This is the first night where I haven’t seen a reference to Winona after my show, and I’m not gonna lie—it feels goodto take a break from being constantly compared to my famous mother.
Even if remembering how he almost kissed me makes my nerves feel like live wires.
Alicia keeps scrolling through post after post, comment after comment, until we’re both laughing.
“Looks like you have a wedding to plan,” she says.
I stare at her laptop in happy shock. “I think the Internet’s got it covered.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PATTY
“You and Connor broke the internet.” Alicia’s voice cuts into my thoughts, making me reach for the noise-canceling headphones I have stashed in my bunk cubby. But before I can put them on, I hear Lou respond in an excited voice.
“Did we? What are people saying?”
With every comment Alicia reads, my mood darkens until I’m a black cloud. No, a black hole. Any joy gets sucked in and vanishes forever.
Seeing Nash tonight was a sucker punch if I’ve ever had one (and I have). But seeing him hug Lou, try to kiss her, ask her out—a million times worse. It was like having my heart rolled over by a bulldozer and the remains set on fire.
How have I gotten to a point where Lou has access to my heart at all, let alone so much control over it?
Alicia makes a comment about Connor and Lou’s wedding, and I turn my back to the thick curtain separating my bunk fromthe rest of the bus. Lou’s answer—“I think the internet’s got it covered.”—does little to help.
I can’t stop thinking about her face, how shocked she looked. I can’t stop thinking about how she moved her face at the last possible moment so he kissed her cheek, not her lips. Her panicked eyes flashed to mine multiple times, and each time, I knew exactly what she was saying.
Nash, on the other hand, brought her roses and tried to kiss her on stage. The guy doesn’t know her at all. If he’d taken two minutes to do a Google search, he’d know daffodils are her favorite, followed by sunflowers, then tulips. And she isn’t a grand gesture kind of gal. She said so in a social media “Ask Me Anything” video, and even though I didn’t know what AMA meant until a week ago, I do now. Because I cared enough to check.
He didn’t.
Did she actually want him there?
I know she said at her parents’ that she didn’t trust me any more than anyone else, but that was denial. I know it was. It hurt, but I could look past it because I know how new this all is to her.
And then tonight, we almost kissed in her dressing room. She blew me a kiss as she passed my table. I’ve never seen her tease anyone else like that. She was flirting with me.
But then she teased Nash tonight and flirted with him. Was that all for show, or does she like him?
I rub my forehead, grateful for the pitch black of my bunk. I don’t know what I’ll do if she likes him. I’ll have to ask to swap buses with Rafael, make him her permanent bodyguard. Being on a bus while she flirts with Nash is more than I can handle. I may not have any plans with the girl, but I’ve had enough self-punishment to last a lifetime. I ain’t adding this.
Besides, I should have talked to him, shouldn’t I have? It’s weeks before I expected to, but shouldn’t I have jumped at the chance the second I saw the guy? Why didn’t I? Am I not ready to face him yet, to fix the past, secure my future? Or am I not ready to say goodbye to my present?
I lay in bed, rubbing my forehead long after Lou and Alicia’s laughter has died down. I hear Lou wish Alicia a good night, and then, a moment later, I hear a whisper outside my bunk.
“Good night, Patty.”
I stifle a groan.
What does it mean that she stopped to wish me good night when she thought I was already asleep? And why can’t I stop caring?
I roll onto my stomach and try to sleep.
And when I wake up early the next morning, it’s with renewed focus: stick to the plan, don’t think about how we almost kissed, and avoid Lou at all costs.
But when I leave my bunk and find her sitting at the kitchenette with her guitar on her lap, I brace myself.
She hasn’t seen me yet, so focused is she on picking the strings as she humsLast Train to Midnight. So help me, if she starts singing that song, I’m gonna get so rooted to this spot, I’ll grow leaves.
