-cigs and insert-flavour-here in dark corners lit by the LEDs in their tools. So she drapes herself backwards over the railing, hair tumbling over the edge in a cascade weirdly coloured by the neon and streetlights, and waits to see how the game will play out.
