The Sound of Us (11 page)

I down the rest of my coffee and grab my cardkey and phone. “I’m going to the computer lounge,” I tell her as I leave.

The computer lounge is down the hall in a humid little room with three computers and Wi-Fi. No one’s inside, so I pick the middle computer and boot it up.

I don’t know what I’m looking for. I Google foreclosure. I Google the Silver Lining and read the two one-star reviews on Yelp. Even bad reviews that show the best about my dad’s bar—how
nice
we were, how
beautiful
the bar looked, how surprisingly
clean
for such a dive—don’t help. They don’t help me justify the foreclosure. Nothing does. Pulling my phone out of my back pocket, I dial my best friend’s number. It’s comforting, if nothing else. Two rings and she picks up.

“I feel a disturbance in the force,” she says in greeting.

That’s all it takes. My bottom lip wobbles and then, suddenly, I’m blubbering.

“Whoa, whoa! Easy on the waterworks, Juniper, I can barely hear you.”

“I’m pretty much fucked.” I sniff, rubbing my eye with the palm of my hand. “And I had an amazing night last night with that guy I met—and his friend, and we broke into a put-put course and almost got arrested and—”

“Junie Baltimore
trespassing
? Hold the phone. I need to get this in writing. What sort of guy makes my best friend do the stupid shit only I’d do?”

I wipe my snotty nose on my arm, leaving a trail of goo. Disgusted, I rub it off on the back of the chair. “Roman Montgomery.” The door opens to a hefty guy in a Hawaiian shirt. He gives me one look before he leaves again, secluding me to my snotty, crying pity-fest.

“
Hello
? You still there?” I croak.

Complete and total silence.

Then, “OH MY GOD, YOU BROKE AND ENTERED WITH ROMAN MONTGOMERY—”

I yank the phone away from my ear, wincing. She’s so loud, her voice echoes in the room.

“—AND DIDN’T CALL ME? DOES THE HO-CODE MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?”

“I didn’t think I’d ever see him again! I didn’t want to get your hopes up, I...”

“YOU ARE THE WORST FRIEND IN THE ENTIRE WORLD AND I AM NEVER SPEAKING TO YOU AGAIN.” There is a beat of silence where I think she hangs up, but then she adds, “Does he pack right or left?”

At that exact moment, the door opens again to the same Hawaiian shirt man. Behind him is one of the CherryTree employees. Oh, I get it. “I’m being kicked out of the computer lab, Mags. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Are you
kidding
me?!”

I hang up, and as I stand and shove between them into the hallway I freeze.

“Good afternoon, sleeping beauty.” Orange hair. Suspenders. Tattoos.

“Oh, you,” I choke in a sob.

He studies me. If he thinks I look like hell, he doesn’t say a word. Instead, he takes his keys out of his pocket and jingles them. “Ready for a little fun?”

“Please,” I reply with honest relief.

“I’ll let you change first. And uh, you’re sort of leaking...”

I rub my hand over my eye, and smear my leftover eyeliner across my face. “Yeah, thanks.”

If Maggie’s jealous of
this
, she has another thing coming.

“What I didn’t tell you yesterday,” Roman says, spinning around on his toes to face me as we walk to his minty green car. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the parking lot. No wonder the paparazzi can follow him wherever he goes. “Is that this car? Her name’s Sweet Pea, and she is a very fickle beast. Like most women are.”

“I should take offense to that,” I reply dryly.

He walks backwards on his toes like a kid, which is oddly cute.

“I didn’t name her.” He shrugs and unlocks the car. “So, it’s 5:49,” he adds as he glances down at his Rolex, probably the most expensive thing I’ve seen him wear. “Grub or go straight to the bar?”

“Where’re we going?”

“Where it all started,” is his cryptic reply.

The car starts with a cough and with a burp of black smoke it rumbles out of the lot and down a side road.

My cell phone begins to vibrate. I swear, if it’s Mom wanting to know where I’m going...

The ID blinks an unsaved number, but I’ve memorized his number by now. I go to silence it when Roman snatches it out of my hand and answers it.

“Hello, you’ve reached the Pizza Palace, where I can be your personal pan pizza for the low price of—”

Mortified, I snatch my cell phone back and punch END. “Are you
crazy
?”

“What?” He laughs. “They’ll call back if it’s important.”

I purse my lips into a thin line and stuff my phone back into my purse. I guess he’s right. Not that Caspian
will
call back. Am I even in his phone, or am I an unknown number like he is in mine? What sort of lovers—
friends
, even—are not listed in each other’s cell phones?

The leather squeaks a little against my shorts. Roman let me take a shower and change before we left the condo—thank God, because with my makeup all smeared and my nose red, I looked more like a mid-90s Ozzy Osborn.

Roman should have turned tail and run—
screaming
.

I reach for the radio, but he slaps my hand away. “Ow! Jeez, I just wanted to turn it on.”

“Driver picks the tunes, shotgun forfeits the right to complain.”

He turns into a gas station and taps the broken fuel gauge. It’s been stuck on empty for three miles now. “Never too careful,” he says as an excuse, and gets out. “I’ll leave it running while I go in. It’s hot as balls outside.”

“You’re so kind.”

“Don’t let this pretty face fool you,” he tsks, before briskly making his way to the building.

The skin on my legs makes a horrible sticky noise as I slide down in the seat. My sweat somehow solidified my legs to the pleather. Painfully, I pry one leg up and my knee hits the dashboard. The compartment pops open with a snap and a CD case slides out and hits the floorboards with a sharp clatter.

Curiously, I pick up the case and pop it open. The burned CD inside is labeled in sloppy chicken-scratch handwriting,
Your Song Sweetly EP.
He still burns CDs? That’s sort of adorable. I haven’t burned a CD since the iPod was invented.

Knowing that this constitutes as
prying
, I still pop it into the antique CD player. I chance a look up. The bright glow of Roman’s hair is unmistakable through the automatic doors. He’s two people away from the register, talking with the guy in front of him.

The CD player makes a whining noise, clicks, and the radio goes silent. Static fills the cab. I wait impatiently for any signs of life. Then, apprehensively, Roman’s voice drifts across the speakers, “Hi, it’s Roman...and this is, um, everything I couldn’t say.”

I suck in a breath.

The sweet, soft sound of an acoustic guitar fills the small car like a sunrise. When he begins to sing, the song...it sounds like an orchestra of heartstrings painting a love story. It’s a dizzying sort of song that gets you lost in your own head; it takes you back to someplace bitter and beautiful. It’s sounds like all the moments you’ll never have again.

It’s spinning around on the barstool the day after Caspian first kissed me, it’s dancing in my room to ‘Bed of Roses’ when I first heard it on the radio, it’s singing “Born to Run” with Dad on our road trips into the mountains, so whole and lyrical and bittersweet the words sink down into my bones.

This is what missing someone must sound like—uncontrollably hopeful and sad, hand in hand.

The thought hits me then—the only reason Roman would ever write this sort of song. Why any musician would.

It’s because he’s in love.

Roman exits the store.

I slam my finger on the radio button, and talk radio fills the car. My heart thrums in my throat as I wipe the tears out of my eyes. What’s
wrong
with me? This is Roman Montgomery, not Paul McCartney or Elton John or Willie Nelson.

But that
song
...

Suddenly, talk radio kicks out, and his CD spins to life again. A guitar strum, a word, and the song catapults me into almost-hysterics.

“Stop it!” I hiss, jamming my finger on the eject button. The CD pops out, but before I can grab it, the stupid thing goes back in. What the fuck is this thing—
possessed
?!

The stereo crackles. “Hi, it’s Roman—”

“
Stop
! Please!” I beg, repeatedly jamming my finger on the eject button. What if he finds out I snooped? What’ll he do? He’s almost to the car when the radio gives up the CD again, and I rip it out desperately. He’s at the nose of the car. I slam the CD into the case and shove it into the dashboard moments before he pops his head in through the open driver’s side window.

His lips are set into a thin line. “Thought you could be sneaky, huh,” he says disappointedly.

Heat prickles onto my cheeks. “I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you—”

His seriousness cracks into a cheshire grin. “All right, I’ll stop torturing you. Change it to whatever you want after I fill ‘er up. Just not Top 40s. Got it? Or that Roman Holiday station. One more ‘Crush On You’ and I’ll seriously crush myself against a moving bus.”

Relief floods through me like liquid coolant. “Oh no, the end of the world is nigh.”

“Nigh is right. Boaz is playing tonight.
Boaz
. Women will be offering up their first born children by the time his set’s over.” He hops halfway in through the window to put his soda in the cup holder in the middle.

I turn off the ignition for him and swing the key ring around on my first finger. “That good, huh?”

“You don’t think girls dig him because of his killer
mohawk
, do you?” He gives me a meaningful look as he slides back out of the window.

“Speak for yourself, his mohawk makes me hot,” I reply with mock-indignation.

Chuckling, he turns off the car and begins to pump gas, bobbing his head to the 80s techno coming from the gas station speakers. I glance back at the dashboard even though the coast is clear.

Roman in
love
? If that isn’t the juiciest bit of news I’ve heard since Holly’s death, I don’t know what is. Neither Roman nor Holly ever admitted to being in a relationship with each other, but everyone suspected. Who could be better than
Holly
? She was pretty much perfect, according to every Holidayer
ever
.

Besides, how could Roman settle for just one girl? World-renown womanizer, playboy, what-have-you...in
love
?

I don’t care
,I keep telling myself, because I have Caspian, and Caspian and I are good. We’re good.
I don’t care.

The car door opens and he slides inside. “Okay, now that Sweet Pea is appeased...” He gives me a once-over, pulling at his red suspenders. Does he even wash them? And who the hell wears stupid red suspenders anyway?
I don’t care.
“You look tense.”

“Huh? Yeah, I’m great. Just sort of tired from last night...” I show him my Band-Aid as an excuse before I hand him back his keys, but he bypasses them and grabs my hurt hand instead. His eyebrows furrow as he inspects the Band-Aid. “You got hurt?”

“Just a scratch. I got patched up last night.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Of course.” I roll my eyes and try to pull my hand away, but he holds firm. His calloused fingertips are warm against my freezing fingers.

“And you’re freezing.”

“My hands are always cold.” I wish he’d just let go of my hand.

A cheshire grin curves across his lips. “Cold hands, warm heart?”

I scoff, finally yanking my hand away from his. I try to rub the warm fingerprints away. “Cold hands,
no
heart.”

“Nah, just gotta tune it. Like a radio.” He reaches toward me, but I knock his hand away.

“If you dare try to tune me, mister, you’re dead,” I warn, trying to keep a straight face, but his smile is infectious, and I can’t help myself. He tries again. “I mean it! I’ll tickle you!”

The threat seems to work. He settles back into his seat, putting his hands up in defeat. “Oh-ho, tickle fights. Getting serious already?” But he’s not thinking about tickle fights—that I can tell by the sneaky sort of eyebrow-wiggle.

I stick out my tongue and push my hands between my legs to warm them up. “Oh
whatever
. Playboy.”

“Not anymore.”

“As of today, or this minute?” Why am I being so mean?

He looks like he wants to ask the same thing, but he shoves the keys into the ignition instead and pulls out of the gas station. “I...haven’t been with a girl since Holly died.”

But what about that song?
I want to ask, but I purse my lips together. I don’t want him to know I snooped. And why do I care? We’ve only spent a few days together. It’s not like
we’re
together.

“Almost a year to the date,” he adds. There’s something more in his voice that he doesn’t say, and I don’t pursue it.

“What a surprise,” I mutter, staring out the window. “I had sex the first time on Saturday.”

“So you
are
with someone?”

I shrug, but finally, when Roman turns the radio back on, I say so softly I don’t think he hears, “I don’t know.”

From the looks of it, Isla Lona is the redheaded stepchild of the Strand. You might have heard rumors about all the trouble it causes—the fights, drunk-in-publics, the exclusively hot and exceedingly off-limits bartenders—but Myrtle Beach keeps it tucked away in a safe, abandoned corner so it stays just that—a rumor. That’s exactly where we find Isla Lona, in a dimly lit side street with boarded-up windows, graffiti, and old posters lining the walls to the door. The place looks abandoned, except for the line of hipsters and rockoholics wrapped from the door down the street, some stinking of marijuana, others stinking of sunscreen.

“What a...
lovely
establishment,” I compliment as we pass a poster that says, ‘NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO F***IN’ WAY YOU’RE GETTIN’ IN.’

“Yep. Welcome to the Isla Lona.”

“We’re never getting in with that line.”

“Just follow my lead.” Roman bypasses the line in quick strides. “Luis!” He calls to the doorman, giving him a high-five.