Chapter 8: Rooftop Cinema

Keith did not speak to me for two days except in front of the cameras.

On the third night the show sent us to a rooftop.

Someone had strung lights across the roof of a building downtown, and there was a white screen at one end and rows of folding chairs.

The film was an old black-and-white romance.

Nobody was watching it.

Four cameras were pointed at us, and one more was hidden in a plant.

I only knew because Pia had pointed to it, and then mimed zipping her lips.

"Slow dance," the producer said in my ear. "Keith's getting the same instruction. Go."

I stood up.

Keith stood up on the other side of the aisle.

We looked at each other across a row of empty chairs.

He walked over and held out his hand.

I put mine in it.

He settled his other hand on my back, high and careful, and we started to turn.

The speakers played a song I knew from a jukebox in a diner in Bellmore.

It was a slow country song, thin and old, and it had been on the jukebox every night of that summer.

I didn't think he had picked it.

I didn't think anyone had.

"This is a coincidence," he said, very low.

"I know."

"The network sends a music list. They don't know."

"I know, Keith."

His hand pressed a little more firmly against my back.

I felt it all the way down my spine.

Keep reading free with an account. Start She Signed Up to Win Her Ex, Then Was Paired With Her First Love from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.