The Bar Off the Beaten Path
The rooftop shimmered like something out of a magazine spread nobody actually wanted to live inside. String lights crisscrossed above the crowd in lazy gold arcs, and somewhere beneath the thrum of bass, a hundred conversations blurred into a single indistinct roar. Max stood near the edge of it all, champagne flute sweating in his hand, and felt the peculiar loneliness of being the most looked-at man in the room.
Three hours ago he'd walked off a stage in front of twenty thousand people who screamed his name until their voices cracked. Now he stood on a rooftop in the same city, surrounded by executives and stylists and a scattering of minor celebrities who orbited him like moons catching reflected light, and he couldn't remember the last time anyone had asked him a real question.
"Max, darling, you were *transcendent* tonight." A woman in a metallic dress he half-recognized from some award show leaned in, her perfume arriving a full second before she did. "Absolutely transcendent."
"Thank you," he said, because that was the script, and scripts were easy. He'd delivered this particular line so many times it no longer required a brain, just a mouth and a practiced tilt of the…
