Free The Sound of Us by Ashley Poston Page A

watch the grease trickle down onto your plate like water.
    Roman takes another slice, popping a fallen mushroom into his mouth. “How the hell do you like mushroom and olives?” he asks between chews.
    “I should be asking you the same thing. Weirdo,” I tease.
    “Oh, yeah we are.” He lifts his soda and we clink glasses. “It’s a wonder you’re single—you
are
single, aren’t you?” he adds, more curious than nervous.
    I shrug, eating another olive. “I dunno. I’ve been too busy for a relationship. I mean...there’s this guy, but it’s nothing serious. He’s about to go off to college, and I’m about to stay put. When we started seeing each other I was...in a bad place. But to him, I was enough.”
    “Enough...I like that. The whole notion of it. My manager told us to be perfect, to be examples. We weren’t good enough. We had to be better. What a different world I’d live in if he just wanted Holly, Boaz, and me to be
enough
.”
    I look down at my uneaten crust of pizza. “Too bad it’s a faulty notion. Because being
enough
is never good enough.”
    “I think your hair is pink
enough
,” he offers.
    “And I think your hair is orange
enough
. But it’s not good enough, right? You can’t honestly say you were aiming for that color.”
    His nose scrunches. “You’re right. I wasn’t. Were you aiming for that pink?”
    “I wasn’t really aiming for anything,” I reply, picking another olive off my next slice. I can only eat half of it while he devours the rest of the pizza. “Must be nice, not having to watch your weight.”
    “Are you kidding?” he downs the last bite with a gulp of soda. “I ate nothing but salads for three years straight. I had to buy new jeans four months ago. Living on Ramen noodles is killing my figure.”
    “Isn’t that a shame. You had such nice abs too,” I joke, but he just gives me this pained look. “Mag’s has that poster, yeah,” I clarify, “then one where you’re all, you know...ripped.”
    “That really doesn’t surprise me. Ready to go?”
    “Whenever you are.”
    He takes my hand, fingers lacing into mine, and pulls me out of the booth. We blend into the swelling evening crowd, and follow them across the boardwalk. A sign pointing toward the beach is lit up, and we follow the arrow onto the sand. The beach at night reminds me of those old grainy black and white movies, the moon painting everything in monochromatic colors. The stars shimmer as if they’re fireflies stuck in a vat of molasses.
    He flunks down on the sand, spreading his legs wide. “I always thought I’d retire to the beach, but that hasn’t worked out so far. What do you think, this a good enough spot to start?”
    I sink down beside him and dig my toes into the sand. “My dad used to say the same thing.” It feels so strange to bring Dad into conversation, but in the good sort of way. Like when you can’t hold a sneeze in any longer.
    “Yeah? I mean, who doesn’t love the beach, right? Sand, surf, beachside bars, girls in tiny bikinis...”
    “Not necessarily in that order,” I mutter under my breath.
    He chuckles, running the thick white sand through his hands. His orange hair glows like frozen fire from the light pollution on the Strand. After a moment, he tilts his head to the side, as if something flicked his ear. “Do you hear that?”
    “The...waves?”
    He rolls his eyes. “No, listen.”
    I cock my head, but all I can hear is the roar of the ocean. “I don’t hear anything.”
    “Yeah, you do.” Then he begins to hum. I recognize the tune immediately, and my ears prickle at the sound of faint, but real, music. A band, somewhere, is playing a song. The bandstand does play shag music at night after all.
    I grin. “Van Morrison. ‘Into the Mystic.’”
    He leans into me, his shoulder knocking against mine, and begins to murmur the lyrics in a soft and warm baritone, as sweet as honey. Caspian was never this romantic—this is romance, isn’t it? The