Epilogue
ANTHONY
Three Years Later
The roar of the crowd hits me like a physical force as I belt out the final note of “Complete.”
Fifty thousand people. All screaming. All here for this moment.
And somewhere in my peripheral vision, a pair of bright-pink underwear sails through the air and lands approximately three feet from my left boot.
I always finish my concerts with “Complete” now.
It’s a song I wrote six months after Nick and I met, scribbled out one-handed after Nick fell asleep on the couch with his head on my lap, me trying desperately to put into words the feelings inside me as I watched Nick sleep and tried to sum up the impact he’d had on my life.
It won a Grammy, but that isn’t why it’s my favorite song.
“Thank you, Chicago!” I shout into the mic, stepping carefully around the underwear because the last thing I need is to slip on intimate apparel and create a viral moment for all the wrong reasons. “You’ve been incredible!”
The stage lights dim and I’m backing toward the wings, waving, blowing kisses, doing the whole performance-mode thing that’s become second nature after all these years.
But my mind is already somewhere else.
Specifically, on my phone.
“Great show!” Brad claps me on the shoulder as I pass him. “The new arrangement of ‘Different Cages’ was fire.”
“Thanks, man.”
I’m barely listening. My hands are already reaching for my phone before I’ve even made it to the dressing room. It may be pathetic, but I’ve stopped pretending I’m not this person.
Three years together, and I still get a little thrill when I see Nick’s name on my screen.
Two messages are waiting for me.
The first is a photo that makes me laugh out loud, earning a weird look from the sound tech I’m passing.
It’s our dogs—Bowie, the golden retriever we adopted last year, and Figgy—named after Nick’s long-deceased plant, because apparently my husband has a theme—the scrappy little terrier mix Nick saw at the animal shelter he manages the social media for and couldn’t resist.
In the photo, Bowie is sprawled across our couch like he owns the place, wearing what appears to be one of my tour T-shirts. Figgy is perched on top of him, tiny and dignified, sporting a pair of my sunglasses.
The caption reads:
They wanted to watch the livestream in style.
Figgy says your high note in the second verse of “Right in Front of Me” was pitchy.
Bowie disagrees. There’s been drama. Also, the shelter’s adoption drive social media campaign went viral today—twelve dogs rehomed!
Your husband is a marketing genius and deserves a raise (from life, not from the shelter, because they definitely can’t afford one).
The second message is just three words.
Come home soon.
My chest tightens in that way it always does when Nick reminds me I have someone at home, waiting for me to come back.
I type back quickly, still walking toward my dressing room.
Tell Figgy my high note was perfect, and he’s just jealous he can’t sing. Tell Bowie he’s a good boy and gets extra treats. Twelve dogs rehomed is incredible—you’re amazing. Tell yourself I’ll be home in eighteen hours, and I’m counting every single one.
The reply comes almost instantly.
That’s remarkably sappy, but I’ll take it. Love you.
I’m grinning at my phone like an idiot when Gloria appears beside me.
“You’re doing the face again,” she says.
“What face?”
“The ‘I’m texting my husband and have temporarily forgotten I’m a functioning adult’ face.” She shoves a water bottle into my free hand, then pushes me toward my dressing room door. “You have fifteen minutes before the meet-and-greet.”
“I know, I know.”
But as soon as I’m inside, despite the fact that I’m still hot and sweaty and really should be focusing on looking more presentable for my fans, I can’t help but quickly hit the FaceTime call button.
It’s worth it to see Nick’s grinning face.
“Hey, you.”
“Hey.”
“There’s an awesome story glowing up. I was just about to send it to you,” he says.
This is how we survive the tours Nick doesn’t join me on. With small rituals and conversations that continue almost seamlessly despite hours in between. And one of our favorite rituals is sending each other posts from the QueerWaystoFallinLove lightbeam on the ShareYourGlow forum.
“Tell me about it,” I say as I pull off my stage jacket one-handed.
“Okay, so these two guys live next door to each other and loathe each other. But then one of their dogs impregnates the other one’s, and when the puppies are born, they have to work together to control the chaos of six puppies.
“That’s really cute.”
“I know! It’s like, take an enemies-to-lovers story and add six puppies. What else could you want?”
I can’t help laughing.
Nick posted our story on QueerWaystoFallinLove about a year after we got together.
It got thousands of interactions, glowing so bright it was practically blinding.
But the best part was when some moderator named TruthGuardian flagged it and asked for “verifying details” because, apparently, the idea of someone catfishing as a celebrity and actually being that celebrity was “statistically improbable.”
Nick had to send screenshots of our text conversations and a photo of us together as proof.
I could understand TruthGuardian’s skepticism.
Sometimes I still can’t believe this is real.
That the guy who made a video mocking my pretentious apartment is now the person I come home to.
That the stranger I messaged on a whim has become the one I message first about everything—the good stuff, the bad stuff, the weird thoughts about whether fish get thirsty or not.
“Ours is still a better story,” Nick says. “Especially since we managed to stumble onto the secret to long-lasting love.”
“We have? And what is that?” I pull a fresh shirt over my head.
“A whole lot of mockery.”
“Yes, I believe I learned that the first time I met your family,” I say because that will forever be one of my favorite days of my life, if not also one of the most cringe-worthy.
Nick laughs as I check my hair in my dressing room mirror.
“You probably should concentrate on getting ready to meet your adoring fans,” he says.
“Yeah, I should go. I’ll call after it finishes. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hang up and finish making myself presentable.
But when I’m done getting ready, I still have a spare two minutes, so I grab my phone. There’s not enough time to call Nick again, so I settle on my next favorite thing—watching a video of Nick giving an apartment tour.
But it’s not the original clip of him mocking me by showing off his crappy apartment that he shared with Jade, the video I used to watch over and over again before I actually met him.
Instead, this is an Architectural Living video that was released six months ago. It features the brownstone that Nick and I bought after we got married because we wanted a place we could decorate together and that had more space for the dogs.
In this one, Nick opens our front door with his grin that shows off his dimples. I’m standing next to him, with the expression I frequently wear around Nick. The one I’ve heard described as “adorable” by many fans and “nauseating” by Gloria.
“Hi, everyone, we’re Nick and Anthony Marchesi-Devine, and welcome to our home.”