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)
“Love? That’s what this is?” He points at the door. “Love is what’s waiting for you down there in Room 218?”
My eyes snap to his.
“Let me give you a clearer picture here, Chase. These people, they aren’t gonna be coming after you first. They’re gonna want to know who stole their Chase Holt’s heart. Where does this guy live? What’s his name? How can he possibly deserve our Chase? He will be eviscerated.”
I flinch at that word.
Looking away. Jaw tightening.
“Alright, fine.” His voice softens. “Think I’m being dramatic? Let’s look at it at another angle. What’ll everyone think about your guy? This groupie who caught your eye and followed you around to your shows? You have gay fans, too, y’know. Guys who’ll wish they could’ve been that lucky boy who somehow got you. They’ll hate him. They’ll think he seduced you. Trust me, it’s never gonna be his ‘personality’ they credit. Regardless of the truth, they’ll believe the worst version of it because it makes for tastier tea to tell their friends. Clickier titles for online articles. You want the world to think that low about your guy? Doesn’t sound like a story for the grandkids, does it? He’ll be socially and literally eviscerated.”
“Stop using that word.”
Ian looks away. A silence passes. He rises from the bed, moves to the door and stops. “You know I fucking hate this conversation, right? Like, it makes me sick to say these things to you?” He looks back at me. “Believe it or not, I’m looking out for him as much as I am for you. Please. For his sake if not your own. End it already.”
Then he leaves. Door closes.
Silence again.
I know Ian isn’t the villain here. Wouldn’t dare paint him that way. Maybe that’s what scares me most, that everything he’s said is terrifyingly reasonable.
They’ll hate him …
I drift with these thoughts back to TJ’s room. No one nearby. No eyes and no ears. I give it a gentle knock. TJ opens the door, his eyes sleepy but bright—he obviously fixed himself up a bit in the mirror while I was gone, hair back in place, face washed—and I’m let inside. “Got your phone?” he asks me. I smile back at him, put a kiss on his lips, and nod—my phone, and so much more.
It’s while we’re cuddled on the bed, lights out, bluish glow of the TV over us, about to fall asleep together for the first time, that I tell him, “After Nashville, we’re getting two full weeks off.”
“I know. I saw. Do you … have any plans with your break?”
“Yep.” I turn to him, meeting his eyes in the dark. “I plan to spend every single minute of it with you.”
Chapter 17.
TJ
I straighten a pillow on the living room couch.
A chair at the brunch table is turned ever so slightly, so I most definitely fix that.
I wipe off the kitchen counter with a cloth, then realize it was already clean, the cloth coming up empty.
Then I stand in the foyer, wondering what else I can do.
Check my phone.
On a ladder in the study, I rearrange all the books by height. Decide it looks wrong. Arrange by color. Decide that’s worse. Then settle on organizing by genre. What genre is a thesaurus?
I adjust the picture frames down the hall, all of them looking crooked because either my eyes or the leveler is lying to me.
Check my phone.
Walk into each guestroom with a dramatic sniff, testing if they smell fresh or not.
“What’s all this for, sweetheart?” asks my mom, noticing me in the two and a half seconds I flit from one room to the next, and I go, “Not now, Mom.”
Check my phone.
“Are you—?” she asks. I cut her off with, “Cleaning,” as I dash into another room with a dust rag. “We have people for this!” she calls out sweetly from the hall.
I adjust another picture frame.
My bed and my desk and my floor become covered with every shirt and every pair of pants or shorts I own, and literally nothing is good enough to wear. “Too casual,” I mumble, holding up a set in the mirror, flinging it aside. “Too uptight.” Then: “Trying too hard to look cool.” Then: “Not trying hard enough.”
It takes a lot of effort to look effortlessly good.
“Enough,” says my mom, stopping me at the top of the stairs. “What in the ever-lovin’ heck is going on?”
“Austin,” I answer. “He’s staying here for two weeks.”
Her face registers like I literally said nothing.
Then her eyes flash. “And you’re telling me this now??”
Ten minutes later, I’m on a ladder by the back door trying to dust a chandelier in the late afternoon sunlight while my mom is on the phone with a caterer friend asking advice on lunch meats.
I’m in the bathroom counting toilet paper rolls and my mom is in the upstairs study organizing the books by author.