Public Relations

Chapter Ten

There's a bar a town over from Green Harbor, where my mom used to live, that August and I used to go to when he'd come back from college to visit. The bar had no name above the building, the drinks were always cheap, the floors perpetually sticky, and the owner never took down the Christmas lights from December. It was perfect.

I remember the third time we went to that little bar, the third time he came to see me. It was about two months after I had come home to take care of Mom. And even though we weren't seeing each other every day like we used to in classes and around campus, we'd been talking daily. I remember thinking I had him—thinking he had come home to see me, to spend time with me.

Especially after what had happened a few months prior.

We were perched at the bar, snacking on stale peanuts. August nursed his beer, worried the bartender wouldn't serve him another because of our fake IDs, while I sipped my dirty Shirley, loaded with extra cherries to mask the taste of vodka, which I never actually liked. He was watching some important football game on the TV above the liquor shelf—Patriots versus Chiefs, I think—when he suddenly said, "What do you think if I asked Gwen out?"

My head snapped toward him. He was still staring at the TV, the Christmas lights hung haphazardly on the window behind him casting a colorful glow around his thick wavy hair. It felt like my heart plummeted into my stomach. Quickly, I looked away and down at my drink, tracing the condensation on the outside of my highball glass. I'm not sure how long I was silent—it felt like a really long time—before finally managing to say, "Yeah, I think you should. She seems nice."

That same little bar, tucked between a mattress store and a 24-hour donut shop, was one of the last places August and I went out publicly before everything changed. Before my music became a constant echo over the speakers wherever I went. Before stepping out meant immediately being recognized. Before all the fame.

I've tried my best to keep my relationship with August away from the media, simply because I didn't—and still don't—want people poking into his life. I like the privacy and love how August remains relatively unknown to everyone else. Because there's a part of me, I think, that fears if the attention becomes too much, August might no longer want to be my friend.

So, I haven't been out to a bar with August since. Until today.

This morning, he texted me, "Want to practice today? Coffee?"

When I saw his text, my stomach clenched, and suddenly it felt like I couldn't swallow properly. After dinner with his parents the other night, I've been mentally spiraling. I'm not ready for this—to pretend to date my best friend, the one I'm in love with. I couldn't even bring myself to pick out an outfit from my closet and get dressed because of the nerves.

Lying starfished out on the carpeted floor of my walk-in closet, I texted him back, "How about drinks instead? Happy hour?"

Five minutes later, my phone buzzed against my stomach, "Made a reservation at that new wine bar in Back Bay. Meet you after work? Rez under Debbi."