Page 24 of Sounds Like Love
This was going south very, very quickly. I rubbed my face with my hands. Okay, so thiswasreal.Hewas real. A real person on the other side of the phone, drinking a mai tai in a pool somewhere—
“I don’t drink mai tais.”
I frowned. Infuriating. That was the only word I could think to describe him. That, andinconvenient.But I wasn’t panicking anymore. He’d distracted me long enough to get my breathing back under control, for the kitchen to not feel so small anymore. It probably wasn’t on purpose.
I didn’t have time for this—I needed to concentrate on Mom, and the Rev, and my own burnout. I didn’t need distractions born from … what was this, anyway? Delusion?
“Okay,” I said, “I really need you out of my head. How do I do that?”
“Same way I get you out of mine, I guess,” he suggested.
Fantastic.
Mom let the dogs in from the garden, and I quickly got to my feet before they could lick me to death.I scrubbed Frodo and Sam behind their ears, and left to go up to my room. The landline crackled as I put distance between me and the receiver. And just to make sure, I checked all the rooms upstairs—the linen closet, my brother’s old room turned record-storage room, even my parents’ room—but I didn’t find anyone. There was a note above Mom’s dresser, though, on the mirror, listing a series of random words. She’d written them in dry-erase marker underneath, like a memory game. She’d gotten all but one right—
Effervescent.
My chest began to feel tight again, so I quickly left my parents’ room and returned to mine, closing myself inside.
The voice over the phone asked, “How the hell is this happening?”
I sat down heavily on my old bed. The timeless faces of Harry Styles and Edward Cullen stared back at me from posters I’d pinned on the walls as a teenager. “I have no idea.”
“Can she hear everything—”
“No, I can’t hear everything,” I interrupted before I intercepted any more of his private thoughts. “Canyouhear everything?”
“Just the loud things …”
Loud?My phone buzzed on my nightstand, and I absently went to check it.
Hey, you here? Gigi texted.
I cursed—I forgot I was supposed to meet her for coffee. I didn’t have time for someone in my head. I quickly unplugged my phone and texted back that I was running a little late. “Look, I don’t care who you are, but I have to go. Let’s just stop talking to each other and maybe this … connection will just go away, okay?”
“Maybe?”The word was loud in my head. “But what if—”
I hung up and tossed the phone onto the bed. And I realized I didn’t even get his name. I wasn’t sure I wanted it, actually, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to have mine—it felt too intimate, especially with him already in my head. So I grabbed a pair of jean shorts out of my suitcase and threw on an old Eagles T-shirt on my way out of my bedroom.
“Do you really think it will go away?”he asked.
I startled in surprise, and almost tumbled down the stairs.Ignore him, ignore him, ignore him—
If my parents were champions at ignoring things, then I had to atleastbe a silver medalist.
Chapter10(The Right Time to) Roll to Me
AT COOL BEANSCafé, I ordered a Perfect Woman with a double shot of espresso and extra honey—my exact order from high school. It was a comfort staple, and I knew that Todd, the barista, made a mean latte.
“Always the perfect choice,” said a familiar voice behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder at the tall man smiling at me.
He had a head full of curly brown hair and a sharp-cut jawline, and was dressed in a soft blue T-shirt and light-wash jeans. For a moment, my brain didn’t compute—he looked like any number of polished tourists that came down for the summer in their boat shoes and Ray-Bans. But then he smiled, showing incredible dimples—
“Van?” I asked in disbelief.
“Hey there,” he greeted me in that charming southern drawl of his.
