Open Road Summer(57)

He’s amused by my curiosity—that I’m uncomfortable with not knowing. “That Dee loves you and relies on you for a lot. That’s all, really. What did you know about me?”

My mind moves back to that day on the bus before I met Matt, listening to “Human”, and I almost say: I knew that you understood pain in a way most people our age don’t. I knew that Dee trusted you, that I wanted to trust you, too. I did not know that you were bracingly sexy and funny and unpredictable.

I clear my throat. “That you were cute when I was in eighth grade.”

He grins, running a hand through his hair, and I see my opportunity to get a dig in.

“Stop messing with your hair. It already looks nice. Boyish-nice.”

“Oh, you think you’re funny?” Before I can anticipate his movement, he grabs me by the legs, pulling me onto the bed with him. Something about the suddenness makes me laugh, and he takes the opportunity to brush his fingers against my sides, tickling me.

“Stop,” I squeal, swatting at him but laughing nonetheless. Tickling is the worst, my reactions jerking out of my control.

He releases me, and we both land on his comforter. I rest my head against one of his pillows as he stares directly at me. The back window is tinted just enough to filter the setting sun’s light. That’s the best for photography—filtered light, where the view is aglow but soft. In it, you can be illuminated without being overexposed.

It’s not the first time he’s run his hand through my hair, almost absentmindedly. Normally I’d pull away from being petted like a house cat, but it isn’t like that. His fingers weave through my hair the way he touches his guitar strings, as if I’m something cherished, something he’s connected to. Instead, I stare back at him, at his salt lake eyes and the strong lines of his face. In coming on tour, I had hoped to find escape—enough distance to figure out how to start over. I still don’t know the whens and hows of repairing my own life. But I know that Matt Finch makes me want to feel everything. Instead of numbing myself in any variety of ways, I want each sensation; I want to feel the way they pool together—his touch and smell, the sound of his voice. I want the tipsiness, the giddy ache that comes as he slides his thumb across my lower lip, as his eyes fixate on my mouth.

He leans over, drawing me into the kind of deep kiss that pulls the air out of my lungs. For the past few years, everything I’ve done has been so fast—a flurry of late nights and red plastic cups and frantic undressing, too quick to stop and think. I was driving my life way over the speed limit, swerving the wheel just to make myself feel more alive. It took me half a summer to get here, with a buildup that simmers still. Now, with Matt’s hand tangled in my hair, I can’t believe I never knew how good it feels to slow down.





Chapter Fifteen

NYC


“You’re exactly what I was looking for,” I coo, peering into the shoe box that houses my only New York purchase thus far: a pair of sky-high, black suede booties. I extract one from the box and slide it onto my foot, admiring the way it rises to just below my ankle. I thought I had invented these shoes in my head, but there they were—as real as I had pictured them, in a storefront near the TV studio building where Dee’s filming a talk-show appearance this afternoon. I pull the other shoe on and place both feet squarely on the ground. “Except you’re even better than I imagined.”

Matt eyes me from his spot on Dee’s dressing room love seat. “You’re crazy.”

“Excuse me,” I snap. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a conversation?”

From the makeup chair, Dee laughs. “Don’t worry, Matt. I get jealous, too. Reagan cares about her shoes more than she cares about her own best friend.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say, looking up at her. Then I glance back down at my beautiful new shoes. “It’s a tie.”

Dee laughs again, which is clearly exasperating to the makeup artist. He stands, smileless, with some sort of wand in his hand. When Dee stops laughing, he swipes gloss on her lips. She’s wearing a polka-dot miniskirt from J.Crew, a collared shirt, and her trusty denim jacket—perfectly summer-casual and perfectly her.

The makeup artist pronounces Dee’s face complete and packs up his supplies. As soon as he’s out the door, I slide onto the love seat next to Matt. We’ve been in New York for two days, shuttling to and from press events and sightseeing in between. It feels frantic to me, but Dee says it’s nothing compared with “Street Week”—the release of her album last May. Peach is in the city, too, but she’s taking a day off to visit the 9/11 Memorial and the Statue of Liberty with the band.

The door jerks open to Lissa’s hawk face. “We need to have a conversation.”

Matt sighs loudly. Lissa’s been on his case all morning about appearing on the talk show with Dee. Matt and Dee have protested, but the fight has been passive-aggressive and tense. “I’m really not going out there. You know Zoe will ask about our ‘relationship,’ and we won’t lie.”

Lissa shakes her head. “It’s not that. I’ve just been alerted to some . . . unflattering press.”

Matt’s mouth snaps shut, and Dee’s complexion turns chalky. She moves next to me on the couch, already wide-eyed.

Lissa continues. “I think it’s wise if we talk strategy before the show. It seems this spread will be released tomorrow in a tabloid that went to print earlier today.”