As Far as You'll Take Me Read online

  I feel my cheeks get warm. “Um, when?”

  “Now-ish. I’d like to get on the road before traffic gets too bad.”

  They’re on fire now. “Oh, wow. I guess so.”

  Then I remember what day it is. Friday. My rescheduled FaceTime date with Megan and Skye. I can’t bail on them again—they’d never forgive me.

  “Wait, no. I totally forgot.” And now I realize I really do want to go. “I have a FaceTime date with my high school friends tonight.”

  “Oh,” he says. “Like, late tonight? I’m sure you can use my friend’s Wi-Fi. You usually do it on your phone, right?”

  My spirits lift. “That’s right. I can do that! If you don’t think he’d mind. It wouldn’t be long, but I can’t skip this one—I totally forgot about the last one because we went to Cardiff, and my friends were so upset. I couldn’t do that to them again.”

  He puts a hand on my leg, and I guess he feels my panic. He winks. “Totally fine. We’ll call them tonight.”

  “We?” I ask. “Are we a we?”

  His response is simple, sweet. He plants a kiss on my lips, and I melt away.

  We’re a we.

  TWENTY-ONE

  He gives me just enough time to change and pack a bag. I could’ve pushed for more, but I couldn’t even think beyond the pounding in my chest, the endorphins pouring into my brain like some antidepressant medication commercial. I decide, then and there:

  I want to be with him. All weekend, all month, all year. I don’t care.

  As I’m heading out the door, Shane stops me.

  “Here,” he says, handing me a granola bar. “Um, in case you get hungry on the drive?”

  His words linger, and I fight the growing embarrassment. I’m starving, maybe even literally, but I still flip the bar over to read the—

  “Don’t.” Shane’s features are tight, and he’s biting his lip. “Don’t read. Just eat. Please.”

  I walk out of the apartment while unwrapping the granola bar. For a moment, I really do consider eating it. But then I see the chocolate. And the bar feels so heavy in my hands. So I drop it in the trash can before meeting Pierce at the corner.

  It’s different, this trip. My mind’s in a haze as Pierce talks and talks, about the summer program, about our looming duet, which we still haven’t gotten together to practice yet. I get in the passenger’s seat of Dani’s car, and we’re on the road in minutes. Driving through the streets of London.

  “We made it on the road in good time.” Pierce is energy. After weeks of seeing other sides of him, some sweet, some subdued, he’s back to how he was when we first met. He’s let his beard grow a bit, the brownish-blond patches more apparent in the low light. “I’m going to take the long way out of here,” he says.

  “Oh, okay.”

  I’m oddly content with this human.

  There are better ways to say that, I’m sure, but it’s how I feel. I’m used to this kind of partnership, riding shotgun and feeling that connection with someone—a friendship based on the same destination. Even when you don’t know where you’re going, like when Megan and I would try to get ourselves lost in the winding roads of the Ohio Valley.

  His hand’s on the shifter. Mine’s on my lap. I want this to feel like more than friendship. And I know it does for me, and I hope it does for him. And I feel ridiculous, because we’re not twelve and at the movies. But it’s not like I ever got to be twelve and on a date at the movies. So, yeah, I want to hold his hand.

  I reach out. Hesitate.

  His hand turns over and meets mine. His fingers lace between mine, and I feel so whole and comfortable. And his hands are big. I haven’t done this much hot and heavy hand-holding since middle school.

  He pulls my hand to his lips. Gives it a light kiss. He tilts his head and that smirk is out again, on a mission to melt my heart. He lets go, and I miss it immediately. My chest rises and falls, catching both ways.

  “I’ve got to shift with that hand, love. Try again once we’re on the motorway?”

  I chuckle. “Noted.”

  We bolt down streets, stopping harshly at each light. He keeps checking the map on his phone, and I keep looking out the window. It looks like we’re taking a detour out of the city, but I don’t mind.

  “You haven’t seen much else in the city, yeah?”

  “Haven’t had time. Went to King’s Cross and St. Pancras for Sophie’s busking, walked around Soho a few times.”

  “Her performance was top-notch this week,” he says. “And it seems like she and Rio have been getting on a bit more lately. I think they both figured out they are epic musicians and infighting isn’t going to do anything. Did you have any drama like that in secondary?”

  “No,” I say flatly. “I just got all the solos.”

  He busts out with laughter. “I see. Any bad blood there?”

  “Sure, some. There’s always competition, I guess. But I graduated early, so our feuds ended pretty quickly.”

  “So why did you leave early? I know you wanted this experience, and you wanted to get away from fried chicken land, et cetera, but why graduate early? Did you not get on with your mates?”

  “When did you accept you were gay?”

  “Ah, the age-old question,” he says. “Are you asking me because we’re going to Brighton, which you’ll see is the LGBT capital of the UK?”

  “No, not when did you realize you were gay, which every straight girl on television asks, or when did you come out, which everyone else asks, but when did you accept it?”

  He shakes his head, slowly. “A few years ago, I suppose. It was in school. I broke up with my girlfriend and told her why. Hell, I think Shane and I were the only ones from our school who were public about it—and Shane only at the very end. It’s a shame we weren’t closer.”

  “He’s a really good guy,” I say.

  “So what about you? When did you accept it?”

  “I was six, Pierce. I would think about guys a lot. Like, I would think about kissing some of the boys in my class and it felt so wrong. But I accepted, eventually, that it wasn’t how everyone secretly felt—it was me and I was gay. Even in middle school, when I tried holding hands and liking girls, I knew.”

  I clear my throat. “See, I love Kentucky. It’s home. I feel more comfortable on the back roads there than I’ll ever feel here. At least, I think that’s true. I had my safe spaces, I knew how to survive, but it can’t be my home anymore. When I was a kid, there was a gay hate crime on the news, just a couple counties over. My parents were generally appalled in an all-violence-is-bad sort of way, but they never acknowledged that it was a hate crime, which I thought was fucked up. But some of the kids at my middle school agreed with the attack and made jokes about it. Even after Kentucky was forced to allow gay marriage, that terrible homophobe county clerk, whose name I would never give the notoriety of saying aloud, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. We went to this megachurch every Sunday that always had these sermons that were nothing but veiled homophobia. That’s my home, Pierce.”

  “Love—”

  “Fuck, I got out of high school in three years, but I wish it’d been two. I feel so accepted here. To be in a city with a real pride parade, and gay bars—have you seen all the pride flags in Soho? It’s incredible.”

  He slows to a stop. We’re stuck in traffic as a dump truck blocks all lanes. I see hands fly up in car windows in front of me. He places his hand on my leg, which ignites, sending waves of passion up my body.

  I brush my fingers across his hands, taking in their heat. He leans in, halfway. I turn and look into his eyes, deep and light and perfect. Everything about him is perfect, even if it’s not—like how his hair’s grown out a bit, and it’s a bit fuzzy on the sides, and how his beard looks patchy when grown out this much. And none of these are negatives.

  I’m drawn to him, magnetically. His breath hits my face. The sides of our noses touch. The secret to time manipulation is somewhere in his hooked nose
, chin dimple, and that accent. I’m suspended in time and space while reality bends to bring us closer together.

  His hand slides farther up my leg, and I shiver at the touch. His lips are so close to mine, but neither of us goes in for the kill. I know what it’d do. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t stop. His hands press higher, bunching up my shorts and pressing into new parts of my body, never explored by others.

  I hesitate above his lips, knowing there’d be no limit he couldn’t push, no boundary I wouldn’t jump right now. His hand massages me, and I gasp.

  And the driver behind us brings me back into the present by laying on their horn.

  I jump back, and see an open road in front of me.

  My cheeks flush hot as Pierce hisses with laughter.

  “Didn’t even hear the truck go by,” he says with a wink.

  “The guy in the car behind us totally saw us.” I shake my head, smile plastered on my face, but I’m still too embarrassed to function.

  “Mm. He didn’t see everything.”

  A few turns later, he points out the window. “Recognize that?”

  We come up on a drawbridge. Two large castle spires stick out of the river, connected by a bright blue bridge and lines. It’s massive, and people are crawling all over the lower bridge like ants. I’ve seen this in every London-based movie.

  “Wow,” I say. “London Bridge.”

  A groan escapes his lips, and as I turn he shakes his head vehemently. “You’re one of those tourists, aren’t you? I thought you looked things up?”

  I fold my arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That’s Tower Bridge. Which leads to the Tower of London. London Bridge is a piece of crap compared to this.”

  “Fine,” I say, fully aware my ears and face are burning bright red. “I didn’t look everything up.”

  “Hey, I’m just glad I could teach you something.” He puts his hand behind my neck and squeezes, relieving some of the tension that’s stuck there.

  Everything’s emotional whiplash with him. I’m sad, he makes me happy. I’m at peace, he makes me frustrated. I’m stressed, he makes me calm. Well, for a couple of seconds, until I’m back where I started, freaking out about the next thing.

  We spend the next half hour in more-or-less silence, commenting about the weather or the very British things we’re passing. Pub after pub, high street after high street. The city’s a beast, but it’s more manageable with him by my side.

  “Sorry for ranting so much, back there.”

  “Most I’ve heard you talk,” he says. “I like it when you ramble, if I’m honest.”

  I nod. Stare straight ahead.

  “And I’m sorry you’ve felt so out of place your whole life. No one deserves to go through that.”

  How long does it take to fall in love with someone—hours, days, years? It barely seems valid, these feelings that control my body and swim in my blood. The places I’ve lived, the people I’ve known, all seem like temporary shelters now. Love is something entirely different. It’s realizing the storm’s been raging so long you forget you’re drenched, until the sun kisses your cheek, dries your tears, and shows you where your real home is.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Brighton is alive. Where London’s subdued with a quaint charm and bustling seriousness, Brighton is loud. It’s loud, it’s organic, it’s really fucking gay. I stick to Pierce, who leads me down stone streets with coffee shops and boutique stores and through parks teeming with the tiniest of dogs.

  We pick out a postcard together.

  My hand’s in his. And we’re in public.

  It’s the type of vulnerability that makes you feel right, in some weird way. Look at me now, Kentucky county clerk I still refuse to name. The wind whips my face, a welcome shift from muggy, rainy London. The taste of salt in the air, the squawk of seagulls in the sky.

  “It’s been so long since I’ve been on the beach,” I say. Brighton reminds me how similar a place can sound or taste, even though I’ve never been here before. “My family used to go to the beach when I was younger, but we haven’t been in ages.”

  “I used to come here with my parents too. But they don’t even live in London anymore. My gran got sick not too long after I left for the academy, and Mum moved all of them back up to Leeds.”

  “Sorry about your grandma,” I say. “That must be hard, being away from them.”

  The wind is fierce up here. I welcome it by releasing my hand from his and stretching out my arms, for a brief second. Let the air wrap around my body. Nothing feels better after a long car ride.

  We meander down toward the beach, and Pierce gestures out to a bright pier jutting far into the water. Wind carries the cheering sound of a carnival toward me, and I marvel at the bright lights. All around us, the Brighton Marina is alive with activity, even with the sun arcing quickly toward sunset.

  We step onto the beach. Instead of the soft sand I was expecting, it looks like the whole beach is made of tan-and-brown pebbles. I make a mental note to google why this beach doesn’t have sand, though it must have something to do with the way the water interacts with the coast.

  “Thanks for telling me about your parents, and your grandma,” I say as the pebbles crunch beneath our feet. “I feel like you don’t open up much.”

  “Ha! What do you want to know about me? I can be an open book.”

  “What’s the town like where your family lives?”

  He takes my hand again and smiles. “Quaint. At least in American terms. Actually, it’s probably a bit like your Kentucky, now that I think about it. More grass and trees than you could imagine. It’s quiet, peaceful. They’re on a train line, so I don’t even need a car to get there.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  There’s a peacefulness that comes over him when he talks about home, and a light smile. “It’s actually where I grew up. We moved closer to London for Mum’s work, but she can work from home now, so it’s not as big of a deal. So they’re all back there, in that quaint little town outside of Leeds. All but me.”

  We make our way to the boardwalk, and I look out toward the pier. We don’t seem to have any plan for this trip, and for once, not having a plan feels amazing. Pierce and I haven’t had much time to talk—like, really talk.

  As we walk, we bypass the arcade and carnival games. I pull him close to me when a cool breeze picks up.

  “Do you want to move back to Leeds someday?”

  “Yes, probably. In my dream world, I’d like to work in London, play for the Pops or something and commute in on the train, and live a quiet life in the countryside.”

  “That sounds nice.” I can’t stop myself from thinking about how it might look, the two of us following the same path, living together outside the city. It’s a long way off, but I can almost grasp it.

  He clears his throat. “That all you got?”

  I’m comfortable with him. But I don’t think I’m comfortable enough to ask him the thing I really want to know about him. Especially when I can’t piss him off too much, as I’m miles and miles from London and that’d be one hell of an awkward car ride if he just broke it off because I asked too much.

  This is dumb.

  We lean against the railing near the edge of the pier, and I take his hand.

  “What happened with you and Colin this summer? I need to know your side of things if I’m ever going to get out of my head about it.”

  He sighs. “I knew she’d tell you.”

  “Sophie did, but she only wanted to protect me, and Colin was her friend, and he played that awful recital—”

  “You think I don’t know that? Everyone blamed me for that disaster. But”—he clears his throat—“Colin and I had issues. Our relationship was a whirlwind—no, it was a cyclone. He was codependent to a fault, and I don’t operate that way.”

  I release his hand.

  “Love, not like that.” He lightly takes my hand back. “He needed more from me than I could give, especially right
after starting at the academy.”

  “That’s vague. What did he need?” What if I need the same things?

  “Babe, I could go on for the rest of the night about his needs. We were only together maybe three weeks, but he wanted a husband, like, yesterday. He wanted to go out and be seen together all the time, and if I stayed in to practice or something, he would flip out.”

  He walks over to the other side of the pier, and I follow. He stares out at the water and the shore like some forlorn sailor from a literary novel. His shoulders are hunched, and I hate making him feel this way. I gently rub his back with my palm.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Didn’t mean to, you know. Start this.”

  “Do you know what scares me most about being with you?”

  I pull back, and he turns to me.

  “You’re different from Colin,” he says. “But the circumstances are the same—no, they’re worse. All of your dreams lie in London. You’re a hell of an oboist, and I know you’ll get a gig soon enough. You emote better than anyone else I’ve seen, which, as I’ve been told, is not something I can just learn.”

  I shrug and back away.

  “Please, stop cowering like that every time you get a compliment. If you want to hold your own here, you must realize how great you are.”

  “I’m fine.” I throw my hands up in the air. “I mean, the last video I made for my portfolio is basically useless. So painful to watch—I missed so many notes.”

  “I’ll tell you something that Baverstock tells me every week.” His voice drops. “Music’s not about hitting all the right notes. It’s about causing a reaction, showing emotion.”

  “That’s a compliment.”

  “That’s not how he means it,” he says. “I hit all the right notes. I can play higher and finger faster than any trumpet out there, but I’m struggling in this school. Last week, Baverstock called me a marching band dropout. But I’m sure Sophie told you all about that.”

  “Hey,” I say. I grip his shoulders and pull him closer to me. “She didn’t tell me this—she’s not like that. She wants to protect me from going down the same path as Colin. But that won’t be me. And as for you.” I kiss him between breaths. “I’ve felt your emotion. You’re an earthquake of emotion, babe, and I know you can find a way to get more of it into your playing.”