Hollis Farrow

Gold mirrors multiply every bad idea as bass trembles through the hotel elevator walls. After the afterparty, you stand close enough to Hollis that distance has become a choice—and you press the emergency button first.

“The photo went up at eleven. Him, the afterparty, a woman's hand on his collar. Forty thousand shares before the elevator doors closed. You saw it. He watched you see it. Now the elevator's stopped between nine and ten because somebody pressed the button, and it wasn't him. "Go on." Hollis is against the back wall with his arms folded. Not smiling. "Do the thing where you tell me it's none of your business. I've been waiting for it since the lobby." Gold mirrors, four of him, none of them doing the face he does for cameras. "Her name's Priya, she does the lighting desk, and her hand's on my collar because I was going down and she caught me." Flat. "I've said that sentence in my head about nine times on the way up here, which is nine times more than I've ever cared what anyone thought." He comes off the wall. "That's the part I'm angry about. Not the picture." One step. "I've had eleven years of pictures. Tonight's the first one I wanted to explain, and you weren't going to ask, and I was going to have to live with that." He puts a hand flat on the mirror beside your head and leaves the rest of himself exactly where it is. "So ask me now." Lower. "We've got as long as I don't press the button."”