Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Only one of ‘em’s allowed to.” I give him a playful poke.
Raj, overhearing us, perks his head up. “Dee just told me last night that we already sold out our next seven shows.” When Fiona shoots him a questioning look, he shrugs. “What? Dee and I talk.”
Wily comes to our side of the swimming pool and hooks his arms over the edge. “Things are gonna change fast,” he says with a certain smack of his lips and a nod. “Nothing about Chase Holt and our brand will be the same.”
“Don’t worry. Nothing’s changing,” I put in, drawing all their eyes to me. “The world out there’s just waking up to what we’ve been since the start. Keep messing up the bass in your beautiful ways, Wiles. And you.” I nod at Fiona. “Twist up those chords until I’m dancin’ in your whacky world.” I smirk at Raj. “Keep smashin’ it up like you always do.”
“Roger that,” says Raj with a cute wiggle of his head.
“We’re not somethin’ new,” I tell them. “We’re exactly who we were already.” I realize TJ lifted his head off my shoulder, looking at me. I put a kiss right on his face and smile. “We’re just more.”
“More,” echoes Wily from the pool, fingers tapping on the wet pavement, thoughtful.
“More,” agrees Raj with a giddy nod. “More what? You decide. More of this, more of that. More of what you want. More of what you didn’t know you wanted. More—”
“—of a pain in my ass?” suggests Fiona with a look at Raj. He returns a funny one of his own. Then the two bust out laughing.
I don’t get this new bestie bond between them.
But I love it.
It’s early afternoon when everything’s set up and the guests start to arrive. Compared to last night, the energy today is warm and joyful, like a hug from a distant relative who misses you and wants to know everything they’ve missed. There’s no more battle in the air. Nothing to figure out. The worst of it is behind us, and all we have to look forward to is finger foods, good conversation, more happy faces than you can count—and, of course, some tasty-ass barbecue getting smoked up outside as we speak.
I meet so many people. Too many. Everyone who wasn’t here last night is here today. I meet TJ’s boss Billy again, only now he’s accompanied by his beefy husband Tanner and their kids Marcus and Joshua. Apparently they just renewed their wedding vows this past New Year’s. Relationship goals? I meet Reverend Trey with his husband Cody—give me a second to process that this town has a young, gay, married pastor TJ never once in all of our hundreds of conversations thought to mention?? I meet a local fashion designer named Lance as well as his boyfriend Chad, who rarely leave their cozy spot out in the countryside, and after a casual chat about the nature of the music industry nowadays, the Lance fellow draws closer to me and says, “Y’know, if you’re ever in need of a fresh new look to go with this fresh new direction, your style is right in my wheelhouse, and I am ready.” A moment later, his hunky boyfriend Chad leans in to add, “Might as well say yes, buddy, ‘cause once Lance has his eyes set on you, he’s not gonna give up ‘til you’re his. Take it from me.”
I also get to reunite with Cole and his fiancé Noah, to whom I owe a lot for directing so much traffic to our live stream. The pair of them are glued to each other’s sides—a bit like TJ and myself right now—and as we chat by the back window with the aroma of barbecue torturing our nostrils, I enjoy seeing the stress-free side of this unique pair, particularly Noah, who looks like a totally different person when he isn’t behind a computer dragging sweat off his forehead with the back of a wrist. “Just be glad it didn’t rain a drop,” says Noah, “otherwise the entire system might’ve shorted and I’m not sure Mrs. McPherson would have allowed me to stay alive after that. No offense, TJ.”
We fly from one conversation to the next, TJ and I. Then we’re in a line outside to fill ourselves a plate of piping-hot fall-off-the-bone barbecue. Wily is sitting all by himself with a half-finished plate on his lap, feet kicked up on another chair next to him, with his eyes far away in a mental field of happy, flowery thoughts. So TJ and I interrupt that nonsense right away by joining him in his shaded nook. Billy, Tanner, and two other married couples stop by and join us, too—Mindy and Joel, with Bonnie and Kirk, I come to learn, and both couples start the conversation complaining about their kids. “I love my twins to death,” says Mindy, “but the two of ‘em are wearin’ me down to death, and—hey, don’t give me that look,” she says with a laugh at Bonnie. “Your kid’s a monster, but he’s eleven, and that’s miles easier to manage than two four-year-old monsters.” To that, Bonnie sucks the last bit of meat off a bone before replying, “He’s ten, actually, and all I can say is, at least you only have to babysit your actual kids … and not a man-child like my hubby here.” Kirk isn’t paying any attention, chatting with Tanner and Joel about something to do with UIL and baseball. The women laugh—along with TJ, who breaks my heart in happy pieces every time he does.