Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
My heart stopped as the journal fell from my hands into my lap. I stared at Trace, who was casually pouring a jar of pasta sauce into a small pan to heat.
He caught the movement and looked up with a smile. “Your dad put me onto this songwriter a while back, Fletcher Coe. That’s a line from one of his songs about writing in a journal. Reminded me of you just now.”
“Oh. ’Kay?” There was a pause between the syllables as I choked on my saliva, and I worried my eyes were wide with panic. If you’d asked me two weeks ago, the idea of Trace quoting my lyrics at me was a peak life goal. But right now…
Fuck, what was I supposed to do? It didn’t feel right to tell him yet, and I was way too frazzled for the conversation that would need to happen when I did. But I couldn’t outright lie.
I was pretty sure I’d imagined Trace’s sigh as he turned back to the stove. Because a second later, he smiled easily and gave the journal in my lap a nod.
“Glad to have it back?”
“Of course.” I held it to my chest. “This leather cover is my most prized possession. I’d want it back even if he’d kept the notebook inside it.”
He flashed me a look of amused confusion. “I thought your Martin guitar was your most prized possession?”
I shook my head, relieved to notice it throbbed a little less now. “There were several thousand D-28s made in 1969 alone. There’s only one of these in existence. It’s irreplaceable.” I held the soft leather on my lap and ran a fingertip across the engraved initials. “This cover’s held more of my secrets than any human on Earth.”
Trace’s eyes met mine, dark in the dim lighting of the van this late at night. “Yeah?”
“Oh yeah. I even mention you. Not by name, but by the letter T. Which would be obvious to Jake now.” I winced, thinking of my last journal entry, where I’d confessed I’d been thinking of Trace while Jake kissed me. “I think a lot of things about us are pretty obvious to him now.”
Trace shrugged. “I don’t mind him knowing how you feel about me, whether it’s good or bad. And I don’t care if he knows we’re together either. The truth’s more powerful than any secret.”
“You might feel differently if he makes it public,” I pointed out. “Since my fathers still don’t know.”
The timer went off for the pasta, and Trace turned to drain it.
“Good point,” he muttered.
I don’t know what I expected, but his easy agreement made my stomach twist. We still hadn’t talked about how or when—or if—we’d tell my family about our relationship. We needed more time.
If Jake went public, that wouldn’t be an option.
I flipped through the journal to assess the possible damage to my reputation if parts of it were exposed, and the results were grim. My fantasies. Thoughts on my road trip. Page after page of Fletcher’s distinctive lyrics I happened to know had already been shared on Fletcher’s own Instagram.
Fuck. If this went public, the results would be cataclysmic for so many people.
Everyone in my family would learn that I’d kept this huge secret from them. Papa would figure out why. And Trace… fuck. Our relationship was so new. Would it survive the kind of pressure that came from being outed against our will?
Did I have a choice?
I realized belatedly that I needed to contact Sunny. We’d worked with lawyers who crafted ironclad NDAs. They might have some ideas on how to mitigate the fallout. The PR company that handled Fletcher’s press could help, too. Maybe prepare statements or… something? I didn’t know.
It was the uncertainty of it all that killed me. I hated the feeling that I was a beach ball in the crowd at a concert, forever being whacked in the direction other people wanted me to go.
And I had so many priorities, so many people’s needs to consider. They were crowding my head, making it hard to focus on any one idea.
But I’d handled it before. Found a way to achieve what I wanted, even if I had to create an alter ego to do it. I’d figure this out, too, somehow.
I had too much at stake not to.
I grabbed my laptop from under the bed and fired off a few emails.
Trace eventually dished the pasta and sauce into two bowls and handed me one.
“Eat, baby. Let it go for a minute.”
I tried. I did. But when Trace took a seat on the swiveled passenger seat, he felt a million miles away, and even the warm comfort food couldn’t ease the tension that had crept back up my shoulders.
While Trace started doing the dishes, I went back to flipping idly through the journal, trying not to catastrophize.