Chapter 16.
Austin
The hum of the bus in my ears. Countryside flying past all the windows. Fiona and Wily are talking. I’m only half-listening.
Boyfriend … Secret boyfriend.
Did TJ really mean that when he said it?
TJ showed up at our final show last night in Houston, Texas.
There weren’t any backstage shenanigans this time.
Way too risky. But after the show, we coordinated via text, and while the band and crew went out to celebrate, I feigned needing to stay behind at the hotel and rest, then secretly met TJ at a nearby Korean BBQ chain his college roommate recommended.
We sat in the back of the place behind a tall potted plant and, comically out of sight of anyone, enjoyed our meal, fed each other the most delicious bites of meat we grilled right there at the table, and even now and then snuck a kiss.
It was like our own little tasty piece of heaven.
Then it was over. We shared a long and clingy hug neither of us wanted to let end. I went back to the hotel, lied to Dee about not being able to rest like I wanted and instead taking a walk, then sat in my room waiting on TJ’s call letting me know he got home.
Now we’re back on the road. Back in the routine. On our way.
But every single part of me is still in that big house in Spruce.
In that warm bed with TJ and his messed up sheets.
At that cute table by the back window with his mom smiling adoringly at me over sandwiches.
Walking with TJ through his colorful shaded groves, barefoot in the grass, sneaking glances at each other.
“Are you paying attention?” Wily asks me at one point, more matter-of-fact and less annoyed.
I pry my gaze from the window, mutter some smiling apology, and say something about needing a coffee.
Wily stares at me suspiciously while Raj gets right on that, hopping from his chair to get me some in my favorite smiley mug.
That night in the hotel, Glorious and I stay up well after I get off the phone with TJ, having found a nice nook outside where I try (and fail) to befriend another stray, spooking the poor cat into the parking lot.
But after I play and sing for a while, building a new tune on stolen kisses behind curtains and closed doors, I spot the cat watching from under an SUV, shiny eyes on me, listening.
The next show, I’m still piecing songs together in my dressing room minutes before we take the stage, and Dee, sent to come get me, even stops and finds herself sucked in. “That a new one?” she asks, hand to her chest, colorful wristbands covering her forearm. “It’s so hot. What’s it called?”
I bite my lip, as if I can actually taste TJ’s last kiss, before I say, “‘Down Bad For Him’.”
“Sounds like a lucky guy,” she says with a laugh—oblivious to the existence of an actual lucky guy—and then the pair of us are off to start another show.
And each time I come off that stage, texts await me.
Pics of TJ on a bench. Or in his bed. One by that fountain with a coin on his palm and a handwritten message scribbled over the top: “Give you one guess what my wish is.” It’s the best nightcap I could ask for, still riding the high of another knockout show.
On the bus heading to our next venue, I’m in the bedroom, my guitar out, as I’m penciling down lyrics that keep circling my head. “Glorious has been working overtime lately,” notes Raj, stopping by my door. “Is that a new one about fearing heartbreak? Or being safe from it? I can’t tell.”
I lean back against the headboard. “Both. It’s called, ‘Break My Heart and Keep It’.”
“You’ll have a new album by the end of the tour at this rate. Scratch that. End of next Tuesday.” Then he leaves me to it with a smile, patting his thighs like drums as he walks away.
But no song can replace TJ’s laughter. No strumming late at night can replace his kisses. I’ve got to see him again.
By the time we hit New Orleans, TJ’s got a room booked in the same hotel as us. Guess someone super close to him gave a little hint where the band might be staying—wink, wink.
But we didn’t plan on the hotel being so crowded.
Apparently a recording from one of our Texas shows went viral for some kind of “sexy cowboy singer” TikTok trend thing—I don’t know what the hell to call it, I don’t do social media—which caused our ticket sales to spike.
The recording also caught my face pretty well, which I guess brewed up a storm online, because I wasn’t able to stroll down the street for a bag of beignets without fifteen people spotting me and screaming.
“What do I do now?” I asked Rob just this morning, and he said, “Stay the hell in your room between shows, that’s what. ”
‘Course that doesn’t stop my irresponsible ass from sneaking outta my safe hotel room.
I wear shades and a hat tucked halfway down my forehead as I slip past a group of girls in the hallway and a couple members of our crew.
I even sneak by Ian himself at the ice machine, too busy talking on the phone to notice a wrecking ball coming through the wall.
I hop on the first elevator headed up, then thread myself through the maze of hallways on the sixth.
The second I’m in front of TJ’s door, it cracks open.
Our eyes snap to each other’s—for a moment, dazed that the other one is actually, literally, physically there.
Then I’m yanked inside.
Door slams shut. And we embrace.
Full-on, tight-ass, clingy embrace with no end in sight.
“You smell so good,” I tell him.
He finds that funny for half a second before surrendering to the hug again and whispering, “You too.” Then our faces fumble toward one another’s with no other words exchanged.
His soft lips catch mine. My hands slide up his body to the back of his head.
I don’t even know what he’s wearing, only that seconds later, our clothes are all over the room and we’re making out on his squeaky hotel bed with such aggression, I can barely come up for air.
There’s an unexpected lull in our kisses, as if we both thought to pull away at the same time to check if the other one is actually here, confirming this isn’t just a dream.
“I brought a just-in-case,” he says.
I lift my eyebrows. “You brought a what?”
“I’m not expecting anything. That’s not what this is. We don’t have to have sex.” He takes a breath. “But I brought a just-in-case. So that we have one … just in case.”
“Are you talkin’ a condom?”
“Three.”
I’m stroking his hair, but I’ve paused, listening to him. “Look, TJ, we can do as much or as little as you—”
“I want it,” he cuts me off. “I want all of it.”
I’m reminded our hips are still crushed together on this bed. I’ve felt his erection grinding against me through his boxer-briefs for however long we’ve been assaulting each other’s faces.
Yeah, I want it, too.
All of it.
I dive greedily back into his face without a reply.
Or maybe this is my reply.
I don’t know what this is between us. Whatever we’ve started and can’t get enough of. What to call it. How to honor it.
Is it a kind of love?
Or are we kidding ourselves?
The love songs you’ve heard your whole life, they’re written for fools who scatter their wishes into the stars, so far away from reality you can’t even see them. Those songs don’t capture all the mess and the sweat. The twisted bed sheets and the insecurity of wanting something too much.
The touch of his “just-in-case” exchanging our hands.
The confident look he puts on his face when he’s pressed back to the bed and I crawl over him. How that look shatters when my tongue meets his nipple, then shatters worse when my teeth find his ear.
The pressure of a wet fingertip slipping inside him.
The soft moans every movement of that finger teases out.
And the breathing. All the breathing. The only sound in this room other than bed sheets crinkling against two shifting bodies—a sound no love song will ever adequately portray.
The feeling of his eyes locking on mine when my face appears over his like a shadow, his legs hooked over my shoulders, open to me in every way imaginable.
Then when I replace my fingers with something else.
And watch his beautiful face fall apart.
What chord progression can possibly depict how it feels when TJ’s arms fly around me with a gasp, clinging to my body like I’m the only man he’s ever known, when I slide inside?
What instrument can hold up against the precious moans that issue from his pretty, puckered lips as we unite?
I can’t hold back. Something in the sting of TJ’s eyes tells me he doesn’t want me to. I pick up speed. His fingers curl deeper, lips parting to show teeth, almost a grin, almost a grimace. The harder I go, the more fiery his gaze becomes, encouraging me.
TJ is so much stronger than he looks. I should’ve learned that lesson the night we met. He isn’t some fragile boy who will break underneath me. I had that shit backwards.
He’s someone who breaks me every time he meets my eyes.
Maybe somewhere between one breath and the next, we’ve decided to stop pretending we’re taking this slow. We’re so deep in this, we can’t even lie to ourselves anymore.
The noise of the world is gone. My career. His family. Both our names and their attached burdens. The world narrows down to just him. To just me. To just this.
Right here and now.
And when we come together, our breaths turn into moans and then into cries that we don’t care who can hear. We’re the noise in the world now. We’re the music in the air.
It’s over just like that—yet doesn’t feel over at all.
Collapsed next to each other, still sticky, messy, my face in his hands, his breath catching with his every gasp, we bask somehow in this space we’ve made between each other.
Nothing touches us, not even thoughts. He looks so happy right now.
I can’t even say when the last time was that I felt this light and free.