Open Road Summer(65)

I smile at him. “Say ‘cheesy.’ ”

“Oh, you think you’re so funny.” I start to take the picture, but Matt sits up quickly, grabbing me by the waist and tickling me with both hands. Since I was watching him move through the camera lens, I’m caught off guard, unable to wriggle from his grasp and unable to keep from giggling. The photograph captured will probably be nothing more than a blur of us.

“Stop!” I resent that he’s making my voice sound like a girlish squeal. “Matt, stop, I don’t want to drop my camera!”

I pull away, sliding myself off the picnic blanket, and I scramble to my feet. Just in case he tries to pull another stunt like that, I secure the camera’s strap around my neck. The grass is prickly, but I take a few more steps, turning to take another picture of him on the blanket. “I shall call it ‘Portrait of a Jerk.’ ”

He shakes his head, and I turn to take a shot of the view around us. The view stretches like a quilt of colorful farmland, each patch growing new plants that will be whole by autumn. For reasons I can’t explain, I feel the pull of home. Of Nashville. I’ve always thought of myself as a Chicagoan. Part of my identity is that I was raised a city girl—that I’m not from Tennessee. But that’s changed in the past few months. Leaving home changed my idea of where “home” is.

When I turn back, Matt is getting up from the blanket, moving toward me.

“Put the camera down real quick,” he says. “Stop documenting the moment for a second, and just be in it.”

I look through the lens, snapping another shot of him, for the sake of being contrary. The picture captures his trying-to-be-cute-and-persuasive face. “Why?”

Stepping toward me, he cradles my face in his hands, and I feel seen in such a specific way. It’s like when Dee drags me antique shopping, the most grandmotherly of all her interests. I see a cluttered room of junk. But Dee is drawn to the tarnished silver teapots, the scuffed-up guitars, and, one time, a rusted blue bike with a wicker basket she insisted on giving me, to ride to her house. She gets this look on her face when she sees the object for how precious it is to her, despite banged-up edges and chipped paint. That’s the way Matt looks at me as he ducks down and kisses me. He kisses me like he means it, in a way that feels anomalous with the great outdoors. It’s an up-against-the-apartment-doorway kiss, a foot-of-the-bed kiss. By the time he pulls away, we both know he doesn’t have to say it: that’s why.

He’s clearly pleased with himself, wrapping his arms around my waist. “See? Can’t take a picture of that.”

Cheesy. But true. I could try, but I know I couldn’t take a picture that captures how I feel about him right now. Here, I’ve followed his ridiculous, romantic fancies, and I’m completely charmed by every bit of it.

He kisses me again, his lips parting over mine, and all of me feels bare. It’s more than my feet against the cool grass, more than standing three inches shorter than I normally would be in my heels. I feel like every weak part of me is in broad daylight, like I’m asking to get hurt. No, I’m begging to hurt. But I simply do not care. I just don’t.

The camera around my neck is pressing against his chest, and I adjust so that it’s not digging into my stomach. Wrinkling my nose at him, I whisper, “You’re squishing my camera.”

Matt laughs, covering his face with one hand, but he keeps his arm around my waist.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “I like that you’re not sentimental.”

If he only knew that, at the moment he leans in to kiss me again, I’m taking pictures in my mind. I’m freezing each frame, trying to memorize the feel of his lips against mine. Because I know how fleeting feelings can be, and I want to remember him exactly, every touch. When this is all over, I’ll revisit the mental image, turning it over in my mind, examining it from each angle.

If we could capture feelings like we capture pictures, none of us would ever leave our rooms. It would be so tempting to inhabit the good moments over and over again. But I don’t want to be the kind of person who lives backwardly, who memorializes moments before she’s finished living in them. So I plant my feet here on this hillside beside a boy who is undoing me, and I kiss him back like I mean it. And, God help me, with the sky wrapped around us in every direction, I do mean it.





Chapter Seventeen

Baltimore


After stopping for dinner on the drive back, we arrive at the hotel ten minutes after my curfew. Yes. Curfew. The one that Peach gave me even though she’d flown to Nashville with Dee. This is mortifying, but it was her one condition for letting me stay here without her supervision. Of course, I want to blow off the curfew checkin, but Matt insists that we comply. This is the problem with dating a nice guy.

The elevator moves up to Matt’s floor—the same floor where the band stays. Greg is my standin curfew monitor, which is so hypocritical that I could laugh.

“Hey,” Matt says, turning to me. There are mirror panels on each side of the elevator, and I see him reflected back to me at every angle. “I had a great day with you.”

I tilt my head up to him. “Same.”

“Good.” He leans in, and for some reason, it feels like we’re on the front porch of my house. That good-night-kiss feeling whooshes right through me.