“Wait!” Olivia said just as we were finishing; she dashed out of the shot and grabbed my wrist, pulling me in front of the smooth white backdrop. “Take one of both of us,” she said. We flung our arms around each other, grinning. We held on tight as the camera flashed.
I went down to the pool after Olivia fell asleep that night, the deck deserted except for the singing of cicadas and the quiet hum of the filters. I pulled my shirt over my head and slipped into the cool, placid water. I had a bathing suit now, an expensive one from Neiman Marcus that I’d thrown onto the pile as an afterthought a couple of weeks ago when Charla and I were out shopping. I hadn’t even looked at the price tag.
I kicked up in the center of the pool and spread my arms out, floating on my back across the deep end in complete, heavy solitude. With my ears underwater and my eyes on the velvety black sky above, I felt like the only person for miles, like I could shut the whole world out. I remembered what Alex had told me at the beginning of the summer, about how performing filed all the sharp edges off everything for him, made his mind clear and focused. When I thought about it now, that day felt like forever ago, like I’d been an entirely different person. Like I hadn’t known anything at all.
I didn’t hear Alex turn up so much as I sensed him; I righted myself and there he was, standing on the edge of the deep end with his hands in the pockets of his dark-blue swim trunks, smiling at me. “Creep,” I teased, tucking my wet hair behind my ears. “How long you been standing there?”
“While,” Alex said, then shrugged. “You looked peaceful.”
I smirked, raised my eyebrows. “Oh, is that how I looked?”
Alex tilted his head to the side, like I’d caught him. “I mean, among other things.” He pulled his T-shirt off in one smooth motion, slipped into the water without making a splash.
I laughed, arms out again and floating a little bit away from him. A warm breeze rustled the fronds of the palm trees; somebody had forgotten to close one of the patio umbrellas, and it made a whipping sound. I spotted one or two stars as the clouds passed by, just faint. “How were your interviews?” I asked. The boys had a bunch of pre-tour publicity to do, chatting with reporters all up and down the coast.
“Weird,” Alex said. Then, nodding at my bathing suit like he was noticing it for the first time, “That’s pretty.”
“Pretty?” I asked him, scrunching my nose up. “That’s the best you got?”
Alex scrunched his up in return. “More than pretty.”
“How much more?”
“A lot more,” he said, moving in to kiss me, but I feinted away again.
“That’s better,” I said, moving my fingers through the cool, bleachy water. “So, wait, tell me more about the interviews.”
Alex shrugged again. “They were good,” he said. “They were fine. I don’t know why they all cared so much about my favorite color, but I got to talk a lot about my musical influences and stuff, so that was cool.”
“Nobody asks me about my musical influences!” I said, frowning.
“Who are your musical influences?”
That made me smile. “I don’t know, actually,” I admitted. I thought about it for a moment. “You are,” I told him. “You’re my musical influence.”
That stopped him, surprise and then pleasure flicking across his expression, a slow grin spreading over his face like that had been the exact right thing to say. “Are you flirting with me?” he asked.
“I dunno,” I said, smiling back. “Is it working?”
“It is,” Alex said.
“Good. I’m serious, though,” I told him. He had influenced me, since the very first night I’d met him: with his easygoing patience and constant encouragement, with the way he looked at me. As the weeks had gone by, without even realizing I was doing it I’d started to see myself the way Alex saw me: as someone who had something to offer. As someone whose future wasn’t fixed. I’d meant it when I’d said I didn’t need him to unlock my secret potential. But it was possible he’d unlocked something else just the same. “You’ve made me work harder. This whole summer you have. Like, technical stuff, sure, but also your attitude or whatever. How much this means to you and how you always act like it’s important. I’ve learned a whole lot, watching you.”
“You are flirting with me,” Alex said, grin wide.
“This is, like, music nerd dirty talk for you, huh?” I teased, winding my arms around his neck, and Alex nodded.
“I’m into it, Cartwright,” he told me. “I will not lie.”
THIRTY-SIX
The boys invited us over to the Model UN the next night, lukewarm beers and a greasy Domino’s delivery that I didn’t think there was any way Olivia would actually eat. Still, when I glanced over at her, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, she held up her slice of pizza as if to say, see?
“We don’t have to go,” I’d told her earlier tonight, the two of us side by side at the mirror in the bathroom. “I don’t want there to be Alex-related awkwardness, or for you to feel like—”
“It’s fine,” she’d assured me for the millionth time. “First of all, it’s abundantly clear to me that you like him more than I ever, ever did. And second of all, even if it was weird, I’d better get used to it if we’re both going on tour, right?”
Now I grinned at her across the room as she chatted animatedly with Austin; Olivia stuck her tongue out at me, then grinned back. Mikey flipped through the movie channels on cable; Austin and Mario lit up a joint and passed it around, the smoke sweet and heavy in the air. Trevor wanted to get a round of Flip Cup going, but the boys were out of plastic cups, so instead we played Seven Up, which I hadn’t even thought about since middle school. It should have felt ridiculous—and it did, kind of, all of us with our heads down and our thumbs in the air, tiptoeing around the living room and trying to stifle our laughter—but it was also strangely fun.
I tried to relax and enjoy it—the sound of Olivia’s giggles, Alex’s warm arm around my waist—but the truth was, I felt edgy and out of sorts tonight, like I couldn’t settle into the moment. I wanted to imagine us all on tour like this—in buses and hotel rooms, goofing our way across the world—but there was another part of me that couldn’t help seeing tonight as some kind of last hurrah. I couldn’t picture the future, not clearly. Whenever I tried, it reminded me of a corny, old-fashioned sitcom—the dialogue stilted, the colors too bright. Something clearly fake and invented, with no correlation to real life.
I slipped out onto the balcony when I thought nobody was looking, stared out at the boulevard feeling absurdly homesick for a place I hadn’t even left yet. Over the last couple of months this dumpy complex had turned into my whole world. The idea of losing it filled me with a dark, heavy dread.
“You know,” Alex said behind me, a slice of chilly air cutting through the humidity as he opened the sliding glass door, “if you wanted to be alone with me, you should have just said so.”