Chapter 21.
TJ
Everything happens so fast.
Yet the world around me looks slow motion.
People start showing up at the house. Like Tyrone King and a few of his pals from the sheriff’s office.
I shake Tyrone’s hand and meet some of the others, though I don’t remember their names.
I ask him how his husband’s doing and forget what he says before he gives my shoulder an affectionate squeeze, mutters something about securing the premises, and off he goes.
Malcolm shows up, asks how I’m holding up as if I’m grieving a dead relative, then makes his way to find my mom. I got plenty used to his presence in my house last summer for the pageant.
Then I’m caught in a video call between Cole and Noah about what they’ve done.
“There’ll be, like, millions of viewers,” promises Cole.
“Tamika’s on it, too. She’s a wiz at this.
” To that, the far more levelheaded Noah adjusts his glasses and tiredly says, “We cannot guarantee any number of viewers with such short notice, but we will do our best to take advantage of any viral activity and field the negative reactions as best as we can. Again,” Noah emphasizes with a look at Cole next to him, “there are no guarantees.”
I blink and then I’m standing in the kitchen holding a glass of iced raspberry sweet tea I haven’t taken a sip of yet while a bunch of technicians discuss wiring and sound design at the counter.
Then I’m standing outside staring off at the pavilion watching ten or twenty people at work, no idea how or when they got here. My mom’s been so all over the place, I don’t even know when’s the last time I saw her. My dad, too.
And Austin.
It’s already approaching evening. The whole day has been a whirlwind of unfamiliar faces mixed with familiar ones, everyone having a job to do except me.
I keep trying to slip in to help out—“Let me carry that for you,” I try, or, “Do you need a hand?” and even, “I watched a rehearsal or two of the Annual Spruce Ball, I could help with the sound system.”
But everyone’s okay. Everything’s handled. “We’ve got this,” over and over.
Just sit tight, TJ.
But I’ve never been one to sit tight. Ever.
“Um … TJ, is it?”
I turn from the window I’m apparently staring at and find a young guy with bright welcoming eyes, short bleached hair, a tiny loop earring in each ear, and wearing a big black sleeveless t-shirt with a glittery golden skull over the front. A thick rolling suitcase stands at his side.
I don’t know why I’m so slow to recognize him, but at last my brain catches up and I remember myself. “Raj! What’re you doing here?? Oh.” It’s like I forgot Austin’s whole plan. “Right, of course. Forget I asked that. It’s—”
“Been a day,” he says on my behalf, nodding with sympathy.
“I’m just losing my mind staring at windows wondering what the hell to do. How’d you get here so fast?” I ask suddenly.
“We all live in Texas. Fiona’s flight should land soon. I think she’s with Laina. Oh, you don’t know about Laina, do you? Or did Chase actually tell you about his other bandmates’ lives? I kind of hope he didn’t. I like being the special one.”
It’s strange, hearing the name Chase instead of Austin.
I find myself warmed to the use of that name right away.
I crack a smile, grateful for Raj’s company. Then I spot his luggage and know just how to make myself useful. “Come, I’ll take you to your room. You can fill me in on everything.”
“I’m really the only one you need to know anything about,” Raj insists as I guide him to the guest wing to get him settled.
The sun is inching down the sky when the whole band is here.
Fiona, who looks so much different in person somehow than she does on the stage, arrives in a flannel shirt over a tank top and jeans with a cowboy hat crushing whatever hair she’s got.
She says hi to no one, heading straight to the pavilion to set up her pair of keyboards.
The guitarist Wily has his long hair twisted up into a man bun and looks like he’s both running on zero sleep and also intensely electrified, ready to crush someone with his bare fists.
Is that on my behalf? Did Austin rile him up?
“No, no, it’s all mostly online viewers,” Malcolm is explaining to one of the technicians as he walks past me, headset shoved in his ear, “so we won’t need any shots of the audience or the—Hey, I am not looking for an Oscar-winning shot here, it’s a live stream.
Calm down! You’ll be fine. I thought photography is your thing? ”
It’s then that I spot Austin for the first time in however long it’s been since my soul fled my body at the start of this chaos. The second my eyes land on him, I swear my soul slams back into my body, and I feel complete again.
But who I see isn’t quite the Austin I know.
He’s tensed. He’s at the foot of the stage pointing here, pointing there, giving a few instructions with surprising authority.
And people listen, obeying at once. Carrying this thing here.
Putting this thing there. Camera at this angle.
Camera above. Play the bass again. Something’s up in the left speaker, run it again.
It’s actually incredible, seeing him in his element like this.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually watched him work. Only play. In hotel rooms with me. Backstage when we steal a minute or two of secret time, hiding from people. Here in Spruce, chilling out.
This person I’m watching, this is Chase Holt.
And it’s Austin.
I’m amazed.
And I feel so incredibly small.
And terrible.
Guilty.
I don’t know how, but I end up back in the house in the walk-in pantry and decide quite suddenly to shut the door, blocking out the noise.
The peace I feel is instant. The world is gone. So is the chaos.
I think I can’t quite process that all of this is happening.
And it’s happening because of me.
Austin wants to take all of the responsibility, but shouldn’t I have been more careful at the Houston show?
If I’d been smarter and more considerate, I would have understood the risks of taking a celebrity like Chase Holt out to dinner in public.
I wouldn’t have been so selfish and instead taken into serious consideration how this might affect him.
I played with fire like a fool and set both our lives aflame like a greedy child.
I’ve been selfish.
I wanted too much.
The pantry door swings open. My mom appears. “Tell me you are not hiding in here stuffing your cute face with my secret stash of jumbo marshmallows.”
“You have a secret stash?” I ask tiredly, lifting my head.
I guess I’m sitting on the floor hugging my knees to my chest. Don’t know when that happened. But my mom seems to get a hint, closes the door behind her, and sits on the floor right next to me.
“Okay,” she decides after a moment, settling herself onto the floor next to me. “Yeah. Definitely nicer in here.”
“Everything’s so loud,” I moan.
“I know, sweetheart.”
We sit like that for a while. She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even stare me down or prod me with a hundred questions.
It’s actually kinda worse.
Because now I’ve gotta say something. “I messed everything up,” I let out miserably.
She frowns at me and tilts her head, as if wondering where a thought like that can even come from. “How could you think that, sweetheart?”
“How else?” I ask through a humorless laugh. “I was reckless and acted a fool, taking him out to … to restaurants, out in public, as if we’re just two normal people. We’re not normal people.”
“Sure you are. Everyone is. Even the Pope.”
I drag a hand over my face. “I should’ve been more careful. I should’ve known better, Mom. I didn’t think about what this could do to him. Or to all of the people in his life—his bandmates, or his hundreds of managers and PR people. Or … you and Dad.”
She lets out a gentle exhale, shakes her head, then touches my leg. “That young man out there? You didn’t drag him into this. He walked straight into it.”
I frown. “No. That’s not—”
“It absolutely is, sweetie. You think he doesn’t know what he’s doing?
You think a man who’s been living under a spotlight his whole adult life suddenly forgot how the world works?
” She smiles and moves her hand to my head, giving my hair a rub.
“This isn’t just about you. And it isn’t just about him, either.
This is about what kind of life he gets to live.
Whether he gets to be honest in it. Whether he …
” She shrugs, her hand stopping. “… gets to love who he wants without hiding him away in hotel rooms and closets.”
I grimace.
The last thing I need is my mother picturing what Austin and I might have already done in any matter of hotel rooms.
“He wants to love you out loud,” my mom states simply.
I look down at the floor, struck by her words. I think they hit harder than anything else.
But it doesn’t make me feel better.
I let out a sigh. “And now he might lose everything for it.”
She gently takes my chin and turns my face to hers. I find her eyebrows lifted as she stares down into my eyes. “Or,” she sweetly counters, “he just might gain something he’s never had.”
It’s no wonder where I get my nauseating optimism. “What if it all falls apart?”
“Then at least it all goes to shit honestly.” She shrugs.
“And then y’all build something else better.
Together. You did not ruin anything. You gave him something worth risking everything for.
You don’t think he’s wanted this for years?
To break free? You started out as his inspiration, didn’t you? You’re like his … muse.”
“Did he tell you that?” I turn to face her, taken aback. “How’d you know about that?”
She smirks. “He and I have had talks all week. Here and there. I couldn’t hold back.
I mean, my son is with a musician. Who plays the guitar.
And sings. Seriously, are you trying to give me a heart attack of joy here?
” She lets out a laugh. “I … I had to play a little catch-up is all. Since I was … a bit …” She shrugs and glances off. “A bit in the dark.”
“I should’ve told you.” We’re clutching each other’s hands. “About him. Who he really is. I should’ve trusted you with that.”
“Oh, I don’t blame you for not. I’ve got a mouth.
And opinions. Trust me, I know how I am.
My mom was the same way, and both her sisters—yes, both your aunts, all of them nosy, all of them full of opinions.
If your grandfather were still here …” She shakes her head with a smile, for half a second looking like she’s holding back tears, only to at once recover with a tightened grin.
“I’m proud of you, TJ. Alright? We all are. And we love you.”
I’m thinking of grandpa. The wristwatch I happen to still be wearing right now that he left me when he died. “I love you.”
“And I don’t care what his name is. Johnny-John from down the road who strums a banjo on the back of his pickup, or Pickle-Nickel scraping his way up and down a fiddle in his toolshed …”
“Where the heck are these names coming from?” I laugh.
“It doesn’t make a lick of difference to me. Chase Holt. Austin. Whatever the name.” She winks at me. “You picked a fine man. I am happy. And now, it’s time for you to be.”
I feel the call to arms in her voice. “Alright.”
“Ready to get out of this closet? You weren’t actually here for the marshmallows, right?”
I pull her into an awkward, on-the-pantry-floor hug, squeeze her tightly, and give her all the love and appreciation I’ve got. She squeezes me right back, matching my tightness exactly, and the whole world feels better at once.
Moms have a way of doing that sometimes.
I’m back in the pavilion only minutes later. The chaos is still happening, though it’s certainly taken a lot more shape in just the past half hour alone. Lights are set up. Sound is hooked in. They’re sound checking the instruments once more to ensure everything is ready to broadcast.
Austin catches my eyes, and it’s like the whole world goes still for the first time all day for him. I don’t even know if he was in the middle of something, but the next minute, he hops off the stage, comes down the aisle, and meets me right where I stand with a big hug of his own.
“Are you absolutely sure about this?” I ask into his shoulder.
“Never been more sure about anything in my life,” he answers back, still clutching me so perfectly tight.
“Everything could get so much worse,” I go on, unable to help myself, even after my pep talk with Mom. “The label could cut ties with you. Ian’s life could go radioactive. The Chase Holt we know and love could just … end tonight.”
He pulls away to look at my face. “If Chase Holt ends because I can’t be who I am and love who I want? Let him fuckin’ end.”
I swallow. “Did you just say … love?”
“Of course I did.” He chuckles. “That such a surprise?”
My brain is combing back through all our conversations. “Did we use that word already? Did I … or did you … already …?”
“I’m usin’ it now.”
I stare back at him like that word just landed like a spaceship from one of those alien plants he and my dad believe in.
“Figured it’s time to be honest. To stop being a dang coward in every aspect of my life.” He gives me a sexy smirk. “Especially in the most important one. Here with you.”
I come out of it. “Well … that’s … quite a word to just toss out there before you go and blow up your whole career. Are you sure that you—?”
He cuts me off with a kiss.
I swear the world goes silent the second his lips touch mine.
Everything shut off at once.
Perfect. Peaceful. Still.
He says, “Why should I bother singin’ a hundred songs up on that stage if I can’t say the one dang thing that actually matters?”
My eyes open to his starry eyes and confident smile.
I’m very well aware that we’re far away from any concept of a happy ending just yet. I know that, despite this kiss, despite that L word, the Chase Holt the world knows and adores can end tonight.
“You said we could have it all,” he reminds me. Kisses me one more time. “Here’s me believing in you.”