Page 25

WHERE DID A girl go when she was in need of advice for a thing so private (and in all honesty, embarrassing in the “Am I the Asshole?” way, knowing full well that she was) that it couldn’t get out no matter what?

She went shopping with her best friend.

“Hold on, hold on,” Gigi said, raising a hand as she pulled away from my parents’ house and onto the main road.

She needed new hose because Buckley chewed through hers, and rumor had it the new boutique in town had her favorite kind.

“Are you saying that Sebastian Fell came to the Revelry last night and you didn’t immediately tell me? Are we even friends? This is betrayal.”

I sighed. “I was a little preoccupied.”

“I mean, he did fly all the way out here to work with you. I feel like that’s dedication,” Gigi said.

I’d told her the bare bones of it all: that an artist wanted to write a song with me and our first session went badly.

I told my parents the same thing last night when they wondered why I was in such a crappy mood.

“I’m sure emotions were high. He was probably nervous. ”

“I was nervous, too,” I admitted.

I had messed up, and now I was afraid to even reach out in our heads.

He certainly hadn’t. If I concentrated hard enough, I could hear his thoughts, but he was so much better at thinking quietly, and it felt like an intrusion to lean too far in.

I didn’t want to upset him even more than I already had.

Gigi reached for her phone to turn on a playlist. “Jo, I love you, but just tell him that you’re sorry.”

“I hate this,” I decided. Because if he was just a disembodied voice named Sasha in my head, this would be easy—but Sebastian Fell? “I don’t really know how to talk to him.”

She rolled her eyes. “Like any normal guy.”

Except he could read my mind, which wasn’t very normal guy of him.

“You know, the rumors on Reddit say that he volunteers at an after-school music program under a fake name, but maybe now with his dad retiring he wants to get back into music again. But he doesn’t know how to. So maybe he wants you to help him.”

I thought back on all the little asides about Roman Fell and the Boulevard while I knew him as Sasha, and then his outburst yesterday. “How does he get along with his dad?”

“Notoriously badly,” she replied, and then leaned toward me. “So, do you …”

“Do I what?”

She quirked an eyebrow. Tapped a song on her phone. Suddenly, High School Musical ’s “Start of Something New” blasted from the speakers.

“No, no, I do not !” I squawked emphatically and slammed my hand on the volume knob to turn it off. “How dare you High School Musical me!”

“I sure as High School Musical did. Because you do—you have a crush!”

“Even if I did —which I don’t—could you imagine how messy that would be? Writing a song together while crushing on him? That sounds like hell.”

“Oh, come on, isn’t that the kind of drama great songs are made of?”

I thought about what kind of song that would sound like: what kinds of secrets I could weave into lyrics, what kind of fun house mirror I could hold up to the world, the intricate ways to describe the artistry he used when he laced his fingers into my hair—

“No,” I quickly said, cutting off that train of thought before it could chug any farther down those doomed tracks. “No. It sounds like a nightmare.”

Didn’t it?

“Sure, whatever you say.” My best friend shrugged and slapped my hand away from her volume knob, and turned the song back up, belting it loud and bright.

She grabbed her pepper spray from the middle compartment and used it as a microphone, coaxing me to sing along.

It was almost impossible to resist. Gigi made you want to sing whenever she did.

There was just something infectious about it, something addicting.

I could listen to her sing the phone book and it’d become my favorite song.

So, I sang along, a little off-key, as we drove our way through town and hoped for a parking spot.

TURTLE COVE CLOTHING had not only her favorite tights, but a whole wall of tights ranging in shades from nude (which, despite the name, did not match with most darker skin tones) to matte black.

Gigi dove for the “cocoa” color and grabbed as many of them as she could.

“These are even the no tear ones, oh my god, I feel like I just won the lottery,” she said, coming to find me toward the back of the store.

“They’ve got some cute dresses, too,” I replied, having decided to try on a dress or two while she went tights shopping.

I studied myself in the mirror outside of the dressing room, in a tea-length emerald dress.

I liked the deep plunge of the neckline, and the empire waist, but was it too … green ?

“I really like this store,” she said, glancing around the small boutique. The men’s section caught her eye. “Well, maybe not the unnaturally large section of Hawaiian shirts, but nobody’s perfect.”

“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” I supplied, tilting my head as I looked in the mirror.

The green was deep and woodsy, and in the light a tangled ivy pattern shimmered in the cloth.

It accented my paleness and the smattering of freckles across my shoulders.

I twisted my fingers together, debating.

It was sleeveless and hugged my body in all the ways I wanted it to, but I couldn’t imagine where I’d wear it. “Do I want to buy this?”

Gigi gave me a once-over, and then looked at our reflections. “Wow. A real green dress.”

I bit my bottom lip.

“This is cruel.”

I gave a start. My terrible, treacherous heart fluttered. Sasha?

Gigi went over to a purple midi dress hanging on a rack. “Did you see this one?” And she pulled it farther out so that I could see it in full. “Oh wow, never mind. That’s half a dress.”

“And not quite as fun to take off.”

I glanced around, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Where are you?” I whispered.

“Hmm?” Gigi asked, putting the purple one back. “Did you say something?”

“No, sorry—could you excuse me a sec?” I asked, sticking my arms through the middle of the dress rack and parting it in two.

And there, in the men’s section, looking through those garish Hawaiian shirts, was Sebastian Fell.

His black baseball cap and shades couldn’t hide him that well—the fact that he dressed like a Hollywood heartthrob made him stick out in a beach town.

Nothing could disguise that. Though, he was a sight for sore eyes, because—

I half thought you were gone , I thought in his direction, trying to keep my voice neutral.

He looked at another loud shirt. “I’m stubborn.”

Something strange bloomed in my chest then—something warm and soft and reassured. He didn’t sound mad.

Gigi asked, looking through the rack with me, “What’re you glaring at—oh. Oh my god.” Her eyes widened. “Oh my GOD . Is that—that can’t be—did you tell him to come here? Why is he here? Is that actually—?”

“Gimme a sec.” I dropped my arms, allowing the hangers to fall back together, and hurried across the boutique to him. He started shuffling through another rack of awful printed button-downs until I came up to him.

“Before you ask,” he said, taking out a floral shirt and then putting it back, “I didn’t plan to run into you. I’m looking for clothes, since I only packed for a few days and I think I’ll be here awhile.”

Awhile … ? Then did that mean … My heart was in my throat.

“Sebastian, I …” Why was my mouth dry all of a sudden?

Why did I suddenly care that my hair was crusty with salt water and my skin smelled of sunscreen?

I probably looked awful, and I felt worse whenever I remembered our last conversation. “About yesterday …”

I’m sorry , I told him. I was out of line.

He shuffled to another shirt. “I was, too. Let’s just forget about it.”

Okay … I curled my hands into fists, because was he so angry that he couldn’t even look at me?

“That’s not it.”

Then why won’t you look at me?

So he took a deep breath and finally turned his eyes to me over his sunglasses. His gaze was storm colored. Turbulent. “You do look very lovely in that dress, bird,” he thought roughly.

My eyes widened. Then a blush crawled across my cheeks. Oh .

He cleared his throat and turned back to the rack of Hawaiian shirts. Aloud he said, “ Besides , it would be much harder for us to cowrite if I’m on the other side of the country. So I’d rather not be, if you could get used to me in real life?”

I glanced away, tugging on my braid awkwardly. “I mean, we could Zoom.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Do you think Fleetwood Mac could’ve written ‘Silver Springs’ over Zoom ?”

“This is not going to be our ‘Silver Springs.’”

“No, you’re right. It’s going to be our ‘Don’t Stop.’”

“You are very confident in yourself.”

He pulled out a floral print and inspected it with mild curiosity, but then put it back. “Or maybe I’m confident in you. In us. They don’t have any plain black shirts,” he added, sighing.

I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly—confident in me ? I wasn’t even confident in myself right now. “Why?”

“I don’t know, because they hate slimming colors?”

“No, I mean—you should wear one of these,” I said, grabbing a pink Hawaiian shirt and holding it up to him. “You’ll blend in better here. Right now you look like you’re going to a funeral for that greasy train in Starlight Express .”

He took the shirt and held it out at arm’s length, frowning at it.

“I mean,” I went on, “why are you so confident in me when I haven’t done anything to earn it?”

He took out a yellow shirt and compared it to the pink. “Because.”

“Because?”

He nodded. “Because.”

Because. It was a word that felt … possible. And it was the last sort of answer I had expected from Sebastian Fell, but I was beginning to realize that maybe I didn’t know him at all. There was a version of Sebastian Fell built up in my head that did not exist.