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“The dresses I was supposed to help pick out, but have never even seen.”
“Those dresses, yes.”
“So she hates me, too.”
I frowned. “No, I don’t think so. Petra isn’t the hating type. She’s really quite nice.”
“You know her?” The words came out just a little bit sharp, and Juliet’s shoulders went tense.
I felt that tension deep in my belly, so I said, “I know all of them.”
“All of them?” She sat up, strung tight now. “How well?”
I shrugged. “Pretty well, since I’ve slept with every one of them.”
There was a wound-up moment when she believed me, and then the tension popped like an overwrought balloon. She sagged against the seat, sounding amused despite herself. “You asshole.”
I laughed softly, my eyes on the road. “Just keeping you on your toes.”
She lifted her sunglasses high enough that she could rub the bridge of her nose. “Okay. I admit I may have a little bit of anxiety about this wedding.”
“A little bit?”
“A lot.” She dropped her hand to her lap and looked out her window. “I’ve never been close to Mom or Vicki. I don’t know how to talk to them, and they don’t like my music.”
This was the girl I remembered, who put so much work into her defenses but was still so raw. The girl who dove head-first into every thought, every emotion. “I have a question for you,” I said.
She seemed to tense again. “What?”
“Have you ever even attempted small talk? Like, even once in your life?”
It was a gamble, but it paid off. Juliet laughed.
My hands clenched on the wheel at that sound, my knuckles going white as it rippled down my spine and through my chest. It was the first time I had heard Juliet Barstow laugh.
“You want to talk about the weather, Finn?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I mean, it’s a thought.”
“How about we talk about you? That’s probably your favorite topic.”
“How about we listen to music instead?”
She rubbed her thumb over her bottom lip, a gesture I was starting to understand was unconscious. “Your music or mine?”
“You can pick for the first hour,” I said graciously.
Now her smile was almost smug. “I don’t think you can handle my music, Ice Cream Boy.”
“Try me,” I said.
She picked up her phone, called up her music app, and tried me.
An hour later, Juliet’s app streamed automatically because we were busy debating—okay, bickering—about the relative merits of live albums versus studio albums. I said that no live album could fully capture all the layers of a song the way a studio recording could. Juliet thought that no studio recording, no matter how skillfully mixed, could reproduce the raw energy of a live show. Her evidence: Nirvana’s Unplugged. My evidence: Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors.
It was a debate neither of us could win, and I didn’t care. I didn’t think Juliet cared, either.
She suddenly went quiet, and I realized a familiar intro was playing. A song picked at random by Juliet’s music app. It was Radiohead’s “Creep.”
