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“I . . . oh. No. Well, yes. I don’t much. But not—I wouldn’t mind from you guys,” I garbled.
“Yeah?”
I nodded, my face heating with awkwardness.
But Theo just gave me a quick hug and smiled. “Later,” he said and swung his keys as he sidled off to Caleb’s truck.
“Later,” I said to his back.
Inside, I took my drink and the rest of the pie to the living room, and pushed my phone back and forth for a while. I wanted to call Rhys, but I was never sure when he had to be backstage and I didn’t want to interrupt him. So I texted him, You around? The phone rang in my hand, and I nearly dumped my drink all over myself.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey, baby. How’d it go?” He sounded like a big excited puppy.
I snorted. “I’m not a kid with a play date, Rhys.”
“I know, I know. But how’d it go?”
I laughed. “It turns out Theo doesn’t hate me after all.”
“You thought Theo hated you?”
“No, I guess not.” I swallowed more of my drink and dug into the pie.
“So, what’d you guys do?”
“We wandered in the cemetery and I tried to tell him the Ramones thing only I forgot the band and the song, then we got food and Theo made drinks and now I’m eating pie and if you were here I’d kiss you and then you’d know what kind.”
“Mm, that sounds nice. Theo made drinks, huh? I can tell. You like Theo, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, you were right. You’re very smart and right.”
Rhys chuckled and I downed the rest of my drink. I wanted another one. Wanted this fuzzy summer peach feeling to last. But when I went to stand up I decided it was better not to.
“Am I your real life person?” I blurted, leaning my head back against the couch.
“You’re my everything person,” he said. “But what do you mean?”
“Nothing, it doesn’t matter, sorry. How’s tour?”
“No, no, absolutely not. Tell me what you mean.”
The no-nonsense tone of Rhys’s demand made my heart flutter. If he’d been here in person I’d have shaken my head slightly and he’d have closed his fingers around my wrist to keep me from running away and tipped my chin up and forced me to look in his beautiful eyes and tell him things, the way we both liked it. But Rhys wasn’t here.
“Matty. Tell me what you meant.”
I bit my lip. “I thought you and Caleb couldn’t be together anymore when he started using too much and because he wasn’t your person. But Theo said you guys broke up because tour isn’t real life and Caleb didn’t want to be your real life person.”
I bit down on my tongue to stop the stupid slurred words from coming out and listened to Rhys breathe.
“Well, Caleb and I worked well together; we made a good team. We loved each other as friends. Sometimes we loved each other romantically. We were sexually compatible.” I bit my tongue harder, and the taste of iron overwhelmed the peach. “But all of those things don’t add up to mean that you should be with someone forever. You know?”
“What do we add up to?” Fuck, why couldn’t I just shut up.
“Matty, are you okay? If something’s going on, you need to tell me.”
“No, sorry. I’m fine.” And that wasn’t the right thing to say at all. “I mean, I’m not—nothing’s going on. Thanks for sending Theo over. He really is a cool guy.” I tried to change the subject before he could respond. But he didn’t take the bait.
“I know it must be hard. It’d be hard for me if you had an ex you were still friends with who knew you really well. Caleb and I have a lot of history. But you’re my future, baby. You know that, right?”
And, fuck if that didn’t make my heart beat faster.
“You’re cheesy,” I said, but my voice was just a scratch and I swallowed hard, wishing he could say it again and again until it drowned out all the other noise.
“You like it.” He paused. “This is hard. Harder than I thought it would be.”
My chest loosened at his words. So far, I’d heard how great tour was, how exciting it was to hear the crowds cheering his name, and how cool it felt to finally be the center of attention after a career of being in the background.
“Yeah? Me too,” I murmured.
“Only another two weeks, and I’ll be home for the weekend.”
“Yeah, we should do something for your birthday.”
“I wanna do you for my birthday,” he growled.
“Cheesy. But yes, please.”
“We’ll figure it out, baby.”
His voice had gone all soft, and I knew he didn’t just mean his birthday. I knew what his mouth would look like, turned up in a fond half-smile. I knew his eyes would be soft if he were looking at me. He’d slide his big hand around the back of my neck and pull me in, hold me. Wrap his arms around me until my body convinced my mind it could believe what he was saying.
