The Sound of Us (22 page)

“That is my charm,” he nods in agreement, slings my purse over his shoulder with his backpack, and escorts me, like a gentleman, to my car.

When Chuck drops me off the next day at the Lining, Geoff’s leaning by the cash register, the Lining’s black phone propped up against his shoulder, spinning the curly cord around his long first finger.

“Who’re you talking to?” I ask him as I dump my purse in the break room and take out a piece of gum.

He quickly hangs up on the landline and spins around. “Hmm?”

“Who was that?” I motion to the phone we rarely use.

“Oh,” he waves his hand in the air to dismiss my question, “just someone wanting to know where we were located.”

I shrug and offer him a piece of gum. He pops it into his mouth before challenging me to a game of darts for who’ll clean the toilets today. I suck at darts, but it beats looking through our contacts book for a last-minute booking for Saturday night’s party. Getting a great band to come in at last minute will be a miracle—hell, getting a
good
band will be tough luck, and with the money we contract them to play, I doubt most of them will ditch whatever other contracts they have for the night to come to our “Sorry We’re Closing” bash.

I realize, two games in and three darts down, I should’ve just sucked it up and gone through the contacts list instead.

“Oh, c’mooon, go already!” Geoff whines, twisting around on his barstool. He takes a swig of beer and throws his other fist into the air. “Let me win!”

“
Shh
! You’re throwing off my groove…”

“Boss, have you
seen
your other darts? Oh, no, of course you haven’t because they’re all in butt-fuck Kentucky.”

I drop my aim to whip around and glare at him. “Shush from the peanut gallery.”

He shrugs innocently. “I’m only being honest.”

Somewhere behind me, one of the waitresses—I think Mindi—is fumbling with the radio. She swears up and down that there’s a football scrimmage at the University of South Carolina today, but she can’t for the life of her remember the radio station. She flips over a few country stations, Keith Urban, Blake Sheldon, and Renee Prosperity, as I rock my dart back and forth, getting ready for the release.

My tongue slides out of the side of my mouth in concentration. I pull back my hand to throw the dart—

—As snip of a song bursts through the bar, so familiar all I need is the first word—

THUNK
.

My dart strikes the wood paneling and falls limply to the ground.

“Oh my God, I’ve never heard this one on the radio before!” exclaims Mindi. Jess asks if it’s a new song. Mindi rolls her eyes. “Duh, it has to be.”

“He’s only been back for a week! Gosh, he works fast,” Jess comments.

“It’s not like his usual stuff, though…” Mindi scrunches her freckled nose. “I don’t like it. It’s too…”

“
Not
Roman,” Jess finishes as she ties her dark hair up into a ponytail. “What is it?”

“‘Your Song, Sweetly,’” I say over the music. They give me questionable looks. “I, um, heard it before.”

Suddenly I’m remembering his voice all over again. How it was soft, and timid, and how he breathed into the microphone like it was an intimate conversation.

Jess picks at her lip. “But I thought you didn’t listen to…”

“I don’t,” I reply quickly, turning around to throw another dart, “and can you change the station? You know I hate that sort of trash.”

She quickly turns it to the rock station.

Geoff leans toward me, trying to be inconspicuous while giving me the eye. “Listen, boss…” If he begins talking about Roman, I think I might throw a dart at his head—and refuse to miss. “I got this great band…I think your old man would love them. You think they could play Saturday night? You know, as a send-off?”

I close one eye, aiming for the bulls-eye. “Are they a tribute band?”

“They can be.”

I mull it around for a moment in my head. “Are they cheap?”

“Oh yeah,” he nods, “practically free.”

Rocking the dart back and forth, I let it fly. It thwacks on the wood paneling with the others.

“So…?” Geoff eggs, handing me my last dart.

I heave a half-hearted sigh. “Sure, fine. Why not? Tell them they’d better be here at six sharp—and
no
Top 40s. Got it?”

“Not even one?” Jess yells from her seat beside Mindi and the radio.

“Not even
one
,” I deadpan. It rules out almost every Roman Holiday song on the market, which for once might mean I get what I want. I throw the next one without even looking—and it snags into the green outer rim.

Geoff pouts. “Damn it.”

I grin. “Get to cleaning, suck’ah.”

DJ Rayman picks up on the third ring. “This is WNKY The Pop on this glorious Friday afternoon, what’s your tune?”

“Yeah, hi,” I greet nervously, twirling a lock of hair around my finger, “do you have that new Roman Holiday song?”

“Ah, a big Holidayer, huh?”

Just because I request
one song
it makes me a Holidayer? Oh, if only they knew the haikus I could write about how much I
loathe
them. “Sure,” I reply tightly, and hang up before he can continue.

I don’t care. I don’t
want
to care.

I just want to hear this stupid song.

Laying back on the shag carpet, I stare up at my ceiling fan and wait. I couldn’t get to sleep last night after closing the bar, and this morning I couldn’t sleep in, either. There’s too much buzzing around in my head, and not even listening to Bon Jovi helped. Not that I think listening to this song will either, but what could it hurt?

Three ear-splitting pop songs later, DJ Rayman comes through for me. I close my eyes and finally, for the first time, I listen to the words. His voice, liquid and light, floats across the notes as though he’s made to sing this song. It’s sad, and slow, probably something that’ll get played at proms and graduations and probably some weddings. People will slow dance to it without really knowing the words.

It’s a beautiful song, and despite how he keeps promising and promising he’ll sing her song sweetly, the music is anything but sweet. It’s wrapped in sharps and minor chords, and trapped in a key that makes me only think of dark and bitter things.

He didn’t write this song for a girl.

He wrote it for Holly.

A knock at my door startles me out of my thoughts.

“Come in,” I call, and Chuck inches into my room. I bolt up into a sitting position. “Oh, it’s you.”

He motions to my radio, and I crawl over to turn it down. He sits at my desk and twists back in forth in my swirly chair like a kid who can’t sit still. “Yep, it’s me. I thought we needed a talk.”

I quirk an eyebrow. “Did Mom put you up to this?”

He scrubs at his beard nervously. “No, actually. It’s about what you told me last week…”

“That got me put on house arrest,” I deadpan.

“Right, I wanna talk about this man, Robert—”

“Roman,” I correct, looking down into my lap. “And there’s nothing to talk about.”

When he doesn’t say anything for a long moment, I look up to see if he’s still here. He stopped twisting in my chair, and sits perfectly still, his hands on his knees. His dark eyes study me, and I can’t help but to squirm under them a little because they remind me of the way Dad used to look at me, as if I was nothing but endlessly exhausting surprises.

Finally, he rubs his nose and says, “I realize Sherry and I were…hard…on you last week, but you gotta admit it sorta took us by surprise. The news vans are
still
taking us by surprise, but if this boy means something to you…” He leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “Listen, I’m not proud to say this, but this entire week he’s been—”

Mom suddenly calls from the living room, “Oooh, ooh,
Junes
! It’s that rock star from last week! He’s on TV!”

I set my lips into a thin line. I don’t
care
. Why does everyone think I care what he does anymore? It was just a stupid week, and a stupid decision and a stupid—

“And he’s talking about
you
!”

Chuck and I exchange a look.

The next second, I’m scrambling up off the floor and tearing down the stairs to the TV in the living room, my stepdad quick on my heels. Mom has the TV turned to the Morningside Show with Nick Lively, a small fifteen-minute news segment about celebrity culture. Maggie watches it obsessively, and records the segments she can’t watch when she’s at work. I recognize the obnoxious block furniture, and the pink wallpaper behind them.

Nick Lively smiles in his red chair, sitting across from three men on a long white couch. Jason Dallas is on one end looking like a black smudge in leather, and Roman is on the other in cut-off jeans, a white Rolling Stone t-shirt, and those god-awful suspenders. He’s dyed his hair back to its natural honey brown, but when the light hits it there’s still a strange orange shimmer. And between them, looking uncomfortable as hell, is Boaz.

A banner scrolls across the bottom that reads JASON DALLAS AND ROMAN HOLIDAY TO PERFORM TOGETHER AT THE GARDENS?

My breath catches in my throat. So Roman
did
fight for the Gardens. He’s going to play there—
with
Jason Dallas. The audience is a madhouse of paparazzi and fans, cameras flashing and crazy people heckling.

When I sink down to my knees in front of the TV, Nick Lively is asking Roman how he met me. “It was at the beach, right?” the news anchor says with a bleached smile. “How long before the memorial did you know you wanted to get serious?”

“We didn’t get serious,” Roman replies, and oddly that hurts more than it should. “And it was a few days. She’s a good girl.”

“You know what they say about
good girls
,” Nick Lively chuckles at his own joke, but no one else seems to find it funny.

Jason Dallas lounges back on his side of the couch, looking paler and more greasy than usual. His guyliner is smudged, and his eyes are bloodshot, like he’s been having problems sleeping, too. “He didn’t sleep with her, Nicky,” he says dryly. “Roman doesn’t go for good girls—thought you would’ve realized that from Holly.”

“Check yourself, bro-ha,” Boaz interjects as Roman stiffens. Jason shrugs and looks off into the audience, grins, and waves one finger at a time at an apparent fan.

Nick Lively looks down at his cue card and pulls at the collar of his shirt. “Speaking of Holly, when did you realize that Junie Baltimore had given you the photos? Where did she get them?”

“From a paparazzo,” Roman replies, the muscles in his jaw twitching.

“When she sold you out to the tabloids?” Nick asks.

I clench my hands. “I did
not
.”

“She stole the memory card from that guy,” Roman corrects, and he begins to loosen up a little bit again. Boaz glances over at Jason, who seems to be enjoying the crowd a little too much. “And I’m thankful she gave me those photos. It gives Boaz and me closure. It gives our fans closure.”

At the word, Jason whips back to Nick Lively. “Closure? I’m sorry, but wasn’t that what the funeral was for?”

Roman slides a disgustingly easy smile onto his face, like he’s rehearsed it. It reminds me of the way he pulled his face into nonchalance at the Isla Lona, so fake it almost looks animatronic. “Do you have a problem with the photos, Jay?”

“Oh, not unless you use her photos as an easy way back into the comfortable life you so crassly abandoned a year ago—
oh wait
.”

“I’m not using them like that,” Roman snaps.

The Prince of Punk scoffs. “Yeah,
okay
.”

“Do I gotta be between these bros?” Boaz interjects almost painfully.

“Uh,” Nick Lively scoots to the edge of his seat, darting his eyes nervously between the polar opposites on the couch, “speaking of Holly...Roman, you released an unexpected EP earlier this week, ‘Your Song Sweetly.’ It’s definitely a break from your usual.”

Roman seems thankful for the interference. “The label needed something from me, so that’s it.”

“Who did you write it for?” presses the anchorman. “It’s beautiful, if not a little, uh...”

“Not in your usual repertoire,” Jason finishes for him. “No synthetic basses, no dubstep, and you’re actually
singing.
I didn’t realize you had talent. Maybe little Miss Pinky
did
inspire you after all...”

I’m beginning to like him less and less the more he’s on air.

Behind me, Mom makes a noise in her throat. “You can tell that young man’s a diva.”

“I think he’s simply an ass,” Chuck argues.

Roman pulls on his earlobe, seeming to think the same thing. “I’m sorry, but I thought he was asking the questions.” Roman nods to Nick, the most passive-aggressive “shut up” I’ve ever heard. “And can we please stop talking about Junie? She’s done nothing wrong, so please refrain from making dick assumptions.”

The emo-punker flips back a lock of pitch black hair, and goes on, “Too bad, really. Hope this one doesn’t off herself, too.”

Roman’s diabolically passive expression fractures then, and he shoots Jason a look of pure rage. “I suggest you shut up.”

Jason puts his head on his hand, propping his elbow up on the arm of the couch. “She might’ve been a good fuck—I can say that word here, can’t I?”

Nick Lively begins shaking his head, “Actually—oh
shit
!”

Boaz ducks Roman’s fist as it connects with Jason’s face, and he flips over the arm of the couch.

The camera shakes and cuts away to Nick Lively, who stretches a hundred-watt smile over his lips although the rest of his face hasn’t transitioned yet. “Tomorrow evening, Roman Holiday will open to a sold-out crowd for Jason Dallas’s BLACKHEARTED tour. Comment on our page for a chance to win exclusive VIP ticke—”

I punch the OFF button on the TV and turn around to Mom and Chuck. “I didn’t imagine that, did I?”

Mom and Chuck exchange a look of sheer disbelief.

“I…think I’m going to be late for work.” Chuck excuses himself from the room, grabbing his tie on the kitchen counter as he leaves. Mom leaves me kneeling in front of the TV as a grin, slowly, begins to break across my face.