I hesitated, looking around the Suburban. This SUV alone probably cost more than my entire house. Nobody here knew anything about where I came from except for Olivia. Maybe it was stupid, but I wanted to tell Alex. “It just felt kind of like a last-minute escape plan, I guess,” I said slowly. “It felt like a chance to get away.”
“To get away?” Alex asked, forehead wrinkling. “From what?”
I took a breath. “The rest of my life? I don’t know.” Alex was quiet, leaving space, and after a moment I continued. “I don’t—we don’t have any money, first of all. And my mom . . . drinks a lot. Like, a lot. And I graduated last month, and my job ended, and I—” I broke off. “It’s not like I had anything better to do, you know? I literally had nothing to lose.”
“Really?” Alex asked, looking at me curiously—and maybe with a little bit of doubt. “That’s how you wound up here?”
“Oh, yeah.” I nodded. “This was Olivia’s dream, always. Not mine.”
“What would you do if you weren’t doing this?”
“Be a waitress,” I said immediately.
“Okay,” Alex said. “But, like, if you could be anything in the world.”
I snorted. “Oh my gosh, please don’t try to talk to me about, like, my hopes and dreams.”
Alex’s brow furrowed. “Why not?” he asked, sounding sort of offended.
“Because it’s so corny!”
That made him smile. “I’m literally in a boy band, Dana. You think I care about being corny?”
“Clearly not.”
“Come on,” he pressed, nudging my knee with his across the seats. “Tell me.”
“I don’t know.” I thought about it for a moment. “I guess when I was, like, really, really little, I wanted to be a doctor. I got it into my head that my dad was one? Which is ridiculous for a lot of reasons, one being that I don’t know my dad and two being that whoever he was, he was definitely not the doctor type. I must have seen it on TV or something.” I paused, embarrassed for my past self, by how dumb it sounded now. “Anyway, that’s what I used to tell people. That I wanted to be a doctor.”
Alex nodded seriously. “Do you still want it?”
“No!” I laughed. “God, no.”
“Because that is, like, a perfectly attainable dream.”
“See, that’s exactly the kind of thing a person like you would say.”
“A person like me?”
I huffed a little. “I don’t need you to unlock my secret potential, Alex. I know what my potential is. I barely graduated high school. I’m not going to magically go to Harvard and become a brain surgeon. Like, it never even occurred to anyone who knows me that college was a thing that would ever happen.”
“So?” Alex shrugged. “I’d bet good money that it didn’t occur to them that this was a thing that would ever happen, either.”
“I bet you would,” I fired back. “Because money is probably something you’ve never had to worry about.”
I sat back in my seat, exhausted all of a sudden. I hadn’t talked that much about myself in maybe ever. My ice cream was getting everywhere by this point, and I ate the rest of it without looking up at Alex, who was silent. I didn’t want to see the expression on his face. It was one thing to make out in a pool after midnight. It was another to tell him the truth.
“Okay,” I said finally, wiping my sticky hands on my shorts. It was fully dark now, the sky a deep, velvety blue. “Sorry, did I freak you out with my trailer-trashiness?” I looked up at him then, shoulders squared and jaw set. “It’s fine, if I did. I get it.”
I was trying to make it sound like a joke, kind of, but Alex gazed back at me, calm and even. “No,” he said. “I’m not freaked out.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me, either.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you.”
I took a breath, feeling on the edge of tears all of a sudden and not wanting to cry. “Prove it,” I said.
“Come here.”
I shook my head, remembering all the reasons it was a bad idea for me to be here. “I can’t.”
“You keep saying that. Come here,” he said again, and this time I did, scooting toward him in my seat until our knees were touching. Alex put both hands on my face. “Come here,” he said one more time, so quietly, and when he kissed me it wasn’t any more careful than it had been the other night in the pool.
“Trust me?” he asked, pulling back and looking at me urgently.
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “I—” I was about to say something else when a huge rumbling boom sounded out overhead. Alex’s face suddenly lit up in reds and purples and golds. I looked out the windshield and laughed.
“Fireworks,” I said, shaking my head as another blast exploded overhead, this one a dazzling white. I could feel the sound of it vibrate through my jaw. “Very nice touch.”
“Wha—I didn’t plan that!” Alex protested.
“Mm-hmm.” I was grinning. “Sure you didn’t.”
“I mean, unless you think it’s romantic,” he said thoughtfully. “Then I totally planned it.”
“It’s a little romantic,” I admitted, and leaned in to kiss him again. Kissing Alex made me feel like an electrical fire had broken out inside my body, the blaze everyplace he touched me. I wanted to get as close as I possibly could. “Hey,” I said after a while, sounding breathless, grabbing his hand and tugging him into the back of the SUV, where there was more room for us to move around.
Alex grinned as I climbed into his lap. “This is the real reason you want to buy a minivan, isn’t it?” Alex said, but I was too distracted to answer because he had taken my hand and was kissing the very tips of my fingers, sucking a little, his tongue warm and soft against my skin.
“You taste like King Cone,” he said.
I snorted. “You hungry?”
“I’m eighteen,” he said. “I’m hungry all the time.”
I laughed and tugged him closer. I closed my eyes and kissed him again.
SIXTEEN
The next day was Sunday. Olivia’s bed was already made when I woke up, and I frowned at the perfectly fluffed pillows. We hadn’t talked much when I got back last night, just two terse good nights before she turned off the light and rolled over, and part of me wanted to stay in bed and hide out from her and everyone else for the rest of the day.
It was close to noon, though, and finally I pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, tossing my hair up into a bun. Olivia was eating a banana on the couch in the living room, breaking off tiny pieces and chewing them slowly. On MTV, somebody was hosting a beach party, a bunch of college kids dancing on a pier, and I wondered if it was the one Hurricane State had performed at. “Morning,” I said, heading for the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal.
“There you are!” Olivia smiled.
“Here I am,” I said, surprised by how glad she sounded to see me. Zero talent, I heard at the back of my head, remembering her expression when I’d walked in the door of the apartment last night. Completely screwing up. “Where is everybody?”
“Charla’s running errands,” she said, swallowing. “Kristin and Ash went shopping.”
“You didn’t go with?” I asked, sitting down beside her on the sofa.
Olivia nudged me with one bare foot. “Was waiting for you, actually.”
“You were?” I asked, sounding dumbly pleased and feeling a little embarrassed about it. “You wanna go down to the pool for a bit?”
I wanted to spend some time with her, talk things out, but Olivia shook her head. “I thought we could go into the studio today,” she said. “I know you really weren’t into those vocal exercises we were talking about, but . . .”
I put my cereal bowl down on the coffee table, untouched. “So we’re just not going to talk about last night, then?”
To her credit, Olivia didn’t try to act like she didn’t know what I meant. “Look,” she said, “I don’t know what you thought we were talking about when you came in, but—”
&nbs
p; “I rehearsed all day yesterday, actually,” I informed her, “which you’d know if you’d talked to me at all instead of just bitching about how bad I am with Ashley and Kristin.”
“I wasn’t bitching about you,” Olivia said hotly.
“I heard you guys!” I said. “Do you know how shitty that felt?”
Olivia sagged at that, dropping her banana peel on the table and running her hands through her hair. “I’m sorry,” she said when she looked at me again. “You’re right. You’re right, it was shitty, and that’s why I want to help you now. It’s just that Kristin and Ashley are worried—”
“Kristin and Ashley are a couple of nasty little wannabe pop stars,” I snapped.
Olivia scowled. “If you made any effort to get to know them—”
“They don’t want to get to know me,” I argued. “I get that they’re your new best friends and all, but—”
“Hey,” Olivia said, catching me by the arm and tugging me to face her. “That’s not what I’m saying. Stop it, okay? You’re my best friend. Nothing that goes on here is going to change that.”
Just like that, I wanted to burst into tears, all the fight going out of me at once. God, I hated arguing with her. “You told me to come here,” I pointed out, trying to keep my voice even. I’d been thinking it more and more lately, remembering how my first and deepest instinct had been to step aside and hers had been not to let me. I need you, she’d told me, and I’d believed her. “I was going to stay home, remember? I was going to stay in Jessell. I only came here because of you.”
Olivia looked at me for a moment, and I thought I saw the faintest tinge of what might have been regret flicker across her face. “I know I did,” she said finally. “I know.”
“Look,” I said, “I’m sorry, okay? Let’s go to the studio. We can get coffee on the way or something, you can teach me whatever you want me to learn, I’ll learn it. It’ll be fun.”
But Olivia shook her head. “No,” she said. “You’re right; it’s Sunday.” She sighed. “But let’s try and be on the same team from now on, okay?”
I nodded. I wanted that so, so much. “Of course we’re on the same team,” I promised. “Always.”
I went down to the pool anyway, though all the fun was sort of bleached out of the idea at this point. I just wanted to be by myself. It wasn’t until I was halfway to the gate that I realized all five members of Hurricane State were already in the water, playing keep-away with an inflatable beach ball.
“Danaaaaa,” Mikey called when he saw me, drawing my name out like a catcall. His skinny white chest gleamed in the sun. “Come on in!”
That was the last thing I wanted to do, actually, but now there was no way for me to do an about-face and leave again without looking like a total weirdo. God, I should have just stayed upstairs. “I’m good, thanks,” I called back, but Alex had already turned in the pool and seen me, his face spreading into a wide, slow grin. He left the game and swam over to the side of the pool, crossing his long, tan arms on the edge.
“Hi,” he said, casual as anything, this look on his face like he had a secret only I would ever be able to figure out. “How’s your weekend been?”
“Oh, you know,” I said, feeling my lips twist in spite of myself. “Can’t complain.”
“Any fireworks?” he asked seriously, and I rolled my eyes.
“Some.”
“Alex!” Trevor hollered from the other side of the pool. “You playing, or what?”
“Be right there!” Alex called back.
“I’m gonna go back upstairs,” I told him, glancing at the others uneasily.
“Why?” Alex asked. “You just got here.”
“I know, but—” I broke off. I didn’t know how to explain, exactly. It didn’t feel right to be down here with them when Olivia was upstairs in the apartment—when maybe I should be rehearsing, should be doing what I’d allegedly come here to do. Maybe Olivia was right: she’d just been trying to help me. And here I was—again—with the guy she liked. The guy I’d kissed more than once now, who I wanted to keep kissing.
“I’ll see you later,” I mumbled, turning abruptly and heading for the gate. I had just made it around the corner to the side of the building where the vending machines were, when I heard Alex’s bare footsteps behind me. “Hey,” he said, a little breathlessly, catching me by the arm so I’d turn around. His hair was wet with pool water; he smelled like Coppertone and chlorine. He also wasn’t wearing a shirt, and it was impossible for me to act like I didn’t notice. I wanted to press my palm against his heart. “Talk to me. What’s up?”
“Somebody’s going to see us,” I said, pulling my arm away.
Alex waved his arm at the empty parking lot. “There’s nobody here.”
“Somebody could walk by,” I said, knowing I sounded slightly hysterical. “I’m screwing up enough right now, you know? There’s no reason to antagonize everybody.” I took a deep breath, tried to pull myself together. “I don’t belong here” was what came out.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Alex said. He took my hand again, more gently this time. He tilted his head to kiss me, but I ducked away.
“We have to stop this,” I said, meaning it this time. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Just tell Olivia what’s going on,” Alex suggested. “Or I could, if you wanted.”
“What? No,” I said immediately, before I realized I’d given myself away. “How do you know it’s even Olivia who likes you?” I asked.
Alex made a face. “Because I’m not dumb, Dana,” he told me. “And I think she’s great, I think she’s awesome, but I don’t—I want you.”
I banged my head softly backward against the exterior wall of the apartment. “Don’t say anything to her,” I said finally. “I’ll handle it, but just—don’t.”
“I won’t,” Alex promised. “You’re the boss.” Then, looking at me a little closer: “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I hooked my index finger in a couple of his friendship bracelets, tugging gently. “Maybe I should start making these,” I told him, turning my hand and running my fingertips lightly across the sensitive underside of his wrist. “If they’re so soothing.”
Alex looked at me sideways. “I wouldn’t say I’m feeling particularly soothed right now.”
“No?” I asked, gazing at him from underneath my eyelashes. “How do you feel, then?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said, with a hitch in his breath that pleased me. I tilted my head up, pressed a kiss against his mouth.
“Five more minutes,” I said, pulling back to look at him. This close up, his blue eyes had tiny flecks of brown in them. “Five more minutes, then I’ll go inside and rehearse.”
“Five more minutes,” Alex agreed.
It was more like ten, truthfully, before I squeezed his hand and headed around the corner, feeling calmer than I had all day. Olivia was alone upstairs, after all; I could talk to her one-on-one, for real this time, try and set things right once and for all.
I turned toward the staircase and stopped in my tracks: there was Kristin, holding a pair of paper shopping bags, an inscrutable half smile on her face. “What are you doing?” I blurted out.
She shrugged, shiny blond hair and an opaque expression. “Oh,” she said breezily, turning toward the staircase, “just headed upstairs.”
SEVENTEEN
Rehearsals were totally miserable that week. It seemed like what happened with Guy should have galvanized us, made us a stronger team resolved to sink or swim together, but instead it just turned everyone cranky and short-tempered. Lucas was even more peevish than usual, carping every time I hit a bum note. Even Charla, who I could usually count on for some positive reinforcement, seemed frayed around the edges—making us spin until we were dizzy, then yelling at us because we didn’t spot. I hurt all over, my arms and stomach aching from our workouts; it felt like my leg muscles ought to peel right off my bones.
“Ice baths,” Kristin advised as we picked
up our lunches—whole wheat wraps today, which seemed to be mostly full of spinach. I was starting to get the feeling that all four of us were on diets, even though nobody had said it out loud. I wanted to ask Olivia about it, but I was afraid it might upset her. “Fill a garbage bag down at the ice machine and dump it in the tub.”
“Seriously?” I gaped at her. “We’re not training for the Olympics.”
Kristin just raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t we?” she asked, and turned back to her lyrics sheet before I could answer.
“This makes me want to die,” I complained to Alex as we settled ourselves on the concrete steps around the corner where nobody could see us, midday sun beating down on the pavement even while the sky to the west took on a creepy gray-green tinge. In Orlando in the summertime, a thunderstorm was never more than fifteen minutes away.
“Aw, it’s not so bad,” Alex said, unwrapping his sandwich—the boys got ham and cheese, which bugged me—and offering me a bite, which I took.
“Not so bad?” I asked once I’d swallowed. “Kristin just suggested I submerge my naked body in a vat of ice, but it’s not so bad?”
Alex raised his eyebrows with interest at the word naked, but then he shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, taking a bite. “It’s kind of what I always wanted, singing all day. I’m into it.”
That made me smile, and also feel like kind of a jerk. “You are, huh?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to love something as much as Alex clearly loved this.
“Yeah,” he said, his cheeks pinking up a bit, either from the heat out here or from the idea that I might make fun of him. “My brain just gets kind of quiet when I’m singing. You ever feel that way?”
“My brain’s quiet all the time,” I joked. Across the parking lot, Mikey was juggling three clementines like he was considering joining the circus if all this didn’t work out. Thunder rumbled in the distance, the darkness crawling its way across the sky and that creosote smell getting stronger in the air. “Just ask Lucas.”
“You know what I mean,” Alex said, bumping my arm with his warm, slightly sticky one. “When I’m singing, or dancing, or whatever, it’s like all the sharp edges get filed down. Everything kind of makes sense to me that way.” He shrugged again, that bashful quality that I found so stupidly winning. “I used to get in trouble at school because I’d sing to myself, real quiet-like, during my math tests.”