Anything has to be better than NPR.
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 the most beautiful love story ever told. It's a dizzying sort of song that gets you lost in your own head, it takes you back to someplace more beautiful. It takes me back to the bar, to spinning around on the barstool after Caspian first kissed me, to dancing in my room to 'Bed of Roses' when I first heard it on the radio. This is what happy sounds like—uncontrollable, glorious bliss.
He's in love.
Roman exits the store.
I slam my finger on the radio button, and NPR fills the car again. 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, NPR 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 it into the case and shove it into the dashboard as he pops his head in through the open driver's side window.
His lips are set into a thin line. Oh God, he knows I snooped. "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. 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."
Confusion crosses my face. "Oh...you mean...the radio."
"Yeah, the radio." He laughs in that silly you sort of way. "What did you think I meant?" He unscrews the cap of my water for me. "No sucky straws, sadly."
Relief floods through me like liquid coolant as I take the bottled water. "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 swerve the radio dial to Bobby Beach. "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. "Killer Queen" begins pulsing from the speakers.
"Speak for yourself, his mohawk makes me hot," I reply in mock-indignation.
Chuckling, he turns off the car and begins to pump gas, bobbing his head to the music coming from the gas station speakers. 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 on the internet.
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.
He grabs my hurt hand and inspects it, his eyebrows furrowing. "You got hurt."
"It's just a scratch. The night auditor patched me 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 no, I don't do tickle fights." But he doesn't mean 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 as he 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 say, 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, "No."
Chapter Seventeen
From the looks of it, the Isla Lona is the redheaded stepchild of the Strand. You've 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 the 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 FUCKIN' 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.
The people in line grumble and shift in discontent. I try not to make eye contact, because I'm sure they could kill me with one look, and I don't blame them. I hate line-cutters, too.
“¡Que pasa, amigo!” the doorman greets in a thick Spanish accent. “Boaz's in the green room if you're looking for him.”
"Nah, he's probably playing his Gameboy. Don't want to mess up his gym matches." He motions me to step up beside him, and I do. "She's with me."
"Legal?"
"Funny," I deadpan.
“Ah no! Did not mean like that." Luis the Doorman chuckles. "It is a pleasure, señorita. How did you get mi
xed up with this pendejo?”
Roman's eyes widen. "Did you just call me a—?"
“He bought me condoms,” I interrupt, and lean in to whisper, "if ya know what I mean."
"J-Just to ask her for ice cream!" Roman flubs, a redness blossoming on his cheeks. "I wasn't—we weren't—um..."
The bouncer howls a belly-rippling laugh, and slams his hand on Roman's back heartily. It knocks the breath out of him. "It's okay, pendejo, I understand. She's fierce."
"Oh, don't I know it," Roman replies and outstretches his arm. His blush is sort of fading, but it might just be because he shifted into the shadows of the wall. "Mademoiselle, shall we leave him to his doorman duties?"
"We shall, good sir." I pull my arm into his. Even if he is in love with another girl, we can be friends, right? We can definitely be friends.
The venue is a sea of dark moving shapes. The lights are low, neon lights beneath the beers and liquors behind the bar casting shadows on everything inside. Blacklights color Bon Jovi's illustrated head on my t-shirt and my Converse shoestrings neon purple. Roman's orange hair looks radioactive. When I walk, something crunches underfoot. It feels like peanuts, but I can't quite be sure. If it's not peanuts, I'm glad the lighting's so poor. The stage takes up half the building, cascading down into an open cement floor. The rafters are rusted; the roof—or what I can see of it—is tin. At one point, the Lona might've been a small warehouse. It definitely still smells like one.
The crowd is a bunch of hipsters with cornrows and black-framed glasses, baggy sweaters, and tight jeans, beside rock gurus and locals come to hear Boaz—or to quote the marquee outside, 'THE BOAZINATOR.' What a ham. The crowd reminds me of the Lining a little, how little clusters of people hang around tables and shoot the shit at the bar. My heart gives a shudder. I'm out on the town with a rock star and my dad's bar is sinking into foreclosure.
What's wrong with me?
A few uncertain music-goers glance Roman's way, conflicted, but no one says a word. Probably because it's too strange to comprehend. A rock star here in Myrtle Beach. I'm sure plenty of celebs come to Myrtle, but they probably don't come to places where they can catch herpes from the toilet seat covers. The fact that Roman is here in this darkly lit claustrophobic corner of the world is what makes him alluring and mysterious. He turns heads as he tries to move through the crowd, curious glances that turn into double-takes.
It also doesn't help that he can't move through a crowd worth shit. When we make an inch of leeway, he backs up to get out of someone else's way. With my arm slipped into his, I can feel him beginning to tense and twitch with nervousness. He migrates around people like they're land mines ready to explode. At this rate, we'll never get a good spot.
"C'mon, slow poke." I take the lead, hip-checking a hipster.
Roman follows behind me like a dead weight. You'd think he could navigate crowds more easily since he's been making them for the past five years.
Finally, I break out of the throng of people to freedom and sit down in one of the stainless steel stools at the bar. I pat the seat beside me. "Unlike you," I tell him as he sits down, "I've actually spent my life in the crowd. Ever heard of the hip-check? The elbow-rub?"
"I've heard of elbow love," he replies, ordering a drink.
"'Time Warp'?"
"It's just a jump to the left—hey look! There's the Boazinator." He nods his head toward the stages.
A blue mohawk bobs over the top of the crowd, carrying a keyboard. He situates it in the center of the stage, huge-ass stereos behind him. One of them, in a really ridiculous Terminator-esque script reads, 'THE BOAZINATOR.' "Is that seriously his solo handle?"
"Hey, don't judge the Boazinator."
"No judgments here. Why aren't you playing with him?"
He shrugs noncommittally. "Didn't feel like it," he says, but there's something unspoken in those words. Does he think that he can't anymore? Or could it be he's just afraid? The bartender slides him a beer, and he thanks him, taking a sip. It smells like apple cider. "And if I did, the press would be here in droves. Boaz can accomplish low-key. I can't."
"Even under another name?" I ask.
"And what other name would I choose?"
Shrugging, I scoot away from the couple on the other side of me who look like they might just suffocate in each other's mouths. "Something exotic. Erico Martinez."
"Do I look like an Erico Martinez?" He motions towards his white-tan skin. I never noticed before, but there is a scattering of freckles on his arms.
"You definitively don't look like" —I pause before I mouth— "Roman Montgomery." To emphasize, I give a pointed look at the tiger and phoenix tattoo.
He rubs it with a shrug. "Because I got a sleeve?"
"And dyed your hair. And abandoned your badass leather."
"You thought the leather was badass?" He nods appraisingly, thinking. "You know, I can bring that back..."
I shake my head. "Don't." And then, quieter, I add, "I like you now."
"As the ex-rock star of the defunct rock band you hated—"
"As you."
For a long moment, he doesn't say a word. Doesn't he believe me? It doesn't take money or millions of adoring fans to impress me, and shouldn't it say something that I disliked his band before I knew who he even was?
I want to tell him that, okay, maybe his hair is too orange and sometimes he has a wishy-washy temperament, but it's nothing I can't handle. I'm not like the fans who turned on him, or the ones who fawn over his every sigh.
He's perfect just as he is.
But I don't say anything, because how could I live up to the girl in his song?
Onstage, Mohawk rushes offstage and the lights flicker to tell the crowd t-minus five minutes until the show. The bar is so crowded now they've pushed us together. Our elbows graze each other when we move and send electric shivers up my skin.
He rubs the condensation off the beer glass with his thumb. "I'm not the same guy I was a year ago, Junebug."
I think about myself, and the cut on my hand, and wonder how anyone could be the same after all is said and done.
"I know."
Chapter Eighteen
The lights flicker and a pre-made beat pulses through the speakers onstage. Roman leans back against the bar and orders another beer. I sit straighter, trying to see over the movement of the crowd. Maybe bar seats were a bad idea—I can barely see anything, much less pay attention to the music with so much lipsuck going on from the couple beside me. By the third song, I'm sure they'll be doing the last tango in Paris.
Onstage, Boaz comes out in a black shirt that reads 'WANNA SEE MY ZOMBIE?' and a dark blue kilt. Does he only wear kilts?—and free-ball it underneath like a true Irishman? Oh God, I hope not.
He throws up a shocker and says into the microphone, "How's it hangin', bro-has?"
The crowd cheers.
"Badass, dudes. Bad-ass! Let's start with some super chillaxin' shit. Get our grooves on, right?" His fingers glide across the notes in a messy run as he slides into a chest-pounding set.
I elbow Roman in the side and shout over the music, "'Rock 'N Roll All Nite'—KISS."
"I always wondered what KISS stood for," he shouts back. The music is so loud, we're inches apart and can barely hear each other. Shouting over a piano is a first for me. "Do you know?"
"KEEP IT SIMPLE SWEETHEART," I guess, and he throws his head back in a laugh.
"KILLING IDIOTS SO SOFTLY," he adds.
"KISSING IS SILLY STUPID."
"Fantastic!"
I quickly look away, trying not to think about how fantastic it would be.
Boaz migrates into other covers. Maroon 5, The Beatles, Skrillex. There are really no holds barred, nothing but piano and some generic drum kits. It sounds flawless, though. The renditions are new and exhilarating, as if he took the old soul of those songs and put them into new bodies. They're catchy and heartfelt. Even his pop version of "Piano Man" isn't too shabby.
After a few songs, h
e's dripping of sweat and swigging out of a water bottle I'm sure is more ethanol than H2O, and rumbles into the mike, "Let's do the slug for a while, yeah bro-has? Who's going equestrian?"
The sound, however, is not the Lone Ranger Theme, and the crowd "oohs" as the bass beat drops away, and it is just him and his piano, finger skimming over the keys like well-known friends.
I’ve heard the song a million times on the radio, and played it on Dad's ancient record player so often, the indention of the needle has worn the song away. I close my eyes and sway. How many times have I sung this song into an empty longneck bottle? How many times have I howled it in the car with Dad?
"'Wild Horses'," I lean in to whisper, and he leans in, too. "Rolling Stones. It's beautiful."
His lips press against my ear. "So are you."
I incline my head just enough to study his expression. Around us, the verses rise above the swaying crowd and into the rafters, so alive the words crawl across my skin. Do you mean that? I want to ask, but I cannot move. My voice is gone.
He takes my hand and coaxes me off the bar stool into the swaying crowd. Blue lights swirl down across us. This doesn't feel like my life anymore. It feels like a 90s movie. This sort of thing doesn't happen to girls like me.
I close my eyes. Enjoy it.
As he hums the melody softly into my ear, I can feel the notes seep deep into my skin and bones, and birth an ache in my soul I never knew existed. What is this, if not impossible? What is any of this?—Here in this moment, with him. Here, where for the briefest of moments we are no one more than Junie and Roman, fearless and terrible and perfect.
He kisses me once under the spiral hues of purples and blues that catch every crook and crevice of our bodies. His lips are soft and gentle, not quite passionate, but not apathetic either. If anything, he tastes bittersweet, the taste in his eyes when he thinks I'm not looking, lonely and tragic. And then he presses his cheek to mine, and we dance.
I want to hold onto this, memorize the milliseconds and molecules that make up this moment. I want to hold onto the way his hair glints in the purple, the way wrinkles spread from his eyes when he smiles, crooked and delicious. I want to hold onto the roughness of his hands, the heat that whorls between our palms, the lift of his pinky, the subtle shift of his arms when he begins to spin me around and around. I want to hold onto it all, wrap it all in my arms, and lock it deep within me so I feel nothing but beautiful and glorious and golden for the rest of my life.
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