Chapter 20. #2
“Dollhouse hour with the little one before she goes to bed,” he corrects me, “which means I’ll be speaking to you sweetly, because we only speak in sweet voices when it’s dollhouse hour, isn’t that right, princess?
” The squeaky, unintelligible words of his daughter fill the silence.
“Now I’ll ask a question I already know the answer to: are you on a flight back to Nashville tomorrow?
Or do I have to send our devoted Rob there in person to box you up and ship you like a repaired amplifier? ”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’m on my break with TJ, livin’ my life and being a human being.”
“Living your life and—” He chuckles to himself after mocking my words, then he lets out a sigh.
“Alright, alright. You deserve to do that. Y’know what?
I really feel like a—” He edits himself.
“—a big ol’ silly nincompoop. Here I was, encouraging your two-week spa date, thinking you’d get it out of your system and return back for the rest of the tour refreshed … ”
“TJ isn’t somethin’ I’m ‘getting out of my system’, Ian. We’re so much more than …” I suddenly fight for the words. I don’t know why it’s harder to say to Ian, like I’m admitting something bigger than I can handle.
“Oh, why yes, but of course dear,” he says to his daughter—in a voice I’d normally find adorable, but that comes off grating right now—“I would love a tasty beverage.” I hear his daughter giggle. “You like when I say that? Beverage.”
“Is that supposed to be an English accent?” I ask.
Ian takes a breath. “I know what you want, Chase. I know how I’d treat this as your friend and how I’m currently treating this as your manager are two very different beasts.
Beasts!” he repeats in a cute tone for his daughter, inspiring another giggle from her.
“I want nothing more than to be high-fiving you, cheering you on … I might even believe you’ve got genuine feelings for this guy. ”
“His name’s TJ.”
“TJ.” He sighs gently. “But that’s not the world we live in.”
“It could be,” I say just as reasonably. “I need to trust that you and the label aren’t trying to spin this against him. That you aren’t giving in to this narrative that he’s some groupie who stalked me, or a college-boy fling I’m entertaining on this tour.”
“No. Of course not. What kind of—lady—do you think I am?” He said “lady” for his daughter’s benefit.
“You know me better than that, Ian,” I go on.
“This isn’t just a fling. I’d hoped you would have gleaned that from this whole past month I’ve spent seein’ him.
He’s important to me. He’s … the most important thing to me right now.
” I shut my eyes and lean against the counter, a blinking light from the microwave before my face.
“You think I wouldn’t rather cancel the rest of the tour and spend every night having dollhouse hour with my little princess?
” That inspires his daughter to cheerily shout a ton of words I can’t make out.
“Our team isn’t perfect. I’m sorry you’re going through this.
In an ideal world, no one reacts, no one cares who you share tea with …
” He says “tea” daintily. “… and all this blows over.”
“I know.”
“Call Drew in the morning. I’ll call Princess Irene … and we will get ahead of this, okay? For your Prince TJ’s sake. Yes, yes, I know, sweetheart,” he says when his daughter shouts something at him, “there are no ‘princes’ allowed in the dollhouse, of course, no, no, whatever was I thinking?”
I close my eyes and pinch my forehead. “I don’t want to take any more of your time up with your daughter. It feels sometimes like Chase Holt’s stolen too much from all of us.” The last sentence comes out choked and under my breath.
Ian hears it. “You are Chase Holt. And you’re Austin. If I might leave you with one last thought, perhaps it’s about time you stop separating the two and accept they’re one and the same.”
After we hang up, I stare at the empty screen of my phone for a substantial amount of time.
Letting his last words sit with me.
Affect me.
I lift my eyes to the pavilion, perfectly in view from the small window in front of me in this dark kitchenette.
The stars are out, looking like glitter silhouetted by the arching roof of the pavilion.
I think about the moment TJ and I spent at the piano on that stage, the song I sang him, and the heated time we enjoyed afterwards.
What if dollhouse hour didn’t have to end?
What if there was no bedtime and we could stay up all night?
By the time I return to TJ, he’s already out of the shower and in his bedroom, chilling on the bed. I’m surprised to see him calm when he looks up from his phone, pleased to see me. “Everything okay?” he asks me.
He’s smart. He knows exactly what I went off to do.
And I respect him too much to keep pulling wool. “I hope so.”
“Me too.” His tone is strangely light. “After your shower, want to just cuddle and complain about how bad that movie was until we can’t keep our eyes open?”
I smirk. “That sounds perfect, actually.”
He smiles back at me.
And that’s exactly what we do. Both of us freshly showered, I snuggle in bed with him while we crack each other up about how such bad movies get made and somehow find audiences who eat them up.
Then we kiss. And kiss more. And somewhere between kisses and silence, we drift off to sleep in each other’s arms, feeling safe from the world.
It’s a different story in the morning.
TJ is no longer just the groupie who “got” me.
He’s the one who’s sucking me off in dressing rooms while I write all of this new material. That’s what “Down Bad For Him” is really about, according to these “fans”.
He’s fucking the security too so he can sneak backstage at any show he wants.
He tells me what songs to play every show, writing my setlists for me. He’s the reason I don’t play my hit “Hate Me For a Reason” as much anymore, favoring the love songs.
He sits in the wings and sings along.
He loves the attention.
He’s the reason I’m not as close with my bandmates anymore, because he demands I take him out to eat after every show.
He’s also somehow the reason Cam left the band, even though that happened a literal year before we even met.
Suddenly it’s too much and I grab both our phones out of our hands and flip them face down on the bed, shutting my eyes. “This is my fault,” I mutter, voice shaking. “What kind of monsters have I created? These monsters … are my fans? This is what they do to someone I care about?”
TJ calmly responds, “I don’t think they’re monsters. They just don’t know you care about me.”
How is he so calm? “I can’t stand what they’re saying. I can’t take another fuckin’ second of it.”
“Austin …”
“Seriously. I need to call my people and demand that they let me post on my own damned account. All my social medias. I need to set them straight.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy,” he says, frowning down at his phone that I’ve turned on its face. “It’ll just be more noise.”
“You mean they won’t believe me?” I could almost laugh. “So, like, what you’re sayin’ is my own word means dog shit to ‘em? To hear an explanation from the horse’s mouth?”
“I’m not sure your fans will hear any explanations.” TJ meets my eyes. He has the audacity to give me the cutest smile right now while I’m fuming, like everything’s okay. “They only hear music.”
I throw my gaze to the floor, frustrated.
TJ scoots across the bed to me and hugs me from the side. We say nothing for a while.
If only I’d known this moment on this bed would be the last precious moment of peace we’d have.
Because the second we come down for breakfast, Cissy is upon us with her phone whipped out.
A photo on her screen of me feeding TJ a bite of grilled meat.
Below it, the meme’s caption: “FEED ME, DADDY HOLT.”
“Why in the ever-lovin’ monkey heck is this pic being shared all over the place,” she asks, “and why in the ever-lovin’ monkey heck are they calling you ‘Daddy Holt’?”
TJ and I look at each other.
It’s come time for the long-awaited sit-down.
Tim and Cissy both sit in armchairs across from us. I tell them everything. Who I really am. The real way we met at a Chase Holt concert—and what followed. The acrobat hoops we’ve had to leap through to see each other while I was on tour.
And my deep regrets now with what this is doing to him.
And by extension: them.
Neither Cissy nor Tim say anything for a moment, taking it all in, or perhaps waiting for more. They hold hands the whole time. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say Cissy is clutching Tim’s hand so tightly, it’ll be a miracle he still has his bones intact by the end.
When it’s clear we’re finished, Cissy sits forward. “So … what you’re saying … what you’re telling me is … you’re a famous singer? Who plays the guitar?”
TJ literally rolls his eyes. “Of course that’s all you’d hear.”
“Oh, I heard the rest,” says Cissy. “I very, very much heard the rest. And from what I heard, your team ain’t doing diddly-squat to help.
This is when we step up now and take this shit-show into our own hands.
” She eyes me. “And you, Mr. Holt, have nothing to be apologizing for.” I’m about to tell her to please keep calling me Austin, but she goes right on ahead.
“Don’t you think for a second we’re gonna sit here on our butts and do nothing while the media runs rampant dragging yours and my son’s name like they love to do to anything they can sink their sick-ass teeth into.
We take care of our own here. Don’t we, TJ? ”
TJ smirks. “The madder you get, the more Texan you sound.”
Tim pulls out his phone. “Sit tight. I’ll call up Tyrone King and see if he’s still got connections in the police department.
May need to look into ramping up security in town, if any of that madness out there invites itself here to Spruce.
” He’s already up out of his chair with his phone to his ear.
“Hey, Omar, hi, how’re you? Good mornin’.
Think I could chat with your hubby a sec?
Bit of a pressing situation …” And he’s out of the room.
Cissy rises from her chair at the same time we do. “I’m gonna need to put a stop to some of my Fourth preparations. It won’t do to invite half the town over with all this going on.”
“Wait, wait,” I quickly interject. “Cissy, ma’am, no, no, I can’t have you go cancelin’ your big Boomin’ Bash on account of—”
“Boomin’ Barbecue,” she corrects me, “and I’m not canceling.
I’m adjusting. And enlisting some help. You think this is the first scandal we’ve dealt with?
I nearly ran head-to-head against Nadine for Mayor until I realized we’re stronger together.
Optics happens to be our jam-and-toast now.
Sit tight. Hey, Nadine?” She’s already on the phone and sauntering out of the room.
“Oh, you are gonna die when I tell you, yes, oh, you bet, but that’s not what I’m calling about … ” And out she goes onto the patio.
I look at Cissy through the glass, her chatting now muted and far away, passion in her.
And Tim on his own mission, standing in the foyer, his words echoing, passion in him.
Something’s clawing at the surface of my mind.
Something I don’t quite know yet.
TJ frowns. “Why is everyone telling us to sit tight?” Suddenly, his eyes light up.
“Wait, I just realized there’s someone’s help I can enlist.” And now he’s the one pulling out his phone.
“Y’know Cole at the gym? His fiancé Noah works at the paper—didn’t I mention that?
—and they’ve been establishing a lovely online footprint for Spruce over the last year or so. If there’s anyone who can—”
“Wait.”
He stares at me, eyebrows lifted. “Wait …?”
I don’t know why I’m suddenly thinking of dollhouses.
Ian and his comically terrible English accent and falsetto lady voice.
The sweet, pure laughter of his daughter.
Then I’m at the back windows staring across the grass at the distant pavilion, remembering TJ and I making out on that stage floor next to the piano, all sweaty, out of breath, full of passion.
Passion, passion, passion.
You are Chase Holt, said Ian. And you’re Austin. It’s about time you stop separating the two and accept they’re one and the same.
Maybe he was on to something.
And didn’t know it.
“Austin …?” TJ has come up to my side. “What’s going on?”
“We’re playing the wrong game,” I realize, a discovery.
That only confuses him worse. “What do you mean? As in … we’re all going about this the wrong way?” He lifts his phone and points at it. “So I shouldn’t call Noah?”
“You should. You absolutely should. But not for the reason you think.”
“What reason then?”
“You said it yourself. My fans won’t hear explanations.” I turn away from the window and look at TJ. “They only hear music.”