Roman Holiday

Ashleyn Poston

A Radio Hearts Novel

Copyright © 2013 Ashley N Poston

This book or any portion may not be reproduced or used in any way whatsoever by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording by any informational storage or retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the publisher and/or author except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, events, locales, or giant mechanical robots are only intended to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and events, are created from the author's imagination and are strictly coincidental.

To my parents,

Thank you for falling in love

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

by John Birmingham

The Juice, June Issue #327

After tragedy struck former rock band Roman Holiday last July, lead singer Roman Montgomery (20) vanished following an LA court ruling that declared death of his band mate, Holly Hudson (18), an accidental suicide.

Hudson had allegedly been taking pain medication for a sprained ankle suffered the previous week at a concert in San Antonio. Hudson is survived by two parents and a younger sister in the small beach town of Lynn Island, South Carolina, where Montgomery also grew up. Sources say she had not been dating Montgomery at the time, although his sudden disappearance after the court's ruling might prove otherwise.

The last remnant of the band's existence lies in Roman Holiday’s pre-scheduled event at Madison Square Garden this July 27th. Will Roman Holiday reunite for one last hurrah in the name of America’s late sweetheart? Or will the venue go unattended?

If you have any information on the whereabouts of Roman Montgomery, contact The Juice at wheresraldo@thejuice.com

SATURDAY

Chapter One

I'm a classic rock kind of girl. I'm the kind of girl who head bangs to Meat Loaf and air-guitars to "Bohemian Rhapsody." I'm the kind of girl who dissects Van Halen's "Jump," can pinpoint "Hotel California" on a map, strum every chord to "Livin' on a Prayer" blindfolded, and name every single Bruce Springsteen song ever written in thirty seconds flat.

It's all because of Dad.

I didn't have the most...typical upbringing. I can do bands like Sublime and Halestorm too, but classic rock has a way of weaseling into the crevices between dateless Saturday nights and late shifts working at my family's bar, the Silver Lining. It's a dive of a place with cheap two-dollar beers, and halfway decent cover bands. It was Dad's brainchild before he took the midnight train too early.

Mom was the first of us to rebound from his death. She remarried her high school sweetheart, an architect named Charles Conway, three months after his funeral and became the black pariah of Asheville. And I was known as the black pariah's daughter.

It didn't bother me until the day before high school graduation when someone wrote in red lipstick on my locker, 'YOUR MOM'S A SLUT.'

"Forget about those dickheads," my boyfriend, Cas, told me. "You'll never see them again after graduation."

"You won't," I argued in a half-sob. We were huddled in his '78 Trans Am on a dirt road so no one would see us together. I thought, at the time, it was because I was crying so hard I could blow snot bubbles. "You'll be gone to Berkley."

"What happened to you going to going to Tech?" He wiped a tear away with his thumb and tucked a strand of my dishwater blond hair behind my ear.

I laughed ruefully. "If I leave, the Lining will sink faster than the Titanic."

"Your mom can't take care of it?"

"Between going on their monthly honeymoons to Bali and Aspen? That's funny, Cas."

He frowned. "You'll get out, babe."

No, I wouldn't. I knew I wouldn't. But I just smiled and kissed him to change the subject. The Lining still stands because I give a damn. Mom doesn't, and a part of me thinks that she'd rather have it burn down because it's too much trouble, and it needs a lot of work. Work that we can't afford because we're already scraping rock bottom. But someone has to keep Dad's soul alive, and that duty fell to me.

At the time, I didn't think I would mind.

Fast-forward a month and a half to July. Saturday night, my favorite shift. And where's Mom? Definitely not here. I squat down behind the speakers onstage, gathering the plethora of beer bottles tonight's band stashed there, and dump them into the trashcan beside the stage. Our sound guy, Danny, whistles Queen's "Killer Queen" as he flicks off the soundboard and drains the last of his strawberry mojito. I wish he would choke on an ice cube.

"Mike three was hot again tonight, Danny," I tell him, wiping my hands on my jeans. One of the bottles was sticky. Gross. "Rock Your Mouth ruined another Slipknot cover."

"I can only do so much with this equipment, darlin'," Danny retorts. "And they just sucked."

"They would've sucked less if you did your job instead of texting." I hop off the stage and begin tossing the empty bottles scattered across the bar into the trashcan. "I mean, they made me want to slipknot a noose and hang them from the rafters with it. And I usually never have a problem with Slipknot."

Danny spits through the gap in his front teeth. I inwardly cringe. He says it's a nervous habit, but I think he does it to get on my nerves. "Hey, sweetie, leave it to the professionals. Danny's got the big-boy sound stuff under control."

"Because you can text and push a slider at the same time, obviously."

"I've been doin' sound a lot longer than you've been alive, sweetie."

Sweetie, sweetie. I'm not sure what gets on my nerves more, his condescending tone, or the fact that he thinks he call me by a pet name. Danny is twenty years older than me, so it's probably the pet name. I even cringe when my boyfriend calls me "babe." I just hate pet names. Tossing a Coors Light bottle into the trash can with more force than necessary, the neck pops off as the base rings the side before finally falling in. "I'm just trying to help."

"Sweetie, maybe you should start worryin' about your own life, and not this shithole."

For a moment, all I can do is stare. Then something inside of me snaps. In two quick strides, I pick up his backpack and shove it into his chest, knocking him back in surprise. "Get out of my shithole."

"That's cute, sweetie."

"No, if you think this place is a shithole then I want you to fucking leave!"

"Jesus, calm down."

"Leave. And don't worry about coming back."

"You firin' me?" He sounds genuinely incredulous. "Who else are you gonna hire? I'm sorry sweetie, but you can't do it."

"I think I can manage. Hal!" I call over to the bouncer at the bar. "Escort him out, please?"

The bouncer, a burly guy with knuckles the size of pancakes, abandons his beer. He saunters up, towering over Danny. Watching the sound guy squirm gives me a tiny bit of satisfaction.

"I'll mail you your last check," I tell him.

"You need me, sweetie—"

"And don't" —I interrupt, flipping my pink hair over my shoulder— "call me sweetie, asshole."

He opens his mouth to retort, but Hal punches his fist into his other hand menacingly. Getting the hint, Danny pulls his backpack over his shoulder and stalks to the front door. When he throws it open, it ricochets off the wall and almost slams him back inside, but he dodges out. He whips a glare back at me before the door slams shut.

"Dumbass," I murmur and make my way over to the bar where Maggie, my best friend, is spinning herself around in one of the swivel chairs.

She stops when I come over, and puts up her fist. "Great job, bb! You sack acely."

"You have no idea how long I've dreamed of doing that." I hop onto the stool beside her, and fist-bump her hanging fist.

"Your new hair must make you bold. It's totes cute on you B-T-W. Who did it?" She winks.

I shrug casually, twirling my finger around a lock of neon pink. "Just some totally awesome best friend."

"Aw, bb, you flatter me!"

I grin before glancing back at the door. "You don't think I was too harsh?"

"Too harsh? That sleaze-ball totes deserved it. He always looks at my tits. I know they're perky and everything but ugh!" She shivers, pulling out her phone. "Totes gross."

"Totes," I laugh.

Maggie and I met in second grade. She was the new kid. I was the weird kid. A match made in heaven, really. On the first day of school, Mrs. Eller teamed us up for an in-class writing assignment—Who is the Most Influential Person In Your Life? The idea was to help each other write our own responses, but I took one look at her paper and was appalled. To be honest, I had never heard another kid call Bruce Springsteen the Boss—or even know who the rock legend was to begin with. All they talked about Britney Spears and Beyonce.

To say I was shell-shocked was the understatement of the year. To say that I wholeheartedly disagreed with her came in close second. "No way, Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi all the way!" I argued.

"Most influential? You even know what that means?" She sniffed indignantly.

"Yeah, Bon Jovi totally changed my life." Dad had taken me to a Bon Jovi concert half a year before. We had seats in the nosebleed section, but it was still the best night of my life. I refused to wash the cigarette smoke and concert sweat out of the t-shirt after. It resides in the top of my closet now. Whenever I begin to miss Dad, I pull it down and take a big whiff. It doesn't smell like him, because he constantly smelled like beer and stale Cuban cigars, but it smells like the memories of him. And that's just as good.

Maggie and I became inseparable after that essay, and learned that she wanted to be a journalist, and kept diaries like I kept music collections. We were like Velcro—she was the sticky, I was the spiky.

But then, five years ago, Roman Holiday came along.

I bet you've heard of them, probably not by name. You can't really distinguish their songs between Justin Timberlake and Maroon 5, although the front man, Roman Montgomery, does try a little ingenuity. Sad to say, I doubt he can think his way out of a paper bag, much less come up with something memorable. Nevertheless, no matter how much I fought to get her to listen to other bands—The Format, the Darkness, Motion City Soundtrack for God's sake!—she became obsessed with Roman Holiday. She went to the concerts, bought the posters, and wore the t-shirts.

It was worse than herpes.

I thought it was a phase. Like N*Sync and Hanson. But it wasn't. It got worse when Holly Hudson died, and the band dropped off the face of the earth. Now, Maggie's obsession is a plague on both our houses. Every tabloid headline, every newspaper snippet, every photo on the internet she consumes like a vacuum. There's a paparazzo she follows—John...James...something. I try not to pay attention. He actively stalks Roman Montgomery with a vicious sort of vendetta. Of course Maggie likes him best.

"Oh my God," she gasps, staring down at her phone, "they're in Montana! They bought groceries!"

"Yay, groceries," I murmur, thrumming my fingers against the fake marble countertop. I wish we could afford wood, at least.

"No, this is legit! Look at this, bb. Look!" She spins her phone over to show me a blurry image of a dark-haired guy bending over a mound of lettuce. "It's RoMo!"

"He eats healthy at least," I remark. "I really don't see why you stalk a murder on Twitter."

"He didn't kill her, okay? Roman Montgomery couldn't hurt a fly." She rolls her eyes. "Why does everyone think he did?"

"A guy with no alibi? Getting off scot-free?"

"He has an alibi. He was out."

I quirk an eyebrow. "Out where? Or was he fucking some roadie again and didn't want to admit it?"

She rolls her eyes, "Smartass," and returns to her Twitter feed, rattling off other news—that their contract is running out, their album Like Thunder, which came out a month prior to Holly Hudson's death, is about to go Platinum, blah blah blah... "So when are you leaving for Dirty Myrtle? Tomorrow?"

"Yeah. In the morning. Are you sure you can't go with me?" I try to put as much whine in my voice as humanly possible. "It's going to be hell without you."

"You've gone every year without me so far," she says, not even sparing a glance up from her phone.

"But this is different! That was with Dad and Mom, not Mom and the step-idiot. He'll ruin it. All of it. How will I survive?"

"Better question," she replies, "how will the bar survive without you?"

I deflate a little. Of course, she wouldn't understand the condo was something between Mom, Dad, and me. It was our vacation. And now Chuck—Charles—is going to poison it with his expensive shampoos and lavender-scented aftershave. "I'm prepared to come back to a smoldering ruin."

"You have so much faith in the bar staff."

I eye Geoff, our head bartender, schmoozing up a broad-shouldered hunk in the corner of the bar. Behind Geoff, the faucet is running. I take a bobby pin out of my hair, letting a leaf of pink hair fall into my face, and throw it at him. "Hey, earth to Major Geoff!"

He jumps when it hits him square in the ear. "Ow! Sorry. Was, uh—"

"Yeah, I know. Faucet."

He jumps to turn it off. "I swear I'm not a space cadet," he replies with a chuckle. "Nice hair though, boss. Is that fuchsia or electric pink?"

"It's called My-Mother-Will-Kill-Me-Pink."

"Sounds about right. Got that whole Lolita thing going on." I snort in reply. Geoff tsks, turning back to the patron he's trying to flirt the pants off of. Geoff's a twenty-four-year-old horn dog from New Jersey, so he has the whole Jersey Shore dark hair and tan thing going on, which the pale mountain men of Asheville eat up like a dark chocolate mousse. He says over his shoulder, "You're turning into such a heathen, boss."

"Ugh, I know." I mock-roll my eyes. "Now all I need is to go clubbing and bring home a guy with tattoos and a bullring."

"Well..." Maggie bites her bottom lip thoughtfully, "if you're not doing anything tonight, a few college guys playing a Quidditch match down at Hope Park. They're probably still there. Wanna go? Most of them don't have bull rings, but I totes think you can find a tatted Malfoy."

"Tempting. Do I have to run around with a broom between my legs?"

“Well, yeah.”

“Then that's a deal-breaker.”

“Muggles,” she scoffs, sliding her phone into her back pocket, and twists her long dreads up into a bun behind her head. She fans the back of her neck with a drink menu. "Just means I'll have all the Nevilles to myself. Dear fuck, it's hot. Are you ever going to get the air conditioning fixed?"

I shrug apologetically. "Eventually?"

"Eventually, eventually. Well, eventually you'll regret not coming with me to the Quidditch match."

Normally, I would cave and go with her, just to be a good wing-woman, but tonight's different. I'm already late to my boyfriend's house, and it's not exactly like I can tell her that. Caspian and I aren't quite... official. Like, we're not even facebook friends, which is why tonight is important. Tonight, all of that's going to change. "Sorry, bb. Geoff, you closing tonight?"

He gives me a salute and quirks a teasing eyebrow to the hottie in the corner. "I'll take my time," he replies coyly, more to the patron than to me.

Maggie and I slide off our stools together. She holds the door open for me as we exit the bar and split our separate ways. "I'll make it up to you?" I offer.

"We both know that's a lie!" She calls over her shoulder, waving goodbye with her middle finger.

Chapter Two

Tonight is Cas and my six-month anniversary—I mean non-anniversary. We're not public. Or anything official. I feel like I have to keep reminding myself that, but after tonight I won't have to. After tonight, we can go on real dates like real couples. Because we'll be official.

i got a surprise for u bby! ull luv it (; he texts.

His parents are both away on business—they're never home together, and when they are Cas makes sure to stay as far away from the house as possible—so he has the house to himself for the next two weeks. His dad's off in Colorado for a business retreat, and his mother is taking another "girl's vacation" to Cancun. Alone. So I can see why Caspian doesn't want to put a label on us. Just because two people are together doesn't mean they're in love, and just because they're married doesn't mean they don't love other people in the dead of the night.

I toss my phone into the passenger seat and crank up the station wagon. Chuck bought Mom a new car after they married, so I got saddled with this piece of shit car. At least it runs—on good luck and prayers.

The Gardener household is more like a hotel. Seven bedrooms, four full baths, and a living room as big as the garage. It easily dwarfs every single house around it. I park my cruddy car in the dirt pit beside the driveway so passing cars can't see it, and quickly change into a black skirt and tank-top that shows as much cleavage as I can offer—which isn't much. Fixing my hair in the rearview mirror, I pray that he'll like my hair. Anything's better than dishwater blond, right?

I sneak around to the back of the house. The glint of security cameras reflects the spotlights that snap on the moment I step onto the immaculate green backyard. I twirl a lock of my hair nervously, and knock on the back door. It's late. I hope he isn't mad.

We’ve been planning tonight since we first started...whatever this is. So, it's a big deal. Partly because I'm afraid of what I might have to lose in return for a public relationship, and partly because I'm afraid he won't want it.

Yeah, I'm nervous as hell.

Stop it, Junebug. You're beautiful. He'll think you're beautiful.

The doorknob rattles a second before the door opens and he bathes me in his brilliant white smile. My nervousness melts away. "Hey baby," he croons, and bends in for a kiss, "you're late."

"I lost track of time," I reply, a little disheartened. Nothing about my hair? Or how excited he is to see me? "And I didn't see your text until I got in my car..."

"At least you're here." He takes me by the hand and leads me into his house and up the stairs to his bedroom. I've only been in his house when no one's around, and even then I've only seen the kitchen and his bedroom. A box of Chinese takeout sits on his nightstand, and James Bond blares from the TV.

My heart, already beating nervous and erratic in my chest, twists a little. Not that I was expecting a candlelit dinner over filet mignon and sweet potato but...maybe a glass of Merlot at least? But all I can say is, "Oh, Cas, you shouldn't have."

"I thought we could get comfortable, you know, since it's our six months and all," he replies, curling his arms around my waist, and kisses the nape of my neck. "I like what you did to your hair."

"Maggie's idea. She says it brings out my eyes." His lips are like feathers against my neck, quick kisses that dot up to my ear, his fingers falling between my skirt hem and my skin. My mind goes numb. Who needs filet mignon and wine? He turns me around and presses his lips against mine.

"Yeah, it's hot," he murmurs into my mouth, and eases me backwards onto the bed. "You'll be hot at the beach. Wish I could see you in your bathing suit."

I laugh nervously. I hate bathing suits. Almost as much as I hate Roman Holiday. "You sure you can't come to the beach with me? If we behave the step-idiot might let us share a room together..." I tease.

He sighs against my cheek. "Baby, you know I can't. We're not...you know."

"But we could be," I almost-argue, but it only sounds like a suggestion. I can never argue with Cas. It's not that I'm afraid to, it's just...

Well, I don't want him to non-dating dump me.

He rolls off me and snags the takeout from the nightstand. I sit up as he hands me a pair of chopsticks. He asks, "Aren't we good? Like we are?"

No, I want to say, because this isn't real. I bite into an eggroll to prevent myself from answering.

"Besides," he continues with a mouthful of lo mien, "I have to house-sit. Dad’s paranoid about someone stealing his pool table.” He points his chopsticks downstairs. The pool table is mahogany, but it might as well be made of elephant tusks for how much it cost.

I fish around in the lo mien for a crunchy red onion. “But isn’t that why you have a security guard on-call?”

“He's shit. I know how you feel baby, I really do. I want to go...but I have things here and...stuff." He runs his large, warm hands down my thigh as James Bond jumps out of an exploding airplane and tumbles mercilessly through the clouds. “But tonight? Would you be happy with tonight?”

“Of course." I try to laugh off the anxiety that is beginning to bloom again. The Chinese food feels like stones in my stomach. I abandon my chopsticks in the box. "Tonight will be perfect."

“Perfect,” he echoes, clicking off the TV, and sets our takeout on the nightstand again. His hand traces the line in my jaw and gently brings my face to his. He smells like fresh laundry, crisp and clean. He has the best hygiene of any guy I know. Immaculate hair, plucked eyebrows, a caramel tan that accents every curve of his thick well-defined muscles. He kisses my neck, and runs his fingers through my fuchsia hair. I normally have it pulled up into a ponytail, but he loves my long hair wild and unruly.

In the real world, far away from this bedroom, I am anything but unruly.

I swallow the lump in my throat as his lips migrate up my neck to my cheeks. The sensation makes me shiver because he's so gentle, and his lips are so warm. He kisses my ear, my eyelids, my forehead, and finally my lips.

There’s a radio somewhere else in the house buzzing to the faint tune of Roman Holiday's "Crush on You."

I close my eyes, and sigh into his mouth, surrendering into him. He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me on top of him, and my legs instinctively clamp around his midsection. He tastes like Po Chen’s egg rolls and Coke Zero. My heart is thrumming a million miles a minute.

Be confident. Be cool. Be okay with this.

He claps his hands twice and the room crashes into darkness. His hair glows like gold in the faint light of the electric candles on his headboard. His parents don’t allow real candles in the house, so he buys electric ones. He has a whole drawer full of them. The mood has to be perfect, the set compelling. What’s a good story without a good backdrop? In his room, everything is strategic. Everything is placed to his advantage—the TV remote, the clapper, the tissues, and the picture of a half-naked starlet on the ceiling. Perfectly placed and perfectly lit, as if we are the centerpieces in an extravagant music video.

Roman Holiday is so loud now, wailing "I want to crush, crush, crush on you. Crush on you like back in high school. I want to crush with you, let me crush with you."

The irony almost kills the mood.

He traces his fingers so slowly and carefully up my body, my thighs and knobby knees, like a sculptor accenting the curvature of a statue. My heart rattles in my ribcage like a miniature earthquake, and soon I don't hear Roman Holiday at all. All I hear is my heart, and my breath, and all the white noise in my head buzzing with worry.

This is just like we planned, orchestrated to perfection. I shouldn't be nervous. We planned this, I coax myself, and for a brief moment, I'm not sure if my heart is trembling because I am excited, or frightened.

He kisses me and tells me he loves me, and travel his lips down my neck and across my collarbone. One of the candles on the headboard dims, sighing with me. I wonder why he bothers with electric candles. They hide the posters of heavy metal bands and busty Harley riders papering his walls, and cast his black comforter and black pillows into pale gray. There's no scent to them, not vanilla, not cinnamon, or—God forbid—baking cookies.

“Ready?” he asks over Roman Montgomery howling "I want to crush, crush, crush on youuuuuu!" We both know this has been a long time coming, and there won't be a more perfect moment.

Except he really could turn off that radio.

We’re on the verge of something, and all I can think about is that damn radio and the electric candles. I want to nod, say yes, but my head is too heavy to move. His hands wrap around my midsection, fingers sinking into my skin. I want to do this, don’t I? For him? Maybe after he'll change his mind, and we can be public. We can actually define something in our twisted lives together.

The sighing candle finally goes out, and his halo of hair dulls to a grayish yellow. I close my eyes. This is where my life fades to black and I wake up in a bed of roses.

But it doesn't.

I feel him tug up my skirt and peel down my underwear. I'm supposed to be doing something right now, aren't I? Unbuttoning his jeans with reckless abandon, moaning about how thick he is, how I can't wait for him to come inside me. Isn't that how it happens?

The awful Roman Holiday-infused silence is killing me. I crack open an eye to ask, in a voice that sounds too high and too loud, "What was the surprise?"

He kisses my inner thigh, and I grip the bed sheets. "Surprise?"

"In your text..."

"Ooh, that." Grinning, he takes something from the headboard beside the dead electric candle. "I hate ribbed, but for you I'll make an exception."

I take the purple condom package, my throat constricting.

"Do you want to put it on me?" His voice is playful.

"I...don't think I'm ready for that." Did I mean putting it on him or sex in general? I am eighteen—nineteen in a few months. And by a few months I mean eight. By teenage standard, I'll start collecting cobwebs up there if I don't start. But staring at the purple package makes my stomach heave.

He chuckles, deep-throated, and kisses my neck again as if it'll wash away my worry. But it won't. Closing my eyes, I wait for the fade out. I wait for the romantic music, but Roman Holiday is reverberating off every wall, echoing. "I'm gonna crush, crush, crush on you..."

Then—suddenly—it happens.

My breath catches in my throat and tears spring to my eyes. I grip the bed sheets harder, my knuckles turning white. His lips are on my neck, burrowed in the nape, as his hands travel along my body to my breasts. I didn't wear a bra to the house. He doesn't have to worry about taking it off. This is perfect.

This is just like we planned.

My blurry eyes focus on the remaining electric candles, a constant light without a flicker, shaking as we rock back and forth, back and forth. His breath comes faster and harder. He groans, swelling inside of me until—nothing.

No fade out. No romantic music, but Roman Holiday has slowly transitioned into a pop country song I could place if I listened hard enough, but everything sounds muted except for the white noise in my head.

He rolls off me, and brings my hand to his lips to kiss my knuckles.

"Happy six months," he whispers, staring at the ceiling as I blink away the tears and the pain, feeling hollower than ever before, "to our little secret."

Sunday

Chapter Three

The condo has a new paint job this year. Guess the sea-foam green didn't cut it anymore. There's a new pullout couch too, and a new TV to replace the one from the Stone Age that kept losing reception last year. The bedroom is a conk shell blue to match the sailboat picture hanging above the bed, and the kitchen has new tile in the pattern of a checkerboard. The only thing the renovation hasn’t touched is the bird-shit yellow bathroom Dad hated.

“I feel like I should be following the Yellow Brick Road every time I lay a brick in here,” he used to complain. Of all the things to keep, it was that god-awful yellow?

Staring around at the condo, I realize that I don't remember a lot of the other smaller details of our yearly beach week. Like who gets the ice for the cooler? Who checks us in? Who unloads the suitcases and who make coffee in the mornings?

It isn’t two minutes after we’ve walked in the door with our suitcases before Darla pays a visit. She doesn’t knock. She never knocks. She's loud, smokes a pack of Marlboros a day, and downs tequila as if it’s low-calorie soda.

In other words, Dad loved her.

Picking up my Vera Bradley duffle, I haul it into the bedroom before she sees me. Not that I don't love Darla—because I do—but she couldn't wait another ten minutes before barging in with her big hoo-rah? I press my ear against the crack in the door to listen.

“Knock knock!” Darla trills, her flip-flops making slapping noises against her feet as she prances inside.

Mom squeals in excitement. “Darla!”

“Oh, Sherry,” Darla says. “I’m so sorry about Willy, dear. I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s all right. He would've wanted me to move on.”

I disagree. Wrenching away from the door, I fling myself down on the bed and clench fistfuls of duvet in my hands. How could she know what Dad would've wanted? Did he tell her to marry her high school sweetheart three months after his death and make me look like the bad apple my senior year of high school? Everyone thought it was just convenient that he died. Thought she had been cheating on Dad with Chuck. They looked at me with a mixture of pity and leprosy, as if infidelity was catching. I'm not sure which was worse.

Don’t think about it. Breathe. My fingers unfurl from the covers.

If Mom knows how I feel about her marriage, she hasn’t said a word, but it’s not like I’ve been very subtle about it. At the wedding, I boycotted the bridesmaids’ dresses, showed up late to the ceremony, and skipped the rest of the reception where I think I was supposed to give a speech. I’ve kept my distance from Chuck—Charles—especially at the bar. He doesn't know the ass-end around pale ale, never mind how to shake a martini.

I begin unpacking to busy myself, shoving handfuls of shirts and shorts into the top drawer.

There are seldom things that man can do right, but making Mom laugh is one of them. Dad could do that, too. Mom's one of those women who barely cracks a smile. She's all business, little talk. Why she marries men who are complete clowns is beyond me.

“Knock knock, har-dee-har-har, I can joke too!" I mock in my worst Chuck impersonation and reach back into my suitcase for my underwear. My hand comes out empty. I pat down the rest of my suitcase, but all I find are socks and bras. "Fuck. It's official. This vacation can't get any worse."

“Junie! Darla wants to see you! Why don’t you come out and say hello?” Mom calls from the kitchen. I've been summoned. Can't be avoided.

I stand and open the bedroom door, forcing a smile. "Darla! Didn't even hear you come in!" Lies, all lies.

Darla gives an overly theatrical gasp when she sees me. “Oh my gosh, what the hell did you do to your hair?"

Keep smiling, I remind myself. "I dyed it."

She rakes me over with a studious look, pursing her pink lips together. "It's definitely a change."

"And she will be going to the beautician as soon as we get back," Mom adds, giving me a meaningful look.

"I like my hair," I defend, even though it is a little bright. Out in the sun I look like a walking lollipop.

"But think about what everyone else thinks," she replies.

I narrow my eyes at her. Like she can talk. I clench my jaw to keep from saying as much. Darla notices the tension and eases in with a wave of her hand. "Girls just want to have fun, Sherry. Let her experiment and find herself. It's not like she has a tattoo," she adds.

"She's eighteen," Mom tells her, as if that will finalize the argument. And she's forty-two. That didn't stop her from making poor life choices.

"Well, I think she looks gorgeous. It brings out her gray eyes," Darla replies, finally pulling me into a rib-crushing hug.

“I’m gorgeous too,” Chuck jokes, pulling the luggage cart into the condo. He parks it in the kitchen and wipes the sheen of sweat off his wrinkled brow. "In fact, I'm damn near beau-tee-ful."

"In a coffin," I mutter so only Darla can hear, and her cheeks balloon as she tries to keep from laughing. Grabbing my purse from the kitchen counter, I pull it over my shoulder. “I’m going to the store.”

“For what?” Chuck asks.

“Underwear!” I call exasperatedly over my shoulder and slam the front door behind me.

CherryTree Ocean Club is a condominium on the north side of Myrtle Beach. It's a nice place if you overlook the peeling tan and peach paint and the tarnished railings. The parking lot has potholes, and the palm trees planted by the entrance droop like soggy sponges, but that doesn't stop the tourists. Overlook the smell of diapers and chlorine and you might have yourself a really good time. It's definitely not Chuck's kind of place because it's no five-star resort, but Dad loved it. He said, "Places like these have character!" Sort of like the Silver Lining. One of the toilets might not work and you might find gum on the bottom of a chair, but it's a place where everyone knows your name. Like in Cheers.

The store is further than I remember, four blocks down Ocean Boulevard on the right. I walk along the tiny sidewalk, passing pancake houses and new towering hotels with neon signs and twenty-story balconies. Dad hated that the old beach houses were getting sold off and torn down to make way for these vacation towers, but I always thought they were pretty at night, and that the view from the rooftops must be spectacular.

Halfway there, my cell phone vibrates. I dig through my purse. "'Ello," I greet happily in a British accent so bad I make myself cringe, "you've reached Junie Baltimore, barmaid and best friend to the sweetest, most kick-ass pal in all the—"

"You forgot gorgeous," Maggie interrupts. "I felt a disturbance in the force. Although that might just be my lady parts stirring from seeing hunk-a-licious Caspian Gardener washing his car on my way to work. Oh, bb, so sexy."

"Yep."

Maggie doesn't even know Caspian and I are non-dating, so she definitely doesn't know I gave him the hymen high-five. "Sorry I missed the sight." I pause at the red light and wait for the walk sign. The store is across the street, beside a family-owned ice cream joint called the Ice Cream Emporium. It's busy tonight, and it's only six-thirty. Tourists pack the picnic tables with their white sneakers and fanny packs. At least half of them have on pink SAVE HOLIDAY t-shirts. "Is there something going on this week or something with that Crapidayer shit?"

"Um, yeah, the vigil. Where've you been living, under a rock?" She doesn't let me answer. "Never mind, you're out of the loop. There'll be a vigil on Thursday at St. Michael's cemetery in Lynn Island to celebrate Holly's life and raise awareness of teen suicide and all that jazz. Supposed to be a super big deal. MTV's gonna be there and everything."

"Because MTV is such a premiere news source," I deadpan.

"Oh shush," she scolds. "If I could be there, I totes would. Are my people there in droves?"

"You have no idea," I deadpan, staring at the tweens nose-deep in their cell phones, pink peacock feathers in their hair to match their t-shirts. "In fact, a few of your people are eating ice cream as we speak—I hate ice cream."

"Which is stupid. Ice cream is the frozen nectar of the gods. I think it's so silly you hate it because some kid body-checked you with your own ice cream."

I roll my eyes. "It's just a bad memory, okay? The little shit's friend, this girl, said 'Aren't you going to clean that up?' and I was so mortified I cried in front of him. Dad had to come rescue me and asked the little snot 'Aren't you sorry?' He was egging for an apology, but snotface never gave one. He and his friend just walked away. Like I wasn't worthy of an apology."

"Children. They're like trolls, only smaller."

"I know, right? I just hate ice cream. It's bad for my figure anyway," I add jokingly.

She laughs. "Right, because you're so fat."

"I am—Oh! Also, to add to this fuck-tastic vacation, yours truly forgot her underwear."

"Ha-ha! Karma, bitch! For not going with me last night!"

"Oh, shut up." Averting my eyes away, I make a break across the street as soon as a purple Scion passes, to hell with walk signs.

Chapter Four

Dad used to wave his hand in front of automatic doors as they opened, beam at me with that big dopey grin of his and say, “Master Will uses the force, he does!” like a drunk Yoda. I flick my hand in front of the automatic doors to the stop-n-shop—I hope it just looks like a spasm—and try not to grin too widely as they glide open on my command. Darth Vader, eat your heart out. I make my way to the back where a small selection of clothes encircles an even smaller selection of underwear.

Crap.

What's worse, wearing underwear with Roman Montgomery's head on the crotch, or granny panties?

"...Cas had his shirt off while washing his car," Maggie prattles on. "Ugh. Bb, remind me next time I do a car wash for charity, hire him to wash all of them. Oh, those abs."

Maggie, along with being my clichéd beautiful best friend, is also a guyaholic. She's pretty enough to never reuse the same guy, so she is perfectly capable of catching any guy she sets her sights on. It's been Caspian for a while, and to my silent delight, he's as interested in her as he is a rock.

"Too bad he's going to Berkley in the fall," I say, shifting between the granny panties and Roman Holiday underwear. "Which is worse? Roman Montgomery's face on my crotch, or saggy granny panties?"

"Granny. I'd love RoMo's face there."

I wince at the mental image. "Oh, I really didn't need to see that."

"So not sorry! I have so much pent-up sexual frustration—gah! Maybe if I show up at Cas's tonight in nothing but my housecoat...you think that'll work? How big do you think he is?"

I remember that all too well. "Probably pretty big."

"Yeah, he's got big hands."

"You're such a slut."

"You know you're jealous. Go with the grannies. You'll be right at home in them."

"Fuck you."

"Oh bb, if I swung that way..."

Rolling my eyes, I jerk the Roman Holiday underwear off the hook and shove the package under my arm. “You’re useless. How was that Quidditch match last night?”

She quickly loses interest in my non-boyfriend. “Fan-effing-tastic!”

“Score any Potters?”

“Gave some guy my number," she replies proudly, "but he was such an über Goyle after he invited me to an after-party.”

“You went?”

“Duh, bb, Goyle is always better than nothing. You should've been there. I could've helped you score a Neville.”

“You know Malfoy is more my type." I glance over at the men’s underwear curiously. "How come guys get the cool underwear? I'd rather wear Batman than a sadistically smiling rock star."

Her earrings jingle as she shakes her head and sighs. Maggie loves her jewelry, big-hooped earrings and beaded necklaces and hairpins with sparkling cubic zirconium. She's beautiful in an exotic, geeky sort of way—flaming crimson dreads, caramel skin, and graphic tees out the wazoo. Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes, Dragon Age, Downton Abbey. I can go on and on. Everyone in high school knew her because of her nerdiness, and accepted her whole-heartedly, while they ignored me because I wasn't nerdy, cool, athletic, or smart enough. I was never enough for anything.

That probably sucks the most.

In the end, I graduated best known for the death of my bar-owning father, and my mom's marriage three months later. Not for my own accomplishments—not that I had any, anyway.

"Bb," Maggie says, "you're probably the only person in the world who hates Roman Holiday."

"Then I'm the only sane person left."

"You should go to the vigil for me. Maybe it'll enlighten you."

Even though we're best friends, I'd rather eat an entire plate of suicide wings. I pick up a pack of gum on my way to the register. "I love you and all but...Dream on."

She heaves another sigh. "If there was any chance I'd see him...he just needs a big hug, you know? Someone to tell him it'll be all right."

"Maggie, his best friend died and everyone blames him. If you died and everyone blamed me, I don't think a hug would really make a dent."

"Or I can serenade him with my favorite song..."

My stomach twists. "No really, that's okay."

She starts howling, "I'm gonna crush, crush, crush you like back in high school, I'm gonna crush, crush, I've got a crush, crush on you—"

I hang up.

"I'm never getting away from that song, am I?" I mutter to my phone, and shove it into my back pocket. The only register open has four people in line already. I resign myself to the end, because it's not like I have anything better to do tonight than to wait in line to buy Roman Holiday underwear.

The guy in front of me has hair so bright it matches the soda cradled in his tattooed arm. The tattoo is pretty amazing, though, a phoenix and a tiger fighting tooth and claw, a spiral of oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and purples up his well-defined bicep. There is a Los Angeles tattoo laced across the top of his right arm, half-covered by the black V-neck that fits snuggly across his shoulders. He's not broad by any means, but tall and lanky like the skater boys back home. His black jeans are frayed over scuffed red Vans that match his suspenders. Maggie would take one look at him, flip back her dreads, and ask if he was doing anything later tonight. Sometimes, I wish I had her gumption.

But all I have is a secret relationship with the star player of the lacrosse team. Why am I so ungrateful?

An upbeat song rattles across the speakers mounted in the ceiling. I recognize it instantly. "Rattle You Like Thunder"...another one of Roman Holiday's hits. I groan aloud and mutter to myself, "What did you do to deserve this karma, Junebug?"

"I was wondering the same thing," the guy with the tattoos replies. Is that bitterness in his voice? A kin soul. "Every radio station. It's a plague."

"Instead of zombies, everyone's a Holidayer," I agree. "Instead of groaning and eating brains, they're spreading terrible music. I'd rather have the groaning. And killing them wouldn't be frowned upon."

He turns around, pushing a sweep of orange hair away from his face, and looks me square in the eyes. They are the most beautiful shade of green I have ever seen, like melted emeralds. They remind me of someone, but I can't quite put my finger on it. His emerald gaze drifts down to the pack of underwear in my hand. His grin reminds me of the cat from Alice in Wonderland—cheshire. "Big talk coming from a fan."

I. Am. Mortified.

"Are you kidding?" I gape, staring down at the underwear. "It was these or granny panties!"

"I'm sure." He sounds amused as he quirks a brown eyebrow. He obviously forgot to dye them with his hair. "No hard feelings, really."

I roll my eyes. "Whatever." I elbow past him to the cashier, quickly relinquishing my hold on the underwear. I hand her a five and dump the change in my bag.

"Hey, I didn't mean to offend," he snickers, because obviously he did. "I'm sure Roman Montgomery would be grateful to represent your...womanhood."

"That sounds like sexual harassment," I bite back.

"You're just embarrassed."

I set my jaw. "I'm leaving. Nice...meeting you. Whatever. Asshole." I turn to leave out the automatic doors when I collide into what feels like a brick wall. I stumble. "Shit, excuse me—"

The brick wall scowls and looks at his camera to make sure it isn't broken. He's tall, with tan skin and dark hair pinned back into a gray fedora. There is a white feather—eagle?—twined into his braid. He shoots a look into the store, and I follow his gaze, but the tattooed jerkface isn't there anymore.

Did I imagine him?

"Look where you're going, yeah?" he grumbles, annoyed.

"I'm sorry."

"Won't help me much, doll." He almost knocks me down as he shoves past me into the grocery store.

This is the worst week ever. And it only gets worse when I get back into the condo, and there's Chuck playing tonsil hockey with Mom on the living room couch. Where I will have to sleep.

Now I'm going to have nightmares.

Monday

Chapter Five

It's a dream.

Although, that doesn't seem to deter him. His hand slides up my arm, slowly, the calluses on his fingertips feeling like sandpaper against my skin, and sends gooseflesh rippling up my body. We're swaying on a dance floor. People shift around us, shadows, moving to a song that sounds so familiar. I can't remember the name of it, but he's humming along. I feel his throat vibrates with the notes as I press my face into the nook between his shoulder and neck. He smells like cinnamon and the sticky sweetness of wine.

I want to ask who he is—but then I stop myself. I already know.

He pulls me closer into him. His embrace is like iron, complete, solid. It's a wholeness I can't explain, like there is nowhere safer, and no place I am more welcome or more at home. Like Dad's hugs, but this man is not my father.

The bokeh lights spiral across the dance floor. We're not dancing anymore, but just standing there in the dark, listening to each other breathe, my heart to his, existing.

He says my name, and my eyes draw up to his. They remind me of melted emeralds. My breath catches in my throat.

"Junebug."

I jolt up on the couch.

A sliver of light leaks through the closed curtains, and between them, I can see the morning. The beach is sandy white against cobalt waves. I sit up on the couch, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand. A runner jogs by down on the surf. I watch him, trying to remember my dream. What was it? Something about green...green what? I frown, and silently study the dark condo.

I can still see Dad sitting in the kitchen chair, sipping his morning coffee. Still in those terrible red and yellow swim trunks, belly overlapping his waistband, sunscreen smothering his nose and bald forehead. Sometimes, he passes just out of the corner of my eye, flipping pancakes by the stove, humming "Tequila Sunrise." And sometimes I hear his footsteps, long but light, like he always had pep in his step, coming out of the bathroom.

I blink away the coming tears. The memories I have of him are so insignificant compared to his life, they hardly do him justice. I've almost forgotten what he sounded like, what he smelled like. I'm scared that when I forget, a part of me will die too.

Maybe that part of me, when I finally forget what he looked like when he smiled, will leave me hollow and dry. Maybe I am nothing without my dad.

Sinking back onto the couch, I curl into the blankets and pretend to go back to sleep. It isn't until three in the afternoon until I finally get my lazy butt off the couch, and put on my bathing suit. I refuse to look into the mirror in the bathroom. I know what I'll see. Not enough to be anything. Not enough to be too fat and not enough to be too skinny. Not athletic enough, and not flabby enough. I'm short like my dad, and minimally endowed like my mom.

To put it plainly, I'm a wreck in a bathing suit.

Last night while Mom and Chuck played tonsil hockey, I found a magazine Maggie snuck into my duffle without me noticing. The Juice is probably one of the worst tabloids out there. At least, it's something to read, so I take it down to the pool with me. They didn't get the corner by the beach access. Instead, Chuck is lounged out halfway between the shallow and the deep end. Dad hated this spot. Too much thru-traffic.

I dodge a running kid and flop down in the pool chair beside Darla.

"It's about time you came down. I was beginning to think you'd become a hermit." She gives me a serious look over her sunglasses. She's slick with tanning oil, a beer in one hand, and her phone in the other. "Good gravy, your hair is florescent."

"At least you can't lose me in a crowd." I shrug.

Chancing a cautious glance over at Chuck lying face-down in the pool chair on the other side of her, she leans over to me and whispers, "Why did you dye it? You had beautiful blond hair. Is it because they aren't giving you enough attention? I know after Willy died...things must've been—"

"Hard. Yeah." I flip open the magazine, hoping Darla will get the hint that I don't want to talk about it. I didn't dye my hair to make a statement, or because I don't get enough attention at home. I hate attention, so no attention is a dream come true.

I dyed my hair because I realized you only live once. And, besides, it's not like the Silver Lining has a dress policy.

"You a Holidayer, too?" She perks at the magazine.

"No. My best friend is, though."

"You know, I feel sorry for him. Why on earth would he kill his band mate? You know, rumor has it he got mixed up on drugs. He might have killed her for all we know but he just doesn't remember!"

"She drowned in her bathtub. The judge ruled her death inconclusive, so whether he did or not, he got a lucky break." I flip through the magazine. Faces of unfortunate starlets stare back at me from the pages.

"But even if he didn't do it, it must really be hard when everyone says he did. I mean, if he was a normal person this would just blow over, but he's famous. They'll be talking about this for years."

"Infamous," I correct. "And I really don't feel bad for stars. That's just the risk when you sell yourself to fame."

Darla barks a laugh, reaches over, and pats my upper thigh. "You're your momma's child, that's for sure—a ball-buster." She gets up, collecting her towel and beach bag. "I'm off to get a shower. Got a big night tonight!"

"Have fun." I wave goodbye and turn to the main article in the magazine—the one Maggie has bookmarked with a sticky. READ THIS OR ELSE!

My luck she'll pop-quiz me when I get back, so I might as well try to tough through it.

The article was written a month before Holly Hudson's death. They reprinted it in memory of her. Holly's face stares back at me, fierce and beautiful, her hair a cascade of brown ringlets. A blue and green peacock feather is tucked behind her right ear. Throughout the article, The Juice put in the best pictures of the duo. Having picnics, at the beach, buying coffee, smiling at each other.

I understand why Maggie loves Roman Holiday. They were America's sweetheart couple—or, they were supposed to be. Never quite official, but always skirting around the word. They did everything together—wrote music, attended charity events, recorded in the studio. Sometimes it seemed like Boaz was the odd man out. If anyone, I feel sorry for him. Did anyone ask Boaz how he felt about Holly's death?—and the blame on his best friend and band mate?

The article—We Are Golden—is cliché, but most exposés are. Out of the corner of my eye, Chuck rolls over in his chair and slowly gets up. His entire back is as red as a lobster, and by the way he waddles over to me he can feel it, too. His swim trunks are outrageous—neon yellow and green. Even if I was blind, I couldn't miss him. I can't even read an article in peace.

"Need something?" I ask over the magazine.

"Sherry was wondering if you wanted to go to Dick’s tonight. Shag night, I think?" He shuffles in place nervously. "I’m from Kentucky. We line dance."

I didn’t know he was from Kentucky. What an odd place to be from. No one ever talks about Kentucky. It’s sort of like one of those states in limbo—like North Dakota. "Just move your feet a little and don’t step on hers and you’ll do great."

"Do you shag?"

"My dad taught me." I try to keep reading the article, but he doesn't go away. I close the magazine. "Like, it's a four-four dance, so if you shuffle your feet in four-four you'll be fine. Think the cha-cha Just tell Mom you don't know how. She'll teach you."

"Right...four-four...thanks, Junie."

“No problem.”

He stands there for a moment as if he wants me to say something to keep our enlightening conversation going, but I just want him to leave. He gets the hint after a minute, and begins to shuffle back to his pool chair.

An ungodly shriek echoes over the pool deck. Slowly, I lower my sunglasses. He looks back at me.

"Was that...?"

"Yep." I reply grimly.

The shriek was my name.

I abandon my magazine and hurry up the four flights of stairs to the condo, Chuck quick on my heels. Is someone hurt? Did the bar burn down? When I throw open the door to the condo, Darla is pacing the room, her fingers knit together tightly in worry. Her hair is wet from the shower, a towel wrapped around her middle.

“What’s wrong?” I ask breathlessly.

Chuck almost runs me over in the doorway. His eyes are like a deer in headlights. "Someone hurt?"

“Who burned it down?” I add.

She gives us a strange look. “Burned what down?—No no, I have a date tonight! And I can’t—I still have to get dressed and curl my hair and—”

“And,” Mom interrupts, pouring herself a shot of tequila at the kitchen table. She's been up here the entire time? “She needs you to run to the store.”

Darla nods enthusiastically and whispers very conspicuously into my ear, “Booty call.”

That’s how I end up at the local stop-n-shop for the second evening in a row, buying an economy pack of condoms. I don't even get to change clothes first. Darla shoves me into her outrageous pink muumuu and boots me out the door with a twenty-dollar bill.

Seriously, karma hates me.

I've never bought condoms a day in my life. I've never even held one before—the night with Caspian notwithstanding. In the store, everyone keeps a wide girth from me, probably scared that my bad mood is catching.

I snag the brand Darla wants and situate it in the nook of my arm so it doesn't look too conspicuous. Who am I kidding? I look like I'm buying condoms. The box looks like condoms. It has latex written on the top for God's sake. The only thing I can do is make a quick getaway, but that plan is soon foiled when I get to the checkout and every single cashier is, in classic fashion, is a man. Wonderful.

Old guy with the off-centered bald spot it is.

I massage the bridge of my nose. The things I do for a twenty-dollar bill. Is this even worth a twenty-dollar bill? I mean, seriously. Can't Darla get her own condoms when she's feeling frisky? At the very thought of Darla and some schmuck doing the old hoedown, I want to shove the condoms into the magazine rack by the register and head for the door.

Behind me, a hand reaches over to pick up a Stars from the rack. "'Packed on the Pounds'? That's shitty Photoshop skills."

Goosebumps prickle up my arms. I know that voice. Maybe if I stay still, he won't recognize me. Junebug, you have pink hair. Like fuck he won't.

"Oh man, not as photoshopped as that meat-alicious burger. What is that, a Godzilla-Mac?" Another voice laughs. Great, he has a friend this time, who squats down beside me and snags a Cosmo. He has a ridiculous aquamarine mohawk and so many earrings it looks like he has ear armor—wait. Aquamarine...mohawk? "Ooh! This one's better. How to do a pedi at home. Man, pedis are the shit. I had one done in Santa Monica that one time and my feet felt like holy baptized shit for the rest of the week."

I tilt my head slightly to sneak a peek out of my curtain of hair. Aquamarine mohawk, earring affinity, kilt, combat boots—I might be a bad Roman Holiday fan, but I know Boaz Alexander when I see him. Beside him is my nightmare from last night—tattoos, soda-pop orange hair, emerald eyes.

And, if that's Boaz Alexander then...

Oh, shit.

"Did they scrub the fungus off too?" snickers the tattooed jerkface.

"Bro-ha, you suck." Boaz puts the magazine back. "Hey, I got a killer thought—let's booze ourselves up, drown our wimpy women sorrows, and go midnight-mini-ing? YOLO!"

"Say YOLO one more time and I'm leaving your ass here."

"Bro-ha, you gotta think buoyantly. Be lighter. You're way too doom-n-gloom."

"Maybe I like doom and gloom. Together. In a civil union."

"Right bro, and tonight we can snuggle up in bed with hot chocolate and swap manly stories!" Mohawk rolls his eyes and puts Cosmo back. "I'm going to go get a box of Twinkies. Don't scat on me."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Like last time, bra'?"

"Miss?" the old cashier calls. I whirl my head around, not having noticed that I'm the next in line. Orange-haired Jerkface looks at me then, emerald eyes meeting mine, and as the recognition dawns on his face, it dawns on mine too.

Shit.

His eyes drift down to the jumbo pack of condoms under my arm. A blush begins to creep up the back of my neck, and flood across my face. That sinful, aching grin from last night curls across his lips again. It's cheshire. It's trouble.

“I take mine ribbed, actually," Roman Montgomery says.

Chapter Six

Despite my best friend being a Roman Holiday aficionado, I only know three things about Roman Montgomery. One, he has dark brown hair he likes to style up in a wave. Two, he doesn't have visible tattoos—although there were rumors he had a song quote on his stomach. And three, Roman Montgomery would never, ever be seen in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Apparently, I don't know anything about Roman Montgomery after all.

The longer he holds my gaze, the more I can't write him off as a good look-alike—it's the angle of his nose, the sharpness of his cheekbones, the way one eyebrow is always a little higher than the other. He's gained a little weight since his last interview in GQ, or maybe it's more muscle, I don't know, but it's definitely him.

Suddenly, I jerk my eyes away from his gaze. "Ribbed," I echo.

"Yeah, ribbed. And economy-size. Getting some action with my face on your crotch, aren't you?"

It's supposed to be a joke, that much is clear from the lithe in his voice, but it just makes my stomach churn. Oh, God, he knows I have underwear with his face on them. I am beyond mortified now. The blush on my cheeks is so hot, it probably matches my hair. And he seems entertained by it. "I should be flattered, meeting you here again. Last night we got off on the wrong foot. Let's try again?"

I quickly turn my back to him. Last night I even touted that I hated his band. See, this is why I shouldn't talk to strangers. "No, thanks."

But apparently "no" is not in his vocabulary. He slips around in front of me so smoothly, it could be a dance move. He juts out his tattooed hand. "Hi, it's nice to meet you."

Is this a joke? I’m almost tempted to glance around to see if there are any hidden cameras. His outstretched hand doesn’t waver, waiting for me to accept it, and I have a feeling he'd wait a very long time if he needed to. So, I accept his hand. His callused fingertips feel like sandpaper, but his grip is strong, and warm. "Sure," I offer uncertainly.

He doesn't let go. “Let me buy you ice cream to apologize. I'm often rude, and snarky. It comes with the territory.”

"It's fine, you don't need to—"

"I insist, really."

"I don't think..." My eyes slide down to the box of condoms in my arm. Oh, I get it now. Roman Montgomery, the international playboy. I force a laugh. “I’m sorry, but you're so not my type.”

He catches on too and quickly lets go of my hand. "I didn't mean that. You're not exactly my type either—that came out wrong. I mean you are pretty, don't get me wrong, but I was a dick last night and I want to apologize. I’m not looking for a good time, sweetie.”

I set my jaw. "Don’t call me sweetie, asshole."

He winces again. “Just one ice cream.”

"Why are you so adamant?"

He holds up a finger. "One. Singular. Uno."

"Please, leave me the hell alone." I try to bypass him to the register, but he slithers in front of me again. I narrow my eyes.

"If I guess your favorite ice cream flavor, will you let me take you out for ice cream?"

Crossing my arms over my chest, I study him. I could just save him the trouble and tell him that I dislike ice cream, but there's a small part of me who wants to drag this out as long as possible. Not because he's famous, because I have an allergy to his sort of fame, but because I'm curious. This is a very bad idea, I realize, but I figure since I hate his music they'll be no love lost.

"Three guesses," he says.

"One."

His face falls. "One guess?”

“Yep. One."

“You're that confident in me.”

I roll my eyes. "I'm that confident I want to pay for my damn condoms and leave." I elbow in front of him again to the register and slam down the box of condoms, daring the elderly man to say a single word about them. He scans the box without pause and drones, "Eight seventy-four."

"Add these too will you, Pops?"

The orange-haired jerkface slips a pack of gum onto the conveyor belt and hands the cashier a ten before I can even dig my wallet out of my purse. The old man bags them together as the jerkface dumps the change in the Hope jar. His legs are so long, I don't catch up until we're outside, and by now I'm sure the old man thinks we're together.

Not even if he's the last person on earth!

"Hey! Hey! Slow down! What about your friend? Boaz? Hello? Are you even—?"

"Listening, yes." He stops abruptly and turns back around. I stop on my heels before I collide into him. "And Boaz can take care of himself."

I try to snatch the bag out of his grip again, but he holds it over my head. "No fair," I growl.

"Vanilla,” he replies without a fragment of hesitation, “dipped in that cherry stuff.”

I stop trying to reach the bag and squint up at him. “How did you...?”

He shrugs. “I'm good like that, what can I say?" He drops my bag of condoms into my hands. "So? Am I right?"

Obviously, he is, and he already knows that. I grumble, stashing the bag into my purse.

"I'm sorry, what did you say? You weren't quite loud enough—"

"Yes," I snap.

He flashes another one of his brilliantly deceiving smiles. "Hell yeah! I'm good. Boo-yah!"

"Just this once!" I add as he hops over the curb and into the Emporium's gravel parking lot. Under my breath I add, "I really don't want to give you the wrong idea..."

But I think I already have.

The neon sign blinks sporadically in the window of the shop. The Emporium itself is a crusty white shack with ashen gray picnic tables scattered around the gravel lot. A gaggle of girls cut their eyes at the rock star as he passes, giving him a once-over. Can they tell who he is, too? My heart begins to speed up—I don't know why. Why would I care if they did recognize him? But then they turn back to their phones as if he's just another hipster with orange hair and red suspenders. He leans against the order window where two disgruntled teens push back and forth in the cramped kitchen, twisting around each other in a strange half-hearted dance. He knocks on the glass and waves.

"Evening guys." He flashes the girl the same cheshire smile he did me, but unlike me, she swoons. “Gimme one of those vanilla cones dipped in cherry, and a Titanic for yours truly.”

“O-Of course!" the mousy girl chirps.

I don't think she even notices me. Roman Montgomery was on the ballot for Sexiest Man of the Year last year, beaten out by Ryan Gosling. This year, I'm not sure he'd make the list—not with his mismatching hair and eyebrows, that's for sure. Although, in the streetlight his hair looks more bronzy than orange, sort of like a tarnished gold, but his roots are already beginning to show dark growth. He must've dyed it between grocery shopping in Montana on Saturday and meeting him last night. Or was the guy in Montana even him?

He cuts his eyes over and wiggles an eyebrow, having noticed me staring. Embarrassed, I downturn my eyes to my Chucks, another hot blush creeping onto my cheeks.

“Something wrong?” he teases, retrieving our ice creams. "Here you go. Let’s sit over there.” He points to a vacant picnic table.

I hesitate. “After you.”

“Sure thing, mademoiselle.” He starts down the row before a kid careens between two picnic tables, hyper-crazed on sugar, and almost bodychecks him, but the rock star twists out of the way just in time, and falls down on one side of the table. I slide into the other.

"Nice save," I commend. "That was a close one."

"I've been on the other end of one of those collisions before." He laughs, scooping up a spoonful of chocolate. He ordered this massive sundae that probably should be titled 'Everything But the Kitchen Sink.' “You’re still giving me a weird look.”

Do I tell him I know him? Or that his cover is safe with me? Or that I'm really sorry for saying that I hated Roman Holiday? Or ask how he's going to eat all of that?

I lean in and say in a hushed voice, "It's just you look really familiar.”

"Must be the hair. Just a forewarning, if you bleach your naturally red-tinged , it evolves into this." He points his spoon to his hair. "You know anyone with orange hair?"

"No, but I know someone with a crush on you," I say his song title very slowly so he understands the implication, and his eyes grow wide. His eyes are so green they seem to light up from the inside out like Christmas lights. Green.

Like from the dream.

He clears his throat and pokes at his ice cream. "What gave it away?"

"YOLO," I reply, mimicking a mohawk with my free hand.

"Ah."

A group of girls are watching him again. I swear they're the same ones from last night, still in their florescent pink SAVE HOLIDAY shirts. Maybe they have one for every day of the week. Wouldn't surprise me, knowing Holiday fans. I'm betting by Thursday, half the population of Myrtle Beach will be wearing them. One girl raises her phone to take a picture. The rock star quickly turns his face away.

Why am I always so nice?

I lean closer to him over the picnic table, and say in a loud enough voice for the girls to hear, "So, Evan, what brings you to this neck of the woods?"

Hesitation flickers through his eyes for a moment. "Evan?" he mouths and I give him a meaningful look. He plays along. "Just traveling," he replies loudly. "I'm a—um—shoe salesman!"

"Seriously?" I say under my breath. Well, I never thought he was creative, anyway. "Sounds like fun!"

"Lots!"

The girls turn back to their ice creams, their shoulders slumping. He mouths a "thank you." I bite through the top of my cherry crust in reply, and cringe a little at the sweetness.

"Something wrong?" he asks.

"Just haven't had ice cream in a while."

"They don't have ice cream where you live?" he jokes.

"They do, everywhere. And it's Asheville."

"Oh, the hipster town with the bowtie. Passed through it once or twice." He eats another spoonful of chocolate ice cream. "Why don't you indulge in ice cream?"

"I just don't."

"There must be a reason," he prods.

I divert the question. "You're here for the vigil?"

"Just passing through," he replies, not answering my question. "Living in a small town sounds claustrophobic.”

“Not living anywhere sounds lonely.”

He shrugs. "You get to meet a lot of interesting people." Taking his cherry off the top of his mountain of ice cream, he twirls it between his fingers. “Like you. Like her" —he nods briefly to the girl who took his order— "life experiences. Seeing who buys discounted underwear.” He pops the cherry into his mouth and rolls it around.

I huff. “I forgot to pack mine, okay? So sue me. Haven't you forgotten anything important?”

“Not underwear.”

I scowl. “Excuse me, Mr. Perfect.”

“Not perfect,” he notes, and then takes something out of his mouth. He holds it up to me. It’s the cherry stem, tied in a perfect not. “But very damn near close.”

The speakers outside of the Emporium fade from Taylor Swift to the DJ calling out a wrap-up of the week’s music events. Bon Jovi's new CD, some rock star’s divorce from an A-list actress, and—"All you Holidayers out there getting ready for this week's vigil, St. Michael's Cemetery has said that they will restrict entrance to the cemetery on accounts of too much foot traffic."

He frowns, annoyed, glaring up at the speaker hanging from the corner of the Emporium. I eat the rest of my cone and wipe my sticky fingers on my pink muumuu. "Ten bucks says the next song is 'Ever for Always.'"

His frown disappears, replaced by a curious eyebrow quirk. “Why'd you say that?”

I shrug. "Easy, I have a radio heart. I'm very confident.”

As if on cue, the familiar catchy beat floods over the picnic area, and the table of tween girls next to us squeal in unison and wave their cell phones high in the air like lighters. They begin to sing along.

He gives them a pained look. "A radio heart, huh?" he asks. "Can it turn the station?"

I genuinely laugh. "No, but give the opening notes of a song, and I'll name it. I'll even go so far as to name the band. I'm that good."

"No shit. And how did you achieve this great gift?"

"My dad was a music junky. I mean, vinyl was like crack to him, so I guess I just followed in his footsteps. I remember when I was little, we'd go on these mini-vacations into the mountains or to the beach, and he'd play this game with me where we scanned the stations, and the first one to name that song won. Good times."

"Sounds like it." He nods appreciatively and shovels a spoonful of strawberry ice cream into his mouth. The silence between us stretches. I shift, uncomfortable. The tween girls howl, "I’ll be with you ever-forever, and always for always. We are going to be for-ever and ever and for always for always for ever."

"Do you wanna get out of here?" I ask, trying not to sound too urgent.

The DJ, a guy who can't seem to get the sports-casting announcer out of his voice, follows up the song, "And now, a special world-premiere event! Are you ready? Here's Jason Dallas's new single, 'Shotgun Heartache.' Remember you heard it here first! WOKK 95! Myrtle's number one pop music station."

He groans. "Oh, God, not him."

"You don't like him?"

"He's a prick. And yeah, let's go."

The song, an emo-rock memoriam to My Chemical Romance, pulses over the picnic area.

I mock-gasp. "What? This is my favorite song!"

"This is a world-premiere. You've never heard it before," he deadpans.

I sniff indignantly. "Well, maybe I like it already." It is sort of catchy.

"I don't think this is your type of song." He grins, shaking his head, and begins to get up, swooping his legs over the bench.

"And why's that? You don't even know me."

"My best friend" —Holly, I realize— "used to say there are songs that resonate with you. They're songs that do more than just mean something—they're songs you want to light a candle to. And this? I don't think 'Shotgun Heartache' is your song.”

"You're probably right," I agree, following him to the edge of the lot. "So what is my song, oh All-Knowing-Rock-Star."

He runs his thumbs underneath his suspenders thoughtfully. "You look like you listen to the Boss."

"I also dig some pretty mean Meat Loaf," I reply, "but no cigar."

"You can resist Meat Loaf?" He takes his spoon in hand like a microphone and belts the opening lyrics to 'I Will Do Anything For Love,' which runs straight into a question I almost miss.

I give him a blank stare. “Say what?”

"I asked," he tosses the spoon into the garbage can in the corner of the lot, "what're you doing Wednesday night?"

"As in...like..."

"Like what are you doing Wednesday night?" he repeats, and turns around to face me when I stop.

As in a date? I want to ask. I have a boyfriend. But do I, really? I shift on my feet uncomfortably.

"Never mind, it was a stupid question," he begins to say, but for some reason I catch him by the back of his suspenders.

"I'm not doing nothing," I reply, and for the first time I think his smile is genuine. "I mean, I'm doing absolutely nothing. Nothing at all."

"Now you are."

Chapter Seven

The wind on the beach at night has a certain biting chill to it. I shove my hands into my muumuu pockets and shiver. Wearing nothing but my bathing suit and a cover-up was a genius plan. Thank you, Darla. I check my phone to see how late it is. She said she wasn't going out until eight. It's seven-thirty. Not too late yet, right?

Roman Montgomery walks beside me, slowly, and I wonder where he's staying. Not that I want to shove him off quite yet. It’s actually kind of...nice, walking with him. And it's definitely not the fame talking. I'm still waiting for his rumored Godzilla-sized ego to ruin everything, but he's genuinely just quiet. And when he looks at me, his eyes look lonely.

"So where are we going Wednesday?"

He tsks. "That's a secre—oooff!” He runs smack into a dumpster, and recoils with a metallic bong. I howl with laughter. "Ow, fuck! How did that get there?" He winces as he touches his nose and pulls away blood.

Gingerly, I cup his face and inspect his nose, nodding. “I think you’ve successfully contracted karma,” I confirm.

“Karma? What the hell for?"

"For making fun of me yesterday—and today."

He can't argue with that. "I said I was sorry. I won't grovel."

"Poor wittle rock stars can't grovel?" I baby-talk. An annoyed scowl crosses his face as he pulls away from me. Good grief, it was supposed to be a joke. I roll my eyes and nudge my head toward CherryTree. “Come on, I’ll get you some ice for that.”

"Maybe some nose plugs too," he adds, and follows me to the condo.

By the time I unlock the condo door, blood is dripping down his face and onto his black shirt. At least black doesn't show stains.

“Mom, Chuck?” I poke my head into the condo. No one's home. Strange. Before I forget, I dig the box of condoms out of my purse and set them on the kitchen counter where Darla can see them when she comes knocking. Which will probably be any second now, knowing my luck. I grab a towel and fill it with ice cubes from the cooler.

Roman tilts back his head as he turns on the faucet to clean himself up. I hand him a dishtowel wrapped over ice, and he presses it against his nose. He hisses as the cold touches his skin. Then, for the first time, he surveys the condo. It must be nothing like he's used to. There are no TVs in bathroom mirrors or liquor cabinets—unless you count the cooler full of beer. “So you rent this out with your parents?”

“Yeah, for a week. We've rented it since…well, since forever. As long as I can remember.”

He wanders into the living room, and looks down at all of the little knickknacks we’ve unpacked, the playing cards, the koozis, the guide books for the week, and then he zeros in on the one thing I should've tossed. He stoops and picks up The Juice. The headline reads, ‘THE END OF ROCK SENSATION ROMAN HOLIDAY.’

“Yeah…my best friend snuck that into my duffle,” I say as an excuse, making a note to kill Maggie once I get home. “She’s obsessed with, um, your band..."

“Are you?” he asks nonchalantly, flipping through the issue with one hand.

“Am I, what?”

He snaps it closed and inspects me. “Obsessed. I know you said you hated Holiday at the store, but really? The truth, please."

"Okay, the truth." I take the magazine from his hand and toss it into the Jacuzzi with the pool floats and beach towels. “The truth is, your songs are super corny. Occasionally horrible—no offense. If I’m a fan of anything, it’s how they—you—revolutionized pop culture. You and Holly Hudson could actually sing. Your parents didn't buy you fame or put in a few good words to cooperate. Didn't you start out as a garage band or something?"

"In my dad's garage," he confirms, his face not giving away his thoughts.

"I mean, because of y'all now everyone else can really ask themselves, 'Why not me? Why can't I?' Even if I don't like your songs...I sort of like the story behind you. That anything's possible..." I force a laugh and pull my hair over one of my shoulders. "I wish you would've asked Mags this question instead of me. She could write you an entire dissertation on your left pinky."

"That's actually kind of scary."

"She loves your band."

"And apparently my left pinky."

I shrug. "It's the price of fame, right?"

There's something in his face that changes then. Bitterness, I think. "Yeah. What a price."

"I mean—I didn't mean..."

"No, you're right. The price of fame." He flunks down on the couch and tilts his head back to rest the ice pack comfortably over his nose. I get two sodas from the refrigerator and sink down on the couch beside him, handing him one. "Thanks," he murmurs as Def Leopard’s "Rock of Ages" blasts from my purse, and I jump up to get it.

It's... Caspian.

I swallow the knot in my throat and let him go to voicemail. “Male suitor?”

I glance over at him. "Telemarketer," I lie.

"Ah. I hate those. I always pretend like I'm—"

"Indian, right? Welcome to Havar's Indian Cuisine," I adopt my best Indian accent, a miserable attempt he chuckles at.

"I prefer not to mock a culture." Then he clears his throat and barks, "Hello, you've reached Bendo's Massive Dildos, where our girth is your pleasure—"

Laughing, I pick up a throw and shove it against his face. He falls dramatically onto his side. "You're horrible."

"Press one for more sizes," he adds before I hit him again with the pillow. "Press Two to start your Sex Phone trial, where you'll never find more pleasure in another receiver."

"You're horrible!"

"And yet startlingly good at it," he adds and begins to grin, but then, as if realizing something horrible, his face drops and he gets to his feet. "Sorry, I need to get going."

“Oh,” I frown, glancing at the clock on the microwave. It's only eight o'clock. I see him to the door. He looks at the makeshift icepack in his hands and stretches it out to me, but I wave it back to him. “Oh no, all yours…a souvenir.”

"From the night I met the pink-haired radio heart."

“Just Junie."

The edges of his lips twitch up into the first signs of a real smile. He holds out the hand not holding his icepack. “It was nice meeting you, Junebug.”

I accept his hand, and we shake like...friends? Acquaintances? I'm not sure, but it feels significant, like the moment just after you put on a new CD and the white noise fills your car, just before the first actual notes when you're thinking this could be amazing. "You too, Roman."

He salutes before he leaves, fading down the hallway like a ghost. Will Wednesday come at all?

A voice snaps me out of my thoughts.

"Junie! Thank God, you're back!" Coming out of the condo next door, Darla embraces me. She's decked to the nines in silver jewelry and a form-fitting cocktail dress, ponytail pulled back into ringlets. She's curvy and beautiful and confident in a way I don't think I'll ever be. "I was beginning to worry you'd gotten lost!"

"Sorry," I reply earnestly and retrieve the condoms from the kitchen counter. Holding the door open with my heel, I hand them to her. "Hope it's not too late?"

"Oh, honey, the night doesn't start until ten!" She winks, tossing the pack between her hands like she doesn't care who knows she likes ribbed deluxe condoms. Like Maggie. Her eyes migrate down the hallway after the orange-headed boy, but by now he's long gone. "Was I imagining voices earlier?"

I decide to play dumb. "Voices?"

"I swear you were talking to someone..."

"I talk to myself a lot."

"Huh." She frowns but decides to let it go. "Thanks a bunches again, hon, you saved me. Now all we need to do is find you a looker, huh?" She kisses my cheek before leaving to meet her shadow of the night. I close the door behind me, and fall face-first into the couch.

Only Dad ever called me Junebug. He used to say it in a slow, southern drawl, as if my name was a rumble of adoration in his chest.

“Junebug, going with me to that boat show today?”

“Hey, see if we got any pale ale, Junebug.”

“Junebug, I love ya girl.”

“Goodnight, Junebug. Sweet dreams.”

I don't remember when he first called me that, but I remember the times that meant the most, when he called me his Junebug, as if I was no one else’s in the world. I was special when he called me that, one of a kind.

Then, this stranger calls me Junebug. He says my name slowly, lingering on the u, softening the g, as if my name is…

As if my name means something again.

As if it’s a secret the two of us know.

Tuesday

Chapter Eight

I have four more days until I can return to a normal life.

Stretching, I fix myself a cup of coffee and close myself out on the balcony so I don’t wake up Mom and Chuck. I check my phone. Caspian left a voicemail last night, so I should probably call him back and be a good invisible girlfriend. But I find myself on Twitter instead, searching for Roman Montgomery sightings. I'm not obsessed. I'm really not.

There isn't a single picture of us from last night—thank God. One person said she saw him in Myrtle Beach, but no one believed her.

Exiting out of Twitter, I dial my best friend's number. She picks up in two rings. “Good morning, bb,” I greet happily. "How's work hanging?”

"Like how bad do I want to hang myself or how low Mrs. Jackie's hemorrhoids are hanging today?"

"I'm sort of disgusted you know the second one."

"She talks. A lot," Maggie deadpans. "Like, her voice echoes in the library."

The palm trees sway against the breeze. The condo is on the fourth floor, so we're eye-level with the top of them. Cyclists move in lines across the beach, leaving thin trails in their wake like comet tails.

“I met someone last night.”

“Ooh!" Maggie's voice raises an octave with interest. "Do tell! Cute? Tall? Hunky? Dorky? Sneezy?"

"And he lives with six other men in a cottage by the woods, sure."

"I always loved the polygamous type. Is he hot at least?"

"Yeah," I reply, trying not to think about that one half-naked poster of him in Maggie's bedroom.

"On a scale from one to fuckable?"

"Super fuckable. And I'll probably never see him again."

"Oh, you know what they say, never say never."

"Where have I heard that before?"

"Besides," she goes on, "he can't possibly be comparable to Roman Montgomery. Oh, hunky piece of hipster manflesh...I just read a new amazing scoop on John's blog. Well, it isn't really amazing. It actually kinda sucks."

My stomach twists. I sip my coffee to try and loosen my nerves. The coffee is warm and bitter, just the way Dad would've liked it. "How does it suck?"

“Like, no one can find him so the music company they're signed with, you know, Muse Records? They’ve got Renee Prosperity and Jason Dallas, too?”

Renee Prosperity has a ‘true love’ fetish, and Jason Dallas is as emo as a black crayon. "Jason Dallas's new song isn't that bad. I mean, for an emo pop-rock—"

“Are you even listening? Roman has no contract anymore! I mean, it's like duh because you can't have a band that doesn't want to be found, but still. I think my heart broke a thousand times when I read that. The record company even gave their Madison Square gig to Jason Dallas. This is huge, Junes.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “This is bad.”

Does Roman even know this? I remember the bitterness in his eyes last night. He probably does. “What if he just doesn’t want to be found?”

“Or maybe he does but he’s been kidnapped and locked in some crazed fangirl's closet, screaming for help but only we can save him and—”

I interrupt her. "Have you been watching those Korean dramas again?"

The line quiets for a moment. "Maybe."

Rolling my eyes, I slouch down in the chair and prop my feet up on the railing. I watch a seagull hover in the air, cutting against the beach breeze. “Mags, think about it. What does he have to come back to? What in the world could he miss more than his best friend slash love interest slash whatever the hell Holly was?”

If Maggie replies, she does it in her own mind, because the next I know she's drilling me about the boy I barely met last night. “How tall is he? Hair color? Social Security number? Oh! I forgot to tell you yesterday, I saw Cas with some guy yesterday. Tall, dark-haired...totally McDreamy material. I didn't recognize him at first but bb, it was Geoff. Like, out in the wild. I NEVER see him outside the Lining. Did you know they knew each other? They were having coffee down at the Bean. Now, I wouldn't mind getting between those two hunks of manflesh. Mmmh."

No, I didn't know that my head bartender and my secret boyfriend knew each other. It surprises me, actually. I thought Cas hated the Lining. “Cas doesn’t even like coffee,” I murmur more to myself than to her.

“He sure seemed to be enjoying it.”

A kid takes off from across the pool deck and goes kamakazi-ing into the deep end after a beach ball. The poor kid belly flops and sends a tidal wave across the pool. He pops his head up, and goes paddling after the ball.

"Anyway, my smoke break's up. Yay, summer reading. Do you think I can get away with pretending to have mono for a week?"

"I doubt they'd buy it."

"True. I'll try hemorrhoids instead. Have fun without me, loser!" She makes a kissing noise over the phone and hangs up.

I melt down into the hard plastic chair like chocolate on summer cement and can't help but wonder if Cas just doesn't like coffee with me.

Chapter Nine

A knock raps against the door. At first, I think it’s the TV, but Nick Lively is doing a special on Jason Dallas's new BLACKHEARTED tour and how it's taking over Roman Holiday's gig at the Garden. With his swoony black guyliner and tricky crooked smile, I figure he's already sold the place out.

When the knock comes again, I finally roll off the couch.

“Coming…” I mutter, annoyed, and reach up on my tiptoes to peek through the peephole. It’s dark, which means some asshole has their finger over the eye. It’s probably Chuck, since he’s as mature as a two-year old. I twist open the lock and poke my head outside. "You know, there's a reason God invented peepholes—"

Orange hair. Suspenders. Game of Thrones t-shirt, a pair of cut-off jeans, and blazingly red Vans. Definitely not Chuck. He gives a timid wave. “Uh, hi.”

“You.”

“Yep...me.” He hesitates in the doorway, pulling at his earlobe. “Listen, I just want to talk to you about last night...”

My hand grips the doorknob tightly, because I sort of figured this would happen. He's famous, and I'm just a girl from rural North Carolina. Girls like me are never with guys like him—not that I ever entertained the idea...outside of my dreams, anyway. Stupid dreams—why can't I ever dream about good things? Wholesome things? Things that will not send my mind straight into the gutter or to the half-naked poster of him on Maggie's wall? “Yeah, no, it’s fine. Don't worry, my lips are sealed. I don't even have a Twitter account, so you are super safe—”

He hesitates, running his thumbs up and down his suspenders. “That's not what I meant.”

“It's not like anything happened, you know," I add dismissively. "We're fine. It's fine.” But it's not fine, because my heart hammers in my ribcage at the sight of him. “Don’t worry, we all have our dirty little secrets.”

I'm just more familiar with them than most people.

His eyes widen. "Dirty little...no, that's definitely not what I meant. Last night was—it wasn't..." He's having a hard time finding the right words, which means he's a good guy. Guess the tabloids were wrong, or perhaps people change.

People can change, right? Isn't that the whole human condition? A playboy rock star turning into a golden-hearted hipster?

Maybe in my dreams.

I wave it off. “Really, don’t worry about it. We're cool. I had...fun last night.”

He nods, rubbing the back of his neck, a little defeated. “Yeah, okay. Okay. So, that's really all..."

"Yeah, it's fine."

"Okay." Slowly, he steps back, and then another step, pulling his hands into his pockets to try and make himself shrink into the scenery. He did that last night, too, when we were walking home, as if he wanted to be invisible. That must be awfully lonely, even with Boaz.

"But," I add, and he stops in his tracks. "If you're not busy...I could use some company for dinner?."

"And why would you think I'd be busy?"

"Being an AWOL rock star and all."

He walks back to the door and leans against the doorframe, an amused look charming his face. "I might can squeeze in a desert too, if you're not too busy."

I mock-gasp. "And why would you think I'd be busy?"

"Oh, you know," he retorts, "going to dinner with an AWOL rock star and all." Then he rakes his emerald gaze down the length of my body, and I blush. I knew I should've gotten dressed before four. "You have a very charming fashion sense. Is that vintage Stones?"

I nod sheepishly. "And my pajamas. Give me thirty?" I ask.

He flicks his wrist toward himself to check his non-existent watch. "You have ten minutes."

I don't move. "You can't be serious."

"Seven…"

"I thought you said ten!"

"Nine, then."

"That's funny."

"Eight…"

And what would I wear? My Roman Holiday underwear and...what? The floral dress Maggie begged me to pack because it was "simply adorbs" on me? I look like a walking flower garden in it.

"Five…"

Oh, what the hell.

"Give me twenty!" I start for the bathroom door, but on second thought, I spin around and jab my finger into his face. "No more running into dumpsters, got it?"

"Dumpsters?" He looks positively horrified. There's a slight bruise on the bridge of his nose where he bodychecked the one from last night. "Oh, God, they're after me again?!"

"Drama queen." I roll my eyes and close myself into the bathroom. Twenty-seven minutes later as I straighten the last of my hair, the bathroom door flies open. Roman unplugs my straightener. I squawk in protest. "Hey, I'm not—"

"You are so done."

"It's only been like—"

"Thirty minutes. You look beautiful. Let's go." He wraps his arms around my middle and picks me up, carrying me out the door. I'm so stunned, I simply let him. He called me beautiful.

Roman Montgomery, probably the sexiest, strangest man at the beach, called me beautiful.

And he doesn't tell me to keep it a secret.

Chapter Ten

The Strand smells like old cigarette smoke and greasy fair food. Vendors hawking painted conch shells and oriental fans litter the boardwalk in front of old retro diners and ice cream shops, beach museums and gaming pits. The entire boardwalk is built on rotten planks of wood hovering precariously over the waves. I used to be scared one of the planks would break and I'd fall into the ocean, but I think they replace the rotten boards with fresh ones every so often.

"Didn't there used to be a roller coaster here?" Roman asks, frowning at the expanse of weeds and dirt that takes up an entire block.

"Yeah," I reply, shrugging. "They tore it down. Owners couldn't afford to keep it open...but I think the roller coaster moved to another amusement park down the street."

"The really small one with the weird kid rides?" He makes a face.

"I know, right? Ghastly."

"I hate that everything changes." He shoves his hands into his pockets, looking across the hills of grass and dirt that used to the The Pavilion. "Sort of unfair, you know? Everything changes and suddenly you feel like one of those bent puzzle pieces."

"Yeah," I reply, surprised because we feel the same way, and set my eyes down the Strip of colored lights and people, "unfair."

At night, the strip turns into a whirling, twisting stream of lights and colors. Carnival bulbs and neon lights illuminate everything as the pops and hisses and boings and whirs of games and cooking grease and children playing skeet ball crash together in idiosyncratic harmony. When was the last time I came to the Strand? I can't remember.

Maybe it was when the magic of deep-fried Oreos wore off, or maybe it was when I realized that the carnival games were rigged, and the moving statues that line the boardwalk are really people.

Everything is achingly familiar, as if I can just turn around and Dad will be right behind me, asking to shag at the bandstand or share a corndog. It was on this boardwalk that he taught me how to dance, my feet atop his, as we shimmied to "Good Rockin’ Tonight" and "Brown Eyed Girl." Do they even play shag music on the Strand at night anymore?

I rub the ache in my chest, hoping Roman doesn't notice, and lean against the railing. Waves knock against the boardwalk, trash mixed with the flotsam and jetsam. A flock of seagulls swoops overhead, picking abandoned French fries and corndogs off the ground.

He leans against the railing next to me, and spits over the edge. Like a kid, I swear.

I turn around and gather my hair over my shoulder. “What’s it like singing in front of a crowd?”

"Odd question. What brought this up?"

I shrug. "My family owns a bar—the Silver Lining. Bands play there sometimes, and I've just wondered. I'm a shitty singer, and I can't play an instrument worth my life, so I'll never know."

"That's an odd name for a bar," he comments.

"So is Roman Holiday for a band."

He tips further over the edge of the railing, giving in. “Imagine being blinded by stage lights. Not knowing where anyone is, but you can feel a million eyes on you, staring at you, like you are the middle of the universe. And the noise...it roars." He pulls himself straight again, closing his eyes, as if he's there, imagining the sound. "It drowns out everything—absolutely everything. This sound...it's transient and consuming. I feel alive when I'm up there, Junebug, like my blood is on fire and every note just consumes me. It’s crazy.”

I cock my head. "Then why don't you go back? You and Boaz? Start over? The Madison Square gig, I'm sure you could still play."

He finally opens his eyes, and his eyebrows furrow. For a moment, I don't think he'll answer me, but then his shoulder slump a little and he shakes his head softly, as if even entertaining the idea makes him tired. "We can't always get what we want."

Timidly, I set my hand on top of his on the railing. His hand is warm and soft, as I curl my fingers into his palm. "There's a silver lining to everything," I say.

He looks down at my hand and smiles, bringing it up to his lips, and kisses my knuckles. A thank you. Warmth blooms in my belly, and flushes against my cheeks. "How about some pizza?" he asks instead. "Agreeable enough?"

Chapter Eleven

Roman stops in mid-step in front of an airbrush parlor, and I run smack into the back of him. “Oof! Hey, at least gimme a head’s up when you stop—”

A man with inky black hair surfaces from the surf shop next door. The man from the stop-n-shop a few nights ago. The eagle feather is pinned into the ribbon on his gray fedora tonight. He picks into his bag of cotton candy for a blue puff and eats it.

Roman grabs my forearm. My eyebrows scrunch. "Do you know him?"

"Nope"—and suddenly he shoves me into the airbrush parlor, leading me behind a clothes turnstile, and grabs a dorky Myrtle Beach hat from the top of it. He holds it over the side of our faces toward the street, our faces so close his hot breath warms my lips, too close for comfort but too far for anything real to happen.

Maybe he'll...

His eyes nervously watch the reflective mirror that shows the street, and it deflates me just a little, disheartened, that he doesn't even notice. The man passes slowly, searching over the racks of clothes. Roman jerks me down below the clothes rack until the man finally passes. After a minute, he pulls away and returns the hat to its proper place as if nothing happened. I turn to the cashier to make sure she’s giving us a funny look, and sure enough, she is.

Okay, so that actually happened.

"Roman?" I go to grab his shirt but my hand comes up empty. I pale. "Roman?" The orange of his hair hangs a right out of the store. "ROMAN!" I run out of the store after him and catch up a few feet down. “What was that for?”

“What was what for?”

“Please, don’t do that.”

“Do what? I’m starving. Where's this pizza place again?"

"You're impossible."

"Impossibly possible," he corrects. "Ah-hah! I knew it was over here somewhere."

I scowl and follow him into the nearby pizza joint. It's a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant with cheap beer and free smells. Locals scatter across the dry-rotted booths, watching some soccer team at the World Series on the small TV in the corner. We order two sodas and a large olive and mushroom pizza, and sit down at one of the cracked vinyl booths. The lighting is low, and terrible, and the walls are this horrendous eggshell white with kitschy Italian pictures and signs strung up with duct tape. The pizza is the sort you can fold in half, and watch the grease trickle down onto your plate like water.

Roman takes another slice, popping a fallen mushroom into his mouth. "How the hell do you like mushroom and olives?" he asks between chews.

"I should be asking you the same thing. Weirdo," I tease.

"Oh, yeah we are." He lifts his soda and we clink glasses. "It's a wonder you're single—you are single, aren't you?" he adds, more curious than nervous.

I shrug, eating another olive. "I dunno. I've been too busy for a relationship. I mean...there's a guy, but it's nothing serious. He's about to go off to college, and I'm about to stay put. When we started seeing each other I was...in a bad place. Then he came, acting like my broken was nothing, like he knew he could shake me once and listen to all the broken bits of me rattle around, and everything would be fine—that I am broken, but still loved and still wanted. Not beautiful, but enough."

"Enough...I like that. The whole notion of it. My manager told us to be perfect, to be examples. We weren't good enough. We had to be better. What a different world I'd live in if he just wanted Holly, Boaz, and me to be enough."

I look down at my uneaten crust of pizza. "Too bad it's a faulty notion. Because being enough is never good enough."

"I think your hair is pink enough," he offers.

"And I think your hair is orange enough. But it's not good enough, right? You can't honestly say you were aiming for that color."

His nose scrunches. "You're right. I wasn't. Were you aiming for that pink?"

"I wasn't really aiming for anything," I reply, picking another olive off my next slice. I can only eat half of it while he devours the rest of the pizza. "Must be nice, not having to watch your weight."

"Are you kidding?" he downs the last bite with a gulp of soda. "I ate nothing but salads for three years straight. I had to buy new jeans four months ago. Living on Ramen noodles is killing my figure."

"Isn't that a shame. You had such nice abs too," I joke, but he just gives me this pained look. "Mag's has that poster, yeah," I clarify, "then one where you're all, you know...ripped."

"That really doesn't surprise me. Ready to go?"

"Whenever you are."

He takes my hand, fingers lacing into mine, and pulls me out of the booth. We blend into the swelling evening crowd, and follow them across the boardwalk. A sign pointing toward the beach access is lit up by a flood of lights, and we follow the arrow onto the sand. The beach at night reminds me of those old grainy black and white movies, the moon painting everything in monochromatic colors. The stars shimmer as if they're fireflies stuck in a vat of molasses.

He flunks down on the sand, spreading his legs wide. “I always thought I'd retire to the beach. What do you think, this a good enough spot to start?”

I sink down beside him and dig my toes into the sand. “My dad used to say the same thing." It feels so strange to bring Dad into conversation, but in the good sort of way. Like when you can't hold a sneeze in any longer.

“Yeah? My dad did too." He shakes his head, running the thick white sand through his hands. "He said that the fast times are never as fun as you think they are."

“You've had a few of those, I guess."

He exhales slowly. “Yeah, I have." His orange hair glows like frozen fire from the light pollution on the Strand. After a moment, he tilts his head to the side, as if something flicked his ear. “Do you hear that?”

"The...waves?"

He rolls his eyes. "No, listen."

I cock my head, but all I can hear is the roar of the ocean. “I don’t hear anything."

"Yeah, you do." Then he begins to hum. I recognize the tune immediately, and my ears prickle at the sound of faint, but real, music. A band, somewhere, is playing a song. The bandstand does play shag music at night after all.

I grin. "Van Morrison. 'Into the Mystic.'"

He leans into me, his shoulder knocking against mine, and begins to murmur the lyrics in a soft and warm baritone, as sweet as honey. Caspian was never this romantic—this is romance, isn't it? The way he looks at no one but me, his eyes filled with more than what his mouth can ever say. But I feel myself inexplicably drawn into him, like the opposite side of a magnet. We are so close, the heat from our skin hovers between us like a force the chilling beach breeze can't sweep away, electrified a thousand times over. The smell of the sea mingles with his scent, so intoxicating it feels like a dream. Cinnamon and merlot. All I want to do is sink into him, into the mystic—my heart so full of sound and sea and sky it could burst.

I've never felt like this before, not with Caspian, not with anyone. With Caspian it was always give and take, but then after a while I gave so much it began to feel like I was supposed to and Caspian always took, always expected it. I don't feel like Roman expects anything at all, or if he does it isn't obvious to me, and I think I like this sort of friendship, the type that isn't based on merits and gifts, but moments and memories and songs.

His voice grows softer as the song finally winds to a close and my stomach dips because I don't want it to end. I am in big, big trouble.

"Roman?" My voice is timid and foreign to my ears. His fingers brush lightly against my cheek as he pulls a stray strand of pink hair behind my ear. My face turns toward his hand to feel his warm fingertips against my cheek again. Caspian is ten thousand leagues out of my mind.

"Yeah, Junebug?"

"I'm glad I met you."

Down the beach, a group of college kids from Coastal Carolina light a squadron of roman candles into the night sky, sparks of white that, from a distance, look like shooting stars. They howl as the sparks fade into the darkness. I almost jump out of my skin, startled by the sound. Roman blinks and shakes his head as if snapping out of a daydream.

“It’s getting late,” he mutters suddenly, and jumps to his feet. “Aren’t your parents worried?”

Anger flushes over my cheeks. "No. I'm not a kid!"

"How old are you?" he calls over his shoulder as he begins to leave. "Sixteen?"

I fist my hands, marching after him. "Almost nineteen! Fuck you very much!"

"Same differe—" His foot catches a sinkhole and he faceplants into the sand. I squat down beside him. He props himself up on his elbows and gives a long, tired sigh. "Karma's a bitch."

"Apology accepted," I reply, and jut out my hand to help him up.

Chapter Twelve

You'd think Roman would drive a Bentley or a BMW, a sleek car with way too much money spent on the rims. Nope. He drives a crappy-ass Mentos green VW Rabbit. And when I say crappy, I mean that very modestly. This car looks like it runs on duct tape and prayers. Mid-90s. Rusted hubcaps. Tan pleather seats—the works. I glance into the backseat to make sure there aren't any serial killers waiting under the massive amounts of fast food wrappers and dirty clothes.

"Are you sure there aren't any...murderers? Rapists? Homeless people back there?"

He doesn't even glance back as we get inside, and he pulls the seatbelt over his shoulder. "Nah. Just empty Taco Hell wrappers and my moldy socks."

Because that makes me any less frightened.

"Charming," I reply.

"Boaz contributed. I think he left some underwear back there, if you're interested."

"That's gross."

"And knowing my face is on your..." he flicks his gaze down to my lap, then back up again quickly, "is awkward."

I calmly put my hands in my lap, my cheeks prickling with embarrassment. "Touché."

He inserts the key and the engine whines as it tries to turn over. "C'mon baby..." he begs until, after a squealing noise akin to the death of Wilbur, the engine roars to life. He kicks it into drive and we pull out of the parking lot. "So, taking you back to the condo?"

"Yeah," I reply, like there's any other place I could go. Back to his place, maybe. But wouldn't that be super sketch? Or an invasion of privacy? "Where do you stay, anyway?"

He gives a stiff shrug. "A motel off the interstate."

"Not your parent's—" I stop myself before I finish, but I've already let too much slip. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry..."

"No, it's fine," but I can tell by the tightness in his voice he'd really rather talk about something else. "My dad lives in Myrtle. So does Holly's family, but let's just say I'm not welcome within a hundred yards of their house and leave it at that."

"And your dad?" As I ask it, his knuckles tighten around the steering wheel.

"He disowned me when Hols and I moved to Nashville. To him, trying to make a career in music was like joining the circus. It wasn't respectable enough. You ask him, I abandoned my family. You ask me..." He trails off. The lights of Ocean Boulevard flicker shades of blue and red over his face like a kaleidoscope. I wait for his answer, but he just presses his lips together and flicks on the radio.

His own song, "Deep End" blares through the speakers and he quickly turns it back off.

He clears his throat. "Silence is good, yeah? We don't need music."

"I can hum something?"

"Can you sing?"

"I'm so good I can shatter windows."

He chuckles, and for the first time since the beach, he cracks a ghost of a smile. "Then let's play The Shitty Song Showdown."

"Sounds awesome." I roll my eyes.

"We take turns humming a song and see if the other can guess it."

"Are you challenging my radio heart?" I press my hand to my chest, aghast. "How dare you!"

"I want to see if you're the real deal."

"You're on."

The traffic on Ocean Boulevard is slow and steady. Tourists pass in front of us to street vendors and souvenir shops. Ice cream shops dot the streets like confetti. It's easy to think how Myrtle Beach is fun and exciting, especially in the throng of lights and laughter, but in the winter when the tourists clear out and the vendors move down to Florida, Myrtle Beach becomes a ghost town. Roman grew up here, so he must be used to people passing through like sand through his fingers. Fame can't be much different. Am I just another grain of sand? Is he just another boy of summer?

I almost don't catch the beginning notes to my dad's favorite song tumbling from Roman's lips. "'Born to Run,'" I immediately quip. "Bruce Springsteen."

"That was an easy one," he relinquishes and waits for me to think of a song. I warble the first few notes of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones, and instead of guessing the song, he begins singing with me. Show-off.

We coast to a stop at a light, the windows rolled down. The tourists hustling across the crosswalk give us a curious look as we howl the chorus. A laugh bubbles up in my throat, and I successfully hold it in....until he does a terrible Mick Jagger impersonation, and I lose it in a fit of giggles.

He slides me a cheshire grin. "So? Did I win? Huh?"

"That was decent," I reply, wiping the tears out of my eyes. "Your turn."

Thinking, he taps his finger on the steering wheel until it evolves into a beat. He ducks his head down and begins rapping.

"Oh my God, that's so 90s. You're showing your sublime age, Roman. 'What I Got.'"

"How the hell do you know that one? How old were you, ten?"

I frown. "Do I really look sixteen?" I flop down the visor and inspect myself in the mirror. Even at night, my pink hair glows. "Jesus, you can see me from space."

"Just means I'll never lose you, and no. I was just being an asshole."

I slam the visor up again. "Surprising," I reply, but all I can think about is the phrase Just means I'll never lose you.

"But I have seen sixteen-year-olds who look thirty. Now, that's scary. Ever been about to go down on a girl and realize she's not even legal yet?"

"Is this your way of saying you make poor life choices?"

"Fuck youuuuuu."

I punch him in the arm playfully and flick the radio back on, quickly turning it to the classic rock station. A sweet, slow power ballad drifts through the stereo. Almost instantly, my throat seizes. I want to turn it off, but Roman knocks my hand away from the knob before I can.

"Name this song!" he demands.

I swallow hard. Of all the songs in all the world, the radio had to play this one. It's the song I wish I'd heard with Caspian that night, instead of Roman's own "Crush On You"—the one I always wanted to...

Well, to fall in love to.

And here I am in a minty green WV Rabbit that smells slightly of ass, listening to the song that means more to me than Roman could ever guess. What are Roman and I? What are we pretending to be? Friends? Acquaintances? Even that? There's an invisible line where whatever we are ends and something quite frightening begins.

I look over to him to see if he's really waiting for my answer, and he is. "Bon Jovi," I whisper, unable to tear my eyes away from his melted emerald gaze, "'Bed of Roses.'"

If he can sense my trepidation, he doesn't show it as he turns his attention back to the road. We follow a gray Cadillac up the street. "All right, Miss Radio Heart, name the album title and year."

I don't say anything for a long moment. "You don't even know that."

"So you concede?"

"1993. Released as a single, but then with the album Keeping the Faith."

Is it your favorite song? I want him to ask that so badly, it's almost a physical pain, and I would answer without a blink of hesitation. Yes, it's my favorite. It will always be my favorite. It's the first song I fell in love with, and it's the song I want to dance to on my wedding night. But we must not be friends enough for him to ask, because he begins to hum Richie Sambora's guitar solo with a makeshift air guitar before finally saying, "All right, fine, you win."

A little bit inside of me deflates. "Awesome."

"It is. Not everyone can say they beat the great Roman Montgomery with a Bon Jovi song."

"No, I guess not."

We hit a standstill at the bungee-jumping attraction on the Strand, so Roman detours off Ocean Boulevard onto King's Highway. It's pretty much the main vein of Myrtle Beach. Here there are strip malls and outlets, restaurants, Wings souvenir shops, and mini-golf courses as far as the eye can see. CherryTree is on the northern end of Myrtle Beach, where there are more beach houses than motels, and liquor stores take the place of tourist shops.

I wonder where Roman's dad lives? It bothers me that his dad is still alive, and wants nothing to do with him. What sort of father is that? If my dad were still alive, he'd be front row at every concert. He'd buy the t-shirts, wear the visors, scream the lyrics. He'd be my biggest fan. "How long has it been since you've seen your dad?" I ask.

He counts on his fingers. "Five...six years?"

I gape. "That long?"

"Don't give me that look. I call him at Christmas."

I blow out a sign of relief. "That's good."

"It would better if he answered."

Frowning, I look out the window at the passing mini-golf courses that promise to take you to the Mayan ruins, or the jungle, or through an exotic plane crash. Most of the lights are shut off by now, the courses dark and vacant.

"I'm sorry."

He shrugs. "Price of fame, right?"

That isn't what I meant by the phrase when I first said it, but I nod anyway. I want to say something comforting, that it'll be okay, but his phone begins to ring. He digs for it in his pocket, a cruddy disposable flip-phone, and answers it. "Yeah Boaz?"

We ease to a stop at a red light. I recognize the liquor store on the corner. CherryTree is close now, just a few blocks away.

"You sure?—All right, hold on. Lemme ask." He turns to me. "How adverse are you to breaking and entering?"

"Is that rhetorical?" I deadpan.

He tells Boaz, "We'll be there in five. Yeah, I'm right close to it—you took a taxi? Uh, huh." He flips the phone shut on his shoulder and shoves it back into his pocket. He flicks the turn signal on, looks over his shoulder, and swerves into the turn lane.

I give him a leery eye. "Where are we going?"

"To pay our respects to the dead."

Chapter Thirteen

What I don't realize until we meet Boaz Alexander in the parking lot of Arrg, Pirates! Mini-Golf is that paying respects to the dead meant breaking and entering. Into a put-put course. Dad, I'm not sure where I went astray, but I'm pretty fuckin' far.

Boaz tosses a bag of golf clubs over the nine-foot fence that separates the parking lot from the courses. He has on a blue and black kilt tonight and a black shirt with a medic cross and "Orgasm Donor" underneath. Classy. "You two bro-has joy-ridin' without me? Making me take a yellow cab?" Then Mohawk must recognize me, because he teasingly elbows me in the side. "Yo bro-ho! Nice to meet this fine specimen of a woman. People call me Boaz, but you can call me BAMF." He winks.

"Hi, BAMF." We fist-bump.

I can't ignore his biceps and thick shoulders. He's supposed to be a pianist, but he looks like a long lost member of the The Boondock Saints. Maggie would be climbing his back muscles if she ever met him.

Roman rattles the chain-link fence with a frown. "I don't remember it being this high."

"Dude, it's been five years, and let's face it, you made this place famous. So, they heightened the fence, that gonna make you whimper?"

"Is it sharp at the top?" He frowns.

Mohawk claps his buddy on the back. "Now gimme a push, yeah?"

I glance up at the building. "Aren't there security cameras? A guard? Police?"

Boaz studies me. "You've never done this before, have you?"

"Breaking into a mini-golf course?" My eyes flicker across the top of the fence nervously. Is it sharp at the top? "I was sort of hoping my first time would be a bank, at least. Or my ex-boyfriend's house."

The boys chuckle in that knowing silly-you sort of way before Roman cups his hands and squats down. Boaz shoves his combat boot into Roman's hands and reaches up to the top of the fence. He eases over and lands on the other side gracefully. He wipes down his kilt and turns back with two thumbs up.

"Okay bra, your turn."

Roman nudges his head, still squatting down. "You next."

I glare at him. "I don't want to get arrested!"

He rolls his eyes. "Would you really rather break into your ex-boyfriend's house?"

"Maybe." The fence is impossibly high. I can't do this. "Just to stick his underwear in the freezer."

"Classy. Remind me not to piss you off. C'mon, Junebug...it's your life, it's now or never. You're not gonna live forever—unlessyou'reEdwardSparklepants," he sings it in the tune to Bon Jovi's "It's My Life."

"Did you really make a Twilight reference?"

"I'm full of chagrining surprises. Now, c'mon."

For the record, this is a really bad idea. Then again, Dad always said, "The world's built on bad ideas." I never knew what he meant until now. What will I regret ten years from now—jumping over this fence, or walking away?

I suck in a deep breath, clench my fists, and take a running start. My foot catches hold on his hand and he hoists me up as if I'm as light as a feather. My hands grapple the top of the fence, and my other shoe sticks into the chain links. I swipe my leg over, anchoring myself nine feet in the air, and hoist my other over, too. This isn't too bad.

And that's when I lose it.

My hand slips, and I tip backwards. I don't even have time to scream.

"TIMMMBEEEERRRRR!" Boaz yells.

For a moment, the sky spins before I roll off the lumpy mass that caught my fall. I shake my head, blinking, and slowly begin to sit up. Nothing's broken, but I think my butt is bruised. Yeah, I'll regret this ten years from now when I have butt-replacement surgery. Roman grapples onto the fence and shakes it. "Hey! You okay? Junebug?"

It's funny, because he actually sounds concerned. "Yeah, I think I'm good."

"Oh my nuts," the lumpy mass I fell on groans, sitting up beside me. Boaz rubs the inside of his leg achingly. "I think you squashed 'em."

"Don't be ridiculous, she couldn't find them even if she tried," says Roman as he scales the fence like a cat.

I can't help but watch how he moves, like he's done it a million times. He feet go into the right holes, his hands reach just far enough up for his shirt to expose a sliver of stomach. Call it a concussion, but my eyes won't cooperate. I can't look away. He reaches the top, his arm muscles smooth and taunt under his skin, and swings himself over. He lands on his feet and wipes his hands off on his cut-off jeans.

"There, that wasn't so hard."

Both Boaz and I give him an eat-shit look as we help each other up.

We're near the sixteenth hole on Course One—the course Dad liked the most. It has a waterfall and gives the best view of the pyrotechnic show that goes on every thirty minutes in the small lagoon. Arrg, Pirates! Mini-Golf is shaped like any fantasy Port Royal. There is a lagoon cradled in the arms of a crescent-shaped mass of land populated with put-put courses and fake eighteenth-century buildings. There's a pirate ship in the lagoon, made famous by Roman and Holly's viral music video of "Crush on You." In the video, he was in heart-printed white boxers and had shaggy dark hair, a far cry from suspenders and orange hair. In one of the clips, if you squint, you can see the faint blurs of policemen wading through the thick algae-infested water toward them.

I follow Roman and Boaz over the different holes, taking shortcuts through the shrubbery to the dock that leads out into the lagoon. The pirate show is nothing more than sound clips and some pyrotechnics between the ship cannons and the cannon-lined building on the hill above the mini-golf entrance. I've always thought it was corny, but Dad loved it. Along with every other kid.

At the end of the dock, Boaz heaves his golf bag high on his shoulder and jumps into the knee-deep water. Roman rolls up his jeans and jumps into the lagoon after Boaz. "Want to ride on my shoulders? The water's pretty gross."

"We're not actually going over there, are we?" I hiss, eyeing the pirate ship. "Anyone could see us from the road! If a cop passes or anyone reports us..."

He sneezes.

I narrow my eyes at him. "Excuse me?"

He sneezes again, but it sounds suspiciously like "Chickenshit."

"Fine." I snap my fingers where I want him to stand and sit down on the edge of the dock, trying to un-see the candy-wrappers and gobs of bird poo floating near my feet. "I'll piggy-back—"

Suddenly, he scoops me up into his arms, bridal-style, and follows Boaz across the lagoon to the pirate ship. I clamp onto his neck. I would've been cool with a piggyback. I would've been better with a piggyback. I'm not too heavy for him, am I? I soon forget to ask when a suspicious floating thing catches my eye. I hope it's an unwrapped Snickers.

"Do you think they even clean the water?" I venture to ask.

He shakes his head. "Why do you think I left my Vans on?"

"Oh, your poor Vans..."

"They'll survive."

At the ship, Boaz is already on deck. He reaches down and pulls me up beside him. Roman climbs up after us. I stare back at the mini-golf course, darkened without the floodlights. It looks...almost mystical, the way the lights from the stores across the street reflect on the shimmering water, casting glowing strings of lights over the odd-shaped greens. You can't see the trash from here, just the shimmers of aqua and the deep shades of blue.

"So this is what it looks like from the other side," I murmur.

Roman comes up beside me with the golf club Boaz handed him. "This was Hol's favorite spot."

To pay our respects to the dead, he had said. Oh. Like how I always eat frozen fish sticks on Thursdays because Dad loved fish sticks and Thursdays, and how no matter how sick of the song I am, I always stop for "Born to Run" on the radio. The air begins to taste bittersweet. If Roman killed Holly, then I killed my dad in the same way.

The rock star drops a ball onto the deck and with an expert swing, he knocks it across the lagoon and onto the course. His orange hair picks up shades of blue from the reflective water. "FORE!"

The ball disappears somewhere into the darkness.

"That sucked, bro-ha." Boaz shakes his head and drops a white ball on the other side of me. He points to a distant blue-green splotch. "Hole Ten. Watch and learn." With a swift swipe, the ball arcs into the air like a comet without a tail, and lands on the Hole Ten green.

Roman claps. "Impressive...for a small child. Hole Eleven." His ball finds the green with ease, and he bites his thumb at Boaz. "I bite my thumb at you, sir!"

"Punk-ass sonuva..." Mohawk drops another golf ball and the second he raises his club, Roman knocks him in the back of the knee. The ball arcs over the lagoon and falls somewhere in the bushes between Holes Five and Two. "Damnit, man!" Boaz spins around to Roman and pulls his club up with a "Bzzzz" light saber sound. "You dare try to cheat at my game."

Roman pulls up his own golf-club-light-saber. He strikes first. Their golf clubs connect.

"Bzzzz!"

Boaz retaliates with a high swipe, but the rock star ducks and twirls behind me. Boaz throws back his head and laughs. "You dare use a woman as a shield!"

"No, just a distraction! Her cuteness with thwart you!"

"Like hell!" I reply and duck out from in front of him.

"Foiled!" Roman hops up onto the bridge of the ship, twirling his golf club in his hands like a saber. He clearly watched way too much Star Wars as a child. "You will never defeat me!"

Boaz jumps onto the bridge as well, and they exchange a quick spar—left, right, spar!—before he pins Roman back against the railing, crossing their golf sabers into Xs between them. "Come to the Dark Side!" Boaz beckons, and for a second loses all seriousness. "We have cookies, bra'. Cookies are the shit."

Roman, however, is a complete ham. "Never!" he cries and shoves Boaz back.

"Then, this bro-ha shall end yoouuuuuuu!" He raises his club into the air and charges Roman.

They meet each other in literal slow motion. I'm almost too embarrassed to watch. Almost. On contact, Roman pretends to cut off Boaz's hand. Boaz falls to his knees, and shakes his limp hand at the sky. "NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Oh.

My.

God.

They hold their poses. One second. Two. Three.

I fold my arms over my chest. "I'm not clapping if that's what you want."

They slump in unison. Roman pouts. "Not even snaps?"

"HEY, YOU KIDS!" A voice booms from the put-put entrance.

"Fuck," Boaz curses, glancing in the direction of the police officers.

Flashlights cut through the darkness as the cops hurry toward the dock. There're two of them, their footsteps making mad stomps against the wooden planks. Boaz shoves the golf clubs into his duffle and slings it over his shoulder. Roman grabs my hand and helps me down into the murky water.

I inwardly cringe at the things the soles of my Converses step on. "This dye'll never come out."

"Priorities," Roman sings, pulling me toward land.

We follow Boaz behind the ship to the front of the ship facing King's Highway. There's a moat of rocks separating the lagoon from freedom. One we're not going to be able to cross.

The policemen tell us to stop where we are. We're resisting arrest. This is great. Not like we can hide. All three of us have outrageous hair colors. The FBI could track us from space.

They wouldn't, would they?

"This way!" Boaz points toward the filter pump at the far end of the lagoon—it doesn't look like it's been used in years—and we quickly wade our way over.

There's a splash behind us before Roman looks back. "They're coming."

"I didn't want to get arrested!" I all but sob, but he grips my hand tighter in reassurance.

That almost makes me feel better. Almost. At the filter pump, he hoists me onto dry land. My shoes make squishy noises on the Astroturf. We scale up through the courses back to the fence. Boaz hurtles his clubs over the nine-footer, and crawls over himself, ripping his shirt as he slides over the other side. Next, Roman hoists me up, and quickly follows. We reach the top together. A policeman's flashlight catches me in the face, and I lose my footing. Roman grabs a hold of my forearm to steady me.

"You're gonna be okay," he says, looking me dead in the eyes.

I purse my lips and nod. He helps me down the other side safely and follows. The next few moments are a blur—reaching the car, getting in, peeling away—but once we're on King's Highway and far enough away to judge if they're pursuing, Boaz thrusts his fists into the air.

"Vini veni vici, mother fuck'ahs!"

And I'm sitting on the food wrappers and moldy socks in the backseat. This doesn't feel like a victory to me.

"I think I'm going to puke."

"You did great," Roman says over his shoulder comfortingly, although his hands are white-knuckled on the wheel, too. "You were perfect. Just...don't look at what you're sitting on."

"I'm scared to take off my shoes."

"One word." Boaz turns back to me, a single finger raised. He looks dead serious as he says, "Oxyclean."

Chapter Fourteen

"Home sweet home." Roman puts the Rabbit in park in front of the main breezeway. "Do you want me to walk you to your door? Fend off some more po-po for you?"

I roll my eyes and kick open the broken back door. "I think I can handle it."

"You sure?" he calls out of his window.

"I'm pretty sure. I don't think I'll get lost."

"...But there's still a possibility?"

I climb the steps to the breezeway and turn back to the car. "Goodnight, Roman. Boaz," I add when Boaz sticks out his bottom lip.

"'Night!" the boys call at the same time. "See you at my concert tomorrow!" Boaz adds, waving out of the window, and I return it.

Goof.

I stand in the lip of the breezeway until the Rabbit pulls around through the parking lot and turns left onto Ocean Boulevard. Which interstate motel are they staying in, I wonder? How far away? How cruddy? It's almost laughable, if you didn't have a heart, to compare where Roman Holiday was to where they are now—disappearing from motel to motel like ghosts.

I summon the elevator. The light blinks down the floors slowly. I inspect the dirt under my fingernails and the scrape on my palm from the fence. I didn't realize I even cut myself, and I don't think the condo has a med kit. I'm sure the main office does. It's one-thirty in the morning. Maybe the night auditor can help me.

I turn down the breezeway toward the main office, inspecting my elbows and arms to make sure I don't have any more permanent scarring. What was I thinking? Trespassing in a put-put course?

So hardcore.

"Maggie should be proud of me," I mutter. "I must've been batshit crazy tonight."

I stop just before the door to the front office flies open and step aside to let a tall, dark-haired man pass. He scowls at me, and I'm surprised he doesn't recognize me from the stop-n-shop. I slip into the office, glancing back at the weird man. That can't be a coincidence.

The poor night auditor looks exactly how I feel. He's a tall and gangly guy with a scruff of blond hair of his chin and a buzzed head. College kid, probably, unlucky enough to work at CherryTree. He gives me a wary once-over. "Can I help you?"

"What was that guy's problem?" I thumb over my shoulder in the direction the man went.

"Wanted to know what room someone rented," he replied exasperatedly. "I can't tell people that—you don't want to know either, do you?"

"Nah." I show him my hand, and add in my worst Cockney accent, "Just need a fixin', doctor."

He wilts with relief. "That I can do." He stoops down and pulls out a small First-Aid kit. I rub a little Neosporin on my cut before wrapping a bandage over it. "Anything else? Towels? Toilet paper?"

"Do you have any of that hazelnut coffee from last year?"

"I think you're in luck..." He disappears into the back and comes out with three packets—enough to last me until Saturday.

Thank God.

I take them hungrily and hold them to my chest. "You are a godsend. Have a great rest of the night, and I hope that weird guy doesn't come back. Who was he looking for?"

He shrugs. "Some girl named Junie Baltimore." I freeze the moment before I start to turn out of the office. "You know her?"

"...Nope." I force a smile and quickly push out of the doors, hazelnut coffee clamped tightly to my chest.

Why would someone be looking for me? My first thought is, of course, the police—but he didn't look like police, or even a detective. My second thought comes to the only other sane conclusion I can think of. Why he was at the stop-and-shop. Why Roman hid us behind the clothes turnstile. Why he'd want to know my condo number.

Paparazzi.

Wednesday

Chapter Fifteen

It's the same dream tonight. I'm dancing with Roman. Blurry shapes glide by us. I try to study the surroundings—but it's a swirl of bokeh colors. Purples, blues, oranges, blurs of light that never really stay in the same place for too long. Maybe we're in a dark ballroom, or a reception hall. Or the middle of nowhere. Quite frankly, I don't care.

He brings my hand to his lips, and kisses my knuckles. My heart swells, as if the only thing inside of me is a universe of him.

"Junebug."

I know that voice, a soft whisper so familiar the person is on the tip of my tongue.

I want to ask Roman if he knows the voice, but before I can, a blinding flash illuminates the darkness like an explosion. I wince, shielding my eyes. Roman drops his hand away, and suddenly I feel very, very cold.

Another bright white flash erupts in the darkness, then another, until the darkness is lit up with nothing but pinions of light. I squint through my fingers out into the darkness. What is that? A roar begins to fill my ears, so loud I can barely hear myself think. It's chanting something, over and over again, louder and louder until it becomes bigger than me.

Overwhelmed, I turn back to ask Roman for help—but he's not there. Instead, it's the tall dark-haired man is. He tilts back his gray fedora, a wicked smile curving across his lips like a twisted, white-hot brand of metal.

"Junebug," he says, and the word breaks the roar, turns it into syllables I've heard my entire life.

I scream, spinning back to the flashes to try and find an escape. But an audience stretches far and wide like a sea of fireflies, holding cell phones and lighters into the air.

The syllables twist and curve into a single word, over and over. They're chanting my name.

"Junebug!"

I bolt upright on the couch, my hair plastered to my forehead with sweat. I stare, wide-eyed, at the open curtains and the sun-lit beach out the window. "What time is it?"

"It's past three, honey. I thought I'd let you sleep in for a little while," Mom's voice cuts through my haze. I pull the covers off and plant my feet on the ground. The tiles under my toes are cold. Relief floods through me as I realize I'm not dreaming anymore. "Hon, are you okay?" Mom gives me a curious look, handing me a cup of coffee. "Thank you for getting the hazelnut coffee—I can't believe they still have it. Remember how your father loved it?"

I nurse the coffee. The hotness stings my tongue. "Yeah, he stole a few packs, didn't he?"

"Not that it lasted long." Mom laughs and strokes the top of my head. "Are you sure you're okay? You screamed in your sleep..."

I shiver at the thought of the man in the gray fedora. "Yeah," I reply, "I just..."

"I have bad dreams too sometimes, especially after your father died." She keeps stroking my hair. For someone who hates the color, she sure doesn't seem to mind touching it. "I know this year is weird, honey, but Charles really is trying."

Trying and succeeding are two very different things, I want to say, but instead I just shrug. The nightmare still has my heart in my throat. He couldn't really find out who I am, right? He passed me on the way out of the office and didn't even look twice. I'm just a name.

It's nothing to worry about.

"So, tonight, Charles and I were thinking of going out for seafood at your favorite restaurant..." She knocks me in the shoulder playfully. "You know, the one with the giant crab?" Mom still thinks I'm seven, doesn’t she?

I bring the cup to my lips again, and remember the Band-Aid on my hand. "I think I'm going out tonight with some friends."

Mom frowns. "I didn't know you had friends here, honey."

"Oh yeah, I've known him for years." Not quite a lie.

"Well, be careful. You know crazies come out at night." She goes to fish her phone out of her purse and turns it on. She’s been keeping her phone off a lot lately. She checks her messages with a frown and puts it back on the table. "We'll both have our phones on, so if anything happens..."

I roll my eyes. "Mom. I'm eighteen."

"And a very beautiful young woman. Even with your pink hair," she adds, kissing my forehead, before excusing herself to the bathroom.

"Thanks for clarifying," I mutter and lounge back on the couch.

My t-shirt still smells like last night—grass and pizza and salt water—and I smile to myself at how crazy it was. Do they live like that? Disregard to property, rules, and social norms? I've never so much as scowled at a teacher, and my idea of living on the edge is firing lazy sound engineers.

Mom’s cell phone startles me out of my thoughts. Should I answer it? What if it’s the bar? They are the only ones who'd call, as far as I know. My worst fear flashes through my mind. I quietly sneak over to the table to grab Mom's cell phone and slip out onto the balcony so she doesn't hear me answer it. The caller ID isn’t familiar, but the area code is Asheville. As I answer, I pray it’s not the fire department.

“Hello?”

“May we speak with Mrs. Baltimore?”

Definitely not the bar. Geoff calls her "Mrs. She" and the rest of them wouldn't call. Suspicion flares like a wildfire. The image of a smoldering heap of the Silver Lining flutters into my vision. Oh, hell. “Who's this?”

“This is Asheville Mortgage Bank calling on behalf of the foreclosure to your business.”

I try not to laugh. “Chuck, is this you?"

“Mrs. Baltimore, we have been trying to reach your business on behalf of—”

The deadness in his voice makes giggle. Whomever Chuck got to do this is really good.

"Mr. Davidson, is this you? You almost had me fooled there. Did Chuck set you up to do this?"

“I'm referring to The Silver Lining, on Haywood Street?" But the man isn't cracking. "If Mrs. Baltimore is there—”

“It’s Conway,” I correct, my voice small, and hang up. My hands are shaking.

Darla looks up from her pool chair and calls up from below, "Hey honey! Tell your mom to get her cute ass down here! I'm bakin'!"

I barely hear her. Dazed, I stumble back into the glass door, push it open, and return Mom's cell phone to the table. Asheville Mortgage Bank? Chuck would pull a trick like this, wouldn't he? He has that sort of sick sense of humor, right?

The toilet flushes as I settle back down on the couch with my cup of coffee. Mom yawns as she comes out, and digs into the refrigerator for a piece of leftover pizza, humming "Hotel California." I watch her silently, trying to process—but I can't function. Foreclosure? The Silver Lining... my Lining...

Foreclosure?

Why didn't Mom tell me? How long has she known? It makes sense now, why she doesn't answer her phone. She's trying to prolong the reality of it, like she does with everything else. Instead of acknowledging Dad's death, she married an architect. Instead of throwing me a graduation party, she and Chuck celebrated their fourth honeymoon in St. Martin. Instead of scolding me for my pink hair, she ignores it.

Foreclosure?

No—I refuse. I refuse to lose the Silver Lining.

When Mom asks me to come down to the pool with her to enjoy the gorgeous day, I have half the mind to tell her there’s nothing gorgeous about it. The sun’s too bright and there isn’t a single cloud in the sky, which means it’s hot as balls, and excuse me if I don’t feel like baking in it. Would that be too harsh?

I down the rest of my coffee and grab my cardkey and phone. "I'm going to the computer lounge," I tell her as I leave.

The computer lounge is down the hall in a humid little room with three computers and Wi-Fi. No one's inside, so I pick the middle computer and boot it up.

I don't know what I'm looking for. I Google foreclosure. I Google the Silver Lining and read the two one-star reviews Yelp. Even bad reviews say the best about my dad's bar. This isn't helping. Pulling my phone out of my back pocket, I dial my best friend's number. It's comforting, if nothing else. Two rings and she picks up.

"I feel a disturbance in the force," she says in greeting.

That's all it takes. My bottom lip wobbles and then, suddenly, I'm blubbering about the foreclosure.

"Whoa, whoa! Easy on the waterworks, bb, I can barely hear you."

"I just Googled it and I'm pretty much fucked." I sniff, rubbing my eye with the palm of my hand. "And I had an amazing night last night with that guy I met—and his friend, and we broke into a put-put course and almost got arrested and—"

"Junie Baltimore—"

"Conway."

"Trespassing? Hold the phone. I need to get this in writing. What sort of guy makes my best friend do the stupid shit only I'd do?"

I wipe my snotty nose on my arm, leaving a trail of goo. Disgusted, I rub it off on the back of the chair. "Roman Montgomery." The door opens to a hefty guy in a Hawaiian shirt. He gives me one look before he leaves again, secluding me to my snotty, crying pity-fest.

"Bb? You still there?"

Complete and total silence.

And then, "OH MY GOD, YOU BROKE AND ENTERED WITH ROMAN MONTGOMERY—"

I yank the phone away from my ear, wincing. She's so loud, her voice echoes in the room.

"—AND DIDN'T CALL ME? WHAT ARE YOU SOME SORT OF SECRET RUSSIAN SPY HERE TO DISREGARD OUR FRIENDSHIP? DOES THE HO-CODE MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?"

"I didn't think I'd ever see him again! I didn't want to get your hopes up, I..."

"YOU ARE THE WORST FRIEND IN THE ENTIRE WORLD AND I AM NEVER SPEAKING TO YOU AGAIN." There is a beat of silence where I think she hangs up, but then she adds, "Does he pack right or left?"

At that exact moment, the door opens again to the same Hawaiian shirt man. Behind him is one of the CherryTree employees. Oh, I get it. "Bb, I'm being kicked out of the computer lab. I'll talk to you later."

"Are you kidding me?!"

I hang up, and glance between Hawaii Chub-O and the employee, who I recognize as the night auditor from last night. He looks as pained as I am to see him. Snot dribbles down my face, my eyeliner is streaked like Marilyn Manson, and my hair defies gravity on the side I slept on. I must look like any night auditor's worst nightmare.

Might as well ham it up.

"So I can't cry in public?" I cry dramatically. "You're ruining my rights as an individual! I demand the right to cry anywhere I like! This is a free country! My parents pay for a condo! I demand that you never interrupt me again! Also, this chair smells. And I wiped my snot on it."

I stand and shove between them into the hallway—and freeze.

“Good afternoon, sleeping beauty.” Orange hair. Suspenders. Tattoos.

"Oh, you," I sigh.

He studies me. If he thinks I look like hell, he doesn't say a word. Instead, he takes his keys out of his pocket and jingles them. "Ready for a little fun?"

"Please," I reply with honest relief.

"I'll let you change first."

Chapter Sixteen

"What I didn't tell you yesterday," Roman says, spinning around on his toes to face me as we walk to his Mentos green car. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the parking lot. No wonder the paparazzi can follow him wherever he goes. "Is that this car? Her name's Sweat Pea, and she is a very fickle beast. Like most women are."

"I should take offense to that," I reply dryly.

He walks backwards on his toes, which is odd but cute, like a kid.

"I didn't name her." He shrugs and unlocks the car. "So, it's 5:49," he adds as he glances down at his Rolex, probably the most expensive thing I've seen him wear. "Grub or go straight to the bar?"

"Where're we going?"

"Where it all started," is his cryptic reply.

The car cranks with a cough and with a burp of black smoke it rumbles out of the lot. He turns off Ocean Boulevard, down a side road.

My cell phone begins to vibrate. I swear, if it's Mom wanting to know where I'm going...

The ID blinks an unsaved number, but I've memorized his number by now. I go to silence it when Roman snatches it out of my hand and answers it.

“Hello, you've reached the Pizza Palace, where I can be your personal pan pizza for the low price of—”

Mortified, I snatch my cell phone back and punch END. “Are you crazy?”

“What?” He laughs. “They’ll call back if it’s important.”

I purse my lips into a thin line and stuff my phone back into my purse. I guess he’s right. Not that Caspian will call back. Am I even in his phone, or am I an unknown number like he is in mine? What sort of lovers—friends, even—are not listed in each other's cell phones?

The leather squeaks a little against my shorts. Roman let me take a shower and change before we left the condo—thank God, because despite loving the smell of adventure on my clothes, salt water and grass doth not perfume make.

I reach for the radio, but he slaps my hand away. “Ow! Jeez, I just wanted to turn it on.”

“Driver picks the tunes, shotgun forfeits the right to complain.”

“Those are stupid rules."

With a quick flick of his fingers, he turns the radio to one of the presets. It instantly goes to a talk show. I sigh. Well, at least it’s about music.

“Better?” he asks, knowing full well that no, it isn’t.

"Sure, I just love boring middle-aged men talking about crescendos and treble clefts. Almost better than a station dedicated to Roman Holiday."

"Good, then you'll love this one."

He drives in silence, listening to the NPR show about classic music. And not of the rock and roll variety. Does he actually understand this blather about andantes and sharps and dolces? I barely know what a crescendo is.

He turns into a gas station and taps the broken fuel gauge. It's been stuck on empty for three miles now. “Never too careful,” he says as an excuse, and gets out, grabbing a clip fold of cash from the middle compartment.

"Do you just have money hidden everywhere?" I joke, pretending to look in the back seat. I look under a McDonald's bag. "Nope, not there."

He chuckles. "I’ll leave it running while I go in. It's hot as balls outside."

"You're so kind." I drop the bag back and wipe my fingers on his shirtsleeve. He has on his own band shirt today. It's white and purple with the silhouettes of him and Holly in the logo. Narcissistic much? "Where did you find this shirt? Goodwill?"

"You're hilarious. Want a Coke or something?”

“Water."

“Sure thing. Candy, gum?”

“I’m good.”

“You sure? They might have the little sucky sour straw things…”

"Well..." I debate. "Only if they have the green ones, and if so I'd like a diet soda, if not then nothing at all."

Confusion crosses his chocolate eyebrows. "Not even water?"

"No, water but no sucky straws or soda."

"Ah..." Shaking his head, he briskly makes his way over to the building. I think I saw a smile, too.

The skin on my legs makes a horrible sticky noise as I slide down in the seat. Maybe I can text Caspian and tell him what that was all about...

But why should I?

No, must resist the urge. I try to sit back up in the seat, but the skin on my leg sticks. I hate pleather seats. My sweat somehow solidifies my legs to the pleather. Painfully, I pry one leg up and my knee hits the dashboard. The compartment pops open with a snap and a CD case slides out and hits the floorboards with a sharp clatter.

I pick up the case and pop it open. The burned CD inside is labeled in sloppy chicken-scratch handwriting, Untitled EP. He still burns CDs? That's sort of adorable. I haven't burned a CD since the iPod was invented. Curiously, I pop it into the antique CD player. I don’t know if the player even works anymore, but here’s to hoping.

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 mixed 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, he'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.

If love is supposed to feel like anything at all, it feels like dancing cheek-to-cheek with Roman Montgomery.

"See," he says, "you are a great dancer."

"I probably wouldn't be without you."

"Nah, you'd be perfect with any guy you want."

I pull away a little. Pinions of lights scatter across his hair and face, like stardust falling from a comet. "Not with you, huh?"

A pained look crosses his face. "No, Junebug...not with me."

"Not even if I offer ice cream?" I try, but my heart is already sinking, sinking, because like every other girl who loves him, I am not enough.

His forehead wrinkles in frustration. "I'm leaving in a few days. I'm probably never coming back."

"But your dad? Holly's family? Next year there will probably be another vigil and—"

"It's more complicated than that." He shakes his head and begins to take his hands away from the lower part of my back, but I refuse to let go. "Junebug..."

Suddenly, a white-hot flash shatters the darkness like lightning. Roman's hands drop away from the small of my back. I'm blinded for a moment, trying to blink the spots away.

Another flash lights the room, the rafters.

Then another.

A camera, I realize. I blink, my eyes watering before they adjust again. Like my dream, only worse because this is real. My throat constricts as I spin to try and find the source. Had he followed us?

"Shit," Roman curses, glaring across the bar.

I follow his line of sight. My stomach heaves. Taller than the rest of the crowd is the man with inky black hair, a fedora tipped back from the hefty camera held up to his face. The paparazzo from last night. The man from my dream.

Suddenly, I know exactly who he is, because where Roman is, John Birmingham is never far behind, and I have just unwittingly led John straight to him.

His finger twitches over the shutter release, and another blinding flash erupts in the dark like a flash bang.

The bouncers push their way across the crowds of people who aren't sure what's happening. Boaz is singing Aerosmith now, and a girl beside me is so close to doing the vertical tango with her boyfriend it should be illegal. The bouncers won't get there in time. If a year trailing an errant rock star hasn't stopped John Birmingham, a couple of bouncers sure as hell won't.

When I look back to Roman, he's still and silent. He closes his eyes and breathes out a breath, and then opens them again. There is a subtle shift in him, as if the real Roman slides into place like the last piece in a puzzle. Was the orange-haired hipster just a mask? A dream? Someone he could be for a few days—a lie?

The Roman I knew is gone.

It's the slant of his eyebrow, the way his lips purse into a thin line, the bitterness that festers under his skin.

My stomach doubles into knots.

The long-haired photographer heckles, “Hey, Roman! How did it feel to kill your best friend and get away with it?”

Another flash brightens the room like a firecracker, and another, and another. The crowd is now turning, migrating their attention away from the band, toward Roman—toward us.

Roman takes a step back, and then another.

Helplessly, I watch him leave me behind.

Onstage, Mohawk rounds in front of his piano, squinting out into the crowd. He points at someone and shoots a rude gesture. I think it is John, but there are so many people smothering the floor I can't tell.

“Hey, how’s it like to lie to everyone?” the paparazzo barks. “How’s it feel to lie to Junie Baltimore?”

The moment he says my name, Roman freezes, and whips back around to me. Hurt fills his eyes, and I want to explain that he came looking for me last night, that I don't know how he found me...but then the hurt transforms into contempt.

“All the lies catch up to us, Roman!” Cackling, the paparazzo waves his camera in the air because all the following has finally paid off for John Birmingham. “All your lies! That cutie Junie looks like a nice little secret!"

That's it. Setting my jaw, I elbow through the crowd to the paparazzo himself. "Leave him alone!"

"Thanks, doll, you really made my job easy," he sneers.

“I said leave him alone."

He gives me a lewd once-over. "How long have you fucked him? You're pretty enough, at least."

I pale. "Excuse me?"

"You know he's just using you, right?"

The crowd begins to react, finally, taking out their cell phones and disposable cameras, but I barely notice. Roman, using me? "I don't understand."

"Don't play dumb, doll," John chides. "You know Roman."

"He's different."

A sickening, twisted grin contorts his face. "And how many girls do you think he told that to, sweetie?"

I narrow my eyes. "Don't call me sweetie, asshole." I thrust my knee into his money-sack. The impact makes him gasp, and he jerks to his knees. I snag his camera as he goes down. Maggie has the exact same one. I pop open the bottom and take out the memory card.

Then, someone grabs me by the shoulder.

I spin around, fists raised, expecting one of John's lackeys. Mohawk holds up his hands in defeat. "Boaz!" I gasp, relieved.

“You kosher?” he asks, glancing down at John. "Nice shot. C'mon." He takes my hand and leads me through the crowd. A girl screams Roman's name, crawling up on the barstool.

"ROMAN?" She yells. She has on a pink SAVE HOLIDAY shirt.

"I LOVE YOU ROMAN!" Another girl yells.

"COME BACK ROMAN!"

"Oh my God, they're insane," I mutter.

Boaz scoffs as he pulls me into the green room and locks the door. The noise suddenly mutes, like a CD track put on pause. "No shit, bro-ho."

In the center of the room, Roman stands with his arms crossed over his chest. His finger taps patiently on his bicep.

I deflate in relief. "I thought I'd lost you—"

He narrows his eyes at me. "You told him."

My eyebrows furrow. “Told who what?”

“Birmingham! You’re the only one who knew.”

I begin to shake my head. "I didn't tell him anything, I wouldn't—"

"What else am I supposed to believe, Junie?" he barks, and begins to pace the length of the room. He didn't call me Junebug. My own name hits me like a punch in the stomach. "I must've been blind."

"Bro-ha, that exudes harshness," his friend chides. "Does she look like the type?"

"For a little extra fame? Who wouldn't?" he snaps. "She probably—"

"You're being ridiculous," I interrupt, fisting my hands. "You know me. I wouldn't do that."

He scoffs, "And why not, huh? Don't you just hate Roman Holiday?" I purse my lips into a thin line, and he takes that as some sort of agreement. He throws his hands into the air. "And this is why I don't trust people! This is why I shouldn't trust people. Because you are all the same."

Boaz puts a hand on Roman's shoulder to calm him down, but he just shoves Boaz off. "Bro-ha, you're the one who bought her the ice cream."

"Yeah." He glares. "My mistake. And now I can't even stay for my best friend's vigil because of her."

Those words, above the sharp and scathing knives in his voice, pierce the deepest. I know how much Holly meant to him, because my dad meant more to me than the whole world. The last thing I would want would be to prevent him from seeing his best friend.

My throat tightens.

Did Roman ever trust me? All those smooth words and quixotic glances? The kiss? Were they all to just to get me into bed with him before the week was through, and then leave me like some old, abandoned piece of luggage?

"So John was right," I reply sharply. "You just wanted another score, right? All that bullshit about not being a man-whore? Thought you could keep me your dirty little secret?"

His face turns stony. "No, that's not what I wanted."

"Well, I'm done being someone's secret. And stop pointing the blame at me! You're the one who bought me the condoms. So, screw you, asshole."

A timid knock taps at the door. The manager, the voice says form the other side. Boaz and Roman give each other a hesitant look. I roll my eyes and shout, "Then come in with your key!"

No answer.

"John," Roman concludes.

Boaz points to the private bathroom and tells us to escape through the window. "I got this jerk."

In the bathroom, I stare up at the window. Roman climbs up onto the back of the toilet and pushes the window open. It whines outward. He heaves himself up and wiggles through the two-by-two square, then reaches his hands back in for me.

I'm shaking my head. "I'm not getting through that."

"C'mon, I'll pull you out."

"And that's a definite no."

"Junebug."

Pursing my lips, I climb onto the back of the toilet and grab onto his warm hands. His muscles ripple as he heaves me out. The glittering lights of the Strand ignite the street with uncomfortable brightness. My foot catches on the ledge of the window and I stumble forward into his chest. His hands fold around my shoulders gently, and then he lets go as if I'm diseased.

Not ten feet out of the alleyway, John bursts out of the front door to face us. Roman scowls and seethes to me, "This your plan?"

"You're kidding," I deadpan.

His hands tighten into fists in anger.

John holds open his empty camera. “Very funny, Junie!” He calls to me. “Do I need to ask nicely for it back? Or can I just fuck you, too?”

Curiously, Roman eyes me again, as if beginning to think that I was telling the truth. "Run," I tell him, "since you're so good at it, anyway."

"Oh no way, you're going t—"

"I'm asking you to trust your dirty little secret, Roman."

For a split second, he doesn't say a word. What makes him listen to me, I don't know. Maybe it's the three days of whatever we had, washed away in ten terrible minutes. He leaves down the sidewalk and disappears into the parking lot. He doesn't say he trusts me, and he doesn't say goodbye. It's hard to say goodbye to a secret anyway, isn't it? Because a secret isn't something you want to begin with. Way to get All-American Rejected, Junie.

"Junie-baby!" the paparazzo catcalls.

I put my hands on my hips. John's not getting out of this alleyway alive. "Where's Boaz?"

"Why don't you give me back my memory card and I'll tell you?" he asks, snapping his fingers impatiently, slowly creeping, like molasses, toward me.

I steel myself and take the chip out of my pocket. "This thing?"

"Yeah. It's worth more than your life."

"Pretty confident about that," I retort.

"Yeah." He nods. Five feet from me. Four.

I curl my fingers around the card and put it back into my pocket. "You know, I think I'll keep it. For good leverage."

"Leverage? Doll, you don't know who you're messing with."

I smirk. "You're right. But neither do you." Suddenly, I spin around on my heels and rocket out of the alleyway.

"HEY! STOP!" John bellows after me.

I hurtle over a fire hydrant and dart across the street, barely dodging a purple Scion before jumping up onto the other sidewalk and cutting through the gaming pit on the other side of the street. John follows, shouting for me to wait with words that only make me run faster. Up the other side of the pit, I hang a right and follow down the boardwalk, through couples, around children, dodging and weaving until the end of the boardwalk is in sight. I plant my hands on the railing and catapult myself over onto the white sand. Where the Strand is light with neon lights, the beach is dark. The sand is cool and soft against my feet. In other words, perfect running ground. I hop out of my Converses, stumbling, but John's voice is so far back now it's only an echo.

I don't stop running until I reach the CherryTree Ocean Club and lock myself into the condo, drenched in sweat. My parents aren't home yet. They're on the casino boat tonight. Catching my breath, I lean against the wall to keep myself up, sure if I sit down I'll never get back up, and dial my best friend's number.

She picks up on the first ring. "Trouble again, I see." Her voice is so sharp I wince.

"Sorry, was followed by—called as soon as I—" I lean against the Jacuzzi to try and catch my breath. "I know you're mad."

"Mad? I'm livid! When were you going to tell me that Caspian Gardener is gay?!"

Chapter Nineteen

I sink down onto the couch and wish the ground would just swallow me whole. Or that a carnivorous seagull would come in and eat my heart out. Or a serial killer would break into the condo and end my poor, pathetic life. I'm a secret girlfriend to a gay guy. To a gay, hot guy.

To a gay hot guy who took my virginity.

"I think I'm going to puke," I moan, curling my free hand around my stomach.

"I know, right! Totes terrible! Oh, my poor va-jay-jay is crying in agony! Agony I tell you! But it's totes ballsy, you know? If his parents found out..."

I really do think I'm going to puke. I stumble to my feet and b-line it for the bathroom. I'm not even a secret. I'm a shame-scape. Just in case he is found out, he can whip me out and I'll play girlfriend. No one would ever know.

Just like Roman will never tell anyone he sang to me or danced with me to the Rolling Stones. Or kissed me.

I'm everyone's secret.

I barely make the toilet before I heave up the contents of my stomach. My virginity meant nothing. Not love, not devotion. There was no bed of roses, no French kisses, no whispers of "Baby, you're all that I need." There was nothing.

I am nothing.

"... Bb? Are you okay? This is ridic, I know, but hey at least we'll never have to go nuclear if he ever got a girlfriend, right?"

I wipe my mouth with a piece of toilet paper. "No," I reply, biting my bottom lip to keep myself from crying. "No, no no."

"But, bb, look at it this way—"

"We had sex," I blurt, and Maggie goes silent. "On Friday. After I left. I didn't go with you because I met Caspian. And we..."

"Oh my God, you hymen high-fived! He stole your cookie! He—how big is he?"

I moan and sit back against the ledge of the bathroom.

"And when you were going to tell me? Aren't I supposed to be your best friend?" she accuses. "What else aren't you telling me? That you had sex with Roman Montgomery too?"

And that is a whole other can of worms.

I massage my temples, gnawing on my bottom lip. Hold it together, Junie.

I should be livid, but I'm not. Not sad, not angry, not heartbroken. I am not enough to be anything. It's my worst fear, and my most terrible conviction, that without my father, and without the Lining, I am nothing at all.

"...Bb? I'm not mad at you," my best friend finally relents. "I'm just pissed. You should've told me. I feel so insensitive now. But, I mean, bestie to bestie...how big is he?"

That's it. That is my breaking point. I burst into tears in the bird-shit yellow bathroom and spew all of the dirty little secrets inside of myself to my best friend—Caspian, Roman Montgomery, and the foreclosure. She's my best friend. She's the one person I shouldn't keep secrets from.

"How stupid am I to think that I am enough?" I hiccup, tearing off another wad of toilet paper to blow my nose. "Why aren't I enough?"

"Bb, you're more than enough for me."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"I understand. I screwed our history teacher in April."

I half-blanch, but then shake my head. "I knew it was impossible you got an A."

"A girl's gotta do, right? But he was hot."

"Yeah..." Mr. Williams was hot, if you got past the beard. "Are we even?"

"Bb, we'll always be even. Love you."

"You, too. Goodnight."

I get to my feet and wipe my swollen eyes. There is an unopened bottle of wine sitting in the refrigerator, just waiting for me. I find Mom's wine opener in her suitcase and pour a glass and shuffle out onto the balcony for some fresh air. My nose is still running, but I don't really care. My mind starts to wander back to Roman. Where are they now, on the interstate bound for some other destination, cursing the bane of my existence? I shouldn't have been so stupid—I should've known John would come looking. That he would find me.

Maybe if I'd listened to Maggie, maybe if I'd been more of a fan...

Stop it.

My phone vibrates in my back pocket and I pull it out again, thinking it's Maggie, but it's Mom. "Junie!" she exclaims, relieved, when I answer. "Where are you? Are you all right?"

"Yeah, we went to the Strand."

"Did you eat dinner?"

I can't even think about food. "Yeah Mom. We did."

"Don't you ever go so long without calling me again! You just up and left without anyone knowing! I was worried sick. Charles was worried sick."

I shake my head. Chuck would never be worried sick over me. "It's okay, Mom. What do you think would happen if I went off to college? I was fine—"

"It was still very rude. Your father would be so disappointed in you."

A lump forms in my throat. Would he really? "Okay, Mom."

"And Junie?" she adds before I hang up.

"Yes, Mom?"

Her voice softens with a sigh. "I love you to the moon and back." It's something she started saying to me when I was little. I think her mom told it to her, too. She doesn't say it all the time, usually when she's mad or worried. It's code for it's okay, I'm not really mad.

I swallow the knot in my throat with a sip of wine. "You, too."

Below, the beach is vacant. Pitch black waves rock against the pale gray sand, in and back out into the sea. There isn't a divide between the sea and the sky tonight. It looks infinite when the stars shine like brilliant diamonds on a velvet-black curtain. I read somewhere once that the stars were just holes in the heavens where the love of our lost ones pours through the sky to tell us that they are happy and that they are all right. I imagine if that's true then Dad's the Big Dipper. Leave it to him to be the big-ass ladle in the sky.

Would he really be disappointed?

I pour myself another glass and toast to the Big Dipper, and for the next hour, I talk with him about Roman, because Roman had begun to fill the crevice my dad left behind. What am I to a rock star if all I am in a secret?

What did I mean to Caspian?

What does the foreclosure mean to Mom?

All secrets. All locked away. All unwanted.

That is one thing I never wanted to be.

WE ARE GOLDEN

by Rue Norfolk

The Juice, June Issue #317

It’s early June, and I’ve waited outside of Muse Records for three hours. I am hot. I am sweaty. Los Angeles has never been more like Hell. However, there is one saving grace in this fire and brimstone town: Holly Hudson. She is supposed to walk through those double doors and into my life in five minutes (as long as I keep my camera tucked safely in my car, her PR agent stressed).

Holly Hudson, best known for the sensational rock band, Roman Holiday, with playboy frontrunner Roman Montgomery and estranged pianist Boaz Alexander, reportedly celebrated her birthday last week by herself. Which is odd considering she could have more hot tail than every bachelor on the Sunset Strip combined. And yet, she is still fantastically single.

So, my editor has dutifully charged me to find out why.

Holly Hudson barges out of the double doors, screaming into her phone, waving her hands in the air as if channeling a lightning strike to whoever is unfortunate enough to be on the other end. Her ringlets of chestnut hair are pulled into a high ponytail, bracelets singing in a chorus of clatter, her clothes a retrograde neon 80s fashion nightmare. But she works it. After all, her sensational style has been on the cover of Elle and Vanity Fair for months. They’re calling it “eclectic.” She has tucked her trademark peacock feather behind her left ear today, bouncing with her boundless energy.

“I told you she’d be here! Honestly, you never listen anymore! RoMo, I swear to God, if there’s one scratch on that rabbit I will cut off your penis and feed it to the sharks at the LA Zoo!”

Mystery solved.

She has always been one fiery phoenix of a girl, having risen from poverty to become one of the highest-paid entertainers on the market. She ends the call before her bright eyes—diamonds of blue that pin me like icy daggers—set on me. She slides her phone into her left bra strap and presses her hands on her hips.

“The Juice,” she says deploringly.

“Rue, actually. Rue Norfolk. I spoke with you on the phone—”

“You’re early.”

“Actually, you’re—”

“Let’s skip the small-talk.” She descends the steps on her fuck-me heels and stops a foot and a half away. Her rep says she’s five foot three and one hundred and thirteen pounds, but I’m two inches smaller and twenty pounds lighter, and she looks anorexic. Closer, her cheeks are gaunt and dark rings show under her eye makeup.

“Small talk skipped,” I confirm.

She cocks her head. “Wait… aren’t you the little shit who wanted to order Chip 'N Dales for me?”

“And take you out to dinner. That’s still an option.” I grin.

“I never said no to the Chip 'N Dales.”

Her manager interrupts then, shooting Holly a meaningful look. “But she’s much too busy with her schedule,” the man digresses.

Holly sighs, and tells Joe Maroski she doesn't need a babysitter. “I’ll be a princess, I promise,” she says, before leading me up the street to a little corner cafe. Joe tries to deter us—I have, after all, stepped on all but one of his toes in the past—but once Holly’s mind is set there is no changing it.

I wonder if it’s safe for her without a bodyguard. Rumor has it, she hasn’t kept the same one for more than a month; the poor man-beasts can never keep up with her. She’s like the Hope Diamond on legs. You get one look at her in the open and you’ll never remember another cheap-ass engagement ring again, but good luck catching her.

At the cafe, she orders a skinny soy latte, no whip, in a dejected sort of tone that tells me she’d rather have the triple mocha latte with extra whip, and could you be a doll and drizzle some of that caramel on it too?

I order a tea.

“It must be hard,” I begin, “to be in the public eye all the time.”

We sit at a window seat, a peculiar spot, since it’s just inviting the paparazzi to take a good shot of her. Perhaps that is her plan: playing nice with the paparazzi—after all, I'm one of them. “That’s one question you can’t ask," she replies, "so save your breath. Oh, and don’t ask about my family. Or Roman.”

“Why is he so secretive?”

“You can’t ask that.”

There goes half of my interview. The world believes that they are the Cory and Topanga of Hollywood. I size up her expression, her mood, but she has sealed it all away. Even testing the waters might land me on the permanent blacklist, and that would be bad for business. So, we skim the water to find something we can talk about.

Which is—that’s right—the weather.

“Got a hot date on this beautiful Friday evening?”

She’s not going for it. “I don’t see why you try to interview people like me. I’m not going to tell you what you want to know. I won’t tell you where I live or what type of car I drive. You want to know my astrology sign? Aries. My SAT scores were 1460. Someday, I want to play a gig at Madison Square Garden.”

“Which, congratulations, by the way. Summer of next year, right? End of July?”

“I’m stoked.” A smile blossoms onto her face like a moonflower. “It’s been my dream since, well, ever.”

“So dreams really can come true.”

“Sometimes…” She shrugs. “Dreams change, too. What you thought you wanted at sixteen isn’t what you want at twenty.”

“Did you ever dream you’d be on the cover of Vanity Fair?”

“Used to!” She forces a laugh. “Now, all I dream about is a good night’s sleep.”

I nod sympathetically. “This sort of popularity must be tough. You’re the spokeswoman for Covergirl now, right? And a lot of charities.”

“Yeah,” is all she says. She sips at her skinny soy latte, looking out the window. A little girl passes with her mom and pauses at the window. She recognizes Holly, who smiles and waves down to her. Holly Hudson really is a good role model, despite what the reps say about her private life. There are rumors about her maladjustment to the pressure of constant popularity, but it’s not evident in my interview with her. She smiles and she’s happy, and sometimes she stares longingly out the window.

“If you could do it all again, would you?” I finally ask.

Her pink lips, seen in commercials for Covergirl across the nation, press into a half-moon frown. “I would do one thing different.”

“And what’s that?”

Her eyes light on me, and she gives a coy grin. “You’re not allowed to ask that.”

Four years ago, Holly Hudson was a high school sophomore, known for her killer guitar videos on YouTube and seven-year spelling bee championship. Her best friend, Roman Montgomery, was a high school deadbeat working at a mini-golf course as a pirate on the weekends (there were bounties of booty jokes, I bet). Then everything changed when Roman and Holly made the decision to film a first music video in the basement of her house. “We were just dicking around, Roman and me,” she’d reportedly told Esquire when they first catapulted into YouTube fame and scored the infamous record deal with Muse Records. “We didn’t expect people to enjoy us in our pajamas. Boaz came a few months later. We met him in Las Vegas. We really dug his style, so we became a threesome.”

The sleeper hit, 'Crush on You', escalated to the number one hit in the nation a month later.

The rest, they say, is history.

A paparazzo passes the window and snaps a flurry of photos. She tugs down the blinds without even looking up.

"Then what can I ask?" I finally cave, because all of my questions are apparently enemy territory.

She shrugs. “The thing I don’t like about interviews is how twisted words can get. If I say I love Roman, you think we’re having sex. What is love, anyway? I know the word in fourteen different languages. I can give you examples of their uses. Everyone wants to know about love. About my love, so you can twist it any way you want. But what about saudade? Duende? Toska? Words that should be like love—untranslatable.”

The door to the cafe opens, and a guy in a New York Yankees baseball cap and Ray-Bans makes a b-line for our table. An errant fan? Amusement crosses Holly’s face as she pulls off his sunglasses. I’m struck dumbfounded.

Why, hello there Roman Montgomery.

“You really are gorgeous,” I make the mistake of saying.

“Thanks, you, too,” he replies absently, and presses to Holly, “Joe-Blow needs us back.”

“Needs or wants?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Roman.”

“Holly.”

“I’m staying. The interview isn't over yet.” Even though it pretty much is.

“You’ve stayed long enough,” he retorts.

“Let me finish my coffee.”

“Is that it?” He points to her cup.

“No.”

He slams the entire drink back, drains it, and makes a face. “Gross, soy. Okay, now you’re done. Let’s go.”

"You’re buying me another one.”

They bicker like an old married couple.

I ask if he wants to join us, partly because I don’t want to attempt to follow in fear that my knees might buckle, and partly because seeing Roman out in the daylight is like seeing a panda in the wild.

“Pain in the ass,” he replies. “Too many people with camera phones and Twitter accounts.”

In all accounts, that's very true.

Their lives are swept along hidden skyways: the backdoors of music studios, their secluded apartment, and their unmarked cars. Holly gives him a pleading look and he sighs, sits, and removes his hat. He reminds me of a fugitive on the run, a tiger that has escaped his cage. If he’s a tiger, then Holly is a flightless bird, trapped in an ever-narrowing maze of cages. Even in the cafe, they’re squashed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, in the same predicament for however long their empire lasts.

A lot of Hollywood starlets don’t get the buddy treatment. They should be lucky.

“So… what’s this interview about?” he asks.

“Me,” Holly replies.

“What about you?”

“Everything. My bank accounts in Switzerland, illicit love affairs, my baby’s Daddy in Zimbabwe.”

“I didn’t know about the baby,” he replies in mock-seriousness, and then waves his hand off toward me. “You know how these cockroaches are—excuse me, paparazzi are cockroaches. You, Madame, are a vulture.”

“Potato, tomato.” I shrug. I ask him point-blank about his drinking problem, the slew of heartbroken one-night-stands, his reckless driving ticket, the speeding tickets—all seven, the rumored drug habit...

“I’m twenty,” he says as if it’s the end-all excuse.

“No, you’re reckless,” Holly counters. I like her more and more, a girl not afraid to bust a super hot guy’s balls.

“Life in the fast lane,” he impromptu-sings.

“Did you sing that into the girl’s boobs last night?”

“I do not serenade women’s breasts. I’m surprised you even think that, Holly,” he replies with mock-indignation. “And here I thought we were besties.”

“The Eagles, really?”

“Rather me sing Hall and Oats?”

“Take that back or I’ll burn all your Elvis records.”

“Ooh, I’m shaking in my blue suede shoes!”

I prompt, "So, you like being infamous, Roman?”

“Like it? I love it!” He laughs. “It’s the best thing that could’ve happened to us, right Hols?”

“Right.”

“Where do you get your inspiration?” I ask them. “A girl? Love? 'My Heart War' is pretty hipster,” I comment.

He shrugs. “Everything. I do most of the lyrics, but Hols and Boaz are good at the beat.”

Holly rolls her eyes. “And as long as I’m alive he’ll never write a song about a girl. It’s so cliché.” She scowls, although Roman is quick to argue.

“But everyone writes songs about girls. KISS, The Rolling Stones, Justin Bieber…”

“The Biebs has a girlfriend song?”

“If not, he probably will.”

“Isn’t it called 'Boyfriend'?”

“Whatever floats his boat.”

Before I know it, my time has run out. Holly asks if I have any last questions before they leave. And I do—one question for her. Roman says he’ll meet her outside.

“What is one word to describe you and Roman?” I ask after he’s gone.

She doesn’t even blink. “Ya’aburnee.”

Three hours later, I find myself in the small hotel room I can afford on my measly paycheck. There’s a cockroach in the bathroom, and I’m not sure whether it’s alive or pretending to be dead. As I sit down and lament over my own romantic failures, and how thankful I am to have a job that I love as much as it loves me, I type Holly’s word into Google.

Ya’aburnee.

Arabic. Morbid and beautiful, it is a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before the other because life, no matter how wonderful and exciting, would be too difficult without them.

It means, quite simply, “You bury me.”

Thursday

Chapter Twenty

A thunderous knock wakes me out of a dead sleep. I spring ramrod straight, my legs tangled in the comforter. An empty bag of Doritos and the wine glass I lost somewhere between the balcony and the couch go rolling onto the carpet. Found it. I bend to pick it up as another loud thud quakes the front door.

I wince, massaging my throbbing temples. Oh, God, did I drink that entire bottle of wine? Where is the wine anyway? Looking around, I find it wedged between the couch and the cushions. You know you've hit rock bottom when you sleep with a bottle of merlot.

No wonder my head's pounding.

A muffled voice half-yells from the other side of the door. It sounds urgent. And sort of familiar. I disentangle my legs and roll off the couch, twisting my hair up into a bun. "Coming!" I half-yell, half-moan.

No one came home last night—Mom and Chuck probably crashed with Darla after their casino cruise. Guess I could've slept in the bedroom, but I have no idea what I might find under those covers—and that's a scary thought. The couch isn't that uncomfortable. Okay, that's a lie. It definitely is.

Another knock, this time so urgent it rattles the deadbolt.

This better be the fucking president, waking me up at 10:07 in the morning. Or maybe Bon? Finally read all of those love letters I sent him as a kid and realized he's the cougar I always knew he was? Come to feast on some supple Baltimore—Conway, damn it!—flesh?

When I open the door, my hopes die quickly.

A young woman with red dreads turns back to the door, throwing up her arms. "Oh my God! Finally!" She barges inside, all sweet coconut perfume, and four-inch heels. "Have you seen the rags this morning? You're in some deep shit, bb."

Am I still dreaming? I blink again, squinting at the blast of magenta dreadlocks that looks ridiculously eccentric this morning against her dark chocolate skin. "…Maggie?"

"Who else would it be? The Pope?" She rolls her eyes, digging into her purse, and pulls out a tabloid. She waves it into the air, the bazillions of bracelets on her arm jingling like sleigh bells. I wince at the sound. Hangover no likey.

"This is deep. You're in deep. And that was one fucking long ride! Jesus" —she pushes the trash magazine into my chest, pressing her legs together— "I gotta pee like a racehorse. Read it! Oh, my God, it is bird shit yellow!"

She slams the bathroom door as I finally inspect the magazine. My stomach flips. Gray eyes, framed by a wild mess of pink hair and peering over Roman's shoulder, stares back at me. The memory of the Lona comes back in full force. Dancing cheek-to-cheek. The kiss. John. Caspian's sexuality.

It wasn't a dream. "Oh no."

The headline slapped over my splotched forehead reads, 'ROMAN'S HOLIDAY?'

I tear through the magazine to the page written on the cover. "A full-page spread?" I groan, skimming through the article. "'Seen at an exclusive nightclub in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with this mystery girl, have Roman's expectations fallen since Holly Hudson?' What the actual fuck? Fallen?"

"And according to the rag," Maggie shouts from the bathroom, "you are totes hipster!"

"Hipster?" I choke. "Seriously?"

"And the paper calls Roman the 'Resurrected Rock God'—can you believe it?" The toilet flushes and she prances out, wiggling down her skirt. "It also totes slut-shames you, bb."

A knot forms in my throat. Yeah, no kidding. "No one will believe this, right? Right?"

Because she's my best friend, she shakes her head and contradicts herself at the same time. "They'll believe it."

Like they believed Roman killed Holly.

I slam the magazine shut. Not nearly as dramatic as I hoped. It sounds like the whimper that might come from me in a few minutes if I hear any more bad news. "Bb, I know I said I didn't want to be a secret, but I really didn't want to be ousted like this, either."

She snags a banana from the counter and peels it open. "How do you think Cas feels?"

"You didn't," I moan.

"I didn't know okay? And I have a big mouth. And it was sorta in the Bean, so we can't go back there for a while. Read: ever." She takes a bite, almost chews, and swallows. She's in her work clothes—as close as a pinstriped vest and an A-line crimson skirt are—but something tells me that she never went to work this morning, and won't be going. "The second I saw that on The Juice site… bb, this is a total disaster."

"I just don't get how he could've gotten this picture."

"Hello. Camera, click. That's how pap do it."

Because I'm still in my clothes from yesterday, and probably smelling to high heaven, I take John's memory card out of my pocket and hold it out to her. "But I have the pictures."

Her eyes widen as she snatches it out of my hand and turns it around in her hand, inspecting it. Without looking up from the chip, she asks, "Got your laptop on you, bb?"

"It's at home."

"That's fine." She hurries over to the gargantuan purse she dropped by the bathroom door and pulls out her DLSR. She pops out her own memory chip and puts his in. "Okay, let's see what's on this then..." Her frown deepens as she clicks through the pictures, searching through the photos. "This can't be right."

"What do you mean?"

"This." She shakes her camera. "This card. It's not from the Lona, bb." Her mocha eyes connect with mine. "They're pictures from the night Holly died."

Chapter Twenty-One

I snatch the camera from Maggie and scan through the photos, feeling myself pale at every one. John must've been outside her bathroom window.

The photos aren't close, but you can tell it's Holly. They look like screenshots to a scene in a movie. She's holding a glass of wine in one hand, listening to her iPod, her eyes closed. Her hair floats around her in the bathtub beside candles and incense, nothing more than a soothing bubble bath. She has one foot up out of the water. It's black and blue. Hadn't there been something about a fall the week before in Arizona?

John was nothing more than a peeping Tom.

But then...something begins to go wrong in the pictures. The wine glass tips out of her hand onto the floor, coating the tiles in a blood-red stain, and she begins to sink beneath the bubbles, her hair floating like a wreath around her. First her chin goes under, then her lips, and then sliding, sliding...

My stomach heaves. I shove the camera back to Maggie.

"He must've taken the Lona photos on the local memory," Maggie says, although her heart isn't in it. She shuts off her camera and pops out the memory card again. "Bb, Roman really wasn't there the night she died."

"But John was, and he could've done something."

Maggie shakes her head. She drops her camera back into her purse and begins to pace. She's followed John for a year, kept up with him, idolized him, almost. The confusion on her face is sickening. "That dick-licking bastard. He could've saved her! He could've—but he just—bb, this is big." Then she gasps and seizes my shoulders with her claw-like nails so hard, it makes me wince. "This is our leverage. Two people can play at this game."

I blink. "...I'm not following."

"Hello. Check in, okay? Follow—we got his jerkmeat, right?" She holds the memory card between us. "And he just slut-shamed you on every major tabloid in the world. It's on, bb. It's on like Donkey Kong. We're going to go there. And we're going to fight like real Holidayers!"

"But I'm not a Holidayer."

"You love Roman, don't you?"

I frown. "That doesn't matter."

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever. Either you're a Holidayer or a Hate-idayer." She sniffs me and cringes. "Take a shower and get adorbs. We're going out."

"Maggie, I'd rather just hide here under the couch for a few years until all of this blows over." I start over to the couch, but she runs in front of me and puts up her hands to block my way. "Maggie," I plead.

"No way, bb. Time to do some retaliation."

I give her a no-bullshit look.

She rolls her eyes. "Where the hell do you think John's gonna be today?"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do."

To prove her point, she snatches up the TV controller and turns it to MTV. It's a full day of live coverage from St. Michael's Cemetery—or it's supposed to be. My big fat face stares at me from over Nick Lively's purple-suited shoulder. She quirks an eyebrow. "Now do you know? I told you, this shit just got real. And I'm not going to sit around and watch my best friend get slut-shamed. Call me classy, but this means war."

I purse my lips together. "Don't you think he should see them first before we just hand them to the public?"

"Yeah, well, he sure blew you off, didn't he? And besides what does it matter? This memory card is his golden ticket to freeeee-dom! If we hand this to the public? Not only will it put John at the scene of the crime, but Roman will totes be off scot-free. He didn't murder Holly. He wasn't even there. So what do you say, bb? Let's give John the old Magbug One-Two?" she offers, holding out her fist.

On the screen, a blue mohawk cuts through the crowd behind Nick Lively. Seeing it, my resolve strengthens. Where Boaz is, I'm sure Roman is soon to follow. But giving the photos to Nick Lively without Roman seeing them first? I just have this horrid mental image of Roman waking up tomorrow morning with new photographs of his dead best friend on the front page of the New York Times. Wouldn't that hurt him even more than her death already has?

Nick Lively pulls up an old yearbook photo from sophomore year of high school when I still had braces and frizzy short hair. How the hell did they get that picture? The caption under the photo reads 'JUNIE BALTIMORE, COMPETING WITH THE DEAD?'

Maggie's right. This is war.

But it's not our move to make.

"We give it to Roman," I tell her, and when she opens her mouth to rebuke I add, "Please?"

She sighs and drops her first. "There goes my fifteen minutes of fame."

"Don't count that out quite yet," I reply, ripping my eyes from the TV screen to get dressed. I don't even bother straightening my hair, I just fishtail it over my shoulder.

Maggie frowns at my Journey t-shirt and frayed shorts. "We're going to war, not a lawn concert, bb."

"I won't stick out then, will I?" I retort.

"You have pink hair."

Maggie drove her neon purple Celica. It smells like roses and old take-out food, probably from the week-old Chinese in the backseat. I shove the library books and magazines onto the floor and buckle up.

"Sorry for the junk," she says. "You never know when the zom-pocalypse will come. And when it does, I'll be ready."

"Shotgun?"

"Double pump action, and just so you know," —and she pats my knee lovingly— "if you go zombie, I'll kill you first."

I laugh. "Thanks, Mags. I'd kill you first, too."

The only think playing on the radio today is Roman Holiday in memory of Holly Hudson. It's either that or NPR. The end of "Crush on You" migrates into "Deep End," a swoony song about—you guessed it—diving off the deep end for love, and then drowning in it. Holly sings most of this one. Sort of ironic, really, considering the photographs. Maggie taps her fingers along to the beat, rocking her head back and forth, as we speed toward Lynn Island. "You know, I always wondered, bb, Roman and Holly are from Myrtle, right? How many people knew them?"

I shrug. "Not a lot, I guess."

"But a good majority of them, right? Holly, at least, because I could totes see her as senior class prez or something. Oh! The viral video—the one at the golf course? Taken right there." She points at Arrg, Pirates! as we drive past. A small smile creeps onto my face. Yeah, I know the place. My shoes still smell like the lagoon.

"Dad loved that place when I was a kid," I reply instead, wanting to keep that night a secret, because it is the only thing that is truly mine anymore.

"OhmyGod, you could've ran into him and not even knew it!"

I think about the shape of Roman's face, and the way his lips turn up when he's amused. I shake my head. "Nah, I think I'd remember if I did."

Maggie rolls her eyes and merges onto the interstate, following the signs to Lynn Island. It's a small town a little past South Myrtle, home to shrimpers and oyster-shucking contests. "You sure? Because do I look exactly like I did when you first met me?"

"Sort of, minus the dreads."

"And the fantastic boobs," she adds, thrusting her chest up. "Think, because Roman doesn't really have orange hair you know—"

"I know! I've watched you obsess over Holiday for five years," I reply, rolling my eyes, and prop my elbow up on the door, putting my chin on my hand.

She huffs. "Jeez, take a chill, yeah?" It sounds like she drops the subject until suddenly, like she always does, she adds, "I just thought you'd have run into him before, is all."

I do everything I can to not groan. "Well, I haven't."

She sneaks a glance at me from the road, thrumming her thumbs on the middle of the steering wheel. "Is something eating you?"

"Sorta," I confess. "What John said last night—about me just being..." I hesitate, pressing my forehead against the warm glass of the window. "I don't wanna be like...you know, just another holiday."

The edges of her rouge-colored lips quirk up. "You love him, don't you?"

The back of my neck prickles with heat. "No." Although, I can't shake last night, not even after his harsh words and hateful glares. When we were dancing cheek-to-cheek, it was...it felt like every love song ever made, and that isn't something that a scornful scowl can erase.

I begin shaking my head. "I shouldn't. He's a rock star."

"Yeah, duh. He's got models lusting after him."

"Yeah," I murmur, sinking further down into my seat, "thanks for that."

"But," she adds as an afterthought, "Deep End" morphing into "Ever for Always." "I've never ever in a billion years thought you'd be on his side on anything. You hated him."

"I still should. I'm being crazy right now. Why the hell should I care what happens to him? Why should he matter so much?"

"Because, because, because," she singsongs. "Next stop, save the Lining, right?"

"Somehow, bb, I don't think we can save that with a memory card, too." I lean up and change the station to classic rock. Guns 'N Roses. "'Sweet Child 'O Mine.'"

Chapter Twenty-Two

Flowers wreathe the gate and litter the ground in front of St. Michael's Cemetery. Arrangements with 'We Miss You!' and 'Stay Weird!' lean against the tall stone wall and lace across the ground. No one dares to step on them—as if they're in a magical bubble. A crowd of quite possibly, oh, five hundred fans wait in front of the cemetery, most of them wearing pink SAVE HOLIDAY shirts, holding candles. Don't any of them have to go to work? Have a life? Something else to do besides pay tribute to a dead girl?

Maggie parks in bumfuck nowhere, so we have to hike at least three football fields' worth of cars to get to the cemetery itself. It's a complete pain, and today is stifling hot at that. Heat waves rise up from the asphalt, making the entire walk feel like I'm trudging through a sauna. How Maggie can look so cool in her four-inch heels and A-line skirt is beyond me. I can't even look cool in a parka in sub-zero weather.

Then again, I might be sweating because I'm nervous. I keep touching the memory card in my pocket to make sure it's still there.

Up ahead, Nick Lively—how can you miss him with that tan?—stands beside a black media van, fixing his hair in the driver-side mirror. His eyes stray up to mine, but he doesn't register I'm that girl until I've already ducked behind Maggie again.

"This was such a bad idea, bb," I hiss to her. "Can we leave?"

She loops her arm into mine and squeezes my hand tightly. "Fat chance. We're in this together. Balls to the wall, right, bb?"

"I hate that expression."

The crowd is thick with high schoolers. We elbow our way to the front where a line of Myrtle Beach's finest stand looking bored and tired. But two of them have Holly's trademark peacock feather clipped behind their ear.

"That's so sweet!" Maggie coos. "They're paying homage!"

This isn't exactly how I pictured the vigil. I expected more… I don't know, music? Noise? Girls crying in the streets while their fifteen-year-old boyfriends console them? But no one's crying. There's a solemn, heavy shroud hanging over the crowd, despite the colorful array of peacock feathers poking out of rampant ponytails and fishtail braids, no one can seem to shake. Like everyone is afraid of being too loud. It's silly—I mean they can't exactly wake the dead or anything. Somewhere in the sea of people, a lone radio fades into "My Heart War," and people flick out their phones and light their lighters in honor.

A slice of blue fin cuts through the crowd to my left. I tell Maggie I'll be right back and dive after Boaz. He stops at the outskirts of the crowd, taking a pack of cigarettes out from under his black kilt. It matches his black tuxedo t-shirt. "Boaz," I whisper, and he almost jumps out of his skin.

"Jeez Louise, bro-ho!" He slaps his heart. "You wanna give me a heart defunct? Ever heard of not sneakin' up on the man while he's at a fuckin' cemetery?"

"Sorry," I apologize earnestly. Making sure no one is close enough to hear, I add, "Where's Roman?"

He puts his lips to the tip of the pack and extracts a cigarette, putting the rest back into his kilt. "Readin' every fuckin' rag mag in the state, probs."

"I didn't rat."

He snorts, taking out a matchbox, and lights his cigarette. He inhales a lungful, savoring, and blows it out in a ring.

I purse my lips together. "You know I wouldn't."

"Do I?" He doesn't sound bitter, just amused. "My Heart War" crescendos, Roman and Holly's voices combining with the vigil's voices, roaring the lyrics like they're the last words on earth. It's chilling, as if she's here in the weirdest way. Sort of spooky and...and really tragic. "You know," he goes on, "no one even bothered about her side of this. Roman's always been either the martyr or the culprit. Who's Holly? The victim. No one cares if she isn't."

Maybe now's the time to tell him about the pictures on the memory card. It'll clear everything up. I begin to reach for the memory card in my pocket when I pause, my eyebrows furrowing. "What do you mean, if she isn't?"

"Bro-ho, she was in love. Serious love. For-shit love."

I retract my hand. "With Roman?" Was she who the song was meant for? Has he loved her all this time?

He doesn't say yes or no. He sucks another lungful of smoke and blows it out over his head. "A few months before she died she got this tat. Ya'aburnee. It means 'you bury me.'"

The smoke snakes like a gray river into the blue sky.

"Ya'aburnee?" I echo, remembering the article from The Juice. A cold shiver races down my arms, and I quickly cross them over my chest to rub them away. When Dad died, I was mopping the stage of sweat from the rock show the night before. We were thirty minutes to opening, and Dad had been counting the stocks, his pen making sharp checks down his list. I still hear the sound when I'm swabbing the floors, that echoing chhhick, chhhhhick!…

The next thing I knew, he put down his checklist and leaned against the counter. Geoff asked him, "Hey, boss, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just a little lightheaded is all. Can you check and see how many dark ales are in the fridge?"

Those were his last words.

He dropped like deadweight to the ground, his pen skittering across the floor, sharp and screeching. I dropped my mop and catapulted off the stage. I think I knew then that I wasn't going to make it in time. I think I knew at that very moment. But knowing didn't stop me from shaking him, yelling at him, trying to keep him alive until the ambulance arrived. My fingers had tightened so hard around his suspenders the paramedics had to wrench me off of him, crying, kicking and screaming, because I thought that if he could hear my voice then he'd come back to life even though his lips were blue and his eyes never looked once at me. They just kept staring, staring, toward something beyond me to nothing at all.

Ya'aburnee isn't the act of burying someone. It's the empty chair at dinner. It's when everyone forgets to turn off the freezer light at the bar because Dad always did. It's checking pants for suspenders even though no one in the house wears them anymore.

Red suspenders—I remember. Red suspenders like the ones Roman wears.

Boaz shakes his head. "Hols found me out in Vegas. The band had been together a few months, right? I was playin' at this luncheon thing for terminal kids where they served these shitty little shrimp balls and mini-dogs. Terrible grub for cancer kids, lemme tell you. I went to take a piss, right? There was only one bathroom and I had to piss. So, I knocked to see the hold-up and check it—it was Hols. She'd started her red river of doom and didn't have a supply of torpedoes."

I'm not sure what's more shocking, the fact that Boaz just called tampons torpedoes, or that he was ballsy enough to cut in line. "You're kidding."

"Nope. And guess who saved the day? Yeah, that's right. Yours truly. Got her stoppers and personally delivered 'em. Crisis averted. Next thing I know, I'm playin' in a fuckin' pop-rock band."

I can't help but imagine Boaz picking out tampons in the feminine hygiene section of a grocery store. "How come these things always start with unmentionables?"

Boaz grins then and elbows me in the side. "Because, bro-ho, those are always the best stories."

The crowd continues singing along with "My Heart War." It really isn't that bad of a song, once you listen to the words, but they pale in comparison to the song on his CD. If he ever returned to music, would he make more songs like it? Terrible, bittersweet, perfect songs you knew by heart and lit candles to? Songs you put on every playlist, stopped for on every radio station for?

His first chance at fame turned out for the worse, but everyone deserves a second chance, right? I'm sure Bon Jovi didn't get it all right on the first try—and we all know how the Boss's first marriage went.

Suddenly, an arm slings around my shoulder. Maggie leans over me, vibrating with excitement. "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm here, bb! I can't belie—" Her words clog in her throat the second her eyes land on Boaz. "Oh, holy hotsticks, Boaz Alexander? You're Boaz Alexander? Junie, is that Boaz Alexander?"

"Maggie," I introduce, "this is Boaz. Boaz, this is Maggie, my best friend."

"Why, hello." She suddenly strikes her hand around me out for him to shake.

He brings her hand up to his lips instead. "Hey hey, good lookin'."

I've never seen Maggie melt so fast in my entire life. "Marry me?"

He wiggles his eyebrows.

I roll my eyes. "Where's Roman?" I ask again.

"No idea," Boaz supplies, not taking his eyes off of Maggie. She blushes under his gaze.

"Well...he'll totes show up, right?" Maggie says, not really caring as she bats her eyelashes at Boaz.

"Or not," I mutter.

Maggie pulls her hand out of his grip and flips her dreads over her shoulder to glare at me. "Are you kidding? If you died and this was your anniversary, there ain't no mountain high enough that'd stop me from getting here."

"I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be an armed guard at my vigil," I retort. "You'd think she was the Pope with all the police."

A group of teenagers shoot me a scathing look over their shoulders, peacock feathers twined into their blown-out hair, pink SAVE HOLIDAY shirts tied up around their belly buttons. What would Roman think if he saw them? Drool like every other guy is obviously doing, or would he start humming Aerosmith’s "Dude Looks Like a Lady" with that devious cheshire grin?

A hushed sound tickles my ear. I swat it away. One thing about South Carolina, it has the biggest fucking monster gnats known to mankind. So big they eat mice for breakfast.

But then I hear it again—a soft crinkling sound like footsteps. I glance behind me to the patch of woods beside the cemetery wall, but there's nothing there. No, wait. The fabric of a dress, the heel of a foot. I retreat a few steps away from Boaz and Maggie to see down the long cement wall.

"Something up, bb?" Maggie looks in the direction of the woods, too, but she doesn't see anything. "Raccoon?"

"I—uh—no, it was nothing." Because I swear there was someone walking along the wall just a few seconds ago, her hand brushing along the bricks. "Hold my purse."

"Why?"

"I have an idea...if something happens, we go to Plan B."

"Plan B," she deadpans, pulling my purse over her shoulder.

Boaz shifts his eyes between the two of us nervously. "This bro-ha doesn't do coat hangers."

My best friend puts a soothing hand on Boaz's shoulder. Plan B was invented by our desperate ninth grade selves. It was juvenile. It was simple. And, thank God, we've never had to attempt it. I hope we don't have to today. "Good luck," Maggie tells me with a quick hug.

Turning toward the woods, I curiously—and maybe morbidly—pursue the shadow down the outside of the cemetery wall. I run my hand across the smooth bricks, covered in kudzu and yellow jasmines, following it down until the bricks crumble away into the cemetery. Through it, I can see white headstones that look like giant teeth along rolling green hills. The hole is enough for me to squeeze through.

It's trespassing, and it's illegal. Three days ago, I would have seen the invisible line, and I would have never crossed it. But the Band-Aid on my hand is comforting, because the cut is still there, reminding me that there are no lines, and there are no boundaries except for the ones I make.

I don't even hesitate.

I just step through.

Chapter Twenty-Three

All cemeteries are the same. Green, wet, and freshly-cut. It always smells like freshly upturned earth and flowers. I hate that about graveyards. Aren't they supposed to smell like death? Rot and corpses and bones? But they never do. St. Michael's Cemetery is no different. Near the back of the cemetery, rows of sprinklers run in unison across the lawn. A gravel lane snakes between the green rolling hills like a broad gray river, and a handful of weeping willows scatter the grounds, hunching over old statues of marble angels and mausoleums.

The girl I saw earlier is nowhere to be seen, and I shiver a little at the thought. A part of me didn't expect me to find her, anyway.

From the other side of the gates, echoing like a distant memory, a radio plays "Ever for Always." I begin down a row of gravestones when my ears perk at the sound of a guitar. At first, I think it’s from the mourners' radio outside the gates, but the song is too different, and too familiar. The realization hits me so hard I lose my breath.

He’s here.

I duck down behind a gravestone and try to listen for where the sound is coming from. I don't know where Holly is buried, but then my eyes catch a glow of orange hair in the afternoon sunlight He sits cross-legged on the ground beside the small unassuming grave, a beat-up acoustic guitar cradled to his chest. Beside him is a vase of fresh pink orchids. There is a bittersweet lithe to his voice as he sings to the headstone. He's wailing on the song, his fingers plucking passionately at the notes.

What an odd song to sing—but then again how fitting. Like this was their song, the one they would've put on each other's mixed CDs and fixed as each other's ringtones. I creep closer because he can't hear me, his entire heart in the song, until her headstone comes into view.

HOLLY VIRGINIA HUDSON.

BELOVED DAUGHTER

STAY WEIRD.

1994-2012

When the song finally fades, his hands fall away and very quietly I say, "'Only the Good Die Young.' Billy Joel."

He jerks around to face me, taking off his guitar. The stickers are peeling, the finish dull. It looks like him, worn and haggard, but still somehow existing. He narrows his eyes. "You."

Go ahead, say it. I want him to tell me about all the venom he has in his eyes. I want him to just let it out. It isn't that I'm a glutton for punishment.

"I...thought you needed a hug," I finally say lamely.

"A hug?" he deadpans.

"What are friends for, right?"

"We're friends?"

I dart my eyes up to his again, pools of melted emeralds and summer grass, completely unreadable. "I thought....you might need some for a change."

He doesn't smile. His face barely moves. It's as if he can't now, or that every other smile and every other grin were just masks to hide something much deeper and broken. "What good could you do now? Did you like your fifteen minutes on the tabloids?"

I squat down beside him and reach my hand out to his. He doesn't pull away; he just stares at my hand atop of his on his knee. "I know how you feel," I say softly, and my voice cracks a little as I gather up the courage to say to him what I haven't been able to admit in a very long time. "My dad took the midnight train too early, too."

But he just shakes his head. "He owns that bar of yours, doesn't he?"

"He did, but he died in November. I don't talk much about him...I'm scared that if I do, then it'll...I don't know. I'm scared that if I say it too often, then people will forget about him. So...I know how you feel. It's hard to visit someone who doesn't exist anymore."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too. But it's going to be okay."

He bites his bottom lip and lowers his head, and it's almost instinctive when I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him into a hug. He dips his face into my shoulder and cries. I hold him, fingering through his orange hair soothingly, letting his tears dampen my shirt. There is nothing to say. There are no words I could say to make him feel any better, or any fuller, with that sort of emptiness aching inside of him. I have that hole, too. I can pinpoint it, mark it with a arrow, draw dashes to it on a treasure map because it is so familiar to me like a old, deep scar.

"Thank you," he says into my hair, even though I did nothing to deserve it.

I wish I could peel the melancholy from his voice, cut it away from his heart, but I'm afraid there would be nothing left. Does he think Holly's death is his fault?

It's not your fault, I want to say, just as Dad's death wasn't mine.

I could show him the pictures; I could tell him it was John's fault for not calling 911. But then, I'm sure his mind would begin to wander along the what-ifs and maybes. It would begin to weasel doubt into his blood, burrow it into his bones, until he was nothing more than a body bag of guilt and heartache. Not even the memory card can cure that.

"Come on now," I say finally, pulling away. I thumb away the tears from his eyes, pressing my forehead against his. He sniffles, chewing on his lip. He's such an ugly crier, but it only makes me love him more than I already do. "It'll be okay. Stuff like this? It'll happen. She's still in your heart and in your head, where you can visit her in your dreams."

"It was my fault." He gathers my hands in his and puts them back into my lap. "We had a fight earlier that night...about another girl. Did you know she loved me? Holly. That she honest-to-God did?" He shakes his head. "A few weeks before, she fell and sprained her ankle. She was a complete pansy about it.” Unconsciously, he rubs his tattooed arm, the tiger and the phoenix. “It’s funny, but no matter how hard I tried to be the limelight, it was her everyone loved. She’ll always be the comet, and I her fucking tail. I should've died. I made all the piss-poor decisions. I drank, I screwed around, I fucked myself a thousand times over. I wish I would've died instead.”

“Roman…” I mutter helplessly, glad in my own selfish way that he hadn't died because then I would've never met him. But I feel dirty for thinking that, and despicable for being glad that he is the one alive, because without him...

Without him, I wouldn't have hated him. Without him, I wouldn't have loved him.

Without him, I would be infinitely different, and I am thankful beyond words that I am not.

"Roman, I—"

He shakes his head, as if dismissing the entire thing, and rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand. They're swollen and red, but he doesn't look about to cry anymore. “How did you get in here anyway?”

“I, uh, there was a hole in the wall and…” I point behind me, vaguely in the direction of the crumbled wall.

"Ah." He doesn't even look for the hole in the wall as he absently reaches over and plucks the Jeopardy theme absently on his guitar. "And you're still sticking to your guns that you didn't tip him off?"

"I wouldn't be here if I did," I offer lamely, because the moment I could've told him my heart has disappeared. And what would he do if I did admit it? Tell me to join the club with millions of other teenage girls? Or tell me very gently that there's someone else, but thanks for the admission? But what would it hurt, in the end? I'll never see him again. Balls to the wall, as Maggie put it. "And, Roman?"

"Mmh?"

"I—"

"Fuck." His eyes go wide, staring off in the direction of the entrance to the cemetery, and he jumps to his feet, pulling the guitar over his head. Then he looks at me, and suddenly I know that there is no way in hell he could ever love me back.

Chapter Twenty-Four

It's not John this time, but the fine men of the Horry County Police Department. And they are heading straight toward us. Roman scowls, whirling back to me. "You told them! You—"

"Stop blaming me!" I snap, grabbing him by the forearm and tugging him toward the crack in the wall. I'm having flashbacks to the night we broke into the put-put course, but somehow I think the repercussions of this will be worse. Breaking in to hit balls off a fake pirate ship is one thing, but breaking into a cemetery during a vigil? Well.

"You there! Stop!" One of the policeman calls after us, but his voice only propels my feet to go faster. Under my fingers, Roman's practically vibrates with anger.

"Front page not enough, huh?" he hisses as we dash over a hill of gravestones. We cut around the statue of a weeping angel. "Fuck. A whole fucking year in Super 8 Motels and fuck good that did me. You come along and wham! Oh, look, I'm a household name again!"

"Oh please," I snap, because his temper's getting old—fast. "You love the attention."

"Not as much as you, apparently. You think that hair's bright enough?"

"And yours isn't?" I almost get sideswiped by a knee-high headstone, and I stumble. "And just so you know, I didn't give him that memory card. Those photos were on the local memory, asshole! Totally not my fault! If anything, it's yours for taking me with you!"

He shoots me a glare as we duck under a curtain of weeping willow vines. "You could've said no!"

"I did, back when you wanted to buy me ice cream."

We hit the back end of the cemetery, and the hole isn't here anymore. Did I get turned around? I scan the walls, but it must be hidden behind a willow? Stupid me—did I even come to this side of the cemetery? Roman curses and kicks the cement wall.

"I hope you and John are happy," he grumbles. "Tell him your life story. Go on. I'm sure it'll be a best-seller."

"Why the fuck would I tell him anything?"

"Because you hate me!" he roars.

I purse my lips. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"You know, this? This here?" He jabs a finger between us, so close I can smell the cinnamon and wet grass on his clothes. "There's a reason I don't make friends."

"Because you just wanted someone you could pull along for a while, right? You saw me and I tickled your fancy. I don't know why. I'm not pretty. I'm mundane. I'm going nowhere—even my boyfriend kept me a secret. Thanks for solidifying what I already knew."

"Well, you know what they say," he sneers. "Secrets don't make friends."

I fist my hands. The police appear over the last crest. Two of them have tasers out. Neither of us wants to be tased. Where the hell is that hole in the wall? If looks could kill, I'd be in the lowest circle of hell right now.

But then a flash of magenta catches my eyes, past the policeman. My heart leaps into my throat. Maggie. She jumps up on one of the thicker headstones and whips her shirt over her like a lasso. A lumpy policeman passes her, huffing, and his eyes grow as wide as saucer plates.

This is it. Plan B.

Taking the memory chip out of my pocket, I cram it into Roman's hand. "Look at it when you get a chance. It's from John—with love. And do me a favor? Fight for your Madison gig. If she means so much to you, you should fight for it."

His lips curve down into a scowl. "You don't know anything about it."

"You're right," I reply, pulling off my shirt and tossing it aside. "But I know what I'd do." He stares, flustered, as I wiggle out of my shorts. Thank God, I have on matching underwear today. When I pop back up, he's staring, startled, at my chest. "Yes, they're real. Go through the hole in the wall, and do me a favor—don't get caught, got it, RoMo?"

"You're not seriously..." he starts, choked, but I start running back toward the policemen, waving my hands in the air to flag their attention.

"HEY!" I shout, jumping up onto a marble bench. I reach back to unclasp my bra. Out of the corner of my eye, Roman gapes. A grin breaks out over my face. "FEAST YOUR EYES..." I sling off my bra and throw it at the nearest policeman as I jump off the bench and dodge through a row of tombstones.

"BOOB-A-BUNGA!" Maggie howls, slinging her bra up in the air like a lasso. "LONG LIVE ROMAN HOLIDAY!"

The policemen turn to follow us, and the second they do, Roman ducks down behind a gravestone, memory card in hand, and makes a break for the crack in the wall. I give the police the middle finger and hurtle over a gravestone, and Maggie rings her double D bra on a weeping angel. We grab each other's hand and streak through the cemetery screaming Maggie's favorite song, "Crush on You."

Halfway through the crowd, our Roman Holiday underwear go sailing into the air.

I hope Roman enjoys the irony.

Chapter Twenty-Five

You know how in every cop drama the police station is always busy no matter what hour of the day? Yeah, they all lie. As we're processed into the system—mug shots, fingerprints, the whole nine yards—I can count the number of officers in the building on one hand. One hand.

"It's a Thursday night," our police officer, a guy named NESKY with a handlebar mustache, shrugs off. "We got public drunks to apprehend."

"It's six-thirty," I say.

"It's the beach."

Maggie nods in agreement. "He's got a point, bb. I mean, they probably do more than chase beautiful half-naked women around cemeteries." She bats her eyelashes at Officer Nesky who isn't swayed in the slightest. He tells Maggie to face the other direction and takes her last photo. "This is my best side, anyway. I'd look better in chartreuse, though. You got any chartreuse shirts back where you pulled these hid-vicious gray things from?"

The officer rolls his eyes. "No."

"Do get a lot of people like us?"

"Streakers?" he clarifies, filling in the rest of the paperwork, before motioning for us to follow him through the door to the holding cells. "Yeah, we get a few. You're in luck. There aren't many felons here yet. Later tonight though, mind your elbows."

He opens the cell door for us and takes our handcuffs off as we go inside. I rub my wrists where the metal indented into my skin, hoping it won't leave any bruises. Officer Nesky nods to the guard on duty by the desk, and I begin to ask him when we're getting our clothes back when he shuts the door behind him, leaving us with the guard.

Maggie sits down on one of the benches. "You know, I didn't think I'd be free-tittin' it either, bb. I hope RoMo and Boaz are halfway to China by now." She gives two men on the opposite side of our cell a sharp glare. She snaps her fingers towards them. "Hey—Hey, my face is up here. Creep."

Our guard has his back turned to us. He has a box of pizza open, but only the crusts are left, as he watches the small TV up in the corner of the room. Of course, it's turned to the live coverage from the cemetery. The candle lighting is supposed to commence any moment now, but they keep replaying the moment a particularly burly policeman grabs me by the shoulder just after we've surrendered at front gate and pushes me to the ground. There's a scrape on my knee from that.

"At least they're classy enough to blur us out," I comment, leaning back against the cold wall.

Maggie groans. "Yeah, but it makes my butt look so gigantor."

"At least you don't look like a crazed fan. What's up with my facial expression?" I try to mimic it, tongue splayed out, eyes rolled up, and Maggie giggles so hard she has to clutch her chest.

"Oh my God, don't do that! I might pop myself a black eye!" she howls. One of the homeless men wiggles an eyebrow, and her face quickly falls. "Not in a million years, you homeless perv."

"We're not homeless," the pervy guy's friend argues. He scratches his scruffy brown hair. They're probably in their mid-thirties, crinkled clothes, dirt smudges. One of them is even missing a flip-flop. If they aren't homeless, they could definitely win a Halloween contest looking like that. "I was trapped on a roof."

"And I was too drunk to find him," the pervy buddy adds.

"Oh, well isn't that just so presh." Maggie wrinkles her nose. "I mean, hello. You are obvi-dirty. Ever heard of a shower? Bath and Body Works? Soap?"

"Don't feed the buzzards."

"He started it!" she whines. When I mock her, she elbows me in the side. The TV blips back from a commercial to Nick Lively. She perks. "Ooh! Guard-man!" she calls to our guard, who doesn't even acknowledge us, "Turn it up, please!"

"Quiet down!" He snaps, grabs the remote, and turns it up. Maggie sticks out her tongue behind his back and nudges me to get up with her. We walk over to the side of the cell closest to the TV. I press my face between the bars because the cool metal sooths my sunburned cheeks.

Nick Lively must be in his media van since he's standing in front of a black backdrop where my face, and a very old image of Roman—when he still had mocha-colored hair and no tattoos, are superimposed beside each other. Between them, Jason Dallas slowly fades in, his black hair pulled back behind his head. I never noticed before, but his eyes are slanted, and his face is long. Like a fox.

Maggie squints at the news banner zipping across the bottom of the screen. "I think they're talking about the concert next Saturday—oh, I'd give my right ovary to go to it!"

This time, the guard turns around, his bushy black eyebrows furrowing, like two emo caterpillars in heat. "Shhhhhhh!"

We hold up our hands instinctively. "Sorry," I mouth.

He turns up the volume, and slides back down into his comfy chair. I strain my ears to listen.

"...Talk about one hell of a roman holiday,” Nick Lively tries to joke with a bleached white smile and forces a laugh so that even if you don't get the joke, everyone will laugh at the poor attempt.

Maggie just scowls. "You'd think he'd have better material."

"I'm just surprised he knows what a roman holiday is."

She raises her first in agreement, and I fist-bump it.

Nick Lively goes on, “Jason Dallas, a fellow singer who has crossed one too many paths with Roman Montgomery in the past, is live from New York City where he’ll be performing next Saturday night—a concert which, any Holidayer would know was originally Roman Holiday’s first Madison Square gig and reportedly Holly’s long-time dream. How do you feel about it, Jason?”

The screen splits open, and the pallid face of Jason Dallas blips up. His hair is pulled back into a tiny ponytail, a leaf of jet-black bangs feathering into his eyes. “I feel fine. How about you, Nicky?”

"He's totes gorg," Maggie tells me, off-handed. "I wouldn't say no."

"If you could pick between him and Boaz..." When she mocks aghast, I bump her in the shoulder. "Oh come on. Like I didn't see you making your sex-kitten eyes at him."

"I do have a think for men in kilts..." The scary thing is, I don't think she's kidding. Not that we'll ever see them again, but I make a mental note to tell the next guy she dates to wear a kilt. She'd go nuts.

Nick Lively cuts in with a harsh laugh. "Oh, Jason...you're a riot." His lips spread over his teeth in a pained smile. “Roman suddenly resurfacing is a little unnerving, isn’t it?”

Jason Dallas quirks a black eyebrow. The ring on the left side of his lip glistens as he grins. “Unnerving? Nah.”

“After Roman Holiday fell into oblivion without its two lead singers, you were quick to fill their place at the Gardens, were you not?”

“We're under the same label. We have the same manager. So listen, if he decides to pay me a visit, I’ll be glad to fight him for the stage. He still owes me fifty-five dollars for a fuckin’ game of strip poker.” He pauses. “I wasn’t supposed say 'fuck,' was I?”

Nick gives another nervous laugh. “You’re something else, Jason. So what are your feelings about the streakers at Holly Hudson's vigil?"

Jason Dallas shrugs. “Don't care. The black girl's got nice tits."

Maggie jumps up and down excitedly. "Nice tits!" she echoes. "Jason Dallas says I have nice tits!"

"Yeah, you do," one of the homeless men baits, and we blindly throw back a middle finger together.

"Don't you think it was a little rude?" Nick tries to egg, but Jason shuts him down.

"What I think is rude, Nicky—"

"Nick."

"Bless you. What I think is rude, Nicky, is you sniffing for trouble on the anniversary of the death of a friend of mine.”

Nick blanches. “Of—of course, and she is sorely missed. So, you and Roman used to bump heads…”

Jason murmurs something underneath his breath.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“I said,” he pulls himself up in his chair and narrows his eyes. They match the deep blue sky in the Starry Night replica hanging above his head. “Nicky—”

“Nick.”

“Whatever. I don't have time for you. So, yes, I’m playing next Saturday night at eight in the Gardens, and I’m going to rock the whole fuckin’ house—or you know, maybe I won’t. And yeah, that’s a challenge. So I expect Roman to show up for the fight.” He reaches his hand forward and his screen goes dark.

Nick's smile is beginning to strain the Botox around his cheeks. "You heard it here first—it's a challenge!"

"Too bad he wont show up," I reply, stepping back from the cell bars, shaking my head. Roman's probably halfway to Charlotte by now, or Charleston, or Columbia, or Raleigh—anywhere, really. He could be anywhere at all. I feel tired just thinking about it.

"At least Roman's got the memory card," Maggie points out, pulling her dreads over one shoulder, giving the guys in the corner another stink-eye.

"If he doesn't chuck it first."

The iron door to the room opens, and Officer Nesky comes back in. We instantly perk up, thinking that someone's paid our bail, but he just shakes his head when he sees the hopeful gleam in our eyes. "Junie?" He asks me and I nod. "Someone's here to see you."

"Really?" My heart leaps out of my chest in a moment of complete insanity, thinking that it could be Roman...until I remember what happened in the cemetery, and suddenly I don't want to leave the cell at all. He unlocks the cell door, and with a hesitant glance back at Maggie, I follow him out of the room and down the hallway into a small interrogation office. I don't notice who's waiting for me until the door closes. Suddenly, it's very, very hard to breathe.

"You," I gasp.

John Birmingham grins.

Chapter Twenty-Six

John extends a friendly hand. It's big and tan, and the ugliest peace offering I've ever seen. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m John, John Birmingham.”

"I know who you are." My voice is as cold as ice as I glare at him.

His darker-than-coal eyes sparkle with amusement. "Ah, see that's where the misconception comes in. You know of me. See, I'm actually a pretty nice guy."

"That's funny."

"I'm not very much of a joker." He retracts his hand and slips it into his pants pocket. His gray fedora is resting beside a glass of water on the table. Slowly, he eases down into his chair, expecting me to do the same, but I hover behind mine and wrap my fingers around the back of it. A table and a chair isn't nearly enough space between us. He studies my white-knuckled grip. "You dislike me."

"No shit," I snap. "This is all your fault!"

"My fault? I didn't buy you ice cream. I didn't make you get into his car. The only part of this that is my fault is the tabloids, and those I will gladly take responsibility for."

I clench my jaw. "You're sick."

"Nonsense. I'm only interested in people worth my time, and apparently, you're worth it."

"Was Holly worth your time?" I ask bitterly.

His eyebrows raise a fraction in surprise, but he doesn’t take my bait. "I have a proposition for you, Junie," he says instead.

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say."

“Now, now, don't assume. At least, not until you hear me out,” he tsks. “Picture this: you and me...”

“As I said, not interested.”

“And a great deal of money.”

I open my mouth to reiterate the fact that I am so not interested, that every word he’s saying is shooting blanks, when my voice comes to a complete and sudden stop.

At my hesitation, his grin grows. "See, I knew you'd come around. It might even be enough to save your father's bar—what's it called? The Silver Lining?"

My stomach churns. "Who told you?"

"No one had to tell me anything, Junie. See this?" He taps his nose. "I know good stories. And you are a good story. You're an even better story now that you can save your poor dead daddy's bar with just one word..."

I think my fingers have gone numb from clutching the back of the chair so hard. I can feel the indentions of Made in China on my fingertips. "It won't be enough."

"Can't it? Just think about it. You get off scot-free, I push the trite little dirty bits of you I've strung out over the tabloids under the proverbial rug, and give you enough money to resurrect your dear old Dad's trash-heap!" He raises his hands into the air as if he's just scored the winning touchdown. "And all you have to do is give me back what's mine."

Which I don't have anymore. My fingers release from the back of the chair as I sit down in it. "How much?"

"Five-hundred thousand dollars."

"You don't have that money."

He leans in close. "You'd be surprised what money I can get from a few well-placed stories."

"You mean lies."

Lacing his fingers together in front of him on the desk, he leans back in his chair. "Then, option two. I take your little naked escapade viral."

"Go ahead, I'm already slut-shamed."

"You are," he agrees, "but your friend...what's her name? Magdalena?" The way he says her name as a threat turns a sick feeling in my stomach. How much does he know about us, exactly? "She's on the fast-track to NYU, isn't she? I'm sure they wouldn't think twice about revoking her application after this debacle."

The fate of Maggie rests in my hands?—and in a memory card I don't even have anymore? He couldn't be that cruel, and NYU wouldn't be that shameless. What did I do to deserve this sort of karma, and what did Maggie do? My mind races with something, anything, I could give him instead of that stupid memory card. Maybe—wait.

I narrow my eyes. "So, let me get this straight, I give you the card" —which I don't have anymore— "and you give me the money to save the Lining, or I don't give it to you and you throw my friend under the bus?"

He throws his hands into the air again. "Touchdown!"

"But why help me out with the bar? Why don't you just give me the second ultimatum? What is the Lining to you?"

His grin drops a fraction. "It's just a little extra cushion."

"So that I'll give you the card."

"You got it."

"And you'll give me the money from a few 'well-placed stories,'" I quote him.

"You betch—" Then he stops himself and curses. "I mean, no. That isn't—"

"The answer is no." I shove my chair out from behind me. "And if you do start spreading rumors about Maggie? You'll have her to deal with, and she'll make your life a living hell with that card. Goodbye, John." With that, I bang on the door for the Officer Nesky to open up. John doesn't know my threat's empty. All he knows is that I was the last one to have the card, and that's enough leverage to make John jump after me.

The door opens and I duck out under the officer's arm. "I don't know him, sir." I shake my head, not having to fake fear because I really am afraid of John Birmingham. "He's insane."

"Get her back here!" John roars, but another officer blocks him inside the room.

Officer Nesky escorts me back to my holding cell with an apology, saying that John said he knew me. Gave my date of birth and everything. Note to self: buy pepper spray.

Back in the cell, Maggie is stretched out over our bench. She sits up when I come over, and take a seat. She gives me a once over before asking, "What the hell?"

I shake my head. "It was John Birmingham."

"No fucking way."

"Yes fucking way." I slouch against the cold wall and shut my eyes tight. "He said he'd give me the money to save the bar if I handed him the card."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

I chose to save a secret, instead. I hope he's okay wherever he is. Is he flipping a coin between his knuckles and staring out of the window, listening to NPR shit while Boaz drives the first stretch? Are they humming the song on that CD while sitting in a terminal at the Myrtle Beach International Airport, waiting for their plane to Paris, or Spain, or Italy? Or are they checking into a Super 8 Motel somewhere in Marion and drinking beers on the hood of Holly's Rabbit? And I'm sitting in a jail cell paying time for a man I never should have met.

None of this would've happened if I'd never gone out for ice cream with him...but that was never my choice, was it? He made a guess, and he guessed right. "Hey, Mags...remember why I don't like ice cream?"

She gives me a strange look. "That's what John wanted to know? That time some snot-nosed brat made you cry?"

"No. That's how Roman knew what ice cream flavor I liked."

Chapter Twenty-Seven

For the next hour, Nick Lively goes through—in horrifyingly specific detail, I might add—the events that led up to mine and Maggie's arrest. When they show a live view of the police station, the guard swivels back to us with a wide-eyed look. "That's you?" he gawks.

"Fame!" Maggie singsongs.

The guard's face grows wide in surprise before the door opens, and he quickly scrambles to his feet. "Sir," he greets the other officer, who stops at our cell door and barks both of our names in a rumbling baritone. Maggie and I jump to our feet. No wonder the guard looks scared shitless. This guy is a behemoth.

"This way, girls," the new officer rumbles.

We scuttle after him. We'll take the hell-hath-no-fury officer over the copious amounts of drunks who have begun to populate our small cell. We barely have any elbowroom as we wiggle our way out. Nesky was right about Thirsty Thursday, and one of the drunks was beginning to look a little grabby.

Big 'N Tall leads us to a nondescript office and closes the door after us, waving his hand to two metal chairs. We plunk ourselves down in them, the metal cold against my bare thighs. I really want my shorts back. The cold seeps right through these gym shorts.

The officer—no, he has to be more than an officer to have an office, a major? Lieutenant?— takes a seat on the other side of the desk, and his thin gray mustache twitches as he reaches down and pulls up two bags full of our clothing. I sigh in relief.

"Let's talk, girls," he says, sliding an emerald gaze between the two of us. It looks familiar, but I can't quite place it. Had he been to CherryTree before on a disturbance complaint with my dad?

Maggie elbows me in the side and whispers out of the corner of her mouth, "Check. Tag."

Oh, dear fuck.

Maybe the policeman had been to CherryTree on a noise ordinance, but that isn't how I recognize the eyes. His badge reads, in full, BYRD MONTGOMERY. I swallow hard. I can finally put a face to the man who disowned his son. I don't blame Roman for never confronting his father—the man's a giant. And he has a look that could freeze steam. I probably have a death wish, but I summon up enough courage to ask, "I'm sorry, this is a stupid question but...are you Roman's..."

He studies me and leans back in his chair. "If I am?"

"We're big fans?" Maggie offers with a timid laugh, shooting me an are-you-insane-or-do-you-have-a-death-wish look.

"Most young women are," he replies. "What I don't understand is why two fans would desecrate Holly Hudson's vigil by streaking naked to give my son time to escape."

"Did...he get caught?"

"No, he called me."

I blink. Once. Twice. Had I heard wrong? Roman...called his father because of us? And his father answered?

Seeing my confusion, he adds, "Multiple times." He slides the plastic bags with our clothes in it back over to us. "Both of you are banned from every cemetery in Horry County for life."

We stare at our wrinkled clothes. At the very bottom is the Roman Holiday underwear that started it all.

"That's it?" I ask. "We're free to go?"

"What about our bail?" Maggie adds.

"Paid." He stands and adjusts his belt. "And both of you are advised to be out of the county by morning. As in, you will be out of this county by morning."

Maggie's jaw drops. "You're kicking us out of Myrtle Beach?"

He inclines a graying eyebrow. He really does look a lot like Roman, from the facial structure to the condescending way he can raise just one eyebrow and make the rest of the world feel infinitely stupider. "Or I can escort you back to your cell."

Maggie turns to me with a definitive nod. "You know, I'm feeling totes homesick. You?"

"Totes," I agree.

We grab our bags, and they take us out the back. Officer Nesky is kind enough to drive us back to Maggie's car on his patrol so we bypass the media vans setting up out front. Through the rearview mirror, I watch as Roman's father greets Nick Lively with a handshake—and then promptly scares him back into his van.

By the time Nesky drops us off by Maggie's car with the warning that, come morning if we're still around we're more or less under arrest again.

"Didn't even get to lay out..." Maggie mutters, pulling onto the road, our esteemed officer following close behind. "Eh, I'd get all ashy, anyway."

I pick up the tabloid I'd tossed down into the floorboards earlier today and leaf to the article about me. I can't even remember what I thought was going to happen five hours ago—that he'd ask me to come along? That he would forgive me for something I had no control over in the first place? That somehow, in this odd, strange mess of a circumstance, he could realize how we deserved each other?

Which, I now realize, was a stupid idea.

"I mean, he totes can't follow us all the way back to the condo, right? He wouldn't, would he? I mean, I might gotta take a poo when we get back to the condo, and you still have to pack..."

I nod absently, scanning through the article. It's my name, over and over. Junie Baltimore. Junie Baltimore. Junie Baltimore.

Maybe John should've gotten the memo that Junie Baltimore doesn't exist anymore. It's Junie Conway—if I would've been born a month sooner, it could still be Baltimore, but I was still seventeen when Mom and Chuckles wed.

"...And then a big green penis came out of the sky and K.O.-ed everyone."

Startled, I glance up from the article. "Excuse me?"

"You weren't even listening!" Maggie accuses with a pout.

"I was!" I argue, but she rolls her eyes and I give in. "Okay, I really wasn't."

"You totes gave that garbage more attention than me. I'm hurt. Genuinely."

I clasp the tabloid to my chest. "You lie!" I gasp, trying to be funny, but when she frowns and doesn't reply with her usually witty comebacks, I drop the tabloid back to the floorboards. "What's wrong?"

"I feel like a total skank, bb, following John around for a whole year while the bastard went on this massive manhunt for RoMo...and I actually enjoyed it." She shivers. The cars on the interstate rush by in a blur. "Just so you know, like, I totes would've never done something like that. You know, if I was a pap. I wouldn't have..."

I put a comforting hand on Maggie's shoulder. "I know. You would've made up something better."

"Damn, yeah, I would—I mean, me? A pap? C'mon, bb, we all know I got better tastes than The Juice."

"Start your own magazine. Call it The Red Rag."

She makes a face. "Ew, totes gross. I'd call it something classy, like Incognito or something."

"Sounds ominous."

"That's the plan—if you end up in Incognito, then you totes did something super stupendous. Or super stupid."

My attention drifts down to the tabloid at my feet again. I wonder how often people think they are doing stupendous things that are stupid...or stupid things that turn out stupendous.

When we reach the condo, Officer Nesky—who has been trialing us the entire time—pulls up behind us in the loading zone to wait while I pack my things. Halfway back, I began to devise a plan on how to break the news to Mom and Chuck, hoping that they haven't seen the news. If they have? I might as well go ahead and ground myself. As we pass the breezeway on the way up, Chuck materializes out of the elevator. I must jump three feet out of my skin.

"OhmyGod!" I slam a hand on my haywire heart. "You scared the shit out of me."

He puts a hand on my shoulder, his face unreadable. "Junie," he says in his best fatherly tone. My shoulders wilt. Oh no, he's seen the news. "We need to talk."

I hope for help from my best gal pal, but Maggie points upstairs and slips into the elevator without me with an apologetic smile. Remind me never to rely on her for help ever again.

"I really don't want to..."

"Junie."

What I want to talk about is how I really, really want to talk to my dad. And that's something neither of us can grant.

"All right."

He leads me out onto the pool deck. It's dark, and most of the vacationers are out at dinner or playing mini-golf. He sits down in one of the chairs and I take the one beside him.

He laces his fingers together. "Your mother and I...we know. Your mug's been all over the news, Junie."

I deflate a little. Of course, he'll talk to me about getting arrested but not about the foreclosure. I'm not privy enough to know that sort of thing in their eyes. "Yeah, that..."

"And I just wanted to tell you that it is all right. We all do stupid stuff. Hell, I still do stupid stuff. Like not telling you about the foreclosure.”

Suddenly, he has my attention. "How did you know I knew?"

He shifts in his chair, scratching the back of his neck nervously. The bald spot on his head gleams in the moonlight. Dad had a bald spot too, but he always wore hats and bandanas so it wouldn't get sunburned. Chuck must put sunscreen on his. “Your mother found out. They called back.” He heaves a sigh. “We were going to tell you...after our vacation.”

“Oh.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t even know about it until I got the mail one day and there was a letter addressed to William Baltimore.”

“The bar's still in his name?” My voice is tight. "Mom didn’t transfer it over?"

“She didn’t want to. What I’m saying is, your mom wanted to handle it herself.”

“Handle it? She kept it a secret. That's my bar. That's my future."

"But it doesn't have to be," he tries to reason. "This is your life, Junie. The bar was your father's."

I ball my hands into fists. "And that is my father's bar. And my mom lied to me! She's known about it for God knows how long! We could've done something! I could've done something..."

But Chuck's shaking his head vehemently. "She was going to tell you. I married your mother because she’s honest, and she’s smart. She wouldn’t keep a secret like that from you. I wouldn't either. Don't hold this against her."

"It's hard not to."

"I know," he agrees softly. "But try to understand. Your mother hates secrets."

I have no argument to that. Mom could've kept Chuck a secret, but she hadn't. She chose instead to be ridiculed for marrying so soon after Dad's death that it reeked of an affair. They shunned her from the book club, from barbeques, from Homeowner meetings...she took it all with flawless elegance, electing to fill her time with new things—woodworking classes, yoga, weekends off with Chuck.

Even I know that Chuck and Mom honest-to-God love each other, and I know that Mom and Dad honest-to-God did, too, and a love like that you can't keep hidden because you don't want it secret. You want the whole world to know.

I'm not mad at Chuck because he loves my Mom. I'm mad at him because he’s not Dad. And, all of a sudden, that sounds like a very silly reason to be mad at someone at all.

"I'm just mad," I finally admit, "and I'm sort of scared."

He reaches over, very tentatively like I'm a wild tiger at the zoo, and places his hands over mine. It's supposed to be comforting, I guess, but his palms are sweaty and heavy. "We'll all sit down and figure it out, okay, Junie?" When I pull my hands out from his and wipe them on my shorts, he adds, "Is there anything else?"

"Remember when I went to get underwear?" There are still bits of dirt from the cemetery clinging to my nails.

Chuck thinks. "That the night I had cherry moonshine? Good stuff, those Davidsons...what about it?"

I take a deep breath and start from the beginning. It's a long story, and I flub a few things—I leave out the beach, and dancing at the Lona, and the CD in his car—but I have to give him credit for listening so long. As the words spill from my mouth, it feels like a great anchor has been untied from my feet, and I am slowly rising back to the surface for air. I know about secrets, and I know about lies, and I know they can fester far deeper than any truth ever will.

When I finish, he puts a hand on my knee and says in a very solemn voice, "Junie Conway, you're grounded—for life."

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Grounded!" I growl, shoving my duffle bag into the trunk of Maggie's Buick and slamming it closed. Officer Nesky has gotten himself a donut and a coffee from the gas station across the street. He waves at us when I glance back at him, and scowl because no one should be that friendly at midnight. "After I came clean, told the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me Bruce..."

"Almighty?" Maggie slides into the driver's seat. I buckle myself in shotgun.

"Springsteen."

"Oh. It could be worse, bb." She backs out and we start down Ocean Boulevard toward the interstate, t-minus six hours until home. Officer Nesky pulls out after us. "We could still be in jail with those super creeps. I swear they were homeless."

"I think one was a prostitute." Roman Holiday's "Deep End" pulses through her speakers before I reach to turn the dial. "Classic rock?"

"Sure." She glances over. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I turn to The Rock MBK station from memory, and the sweet voice of Bon Jovi crackles through the speakers. Savoring the sound, I close my eyes and sink back into the polyester seats. The cherry-smelling car fragrance sways in time to "(Do You Want To) Make a Memory." "Yeah, I mean how unfair is this? I owned up to my mistake. Fat good that did me. God knows I'll be the talk of the town for the next year anyway, so go ahead and ground the soon-to-be social pariah!"

"At least they won't be talking about your mom's marriage anymore," she offers up. "But that's not what I meant, bb. I mean if you're okay with...you know."

"Oh," I reply, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible to the pink elephant in the car, "that."

What am I supposed to say? That I'm fine with it? That I had a three-day love affair with a guy I didn't even know? That, when he kissed me, even though it was bittersweet it felt like all the stars in the sky orbited around us? That with one touch he could set me on fire? That he had treated me with more respect and more kindness than any other man, save my own father? That I didn't care he used to be a playboy? Or that he blamed me for the paparazzi, but that I'm bitter he left without even a goodbye?

At least now, he can stop running and...what, get back to music? Return to the roar of the crowd? A small, aching part of my heart hopes he does. The way he talked about it on the boardwalk, I now can't imagine him anywhere other than adored by millions of people. He needs to be adored. He needs to be loved. Everyone deserves a second chance, even Roman Montgomery.

But there's a bigger hollow part of me full of nothing but the echoes of what might have been. His hand on the small of my back, his warm cheek pressed against mine, his breath hot on my neck...

I know what love is now. It isn't planning to give yourself up in a room full of stagnant electric candles. It isn't kissing behind dumpsters and stealing moments behind open doors in the hallway or the janitor's closet at lunch.

Love is not planned. It doesn't have a set time or place. It is something you can't define because it's bigger than any of us alone. It's the sideways glance of the stranger behind you in line, the well-worn silence between strangers over ice cream. It's serenading you on the beach, and with you dancing cheek-to-cheek. Love is made up of small impossibilities—inconsequential, incalculable moments strung together like imaginary constellations.

Maybe John's right and I was just another girl. I was a holiday, and I was a secret. Those two poisons, beating beside a heart that had fallen in love with him...

It fills me with a sadness bigger than my bones.

"I will be," I finally confide, as close to the truth as I'll ever get. "I will be okay."

Friday

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Maggie and I stare at the Roman Holiday wall-shrine in her room. There is everything from t-shirts to posters to concert tickets to magazine cut outs to dream boards stretched from one end to the other. It's a testament to her love for the band.

We stand side-by-side, looking up at the massive wall, before she takes the article she cut out from The Juice about us and pins it right in the middle.

"At least the article gives your wall some flavor," I try to joke, although just looking at it makes me want to vomit.

"Yeah." She steps back and admires her work of art. "Hey, bb?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to help me take it down?"

I study my best friend for a long moment. The dark circles under her eyes mirror mine. When we got in at six-thirty this morning, neither of us could sleep so we sat up watching episodes of Supernatural on Netflix. A part of me wishes she'd never come to the beach because, even though she'll never admit it, it destroyed her ideal of the people on her wall, and the articles behind them.

But, then, another part of me is glad I wasn't alone for it. I'm glad she was there, however selfish that might be, and I'm glad I still have a person to call my best friend.

"Sure," I finally reply, and she smiles.

"Awesomesauce!" She perks. "Besides, I totes think it's time to dive into a new fandom. Get on the bandwagon again, travel to where no man has gone before! Ooh, Chris Pine. Now he's a nice piece of ass."

"I dunno, RDJ is pretty hot."

"In that ex-druggie sort of way." She cringes and plucks our article from the middle of the wall. She begins to rip it, but then sets it gingerly on her bed. "Just, uh, don't destroy anything. It totes might be worth something."

"Because a Roman Montgomery PEZ dispenser is valuable," I deadpan as I peel it off the wall from where she double-side-taped it.

"Oh, shut up and start peeling. We have a new shrine to erect!" She begins to name off other bands and actors in the running, and all I can do is shake my head while I take down the ab-licious poster of Roman, and try to remember him as nothing more than a person that I used to know.

Saturday

Chapter Thirty

When my parents finally returned home, Mom agrees to break the news of the foreclosure to the employees on Wednesday, because Monday is already a shitty day, and on Tuesday everyone’s getting over the hangover they gave themselves from the shitty Monday. I'm not sure I follow her logic. I just think she doesn’t want to tell anyone.

Chuck doesn't retract his decision to ground me, and Mom agrees. "I'm very disappointed, Junie," she tells me, holding up a tabloid of my blurred-out naked body hurtling over a gravestone.

Classy.

Here I am, eighteen and graduated from high school and...I'm grounded. Like a thirteen-year-old. Since my parents have come home, they've been watching me like a hawk as if they're afraid I'll go rogue at any moment. I feel like I'm in prison but it's worse because they pretend like they still love me. I wouldn't be surprised if they secretly inserted a tracking device on me in my sleep.

Note to self: sleep with the door locked.

Sunday

Chapter Thirty-One

Mom should be thankful, at least, because she's not the talk of the town anymore. I've already been uninvited to three end-of-summer parties I didn't even know I was invited to in the first place and a birthday party by some girl I barely knew in high school. I think we had algebra together, but Maggie swears we had P.E. with her freshman year.

Maggie swears this'll all blow over.

"You won't be a pariah forever," she says after a cheerleader we went to high school with shoots me a particularly nasty look at the 7-11.

"Yeah, but forever's a long time to wait," I reply, and sucked down half of Maggie's slurpy in hopes to kill myself via brain-freeze. We flunk down by the curb, and I open up a bag of onion rings.

“I’ll be here for you,” she replies, stealing one from the bag.

“Thanks.”

Because I'm pretty sure my Facebook friends list has decreased to a solid three—my parents and Maggie.

Monday

Chapter Thirty-Two

"Junie!" Chuck calls from the kitchen.

He and Mom are making cake pops for the neighborhood's end-of-summer cookout—one that I have not been uninvited to yet. Which is a plus. I need to get out of the house. I'm beginning to reorganize my closet by color—and with my extensive collection of black t-shirts, I'm not sure if I should organize them by the color palette on the graphics, or by the fade.

When I crawl off my bed and thump down the stairs into the kitchen, they’re humming along to "Crush on You." If it's possible, Roman Holiday has become more popular. Not that I hate them anymore. Now, I just want to gouge out my eardrums every time I hear them. Which is a step up, I swear.

And yeah, okay, I might hate RoMo just a little.

Flour and icing powder the countertops in the kitchen. What did my parents do, have a cake pop battle while I slept in?

“What?” I ask, sitting down at the table.

Mom hands the cordless phone to me between her elbows. “You've got a few letters on the counter and some man wants to talk with you. Something from last week...?”

“What?” I mouth, curiously putting the phone to my ear. She shrugs and hands Chuck another stick to shove into a cake ball. I get up, grabbing the stack of letters, and walk into the living room for a little privacy. “Hello?”

“Junie Baltimore?”

"Conway," I correct, tearing open the first letter.

Go to hell slutface, it reads.

"Are you the daughter of William Baltimore?"

I drop the letter on the coffee table like it's an iron brand. My eyebrows furrow in vexation. "I'm sorry, but who is this?"

"Go fuck yourself, cuntlips. I hope you die." Then, a dial tone.

"Oh...kay..."

I toss the phone onto the couch. The next letter is addressed to me too in loopy, heart-swirling cursive. I don't recognize the handwriting, or know anyone from Michigan, but I open it anyway.

Dear Junie Baltimore, Do us all a favor and slit your wrists. End your suffering. You're welcome.

Flabbergasted, I shred open the next two letters. Are they all like this? They call me worse names, and one even includes a cutout from one of the tabloids with devil horns drawn to my head and a penis shoved against my lips. The last letter is from Asheville—a very polite un-invite to the neighborhood cookout.

At least I knew that was coming.

Returning the cordless phone to the kitchen, I slide up onto the barstool. Chuck slips Mom a peck on the cheek while reaching for another cake pop stick.

I hold out the un-invite. "I'm not going to the cookout."

Chuck inspects the invite without missing a beat. "Fine by me. I hate housewives anyway." He eats the cake pop he's making and hands the invite to Mom.

She scans over it. "Oh, my. I didn't realize it was this serious."

The other letters feel heavy in my hands. "Me neither."

"All this over some famous guy?"

"Yep."

She tears the un-invite in half and tosses it into the garbage can beside the counter. "Fine, then I refuse to go, too."

"You know what? Let's throw our own cookout." Chuck eats another cake pop. "Two can play at this game."

"And I can finally make my potato salad," Mom adds. "I always get stuck making the deserts!"

I start shaking my head. "Guys, no, you don't really have to—"

"This Friday?" Mom reaches into her purse and flips open her planner. "I'll pencil it in and call Darla. We'll show them how to do a cookout. Oh, darling, who was that on the phone?"

“I dunno—”

The phone rings again. I answer it. “Hi, this is the Conways.”

“Is there a Junie Baltimore?” asks a voice.

Not another one.

“This is her..."

“I'm from the National. Is it true that you have had past relations with Roman Montgomery?"

“Excuse you—?”

“And that you sold him out to the paparazzi for fifteen minutes of fame?”

My mouth gapes open. I can't even figure up a response that is anything short of a spew of profanities. Finally, I manage to say, “Who the hell is this?”

“And,” the woman goes on, “that you and your friend...Magdalena Strieveport?...desecrated Holly Hudson's gravesite during the vigil?"

If I call this reporter all of the names those letters called me, I wouldn't be any better than them—but that doesn't mean I don't want to. For all I know, she's taping this conversation. And waiting for something to nibble at. So, I do the only thing I know how to—I slam the phone down on the charger.

No wonder Roman always ran.

Chuck and Mom give me a confused look, abandoning their cake pops. "Darling...who's calling? You look pale."

"Hell," I whisper, somewhat frightened.

The phone rings again.

Chuck checks the caller ID. "Who's in Chicago? Junie, do you know anyone in Chicago?"

"The Cubs?" I guess.

"Maybe I should answer it..."

“Junebug," Mom's voice sounds calm, but she always sounds calm when she's nervous or upset. At Dad's funeral, she was the most composed out of any of us. The rumors started then, because no one else lived in our house to know she waited until she locked her bedroom door to cry. “Is there something wrong?”

Chuck waves the cordless phone around. "Should I answer it?"

"NO!" Mom and I snap in unison before I race back up the stairs and grab my cell phone, punching in Maggie’s number with shaking fingers. She picks up after the first ring, as if expecting me. “Mags, what's going on? People are calling me—I have fucking hate mail! Please, tell me you know what’s going on.”

Her voice is solemn when she answers, and as dry as death. “Bb, you’re gonna totes hate this. You're really gonna totes hate this. I can see your house. Right now.”

"Are you outside?"

"No."

Then, like the fucking cherry on the cake, the doorbell rings. Chuck calls me back downstairs again. His voice is urgent.

"Coming!" I call, and hiss into the phone, "What did he do?" She doesn't need elaboration on who he is.

She clears her throat. "Well...let's just say that those photos we gave Roman? They're live. And I'm staring at one right now on the front page of the New York Times."

"New York Times..." I sink down onto my bed with the weight of her words. "He went public with them."

"No, an anon went public with them. And John is fighting back."

"By making up stories," I finish.

"Let's just say there's a whole fuckload of yellow journalism," she replies grimly. "I hope the NYU admissions office doesn't read the papers."

"Maggie, I'm so sorry—"

She cuts me off before I can even start to grovel. "Like hell this is your fault, Junie! It'll blow over."

My stomach twists. "Probably just another week or two, right?"

"Yeah." I can tell she doesn't sound so convinced either. "Don't you have to be at work soon?"

I nod, although she can't see it, and rise to my feet again. Chuck hollers at me from the living room, and I take the stairs two at a time down. He and Mom are standing guard by the front door. They both look as pale as sheets.

"We...have a problem," Chuck admits grimly.

The doorbell rings again.

Keep yourself together. I duck into the dining room and pull back the curtains. No, we don't just have a problem. We have close to thirty problems loitering on our lawn. Three media vans. And a group of high schoolers with signs calling me names I'd really rather not read.

"Maggie, they're here. On my doorstep," I inform.

She groans. "Fuck-tastic."

"What do I do?" One of the paparazzo notices me in the window and raises his camera, but I drop the curtain again and step away from the window before he can catch me. "I can't leave my house!"

"Okay...okay...Plan B?" she offers helplessly.

"Because showing my boobs for a second time will really make things better!" I hiss.

"Jeez, it was just a suggestion! Don't have to get all brimstone on me."

Suddenly, Chuck marches back across the house into his study, which used to be Dad's study, and comes back out with a Winchester shotgun. Mom blanches. "Now, darling..."

"Honey, they're in my flowerbed," he replies simply, as if that's any justification for shooting a man, and throws open the front door. He steps out with his shotgun and yells "Get the hell out of my yard!" When no one moves, he pumps it once—and that's all it takes. The people on the lawn scatter like roaches. "If any one of you steps in my flowers again, you'll find a bullet in your ass quicker than you can call a lawyer!" He turns, marches back inside, and slams the door. "Junie." His voice is level and scarily calm.

"Maggie, I'll call you later." I hang up. "Yeah, uh, Chuck?"

"Get dressed. I'm taking you to work—"

I try to wave him off. "I can call in sick."

"Junie."

"No, really, I'll just call Geoff and tell him that I won't be coming in to—"

"Now."

I snap ramrod straight with the urge to salute him. "Be ready in ten," I reply, and dart up the stairs again.

Eight minutes later, Chuck tells me to duck down into the floorboards of the SUV—which is much bigger than my station wagon, thank God—as he reverses out of the garage and down the driveway. I pull my jacket hood over my head as an extra precaution. He almost runs over a cameraman as he turns out onto the street.

By the time I'm dropped off at the back door to the Lining, everyone's seen the news. They—Mindi, Jess, even Geoff—stare at me like three deer in headlights. Do they really not have anything better to watch? It's as if they're waiting for Roman to just show up. Get real. He's a thousand miles away by now. When I dump my purse on the back counter, Geoff begs me to give him the deets.

"Don't you have work to do?" I snap, unraveling the sound cords from underneath the sound booth.

Mom booked a gig tonight, or else I'd lose my mind. I already told Hal not to let anyone who looks remotely paparazzi-like inside. I'm sure they won't try to fight him for the door. Pulling the black chords over my shoulder, I haul them up to the stage and begin connecting the mikes and speakers for the night.

Because I fired our only sound guy, looks like I'll be taking the board for a test-drive tonight.

"Do you know who's playing tonight?" I ask my bartender.

"Band called The Black Sheep." He shrugs, opening up the refrigerator to count the stock. "Big in Columbia, but I've never heard of them."

"If they're from Cola they're probably some new-age indie metal shit," I reply, hooking up the speakers. There's a squeal of live feed before I kick the mikes away. "So, anything new happen while I was gone?"

"Oh, the usual, love." Geoff counts the pale ales. "Massive orgies. BDSM parties. Naked Jell-O wrestling..."

"Did you let women enter this time?"

He mocks a gasp. "Why, of course not! This was heathen central, thank you very much." Closing the refrigerator, he hops up to sit on the bar and swings his legs over. "Tell me, how tight is Roman Montgomery's ass?"

"Pretty tight," I answer.

"And abs? As rock-climbable as GQ said?" He wiggles a black eyebrow.

I laugh. "I honestly didn't check." When he narrows his eyes I elaborate, "But his chest was pretty rock-solid when I danced with him?"

"You danced with RoMo? Oh be still my beating, bloody, black heart!" He cries, clutching his chest, and mock-falls across the bar. "You are such a lucky bitch."

"Uh-huh, so lucky I got arrested."

"For streaking. Ballsy, love, but I dig it. All in the name of love!"

I kick the rest of the cords into the wings of the stage and hop down, wiping my hands on the backside of my jeans. "Speaking of love, anything new with you?" I quirk an eyebrow, wanting him to just come out and tell me.

He hesitates. "Well, love..." Then, his eyes rise to the front door opens. He seems to both illuminate and wilt at the same time. "Oh, Cas."

A chill creeps down my spine. I turn, slowly, to the entrance. Caspian closes the door behind him. Achingly gorgeous, as always, his platinum blond hair swept back, cornflower blue eyes glittering in the dim Lining glow. He's wearing a white v-neck shirt with a plaid over-shirt and skinny jeans. My stomach twists into a knot until I remember that he doesn't swing my way, and then the sight of him just makes me mad. Did he know, that night, that he was gay? Did he know and still have sex with me because...

"Why?" I find myself saying aloud, and then add, "...Are you here?

He stops in his footsteps and purses his lips together. Geoff slides off the bar, hesitantly shifting his eyes between the two of us.

"I'm not staying long," Cas says. "I just wanted to stop by to tell you..."

"That you're gay?"

He prickles at the word. "That, and..."

I shake my head. "We're not open yet. Sorry, you'll have to leave."

"Baby—"

"Do not baby me," I snap vehemently.

His gaze snaps down to his shoes. "Can I apologize at least?"

"Sure, you just did." He tries to say something else, but I don't let him. "You really can leave," I add, sliding behind the bar to get myself a glass of water. I'm not really thirsty, but it's something to do to get my mind off of him. This whole situation. Everything.

Cas gives Geoff a helpless look, and Geoff caves. "Hear him out, love?" Nervously, he pulls his hand through his curly hair and a new ring glints on his finger. Mine and Cas's high school ring. Geoff didn't go to our high school.

So, Caspian just didn't like to have coffee with me.

Cas begins to back away the longer I'm silent. He twitches back toward the entrance, and I let him get there before I say, "I just want to know one thing."

"Yeah, anything."

"Did you know you were gay when we...?"

He turns around and gives one slow, concise nod. "Yes."

Oddly, I'm okay with that answer. I set the glass down on the counter. "And were you seeing someone else while we were...?"

He swallows, his cornflower eyes flickering to Geoff. "Junie, my parents...if they knew...I didn't mean for things to go like this. I thought if I had you, then my parents wouldn't find out about...but then you wanted to get serious and we already had it planned and..."

I trace my index finger around the lip of the glass. "So, you used me."

"Junie, if I could take it back, I would."

"I didn't know he was seeing you either, love, until after Maggie ousted us at the Bean," Geoff adds, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm sorry, too, if that's any consolation."

"It's not your fault." I shake my head. "And you can't give me back my virginity, either."

All color drains from Cas's face.

"You were her first?" Geoff whips around to Cas, his shoulders clenching like a feral cat. "You had—you two—you never said you had sex with her!"

But it's like Cas doesn't even hear him. He stares at me in a mixture of disbelief and self-disgust. He puts a hand to his mouth, shaking his head.

Geoff slams his fist into the counter. "You didn't tell me that! And her first?"

"I—I didn't know," my ex-boyfriend mutters into his hand. When Geoff begins to shake his head Caspian adds in a voice that's so sincere it cracks, "You're everything to me, Geoff. I'm so, so sorry."

Cas has this expression, like a wet puppy in the rain, that makes me sort of cave. Caspian really didn't know that I was a virgin. For all I know, he was, too. Or maybe he wasn't—the point is, we never talked about it.

Geoff scrubs the back of his head. "Cas, this is too Springer for me. These sorrys taste like shit—"

"I forgive him," I interrupt.

I want to be angry with him, but I must've misplaced my anger somewhere. Or maybe I'm just too tired of being angry to care. Perhaps, that's worse. Caspian is a dick, yeah. He pushed people into lockers and he called people Camel-toes and Humpbacks behind their backs, and he dragged me along for six months as we pretended to be attracted to the people we made up in our heads, but people can change, right? Isn't that what Roman swore?

"I'll forgive him," I repeat.

Geoff stares at me like I've grown two heads. "Really? Really?"

"Really?" Cas echoes, just as perplexed.

"Yeah, really. I can't blame you, it takes two to tango and I really...I should've said no, anyway. I didn't want to that night, but I thought you did."

"And I thought you did."

"And still, everyone forgot to tell me they were fucking!" Geoff throws up his hands. "You know, Cas, I was fine with being your secret as long as you loved me, but I can't. Not after this. Either you love me and come clean to everyone, or we're done."

Cas begins to shake his head. "No, Geoff—"

Geoff slams his hand down on the countertop, his voice so loud it cracks. "Get the hell out of my bar!"

He tries to argue again, but Geoff vibrates with so much anger all Cas can do is retreat.

I watch him go, helpless, but when he's gone I place a hand on Geoff's shoulder. "I'm sorry," I whisper.

"It's not your fault, boss." He hangs his head, and his muscles unwind until he wilts. "The course of true love never did run smooth."

"It just runs away," I agree, and rub comforting circles on his back as he sinks to the counter and buries his head into his arms.

Tuesday

Chapter Thirty-Three

The Black Sheep were new-metal indie rock. And terrible at that. They screamed the entire time, and the guitarist fell off the stage drunk before the end of the set. What's worse, instead of drawing a crowd, they repelled people like the Black Plague. That should've been their band name.

I still have a headache from that stupid band when I wake up in the morning. Sleeping only made it worse. That, and the paranoia setting in. A paparazzo got a shot of me changing into my PJs last night and thirty minutes later, it was viral on every Roman Holiday forum on the net. The most constructive criticism I got was "Slut nds 2 wrkout."

Welcome to Junie's Hell.

Chuck has to drive me to the Lining again. Second day on the floorboards and it's getting old.

Twisting my hair up into a sloppy bun, I tell Geoff, "I'm taking ten before we open. Didn't get a chance to eat dinner."

"Sure thing boss." He salutes. There are dark circles under his eyes where he didn't get much sleep. He managed to keep himself together during hours last night, but he ducked out the moment we closed. I think he's still in the clothes he wore yesterday. "We getting any deliveries today?"

"The usual Tuesday shipment. Stock what you can and put the rest in the back." I grab my purse and return his salute.

"Don't get caught!" he hollers after me.

I pull up the hood of my jacket and open the front door. A paparazzo leaning against a meter perks and snaps a few shots before I dash by him. He follows me halfway down the street until I lose him in a boutique and pop out the back entrance. That's one good thing about Asheville, I guess. Bookstores sit beside coffee shops that sit beside art galleries and bakeries and eclectic shops you can get lost in for hours. Dad and I used to walk through downtown every Wednesday while Mom went to her book club meeting at the library. She doesn’t go to book club anymore—although with how well my slut-shame has gotten around, she might be welcomed back with open arms.

I rarely walk downtown anymore. It’s as if Dad’s ghost follows me wherever I go, breathing down my neck, so that I’m both alone and never alone, always with him and without him. Kind of like whenever I turn on the radio and hear him.

I duck into my favorite bakery and wave at the cashier, Mac, behind the counter. “So what’ll it be?” Mac asks. “I got a good cheesecake today.”

“I’m in a double-chocolate mood,” I reply, and he cuts me a piece of plush chocolate cake, nutty peanut butter lining—the works. It’s decadent and savory, Dad’s favorite. Mine too, when I am on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

Paparazzi, Roman, foreclosure...

I'm pretty sure my life is beginning to rival a soap opera.

On the way home from the beach, Maggie discussed her plans for saving the Lining. She calls it Operation Rock-N-Hard-Place, because that's exactly where the Lining is now. A car wash wouldn't be enough money, and since the only gigs that come through our bar are the local kind, a benefit concert is out of the question. I don't want to tell Maggie that the future looks bleak, but in a month she won't have to worry about it anymore. She'll be at NYU studying journalism. Caspian will be at Northwestern.

And I'll be here, eating double-chocolate cake and listening to Roman Holiday on the radio, and consoling Geoff. The paparazzi will die down soon enough when they realize I'm nothing to Roman Montgomery. He hasn't even made a public statement about me. After the photos ran, he emerged in L.A. with his manager and answered everything the press asked him—about the photos, about his music, where he's been for the past eleven months. But the moment they bring up my name? Interview over. Like I really am a secret—or worse, not important enough to be a secret.

A pair of high schoolers at the window table—they look like sophomores—suddenly gasp. One flips her long, black hair back and asks Mac, “Hey, turn it up! It's about Roman Holiday!"

Mac reaches back and turns up the volume. "I thought they were broken up."

"... although it is not confirmed by manager Joe Maroski, rumor has it that Roman Montgomery of Roman Holiday will challenge Jason Dallas for the infamous Garden gig he lost a few months ago—"

The high schoolers sigh together. The black-headed one tells her friend, "I can't believe they let him walk free. Is there no justice in this world?"

"He so didn't kill Holly," her friend replies. "Didn't you see those pics? Roman's totally nowhere in the picture. His car's not even in the garage in one of the pics."

"That doesn't mean he wasn't there though."

"It totally does. Like, in one of the photos you see him walking into the bathroom and trying CPR on her. Totally heartbreaking!"

"Probably the first time he ever kissed her."

"You're such a bitch." Her friend scowls.

This feels like déjà vu.

Nick Lively goes on, "Roman Montgomery has yet to comment on this rumor after the debacle at Myrtle Beach, but his manager has confirmed that he was not in Myrtle Beach during the vigil. More curiously, what has happened to Junie Baltimore? Have we seen the last of her? This is Nick Lively, glad to be home in Los Angeles, and this was Five on Five News."

Mac turns down the radio again when Jason Dallas's new song begins, and suddenly the bakery is very, very quiet. I look up from my cake in mid-chew. Mac and the high schoolers stare at me expectantly, like I'm supposed to say something.

I swallow and clear my throat. "What? Is there something on my face?"

The girls whip back around and whisper quietly to themselves. Mac leans over the counter. "Are you still...?"

"What, do you really think I'd be that lucky?" I point out.

Mac laughs. "You're right. Impossible."

Impossibly possible.

I lift my gaze to the window just in time to catch the paparazzo I dodged earlier staring at me. Like an evil roach, he brings his camera to his face. I take a huge bite of cake just so he can take the photo and give him the bird.

"Do you got a back door?" I ask Mac with a mouthful, handing him my empty plate.

Speechless, he thumbs behind him.

"Thanks." I pull the hood up over my head again and leave, squeezing down the tight alleyway and back up the hill to the Silver Lining.

From the outside, the bar's an unassuming building. Beautiful red brickwork, two stories, framed with large square windows. I'm not quite sure what it was before Dad bought it and renovated the building, but now it's home. A neon sign hangs off the side of the wall, an arrow with the name spelt vertical inside it, pointing down to the simple black-door entrance.

Hal's already on his barstool outside, clenching and unclenching his biceps, inspecting them. He looks up when I call his name, and grins bashfully. "Hey, boss."

"Nice pecks," I comment and fist-bump him. "It's gonna be an easy night. No bands."

"It's always easy, boss."

"Even with the paparazzi? Job's getting too easy for you, Hal?" I joke.

"Job's never hard if you enjoy it," he replies. My face falls a fraction. "You okay, boss? With all this attention and everything..."

"I'll be fine," I reply. "Don't worry about me—oh, and keep Cas out tonight, too."

"Still bitter?"

"Geoff is." I sigh as he opens the door for me. I step inside, the air cool and heady with mahogany and bourbon. It's too dark to see the scuffs on the slick wood floor, and the gum under the tables, but a blue neon glows over the liquor bottles behind Geoff, casting pale shadows across the barstools and high-top tables. Geoff flips a shaker behind his back and catches it, never missing a note as he hums along to Roman Holiday's "Crush on You." He pours a virgin martini for my best friend.

Maggie stops spinning on one of the bar stools and a grin spreads across her face. "My love!" she cries, throwing up her arms.

I throw up mine and we slow-motion run into a colliding hug. "Where have you been all my life!" I mock-wail.

Anguished, she jerks her head away. "In the land of men! It was sexy and very, very tiring!"

"Welcome home. Hell's been expecting you."

She throws back her head and laughs, the new beads on the ends of her dreads clattering together like wooden wind chimes. "I don't know why I ever left. Any bands tonight?"

"Nope."

"Good!" she chirps. "I've already talked to Geoff and he said he'd cover for you if I stole you away for the evening."

I hop up on the barstool next to her. "I'm still grounded, bb."

"And Geoff will cover, hello." She rolls her eyes. "What else are you going to do tonight?"

"Let's see here, play a paparazzi game of hide and seek?"

She makes a face. "We'll give them something to really take pictures of. C'mon, bb. I promise it's not Quidditch," she adds, taking my hands in hers. "Let's show everyone the Silver Lining's greatest secret."

"Secret? I'm front page news, bitch!"

She thrusts her fist into the air and crows, "That's the spirit! Thought we'd hit up that new techno bar down the street. You know, do a little bump and grind. Get our groovy on."

"See, that's just not fair. Why do I have to miss all the fun stuff?" Geoff pouts, taking an envelope out of his back pocket. He extends it to me as Maggie downs her drink and pulls her purse over her shoulder. "Some guy dropped this off while you were out. Oh, and we got that package of lights you ordered last week."

I don't even glance at the envelope, waving it away. "Oh, no, I've had enough hate mail to last me the week. Seventeen more came today."

Geoff shrugs and sets the letter down in front of me. "Then, love, you do the honors of trashing it."

"With pleasure."

Picking it up, I aim it for the garbage behind the counter, but something slides inside the envelope. Curiously, I flip it over, and suddenly my stomach drops into my toes.

In a squinty chicken-scratch handwriting is one word:

Junebug

My heart suddenly migrates to my throat, because I recognize that handwriting. My fingers find their way under the lip of the letter, and I slowly pry it open.

"Bb?" Maggie calls from the door and mimics the white-man shuffle with Hal. "Coming or what? Time to feed the beast! Arrroooooo!" she howls.

"Yeah, gimme a sec."

I dig into the envelope. There are two pieces of paper. The smaller piece is thicker. Even without reading it, I've been to enough concerts to know what a ticket looks like. I turn it over. A single admission to Jason Dallas's BLACKHEARTED tour at Madison Square Garden Saturday night.

The other piece of paper is a letter folded in half. There are only four words on it, written in the same chicken-scratch handwriting, that sends an electric shiver through my blood and bones.

Secrets don't make friends.

"Hey, bb!" Maggie calls again from the front door, and drums her hands against the doorway. "Time's ticking and I still gotta do my hair! Pick out my clothes, reapply my makeup...anyway, I have a lot to do before we go out!"

I hold up the letter to Maggie. "Did you see who delivered this?"

She shakes her head. "I just got here."

I turn to Geoff and he sets down the glass he's cleaning. "That bad, huh?"

"What did he look like?" I ask, unable to keep the crackle from my voice.

"Sorta tall, New York Yankees hat, and red suspenders. Like your dad used to wear—hey! Where are you going?"

I dart out the door, Maggie close on my heels.

"Bb, what's wrong? Who's—?"

"It's Roman."

"He's here?" She looks down both ways of the sidewalk as if she'll find him disappearing around a corner. How long had it been since he dropped it off? He could be gone by now. "Okay. I go left and you go right, plan?"

Nodding, I break into a run down toward Haywood Street, looking through the sharp glare of the evening sun into shop windows, for him. Why would he deliver it personally? Why not just send it by mail? He must know I'm being watched like a hawk by the paparazzi. He must know I'm a social pariah now. Why would he come here? Why wouldn't he stay to see me?

When I get to Haywood, I hang a right up the street. I pass Mac's bakery, a bookstore—and then I pause.

I turn around.

He steps out of the bookstore. His hat is tugged low over dark chocolate hair. His original color, but I can't imagine him with anything other than that god-awful orange. He's wearing clothes that can't be cheap, acid-wash jeans, Nikes, and a graphic t-shirt, but I can recognize him from the suspenders. Those cruddy red suspenders he always wore.

"Junie." His voice is soft. He has his hands in his pockets, one wrist wrapped in an expensive-looking leather band.

"Hi," I reply, breathless. The envelope is bent in my hand.

We don't say anything for a long moment, partly because I'm afraid I'll say the wrong thing and he'll disappear, and partly because I'm not sure what else there is left to say.

"Thank you for the photos," he finally says.

"They weren't mine to do anything with."

"Anyway, thank you."

I nod, and another stretch of silence falls between us. There's so much I want to say, how the few moments with him were better than most every moment without him, that whenever I fall asleep I dream of another world where we aren't Junie and Roman, but two anonymous people who met and fell in love. I want to ask if he loves me, or if he ever entertained the idea. I want to know if all those moments he spent with me are as golden as they are in my soul, and how little by little he has begun to fill the space my father left behind.

I want to ask if I'm anywhere in his heart, if I am enough for him as he is for me.

But I'm afraid where those questions will lead, and I'm afraid that everything that needs to be said already has been.

I'm afraid that the scar of Holly is too big, and my importance too insignificant. Secrets don't make friends. I feel the envelope, and finally realize what I really want to know.

"Why weren't you there?"

He raises his eyes to meet mine. The evening light makes the hues of green a murky, muddy orange, and filled with so little warmth I almost don't want to look into them at all.

He knows what I mean—not why he wasn't there that night, although that, in retrospect, he had a little to do with it. What I mean is why he wasn't there for her. Why hadn't he seen the signs Boaz so easily noticed?

Or maybe the greater guilt is that he had noticed them, and maybe that is his burden to begin with.

I hold up the ticket and the note. "Secrets don't make friends," I repeat. "I deserve to know, don't I? That, at least?"

He shifts from one foot to the other as a couple passes, not even sparing him a second glance. They remind me, in aching clarity, of the night at the Isla Lona, and that we could be them. But there are too many snakes in the water, and there are too many caution signs of drowning for us to attempt. If I had to give my heart away to someone who'd never return it, I at least deserve the story no one else knows. I deserve the real one that made this man I can't help but love.

"It's a long story," he finally confides, and takes off that ridiculous NY Yankees baseball cap. At least, his hair matches his eyebrows now. "Would you..."—he motions down the sidewalk—"Please take a walk with me?"

He holds out the nook of his arm, and I pull mine through it, and we move down the sidewalk, touching, but now so many words unsaid apart.

Look for the sequel to Roman Holiday this fall...

Junebug

Acknowledgements

There are so many wonderful Holidayers who made this book possible, I’m pretty sure I’ll forget a few, so to everyone who accompanied Roman and Junie during some part of their wild ride, thank you.

To Savvy Apperson, who will for now and forever be my best friend and confidant. She pushes me to be the best possible writer, and never laughs at my silly ideas. I am wholly convinced that if not for her, the character of Maggie would not exist. I'd streak with you through a cemetery, bb.

To Michelle Scheponik, my editor, who I met at the right place at the right time, and who believed in this story with the fervor of a thousand raging bulls. Without her, Junie and Roman would forever be a one-night-stand.

To all the betas over the past five years—Cera Osmialowski, Ashlie L’Homme-Muller, Alisha Polkowski, Gretchen Lynn Hendrix, Lori Pittman, Randy and Cheryl Poston, and all of the other people who helped me out along the way. You guys seriously rock.

But most of all? Thank you, readers, for investing a little time in the characters who swiftly became, and will always stay, my friends.

Thanks dpgroup forum.

About the Author

Ashleyn Poston is obsessed with untranslatable words, romantic comedies, and the quintessential classic rock. Graduating from the University of South Carolina with a B.A. in English, she interned at Random House Publishers and Bravo TV where she excelled at hardcore fangirling. She currently lives in South Carolina with her cat and a plethora of books. Roman Holiday is her first novel.

Feel free to follow her on her Twitter, facebook, and/or blog where she fangirls excessively about Dr. Who, Teen Wolf, and heartbreakingly handsome men.

http://www.ashleynposton.com

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