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)
All those people in that restaurant, laughing, breaking garlic bread, messily slurping pasta, my on-the-road family.
“I love you, Chase. Like a brother. Like a husband sometimes.”
“Careful, Hailey might find out.”
Ian snorts at me. “Hails knows damned well I’m not your type, that ship’s sailed.”
“Ship was never in the harbor.” I toss his hands back at him, causing him to laugh. Then I squint. “So what is my type?”
“Oh, I dunno. A cute guy. Younger. Sassy. Doesn’t put up with your shit. And take a look around you. Everyone here puts up with your shit. Me, most of all.” He shrugs. “I guess that’s why we’re all family. You wouldn’t fuck any of us.”
The things that come out of his mouth sometimes … “Did you sneak in a bottle of wine I don’t know about or what?”
“Had a drink back at the hotel, shh.” After a chuckle, his face turns serious again. “Nothing’s missing in you. You’re still Chase Holt. Every bit of you that was at the Saltshaker. And hey, if you’re still doubting yourself in the morning, you’ve got a whole day to think it over, reclaim that part of you I know is still there. Maybe he’s … in the back of the room, like a quiet, loyal fan that doesn’t scream or wear all the merch. He’s still rooting for you. As am I.” With one last nod and a gesture with his finger pointing up—to the top—he heads back inside, leaving me with the crickets.
And the stars.
I’m back up in my hotel room an hour later. Glorious sleeps on the bed where he always does, freshly tuned, and I’ve taken some blankets and pillows to the floor, for some reason finding it more satisfying to sleep on than the cushy bed. I’m spread-eagle staring up at a spot on the ceiling, and all I can think about is …
A guy whose name I don’t know.
And his cute … young … sassy … shattered eyes.
I sit up with my notebook, lean back against the foot of the bed, and look over the lyrics from that song I threw together.
I mark out some of the words. Add new ones in the heat of the moment. The room’s perfectly dim with just one lamp on, not too close. I can barely see the page, just like I like it.
Then I realize the line I just wrote is: What the fuck about mine?
And: Does it make me a terrible person for wishing someone felt as bad as I do right now?
And: In the ever-loving quicksand that is my hometown of Spruce …
Is that what I’ve lost? Someone else’s perspective? What the real country feels like? Am I forgetting what the hell it’s like to be a normal-ass human being? Suffocating, like he is?
Another fucking guy singing about his feelings …
Goddamn, why didn’t I say something back to him?
What the fuck about mine?
And why didn’t you stay for the damned show? Was the idea of listening to a guy and his guitar so beneath you that you would rather gut him with a few words and run away … rather than give him a chance to comfort you with his music?
Me and my hero complex. Or my ego, if there’s a difference.
Next second, I’m at the window of my room, phone out.
Fifty-two miles that way. That’s where it is, the quicksand I’ve apparently thrown him back into, too slow on the uptake to offer my hand.
Whatever it is I’ve lost, I’m pretty fucking sure that guy’s the one who found it, whether he knows it or not.
The car rental store stares at me from across the street.
And it opens at seven in the morning.
Chapter 5.
Timothy
Every time I come down to T&S’s, it’s a rebellion.
It shouldn’t be. But it is.
My mom smiles at me before I leave the house, and I know all the truth hidden behind that smile, same as I have truth walled up behind my “everything’s-totally-fine” eyes. She can’t fool me. And I can’t fool her. But we pretend to anyway, and then I’m out the door driving into town, feeling like the worst son ever.
I did tell her the office was nice.
She relayed the message to Dad immediately, looking like she just won a prize at the fair.
Sometimes I’m too honest.
But also never honest enough.
“You alright?” asks Billy at the Shoppe.
It’s the third time he’s asked. “Yes, Mr. Billy, I’m …” I glance at a sweet couple we just served, sitting in the corner together under a large framed picture of one of the beaches on Dreamwood Isle, Billy and his husband eclipsing the sunset. Real romantic stuff. Just like the couple sitting under it enjoying sundaes. The regular kind, not Billy’s special Football ones.
“Y’know you really don’t have to do the ‘Mr.’ thing anymore,” Billy teases. “You’re about to be a college graduate.”