Free The Sound of Us by Ashley Poston

singer, and I can’t play an instrument worth my life, so I’ll never know.”
    “That’s an odd name for a bar,” he comments.
    “Roman Holiday’s an odd name for a band.”
    He tips further over the edge of the railing, giving in. “Imagine being blinded by stage lights. Not knowing where anyone is, but you can feel a million eyes on you, staring at you, like you are the middle of the universe. And the noise...it
roars
.” He pulls himself straight again, closing his eyes, as if he’s there, imagining the sound. “It drowns out everything—absolutely
everything
. This sound...it’s transient and consuming. I feel
alive
when I’m up there, Junebug, like my blood is on fire and every note just consumes me. It’s crazy.”
    I cock my head. “Then why don’t you go back? You and Boaz? Start over? The Madison Square gig, I’m sure you could still play.”
    He finally opens his eyes, and his eyebrows furrow. For a moment, I don’t think he’ll answer me, but then his shoulder slump a little and he shakes his head, as if even entertaining the idea makes him tired. “You can’t always get what you want.”
    “Rolling Stones, 1969, in the album
Let It Bleed.
”
    He shakes his head with a chuckle. “Radio heart.”
    I timidly place my hand on top of his on the railing. His hand is warm and soft as I curl my fingers into his palm. “Maybe you’ll get what you need.”
    He looks down at my hand and smiles, bringing it up to his lips, and kisses my knuckles. A thank you. Warmth blooms in my belly, and flushes against my cheeks. “Maybe I will. How about some pizza?” he asks, letting go of my hand.
    “We definitely need pizza,” I reply, trying to not sound too disappointed. I don’t even know what I’m disappointed about, but I rub my knuckles where the skin still tingles from his lips.

Chapter Eleven
    Roman stops in mid-step in front of an airbrush parlor, and I run smack into the back of him. “
Oof
! Hey, at least gimme a head’s up when you stop—”
    A man with inky black hair surfaces from the surf shop next door. The man from the stop-n-shop a few nights ago. The eagle feather is pinned into the ribbon on his gray fedora tonight. He picks into his bag of cotton candy for a blue puff and eats it.
    Roman grabs my forearm. My eyebrows scrunch. “Do you know him?”
    “Nope”—and suddenly he shoves me into the airbrush parlor and behind a clothes turnstile, grabbing a dorky Myrtle Beach hat from the top of it as we pass. He holds it up beside our faces facing the street, and we’re so close his hot breath warms my lips, too close for comfort.
    Maybe he’ll...
    Roman jerks me down below the clothes rack until the man finally passes. After a minute, he pulls away and returns the hat to its proper place as if nothing happened. I turn to the cashier to make sure she’s giving us a funny look, and sure enough, she is.
    Okay, so that actually happened.
    “Roman?” I go to grab his shirt but my hand comes up empty. I pale. “Roman?” The orange of his hair hangs a right out of the store. “ROMAN!” I run out of the store after him and catch up on the sidewalk. “What was that for?”
    “What was what for?” he asks flippantly.
    “Please, don’t do that.”
    “Do what? I’m starving. Where’s this pizza place again?”
    “You’re impossible.”
    “Impossibly
possible
,” he corrects. “Ah-hah! I knew it was over here somewhere.”
    I scowl and follow him into the nearby pizza joint. It’s a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant with cheap beer and free smells. Locals scatter across the dry-rotted booths, watching some soccer team at the World Series on the small TV in the corner. We order two sodas and a large olive and mushroom pizza, and sit down at one of the cracked vinyl booths. The lighting is low, and terrible, and the walls are this horrendous eggshell white with kitschy Italian pictures and signs strung up with duct tape. The pizza is the sort you can fold in half, and