Chapter 26
“Y’all are sleeping on Dark Arts, I swear! Come on, that is a certified dark pop bop!”
“I’m obsessed with Sorry I Didn’t Call. Alistair showing love to Reed by releasing this apology song is too fucking cute.”
“Phoebe is so beautiful. Now the album ends on a ballad and it feels fully complete.”
Scrolling through more comments, the smile on my face couldn’t be contained.
Ever since I’d released the deluxe edition of Diamonds, I’d been seeing all kinds of responses from fans that were overwhelmingly positive.
I loved seeing what people’s favorite songs were and was surprised to see praise for all three in one way or another.
It made me feel like I’d just released a whole new album instead of just adding three songs to it.
The songs were charting like crazy. I’d brought up the idea of doing a video for Sorry I Didn’t Call (My Bad) and Priyanka said we should definitely do something to extend all the commotion surrounding the deluxe version of the album.
So the fact that I was about to go on stage and film this interview with The Gab was going to be the perfect excuse to talk about the deluxe album.
Since I’d announced the deluxe album at the second Charlotte show, the energy surrounding the third and final show in North Carolina had been absolutely insane.
The air had been electric and rife with the response of the announcement.
I’d even managed to play one of the new songs, Phoebe, during my acoustic set as a final farewell to my home state.
We’d hopped on a flight back to Tennessee as soon as the show had ended, because I was due to film The Gab bright and early the next morning.
After my third cup of coffee this morning, I’d wished I could have had at least another day or something before having to do press, but whatever. I was powering through.
I looked up from my phone just in time to see Van sauntering over to me from my poised position backstage at The Gab. We had a couple minutes before the cast was going to announce my arrival for the interview segment.
“Enjoying the comments?” Van said as he stopped by my side, a smirk set between his lips pointedly.
“Okay, you caught me.” I shooed him with the wave of a hand, sliding my phone into the pocket of my slacks.
For once, Van and I looked similarly dressed.
I was wearing a lavender suit, something very different for me than the usual white and silver I’d been donning during the Diamonds album rollout, but Van was still wearing his usual pressed best, wearing a lighter shade of blue than the navy he tended to be in.
“Caught you?” Van scoffed. “You’ve been addicted to checking the fans’ response to the new songs every five seconds.”
“I have not!” I was appalled by his accusation, but I knew he was just teasing.
Van leaned in closer to my side. “So you weren’t checking your phone right after we’d just had sex in the shower last night?”
The memory of him soaping me up which had led to a full make out ran through my mind.
Our skin had been so slippery and I’d wanted nothing more than to feel his dick rearranging my insides.
Which is exactly what had happened. We hadn’t stopped knocking around the shower until both our loads had slid down the drain of the hotel bathroom.
We’d almost missed the projected takeoff time for coming to Nashville late last night after the show.
Great, now I was hard and due to walk on stage any minute.
And okay, I had checked my phone before we’d gotten dressed after stepping out of the shower. Sue me. “Okay, okay. I’ll give my phone a rest.”
“I’m only joking.” Van knocked his shoulder against mine playfully. “I know you’re excited. And you should be. It’s impressive that you were able to release these new songs while on tour.”
“Well, I’d worked on two of them prior to tour starting. Only needed to adjust them a bit for the release. Phoebe was the only one that wasn’t finished and that was the one we knocked out that day in the studio.”
“Still,” Van said, his head careening to see that people backstage were shuffling around a little bit more now, seemingly to prepare for the show to go back on air at a moments notice. “You’re amazing, Alistair.”
The praise did not help the situation with my dick. When I looked into his eyes after that, I saw something I hadn’t before. I couldn’t put my finger on the exact sentiment that Van’s eyes were radiating in that moment, but what I read it as made my heart skip a beat.
Because in those beautiful mirage blue eyes, I saw something that told me Van might just be feeling the same longing for me that I was feeling for him.
Just as I was about to open my mouth and say something, because I needed to know if he felt the same way about me right there in that exact passage of time, one of the production assistants told me I was going out in thirty seconds and I needed to be closer to the set.
I fumbled with my feet as they led me away from Van, because I wanted to say something, anything, to him, but I couldn’t as I was being dragged across the area.
My mind was buzzing. If Van was falling for me…
what did that mean? The thought made my heart burst, letting me know already exactly how I felt about the situation.
But it scared the shit out of me. It’d only been a couple months since we’d met, and we’d only been having sex for a few weeks.
Had we learned enough about each other to warrant the feelings teetering inside my stomach?
I didn’t get the chance to dwell on it, because I heard my name followed by a massive round of applause and I knew I was cued to walk on set. I straightened my lavender suit jacket, plastered on a smile, and started walking.
The Gab wasn’t a huge set, but it was bigger than anything I was used to.
This was definitely bigger than the Night Show I’d done first talking about Diamonds.
Also the audience was twice the size of what I’d experienced at the Night Show.
Tons of hands clapped for me as I made my way around the table, sitting between four of Nashville’s biggest celebrities and socialites.
On my far left was a comedian who’s name escaped me, a lovely woman with red hair tied back into a ponytail.
And directly to my left was Veronica, who’s blonde hair looked blonder to me as I sat down next to her.
To my right were twin sisters, the only distinguishable difference between them being that one of them wore their hair in box braids and the other had the most adorable afro puffs.
At least I hadn’t forgotten their names too.
Wren was the one in afro puffs and Jasmine was the one with the box braids.
“Thanks for joining us, Alistair.” Wren said with a glazed smile. “We appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule while you’re on tour!”
“Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it.” I said back, smiling just as wide.
“Alistair, I have to say,” Veronica wasted no time in shifting the conversation. “As someone who was lucky enough to see the show a couple times now, you dominate that stage every single time you step foot on it.”
Applause and hollers of agreement followed Veronica’s statement, and I was kind of in awe at her comment.
Maybe just because she was married to a guy who I wanted absolutely nothing to do with didn’t mean that Veronica herself was a terrible person.
I really appreciated her genuine stance on what she’d witnessed on tour.
“Wow, thank you so much.” I said after the cheering had dissipated. I looked deeply into her eyes when I added, “That really means a lot.”
“And now, you’ve recently released the deluxe edition of your album while you were on stage the other night!” The redhead boasted.
“That’s right.” I laughed. “I’d been stewing on these last three songs and I figured announcing it at one of my hometown shows made the most sense to me.”
“There’s some talk online that your song Sorry I Didn’t Call (My Bad) is about your ex-boyfriend, high profile actor Reed Diamond.” Jasmine added. “Is that true or just one of those things the internet decided to make up?”
“Oh, that’s absolutely true.” I nodded. “That song was inspired by a real situation where I hadn’t communicated with Reed when I should have, and that song is essentially me apologizing for being an awful communicator.”
“Well, it’s an amazing song!” Veronica expressed excitedly. “Although, Dark Arts is my favorite.”
“I’m glad you enjoy that one.” I chuckled through my nerves. I knew I had to make an announcement, per Priyanka to keep the buzz about the deluxe going. I still had Van on my mind, so I wanted to get this interview other with.
“I think Phoebe is beautiful,” The redhead added. “An ode to your hometown, right?”
Smiling, I affirmed her musings. “Yeah, sort of. It’s about something very personal that I had to go through, but out of the circumstances, I was renewed by the idea of sort of returning home.”
We talked a little bit more about tour. How it felt for me to perform every night, why I’d made certain setlist choices that I had, why I’d decided to perform a Taylor song every night, things of that nature. Honestly, the rest of the interview was kind of a blur because I kept thinking about Van.
Yes, I was excited about the deluxe album being out. But it was out already. And Van was here, backstage, the idea of us being more of an us burning in my mind. Knowing that the only thing that could extinguish it was having a serious dialogue with him was the only thing running through my mind.
“So with the deluxe being out,” Jasmine asked, bringing me back to the moment and lifting the autopilot I’d been in. “Any chances we’re getting a new single from one of the new songs?”
Here it was, the moment I needed to plug the new single. “Yes, actually. Sorry I Didn’t Call is my next single, and I’m going to be doing a music video for it very soon.”