cute.
“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 starts with a cough and with a burp of black smoke it rumbles out of the lot and 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 with my makeup all smeared and my nose red, I looked more like a mid-90s Ozzy Osborn.
Roman should have turned tail and run—
screaming
.
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.”
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. “I’ll leave it running while I go in. It’s hot as balls outside.”
“You’re so kind.”
“Don’t let this pretty face fool you,” he tsks, before briskly making his way to the building.
The skin on my legs makes a horrible sticky noise as I slide down in the seat. My sweat somehow solidified 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.
Curiously, I pick up the case and pop it open. The burned CD inside is labeled in sloppy chicken-scratch handwriting,
Your Song Sweetly EP.
He still burns CDs? That’s sort of adorable. I haven’t burned a CD since the iPod was invented.
Knowing that this constitutes as
prying
, I still pop it into the antique CD player. 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 a love story. It’s a dizzying sort of song that gets you lost in your own head; it takes you back to someplace bitter and beautiful. It’s sounds like all the moments you’ll never have again.
It’s spinning around on the barstool the day after Caspian first kissed me, it’s dancing in my room to ‘Bed of Roses’ when I first heard it on the radio, it’s singing “Born to Run” with Dad on our road trips into the mountains, so whole and lyrical and bittersweet the words sink down into my bones.
This is what missing someone must sound like—uncontrollably hopeful and sad, hand in hand.
The thought hits me then—the only reason Roman would ever write this sort of song. Why any musician
“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 starts with a cough and with a burp of black smoke it rumbles out of the lot and 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 with my makeup all smeared and my nose red, I looked more like a mid-90s Ozzy Osborn.
Roman should have turned tail and run—
screaming
.
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.”
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. “I’ll leave it running while I go in. It’s hot as balls outside.”
“You’re so kind.”
“Don’t let this pretty face fool you,” he tsks, before briskly making his way to the building.
The skin on my legs makes a horrible sticky noise as I slide down in the seat. My sweat somehow solidified 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.
Curiously, I pick up the case and pop it open. The burned CD inside is labeled in sloppy chicken-scratch handwriting,
Your Song Sweetly EP.
He still burns CDs? That’s sort of adorable. I haven’t burned a CD since the iPod was invented.
Knowing that this constitutes as
prying
, I still pop it into the antique CD player. 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 a love story. It’s a dizzying sort of song that gets you lost in your own head; it takes you back to someplace bitter and beautiful. It’s sounds like all the moments you’ll never have again.
It’s spinning around on the barstool the day after Caspian first kissed me, it’s dancing in my room to ‘Bed of Roses’ when I first heard it on the radio, it’s singing “Born to Run” with Dad on our road trips into the mountains, so whole and lyrical and bittersweet the words sink down into my bones.
This is what missing someone must sound like—uncontrollably hopeful and sad, hand in hand.
The thought hits me then—the only reason Roman would ever write this sort of song. Why any musician
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