The Sound of Us Read Free Page A

hair, tonight pulled back into a small ponytail with a rubber band. It’s hard not to blush when he looks at me.
    We’re less than a couple but more than friends. We don’t use each other. We’re just…I dunno. We just
run into
each other. First, it started as harmless cat-and-mouse games at house parties, a kiss here and there, but then it escalated into making out in back bedrooms as the year progressed.
    So, sort of like the buddy without the fuck in it.
    He tilts his head, as if gauging his words, before saying, “It looks sexy.”
    My heart rises like it’s tied to a helium balloon. “
Really
?”
    He laughs, a sound like velvet. He outstretches his hand, and when I take it he pulls me around the counter to where he’s sitting. “Really,” he replies, kissing my neck. It takes a lot of self-control for me to not melt into my Converses here and now.
    I lean into him, closing my eyes, so welcomed to losing myself for a while.
    “How does your bartender like it?” he asks.
    My eyebrows furrow. “Geoff?” I sigh, rolling my eyes, and turn around, pressing my palms against his hard chest. He’s still wearing the clothes he must’ve went out in, a blank V-neck shirt and boot-cut jeans. “Oh, I doubt he noticed. He was flirting with another mountain man. Like he always does. Where was the party tonight?”
    “A bonfire down at Matty’s,” he replies, distracted, and kisses my cheek. “You’re so tense.”
    I pout. “Not everyone can have a good time all the time like you. Some of us have
responsibilities.
”
    He snorts, pulling away. “Sure, but we can have a good time right now.”
    I study him. There’s a mischievous glint in his eyes that begins to twist a grin across my lips. I pull my arms around his neck and hang on him. “I’m listening…”
    “We could have a
great
time, baby.” To demonstrate, he runs his fingers up my arm so gently, goose bumps ripple up my skin, and he traces his thumb along my lips. My heart leaps into my throat so I can’t breathe, and my head begins to buzz.
    I jump, startled, as “Rock of Ages” fills the kitchen, and pull away from Cas to read the caller ID on my phone. It’s Mom. Probably worried sick over where I am. I’m usually home by now, or if I’m not I tell her I’m with Maggie.
    It slipped my mind tonight to tell her anything at all.
    I hesitate for a moment. If I answer it, it’ll ruin the mood, but if I don’t she’ll burst a blood vessel and keep calling. “Sorry,” I mutter, ashamed that I’m eighteen and still being babysat by my mom. I answer the call. “Yeah, Mom?”
    “Where
are
you?” she snaps.
    Cas moves away to the kitchen sink, and squirts a small bit of hand sanitizer into his hands, rubbing it all the way up to his elbows.
    “It’s two-thirty in the morning,” Mom goes on, “and you’re not even packed yet! I called the bar and they didn’t even know where you were! What if something happened to you? I would’ve never found you.”
    “I’m at a friend’s,” I reply, trying to restrain my impatience, twirling my hair around my finger.
    “Do I know her?”
    Him
. “Uh, no. It’s someone from…school.”
    “At two-thirty in the morning?”
    “Yes…” I reply, no matter how unlikely it is that she’ll believe me.
    She sounds like she can smell my bullshit from four miles away. “Well, we’re leaving at nine o’clock sharp—so you better be packed by then.”
    Couldn’t I just stay home? But I knew that wasn’t an option. Family vacations, even without Dad, still required my presence.
    I hang up and heave a sigh. Cas looks up from picking at his cuticles with a raised blond eyebrow. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “Mom’s a little…”
    He shrugs. “At least your parents care.”
    I can’t argue against that. “But trust me, you wouldn’t want to meet them.”
    “What, don’t want to introduce me?” he teases, closing in on me again, and grins. “How long has it been since we started this?” he