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“You showed up, though.”
“So did you.”
Rather than respond to that, he says, “It’s good to see you. Not sure if I said that…earlier.”
Surface-level small talk was never how Teddy and I communicated.
Rather than respond with,You too, I ask him, “Do people still hook up in the third-floor supply closet?”
He laughs. “Yeah. All the time.”
I smile as I lean back on my palms. “Good to know some things don’t change.”
“Did you ever go in there?”
I feign horror. “Make out at school? Of course not.”
“Would you have gone in there with me?” he asks.
“You know the answer to that.” I look back out at the water.
We sit and listen to a symphony of spring peepers, only moving to bat away the occasional mosquito.
“The first time I heard it was on a date.” He says the words quietly, so softly that I barely register them.
“Heard what?” I ask, rolling my head to the side so I can study his profile.
“‘Heartbreak for Two.’”
Air fills my lungs with a harsh inhale of surprise. It took a lot for me to ask him about it. I definitely wasn’t expecting him to bring it up, not even in the moonlight, where admissions feel easiest to make.
“We were at this burger place,” Teddy continues, picking up a pebble and rolling it in his palm. “She was in a first-year seminar with me. The second class, my pen had run out of ink, and she had given me a spare. She asked me out the third week of classes. We’d just sat down to order at this burger place, and it started playing. Right after that rap song that was on repeat at every party in college.”
He tosses the pebble into the lake with a quietplop.
“I knew it was you as soon as you started singing. I pretended to get an important call and left. Sat in my car and listened to it on repeat for an hour.”
“I wanted to call you,” I tell him. “When I got signed. When they approved it. When it released. I just…I didn’t know what to say. Whether I should call, after how we left things.”
“You can always call,” he replies.
I tilt my head until it hits the side of his shoulder, not caring that I shouldn’t. For once, I want to regret the things I did, not the things I didn’t. “Thanks, Johnny.”
His shoulder lowers and shifts, so I’m pressed more firmly against his side. “Does this mean I’m allowed to call you June again?” he teases.
I roll my eyes, knowing he can’t see. Mostly at my weak willpower because I know I’ll say, “Yes.”
“What’s it like, being famous?” he asks.
It’s a question I’ve been asked before. But not by someone who was part of mybefore. Who knew my name long before I reached a level of fame few people would aspire to if they knew the pitfalls that came with it.
“It’s like…” I watch the water lap the shore, calming and steady. “It’s like being on a carousel. You’re given a ticket, and it’s right in front of you—shiny and bright and exciting. You climb on board and find a spot. A horse you like. And then it starts spinning. There are two paparazzi outside your apartment one morning. Then you blink, and there are at least fifty everywhere you go. The carousel starts spinning faster than you can keep up with. Everything around you turns into one big blur. And you’re so focused on staying upright that you can’t get off. You just hang on and wave and smile at all the people watching, wanting a turn themselves. Looking at you with stars in their eyes.”
“Sounds intense.”
“I’m probably making it sound worse than it is. I don’t have to leave the house much, and I have security when I do. I have a private recording studio and private beach access. My meals get delivered.”
“Fancy.”
