Page 31 of August Lane

She watched him closely. “Let me try.” She took the pick from him and tried to mimic his hand position.

“No, that’s wrong.”

She moved one finger lower. “Like this?”

He cupped her hand and gently put her fingers into position. “Like this .”

August met his eyes. “Your hands are warm.”

“Sorry.” He pulled them back.

“No, it’s okay. Mine are cold, that’s why I…” She waved away the rest of her sentence. “I think I got it.”

“Good. Yeah, good.” He wiped his hands on his jeans so he wouldn’t grab her again. “How does it make you feel?”

“Vaguely competent. But six-year-old Luke was thrilled, wasn’t he?”

“Felt like I’d cracked the world open.”

She smiled. “I love that. Write that down.”

He did as he was told. August studied it for a while, then added Boys like me / never find the right road / until we hitch a ride on someone else’s dream .

“That’s really good,” he whispered.

They locked eyes. She was close enough that he could lean over and kiss her. He was about to ask if it was okay when she said, “What was that stuff about the closet?”

He blinked. “Stuff about what?”

“You said something about going into the closet if you got in trouble.”

The closet was in the hallway near his mother’s bedroom. It locked on the outside and there was only one key. He’d had nightmares about Ava misplacing it when she was high. “Oh, nothing. It’s a joke me and my brother used to tell about being sent to our rooms. They’re tiny.”

She scooted back until they weren’t touching anymore. “Do you miss Jessica?”

“I uh… hadn’t thought about it.” He was barely listening, too busy beating himself up for lying about the closet. But he couldn’t tell her everything, could he? No one would stick around after learning all that.

She crossed her legs, swinging the top one lazily. “What’s it like to be in love?”

It felt like she was testing him. If passing meant lying again, he’d rather fail. “I don’t know,” he said. “I only told her I loved her because she wanted me to.”

“But you don’t.”

“No.” Admitting it out loud made him feel worse. Plus, Jessica had seemed to resent him for saying it. Now it would always be the first time he said those words, as weak appeasement for a girl who barely knew him.

“Why would you—”

“Because I do dumb shit to make people like me.” He rubbed his neck and closed his eyes. “I don’t like talking about it.”

The couch sank lower, and she pressed against his side. He opened his eyes, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. “Sorry if all that love talk gave you heartburn.”

He exhaled slowly, relieved the truth didn’t make her hate him. “Did you know your voice gets softer when you say love ? Love , just like that. Is it your favorite word?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Never thought about it.”

“I think it is.” He touched the hem of her T-shirt and rubbed it between his fingers. “I also think your favorite color is red because you have a different energy when you wear it.”

Her smile nudged his arm. “Good energy?”

“Yeah. Augustina Rose with no thorns.”

She lifted her head. “I have thorns.”

He snorted. “Fake thorns. If love is your favorite word, they’re not hurting anybody.”

“I never said it was my favorite.” She leaned against him again. He’d give anything if she never moved another muscle. “Do you want to fall in love?”

“There it is again. Love. So soft.”

She prodded his arm. “Answer me.”

He looked down at her. She caught his eyes, and he brushed a strand of hair back from her cheek. “I just want to write a love song.”

Crushing on Luke didn’t make August special.

If anything, pining after the perma-prom king made her basic and boring, the kind of character she’d roll her eyes at in a movie.

She wouldn’t even watch this one. The ending was predictable, the lessons trite: There are more important things than being chosen.

You’re enough as you are. A real hero won’t wait for some makeover to notice you.

But that meant her hero was Luke. He’d liked her before he ever saw her, when they’d been two nameless strangers in the dark.

He spoke to her, laughed with her, knowing she was social kryptonite, which made him braver than he’d ever give himself credit for.

Over the last three days, August had written so many variations of his answer to her love question that she couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said anymore.

“I want a love song” became “I’ll write a love song,” and then it was “I want love” followed by her tiny, scribbled “Me too.” Then she threw the journal at her closet like it had tried to bite her.

Not loving Jessica didn’t change who he was.

Each day the tides were slowly turning in his favor.

The first step was collective amnesia about his fight with Richard, a topic everyone had become bored with.

Next, because Luke was Luke, he would eventually do something kind for someone who mattered and the people who never wanted to hate him anyway would be relieved they could publicly wave his flag again.

Once his football suspension was over, his redemption arc would be complete.

They’d have their golden boy back and August would be left with a bunch of unfinished songs.

Another jar of dead fireflies to keep her company.

Or she could end things now. They had dozens of verses with titles that could easily become choruses. That’s what she planned to tell him once he arrived at Delta Blue that night. She’d taught him what she knew about song writing and he could do the rest on his own.

That’s what she would have said—if he wasn’t two hours late.

It was 9:00 p.m. on a Thursday and Delta Blue had come alive.

Each time August left the studio to check the parking lot for Luke’s truck, the club was louder, filled with more voices and bodies.

Silas kept checking his watch and shooting her grumpy looks that signaled it was past time for her to leave his adult-only business.

August was too worried about Luke to pay him any attention.

This wasn’t like him. Luke was usually so punctual that Silas had started inviting him in early to talk music while they waited for her to arrive.

She had his phone number, but something about the way he spoke about his mother had always made her reluctant to use it.

Today she was more afraid of what might happen to him if she didn’t.

August was reaching for the phone when she heard Silas order someone to leave.

A familiar voice answered. She rushed out, pushed her way through the crowd until she spotted Luke.

He was at the front door, frantically gesturing inside.

“Can’t let you in,” Silas said. “People will think I served you here, and I can’t risk it.”

“Let me talk to her, please! I won’t stay, I swear.”

“Find her at school tomorrow.”

She touched Silas’s back. His voice softened when he focused on her. “He’s drunk, baby.”

August stared at Luke. His eyes were glassy. A red mark on his cheek would probably become a bruise. The fingers clinging to his guitar case strap were covered in fresh scabs. “I’m not drunk,” Luke insisted, stubborn in his delusion. “I mean, I was, but I’m fine now.”

“What happened to you?” August pushed past Silas.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Luke said. “You believe me, don’t you?”

“I do. But Luke, what happened to your—”

“This melody came to me when I was thinking about… well… you and fake thorns, and… shit!” He took a deep breath. “I can’t say it right. I need to play it.” He looked at Silas. “Please let me in.”

“It’s past your bedtime,” Silas said, then glanced at August. “He shouldn’t be driving in this condition.”

“I’ll take him home.”

Silas didn’t seem to like the idea, but then glanced at the crowd. He couldn’t leave when it was that busy. “You sure?”

She didn’t answer. The car keys were already in her hand. “Let’s go.”

August knew Luke lived on a farm, but it was far enough outside Arcadia city limits that she’d never seen it.

The property was huge, with miles of land dotted with rolled hay for grazing cattle.

It took a while before she saw his house, a brick rectangle in the distance.

Luke twisted in his seat, angling himself away from it, and said, “I can’t go home right now.

” She could tell he was trying to sound less panicked than he was.

“Where do you want to go?” She couldn’t take him to her house. Birdie thought she was with Mavis, studying.

His eyes darted around and landed on a line of trees in front of them. “Turn there,” he said, pointing at a dirt road. “No one knows about this place but me.”

August followed his directions, letting the woods swallow them until they reached a pond in a small clearing. She parked on the flattest patch of grass and cut the engine.

“Do you swim in that water?” The night was windless, which made the surface eerily still, like it was trying to trick you into thinking it was a mirror.

“Sometimes.”

“Is it dirty?”

“Filled with nature.”

“So that’s a yes.”

“We won’t be swimming. Just follow me.”

They got out of the car and walked closer to the water. Grasshoppers chirped and cicadas buzzed. The pond was alive, playing its music.

August sat, drew up her legs, and watched him do the same. “What happened to you?”

Luke rubbed his forehead, flashing his ruined hand. It had to hurt, but he didn’t show it. Maybe he was used to pain because of football. “I lost track of time.”

His expression begged her not to ask again. But she had to. He was her friend. “What happened to your face? And your hands?”

Denial must have been the only thing keeping him upright. His whole body went limp—arms, spine, and shoulders caving under the weight of what he didn’t want to tell her. “There’s this loose front step on our porch, and I… I went down face-first on the concrete.”

“That’s it? You got drunk and fell?”

He shook his head. “My mother took something from me, and I spent most of the night trying to find it. That’s why I was late. She came home from work and told me she threw it away.”

Luke’s voice was bloodless. She’d never heard anyone sound so tired.

“What was it?”

He didn’t answer right away, which wasn’t surprising. Luke felt things first and tried to make sense of them later. It was part of their rhythm. August would ask, and Luke would answer, but there would always be a beat in between.

“It was a book,” he finally told her. “My dad’s poetry. It’s out of print.” He started picking at his nails, digging viciously into the cuticles.

“Is that the one you wrote music in?”

He looked startled. “You remember that? Of course, you do. You’re a good person.” He smiled, but it never came close to his eyes. “Yes, it was that one. With my notes.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I wasn’t supposed to have it. She threw out all his stuff when he died. Said it was too painful to keep.” He paused. “I look like him.”

He made it sound like an admission of guilt. August studied his face—the coffee eyes, sharp jaw, and lush mouth—trying to reconcile its poetic symmetry with the shame she heard in his voice. Something so beautiful could never be a burden.

“You look like your dad, too, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she admitted, even though she wasn’t supposed to know.

Silas kept a picture of Theo in his office but had never shown it to her.

She’d found it while snooping around his desk when she was ten.

The minute she saw the man leaning against an old Cutlass, she knew it was her father.

She’d seen the shape of herself in his frame. “I think that’s why Jojo stays away.”

Luke nodded. “Ava would avoid me too if it weren’t for Ethan.

She loves him a lot.” He spoke with pride, like it was an accomplishment.

She wondered if he knew what it implied, that Ava didn’t feel the same way about him.

That had to be wrong. Love was the bare minimum for a parent, the part that took the least amount of effort.

“You think she would abandon you?”

“Not abandon.” He fidgeted, uncomfortable with the question. “I can take care of myself.”

August was suddenly very sure that he couldn’t. Years of being punished for existing had stripped him of boundaries or gut instincts. None of it was his fault. Life was different for kids like them. They were never wanted, which made them obsessed with being chosen.

“Do you remember any of your dad’s poems?” August asked him. “Or the music you wrote?”

Luke nodded. “Some of it, yeah.”

“Wait here.” August went to her car. She rummaged through her backpack and pulled out her journal and a pen. When she returned, she offered both to him. “Write it down.”

“I only remember parts.”

“Then write those. Before you forget.”

He flipped it open to the first page. For Luke was written at the top, followed by her attempts to turn his desire to write a love song into lyrics. I’d rip up the pages / Try to find someone new / But every chord spells your name in different keys.

His scarred fingers fanned over the words. He stared at the lyrics long enough to startle her when he finally looked up. For the first time that night, he seemed completely sober. Sharp-eyed and aware. Then he started writing.

Luke’s notes were chaotic, alternating between lines of poetry and chord progressions positioned randomly on different pages.

He occasionally rubbed his head, deep in thought, until his curls were ruffled into spikes she was tempted to smooth back into place.

August could picture doing it clearly. His muscles slack and still.

Her fingers threading through his hair. His entire world calmed by her hands.