Page 60 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

‘Your eyes look all glazed.’

‘I’m fucking hammered, Ethan! I’m probably looking in two directions at once. I really should have had some water in there.’

‘Water? I can do water. Follow me.’

He turned up a side street and pulled me into a 7-Eleven-type corner shop, where a group of men sat huddled in a corner playing a card game. One of them sighed and rose to stand behind the counter so Ethan could pay for a bottle of water and a packet of cookies. I downed the liquid in one go, then devoured a cookie – I hadn’t eaten dinner, yet my body seemed quite content to sustain itself with alcohol and dopamine for now.

‘Better?’

‘Yeah, thanks. So then. To the subway?’

Careful with that intonation, Flora.

‘To the subway.’

‘It’ll still be running, right?’

‘It’s never not running, dude! It’s only nine o’clock – Brooklyn hasn’t even got started. Frank, Suki and Sonny will be out for hours yet.’

‘Would you have stayed longer if I hadn’t been there?’

‘Maybe for a little while, but after Jem I’m always the next one to leave, before the DJ gets going.’

The subway station was now in view, and I instinctively reached around my back to extract my headphones from my rucksack – which wasn’t there.

‘Fuck! My backpack!’

‘Jeez, I totally forgot. Okay, quick detour.’

This is risky.

We rounded a corner onto the street perpendicular to Ethan’s and my eyes locked onto the letters displayed on a giant lightbox sign above the entranceway of what looked to be an industrial-style music venue.

‘No fucking way.’

‘What is it?’

‘Look who’s playing here tonight!’

The letters had been arranged to spell DAYS COLLIDING – the very band Ethan had been listening to in the coffee shop yesterday. The poster next to the entrance indicated that the band was playing a fifteenth-anniversary show for their debut album, which felt incomprehensible.

‘Woah, that’s spooky,’ Ethan said, wandering over to the poster and peering at it so intensely it looked like he was trying to reveal a Magic Eye image.

‘You seriously didn’t know they were playing round the corner from your place?’

‘Nope, it’s hard to keep up with events in Brooklyn. Plus, I had plans tonight anyway.’ His face suddenly whipped around to look at me. ‘Hey… crazy idea: shall we see if they have any tickets left?’

I looked at my watch, assuming we must have missed the bulk of the show already, but, as the headline act, the band I’d always bopped along to in my teenage bedroom would probably be taking to the stage any minute now.

‘It’ll be sold out, surely?’

‘Only one way to find out!’

‘But… will I be able to get back to Manhattan after?’

‘For sure. In fact, I’ll ride the subway with you once we’ve grabbed your backpack since it’ll be later than we planned. But I can have you back before midnight, Florabella Cinderella.’

I knew this was reckless. But I felt high on life, and I had absolutely nowhere else in the world I needed to be. The sudden strum of an electric guitar from within the bowels of the music venue was the final tipping point.