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I shift on the stool. “You can invite her to a show if you want. I can get her backstage passes, a hotel room, all of that. Six weeks is a while to be apart.” Even as I make the offer, I’m mentally plotting the ways I can keep extra busy all the minutes she’s here. Additional appearances, a spa treatment, added rehearsals. “I know only herstudentslike my music, but I’m sure she misses you.”
I think the reminder of Tanya’s comment will earn me a smile, like it did last time.
Maybe even a laugh.
Instead, Teddy leans forward and asks me, very seriously, “Are you jealous?”
Rather than answer with the truth—yes—or a lie—no—I say, “I’ve never liked seeing you with other girls. Old habits die hard, I guess.”
“They are.Old. You think six weeks is a while not to see someone you care about? Tryeight years, June.”
I drink more tequila as I stare at an elderly couple crossing the marble floor of the lobby. “It’s a publicity thing.”
“What’s a publicity thing?”
“Me and Kyle. We’re signed to the same label. We both were single, both had new albums coming out. The bigwigs at Empire Records decided it was as good of a reason as any for us to be photographed together a few times.”
I keep my eyes straight ahead rather than look at him.
“You’re not dating him?”
“I’m not dating him.”
More tequila slides down my throat, sharp and smoky.
“Tanya and I broke up. Before I left Brookfield.”
Those first five words echo in my head over and over again.Tanya and I broke up. Tanya and I broke up. Tanya and I broke up.It sounds like my new favorite sentence.
I look over. “You don’t have a girlfriend?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
He drinks some beer. I watch the muscles of his throat contract and expand as he swallows.
“Fuck.” I down the rest of my drink, wondering how much of the heat swimming through my body is attributable to hard liquor and how much is because of him.
Because ofpossibilities.
Teddy watches me as he sips on his beer.
“Did you have fun sightseeing?” I ask him again.
“It was cool. Amsterdam is cool.”
“Cool, huh?”
“Jaxon asked about you. About you and me.”
I figured there would be questions. Questions no one—with the exception of Suzan, I suppose—would have the courage to ask me. “What did you say?”
“That we went to high school together.”
“Right.” My finger traces the rim of my empty glass. Around and around in circles. Just like a carousel.
“That’s all we are. Right, Sutton?Former classmates.”
I keep circling. “I don’t know what the hell we are, Teddy. I never have.”
