Page 113 of Sounds Like Love

But the moment soon passed, and everyone began to go inside. Sasha stayed where he was, though, his hands in his pockets, looking out at the slightly flooded streets. The hurricane could have done so much worse, and we had been lucky.

“Is something wrong?” I asked Sasha.

“No,” he said, and gently threaded his fingers through mine. “Nothing at all.”

We stood under the marquee of this old and worn concert hall, and if we were quiet enough, I was sure we could hear all of the music that came before us, and would never come again. But there was always new music, and new melodies, and new memories to make.

And I wanted to—here.

Chapter42(In the Spring Becomes) The Rose

MOM AND Isat on the bench together that evening to watch the sunset. She loved this bench; she loved the peacefulness of it. She always joked that she’d go blind eventually by staring at the view for too many years, but she never would. Dad was piddling around in the garden behind us, snipping dead buds off the rosebushes while he hummed the new song to himself.

“You know,” he said, straightening, “I like this one a lot. What’s it called?”

Sasha quietly looked at me, perched on the other side of Mom, waiting for my answer. He quirked an eyebrow, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he’d forgotten what I’d called it or—

Dad went on, “It sounds like love. I like it.”

I agreed. “Yeah, it kinda does.”

A smile spread across Sasha’s mouth despite him trying to fight it, and he shook his head out of adoration. Even though I couldn’t hear his thoughts anymore, I found that I still knew what he was thinking anyway,in a strange roundabout way. I wasn’t sure if it was a sliver of magic left, or if this was simply a part of this new feeling in my chest that fluttered every time he looked at me, like a bird finding out it had wings.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could almost see a different life, one where Mom and Sasha sat at the bar in the Revelry and played guessing games with the songs on the radio, and laughed about the awful new beers Mitch ordered. And that life would have been good.

No, it would have been perfect.

“You remind me a lot of her, you know,” Mom told Sasha. “Ami.”

He sat up a little straighter. “I do?”

“More than you think.” Then she tilted her head in thought, and leaned close to him and asked, “Wanna hear about the time she ran out of her flip-flops away from the cops?”

He barked a laugh. “What?Really?What did she do?”

“Oh, whatdidn’tshe do!” Mom cried, and put a hand on his arm, and told him everything. We sat there for hours, and I listened as she talked about a woman she loved very much, unfurling all the memories she had tucked close to her heart, and let them fly away.

I wished we could have stayed in that moment forever.

But eventually the tides receded, and the highways cleared, and Sasha admitted that he probably should return to Los Angeles.

We spent a few days helping clean up the town, and at night we curled up on the couch in his rental house, dreaming about anything and everything while eating take-out Chinese and too many pieces of pizza. Next week, he’d have to go home and I’d help my parents with the sad task of taking the photos off the walls in the lobby. We’d gone through all the storage rooms already; we put the office in order.The photos were the last thing. I think my parents put it off so long because they were sentimental, and so was I. There was an idea picking at the back of my brain, and when I was alone, I’d take it out and examine it. Wonder if it was a bad idea.

Perhaps it was, but change didn’t feel so scary anymore in this strange future. The storm was still on the horizon, but I didn’t have to weather it alone.

Sasha and I had been dancing around the wholedatingthing. We never really confirmed it, so I didn’t know, and I was a little afraid to ask—so he asked for me.

We’d gone to get his favorite treat on the Shores, Italian ice from the little vendor on the boardwalk. We were sitting on the bench, watching kids chase away seagulls. “Girlfriend or partner?” he asked.

I’d choked on my own breath. “What?”

“How should I introduce you? As my girlfriend or partner?”

“I … don’t really have a preference. What do you want me to be?”

He shrugged nonchalantly and replied, “My safe word’sambidextrous.”

I almost choked again and pinched him on the arm. “There arekidsaround!”

---