Page 101 of Sounds Like Love
Sasha studied me. “Was that your dad?”
“Yeah. I need to go to the Rev—it becomes an emergency shelter when storms get bad.” I hurried into the bedroom to grab my shoes and slipped them on. I was glad I at least had the forethought to take a shower this morning. If it was going to be a bad storm, who knew how long we’d be without power, without water, without—
“I can come with you,” he suggested, pulling me out of my thoughts. He’d found his jeans and pulled a black T-shirt from his suitcase and shrugged it on.
I snapped my attention back to him. “What? No. No—if you can get out, you should get out.”
“I can help.”
“We’ll be fine,” I dissuaded him.
He was silent for another moment, and then took a deep breath. “Right. Okay.” He pulled his curly hair back into a tight bun. Then he shoved his wallet into his back pocket and typed something on his phone. “I’ll call my driver and be out of your way.”
That caught me off guard. That wasn’t—I didn’t mean for that—
He put his phone into his pocket, and quickly disappeared into the bedroom. If he packed, he only came out with a small duffle, and started for the front door.
“Sasha?” My voice sounded too loud for my ears. “Sasha, wait.”
He turned around at the door. Took a breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. “I get it, Joni. You don’t need me,” he inferred, but I could tell there was something he didn’t say under those words. Something that, if I was in his head, I would have caught. Would have understood. “Your life, your music, your song. I’m just in the way of it all.”
“No, that’s not—”
“You can keep the shirt. They look like shit on me, anyway,” he added, attempting a tricky smile that never quite reached his eyes. It was the kind of smile I saw the first night I met him. Sebastian Fell’s smile. Not Sasha’s. Then he bent toward me, negating the heavy space between us, and pressed a kiss against my lips.
I closed my eyes. Hoped this kiss would join us again. Hoped it would squeeze the marrow of my thoughts into the bones of his—but it was just a kiss.
Just a lovely, bittersweet kiss.
It tasted like goodbye.
“It was worth a try,” he whispered.
“Sasha, wait,” I begged, but he abandoned me in the doorway as he fled out into the storm, and into a car pulling up from the street.
Chapter37(What You Did) As Long as You Love Me
BY THE EVENING,Hurricane Darcy had been upgraded to a category one. When I arrived at the Revelry, Dad and Uncle Rick had already hauled half the sandbags backstage into the foyer while Mitch boarded up the windows with plywood. Gigi was on her way with Buckley, Frodo, and Sam, and Todd was on his way with a few locals.
Dad kept glancing at the weather app. It looked like we were going to get it bad. The hurricane had shifted—closer to us—and now was looking to make landfall down near the oyster farm. Too close for comfort, but the Revelry had weathered worse. Cell reception was already spotty, and the bridge heading to the mainland had flooded. I hoped Sasha had gotten out already. There wasn’t another route inland.
Todd and a small group of half-drowned locals came in, and then a few more. Mom got them dry and put the jukebox on shuffle. Songs helped everything, she always said, especially when anxieties were high.Roman Fell and the Boulevard played an upbeat song about racing in the rain, which was a little too on the nose for me.
I wandered back into the damp lobby, dragging a towel around by my shoe to mop up as much water as I could. Lightning crackled across the sky outside, illuminating a soaked Main Street in a brief flash, before that muted gray settled across the town again. The street hadn’t flooded yet, but from all the water rushing into the overfilled storm drains, it felt like it was just a matter of time.
I’d beenreallywrong about the storm. Wrong about a lot of things, it turned out. My life in LA, my feelings for Van, Gigi and Mitch’s relationship, Sasha—
Sasha.
Everything, really.
Mitch poked his head into the lobby. “Seen Gigi yet?”
“No,” I replied.
He made a noise of worry. “Lemme know when she gets here? I’m gonna go find some more soundproofing blankets. Mom’s saying we’ll probably be spending the night.”
“Yeah, sounds like a plan,” I replied, returning my gaze to the front door.
