Page 64 of Chasing Stardust

His smile dissolves. “I mean, closed down. As in not there anymore.”

“They tore it down?” The words rip from my throat. Not again. Not another piece of Mom’s history, erased.

“The building’s still there, but they converted it into a John Varvatos store.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “We can go there if you want to get some pictures under the awning.”

“Does it still say CBGB?”

Eyes darting to mine, he shakes his head.

“That’s . . .” Fan-freaking-tastic. I fold my arms across my chest and stare into traffic.

“I’m sorry, Zoey.”

I feel his gaze burrowing under my skin. “It’s fine.”

“You’re a horrible liar.” He coils his fingers around my wrist and pries my hand free. “Talk to me.”

“I’m fine, really. We can skip it.” I release a shaky breath and turn toward him, ignoring the pricking behind my eyes. “I’ve never even heard of John Whoever, so what’s the point of going to his store?”

“Varvatos.” He says the name again, enunciating every syllable. “Men’s clothing designer. High-end stuff for a younger crowd.”

“Like I said . . .” My throat constricts, and I swallow before it completely closes. “Why should I give a damn about his store?”

Dash’s eyes soften, and he slips his fingers through mine, stroking the back of my hand with his thumb as if he can tell I’m barely holding on . . . that I’m a single breath from breaking. “What happened at CBGB? On your mom’s trip—what made it memorable?”

The pricking behind my eyes becomes a steady burn, but the constant pressure of his thumb steadies me. “She wrote her name on the wall.”

And now those walls are . . . ? Gone? Painted over? Little more than decades of blurry photos boxed up in someone’s damp basement?

I stare out the window as if the clouds hold the answers. “But I’m not gonna find Mom’s name written on the wall in some fancy New York boutique, so we may as well skip it.”

He squeezes my hand. “Don’t get your hopes up, but I think they left the walls intact.”

“Seriously?” My soul tingles back to life, and I tear my gaze from the sky. “Because that would be amazing. We definitely need to check it out.”

He offers a warm smile. “I’ll take you wherever you wanna go.”

“Jersey drivers are assholes.” Dash tightens his grip on the wheel until his knuckles whiten.

For the past hour, he’s barely taken his eyes from the road. A sea of glowing taillights snakes into the darkness as far as the eye can see, like miles of flickering red Christmas lights against the velvet backdrop of twilight.

“Guess we shouldn’t have stopped in Washington,” I mutter.

He glares at me out of the corner of his eye, his jaw ticking like a bomb, counting down the seconds before mass destruction.

“Point taken.” I blow out a breath. So maybe it was my idea to stop, but I really wanted to drive past the White House. How was I supposed to know we’d have to park and walk the rest of the way?

The traffic slows to a standstill, boxing in the shiny red Tesla in a scene straight out of an apocalyptic disaster movie. So many lanes of traffic. So many cars.

“Do you think we’ll make it to New York in time for fireworks?” I chew my bottom lip raw.

“It’ll be close.” He clears the current map from the display. “But I know a shortcut.”

A shortcut the GPS apparently isn’t aware of.

Taking advantage of a break in the traffic, Dash changes lanes, cutting off a black Lexus and earning a few rude gestures. He takes the next exit, winding around a series of ramps that remind me of a big bowl of spaghetti, then hops onto another section of highway, where we find ourselves in another bumper-to-bumper slowdown.

Every time I think we’re in the clear, we hit another wall of traffic. Our quick shortcut turns into another hour of one exit after another, followed by several random side streets, roadblocks, and U-turns. The longer we spend in New Jersey traffic, the more agitated Dash becomes.