“Oh, shit—I shouldn’t have said anything.” Lane bit down and, slowly, took a breath; the air became noise against their teeth, but it wasn’t enough to conceal the vibrations from their phone. They only received a few seconds of respite. “I told my brother we’re in Paris,” they explained. Their eyes left the screen, to land on whoever was near. “I forgot that my sister-in-law’s favourite movie is set here, and now she’s screaming at me. She’s just sending erratic key-smashes—I’m scared.”
Lane turned their phone over in their hand and outstretched their arm, pushing the screen into their line of view. Every few seconds, a new text was added to their notifications and while they couldn’t read them theirself, they could only imagine it was getting worse. “Do you know where the Moulin Rouge is?” they asked, slightly out of left-field. “I think I’ll have to visit before we leave, or Violet might actually kill me.”