Chapter 24.
Austin
I get a call from Cam in the morning.
He saw the concert. Every minute of it. And he was so proud of me, he literally cried.
And our former drummer is not known for showing any form of emotion on his blank, stony, bearded face.
“I saw you up there,” he says to me, trying not to get choked up again.
“All of you. And I mean all of you, Aus, every part of you.”
He tells me if I’m ever in his area, stop by so we can take a trip down memory lane together and he can meet my beau.
It’s such a strange feeling, to have someone.
And to have that someone freely.
To share all of this madness with. To depend on when it’s just one of those days. To call up when I’m sad. Or over the moon. To celebrate my successes with and hold against my body when I just need to feel less alone in the world.
And to hold against my body for other reasons.
Sweaty reasons. Horny reasons.
Or cuddle-in-bed-and-watch-a-bad-rom-com reasons.
I also call Drew at the label, just as I promised Ian I would.
He gives me the softest slap on the wrist you can imagine—it feels more like an attaboy—then tells me what the label is going to do to help support my new direction.
I tell him I don’t see it as some new direction or “career pivot” like he and Irene do.
I’m just being the kind of artist I set out to be since the start.
In truth, after our “musical mutiny” last night and seeing the power I apparently have over my own following, I think it’s the label now scrambling to do everything in their power to please me.
They don’t want me doing something crazier.
Y’know. Like ditching them for another label.
Not with our contract coming up for renewal this year.
Talk about shitting bricks in the corporate office.
And if I didn’t already have a surreal morning on the phone with the label and my former drummer, I’m now seated at a large table with TJ, his parents, and my bandmates, all of us full of funny stories from last night.
Cissy and Tim are incredible, welcoming Fiona, Wily, and Raj into their house with open minds and open hearts.
It feels like destiny of some kind, that all of us would end up here sharing breakfast, laughing too hard, and filling this space with boundless love.
We’re not alone for very long. The second breakfast ends, our peace is invaded by Cissy’s hardworking team who transform the whole house into a party spot for the Fourth.
Red, white, and blue everything. Furniture gets gently rearranged or removed entirely to who-knows-where.
Coolers are dragged in from all directions.
I try to help but am quickly shooed away by Cissy, who rushes into the room out of thin air and tells me to hang out with TJ and my bandmates in the guest wing and to not “fuss over a dang thing all gosh dang day, you precious sweetheart”.
Even in the guest wing, I see so many people hard at work setting up her party through the giant windows, bodies in the gardens, bodies across all the patios and pathways and out in the grass.
I even spot some familiar faces from last night including Malcolm with a headset in his ear, and I wonder if the poor guy slept wearing it, always busy running the show, reminding me a lot of Dee.
With the madness going on out there, we all end up hanging around the guest wing pool, lounging in the chairs talking about anything that comes to mind.
Wily’s down to his shorts in the pool swimming laps—he looks so different when his long hair gets wet and glues to his neck and upper back.
Fiona and Raj, who became besties overnight apparently, are in the chairs across from me and TJ.
I guess Fiona and Laina are back on—tentatively, trying it out, a toe back in the water, so to speak—and it’s evident the difference it makes with how damned happy she looks right now.
It was more than just a weight falling off my back. All of us look lighter on our feet. Lighter in our hearts. Lighter in every way that matters.
TJ rests his head on my shoulder. “Where’s your first show?”
I’m gently rubbing his arm. “You mean when we’re back on the road? No idea. Couldn’t care less.” I kiss the top of his head. “Is that what’s on your mind?”
“No, no, just curious.” He chuckles. “I just can’t imagine how differently your shows are gonna be for this last leg of your tour. Thought you had crazy fans before? Phew. Every last one of them is gonna try and gobble you up.”
“Only one of ‘em’s allowed to.” I give him a playful poke.
Raj, overhearing us, perks his head up. “Dee just told me last night that we already sold out our next seven shows.” When Fiona shoots him a questioning look, he shrugs. “What? Dee and I talk.”
Wily comes to our side of the swimming pool and hooks his arms over the edge. “Things are gonna change fast,” he says with a certain smack of his lips and a nod. “Nothing about Chase Holt and our brand will be the same.”
“Don’t worry. Nothing’s changing,” I put in, drawing all their eyes to me.
“The world out there’s just waking up to what we’ve been since the start.
Keep messing up the bass in your beautiful ways, Wiles.
And you.” I nod at Fiona. “Twist up those chords until I’m dancin’ in your whacky world.
” I smirk at Raj. “Keep smashin’ it up like you always do. ”
“Roger that,” says Raj with a cute wiggle of his head.
“We’re not somethin’ new,” I tell them. “We’re exactly who we were already.” I realize TJ lifted his head off my shoulder, looking at me. I put a kiss right on his face and smile. “We’re just more.”
“More,” echoes Wily from the pool, fingers tapping on the wet pavement, thoughtful.
“More,” agrees Raj with a giddy nod. “More what? You decide. More of this, more of that. More of what you want. More of what you didn’t know you wanted. More—”
“—of a pain in my ass?” suggests Fiona with a look at Raj. He returns a funny one of his own. Then the two bust out laughing.
I don’t get this new bestie bond between them.
But I love it.
It’s early afternoon when everything’s set up and the guests start to arrive.
Compared to last night, the energy today is warm and joyful, like a hug from a distant relative who misses you and wants to know everything they’ve missed.
There’s no more battle in the air. Nothing to figure out.
The worst of it is behind us, and all we have to look forward to is finger foods, good conversation, more happy faces than you can count—and, of course, some tasty-ass barbecue getting smoked up outside as we speak.
I meet so many people. Too many. Everyone who wasn’t here last night is here today.
I meet TJ’s boss Billy again, only now he’s accompanied by his beefy husband Tanner and their kids Marcus and Joshua.
Apparently they just renewed their wedding vows this past New Year’s.
Relationship goals? I meet Reverend Trey with his husband Cody—give me a second to process that this town has a young, gay, married pastor TJ never once in all of our hundreds of conversations thought to mention?
? I meet a local fashion designer named Lance as well as his boyfriend Chad, who rarely leave their cozy spot out in the countryside, and after a casual chat about the nature of the music industry nowadays, the Lance fellow draws closer to me and says, “Y’know, if you’re ever in need of a fresh new look to go with this fresh new direction, your style is right in my wheelhouse, and I am ready.
” A moment later, his hunky boyfriend Chad leans in to add, “Might as well say yes, buddy, ‘cause once Lance has his eyes set on you, he’s not gonna give up ‘til you’re his. Take it from me.”
I also get to reunite with Cole and his fiancé Noah, to whom I owe a lot for directing so much traffic to our live stream.
The pair of them are glued to each other’s sides—a bit like TJ and myself right now—and as we chat by the back window with the aroma of barbecue torturing our nostrils, I enjoy seeing the stress-free side of this unique pair, particularly Noah, who looks like a totally different person when he isn’t behind a computer dragging sweat off his forehead with the back of a wrist. “Just be glad it didn’t rain a drop,” says Noah, “otherwise the entire system might’ve shorted and I’m not sure Mrs. McPherson would have allowed me to stay alive after that. No offense, TJ.”
We fly from one conversation to the next, TJ and I.
Then we’re in a line outside to fill ourselves a plate of piping-hot fall-off-the-bone barbecue.
Wily is sitting all by himself with a half-finished plate on his lap, feet kicked up on another chair next to him, with his eyes far away in a mental field of happy, flowery thoughts.
So TJ and I interrupt that nonsense right away by joining him in his shaded nook.
Billy, Tanner, and two other married couples stop by and join us, too—Mindy and Joel, with Bonnie and Kirk, I come to learn, and both couples start the conversation complaining about their kids.
“I love my twins to death,” says Mindy, “but the two of ‘em are wearin’ me down to death, and—hey, don’t give me that look,” she says with a laugh at Bonnie.
“Your kid’s a monster, but he’s eleven, and that’s miles easier to manage than two four-year-old monsters.
” To that, Bonnie sucks the last bit of meat off a bone before replying, “He’s ten, actually, and all I can say is, at least you only have to babysit your actual kids …
and not a man-child like my hubby here.” Kirk isn’t paying any attention, chatting with Tanner and Joel about something to do with UIL and baseball.
The women laugh—along with TJ, who breaks my heart in happy pieces every time he does.
Our little clique grows more with the arrival of yet another pair of guys from around here: Harrison and Hoyt.
I gather quickly that Harrison, Tanner, Kirk, and Joel all have football in common, having grown up together playing it.
Harrison’s buddy Hoyt—or are they also boyfriends?
No one’s properly introduced them, I just have to piece this all together myself—comes right over to TJ and gives him this comically enthusiastic congratulations about finally coming out, that he totally had no idea, and he just lost a bet to their mutual friend Tamika, insisting TJ would come home from college one of these summers with a pretty gal on his arm.
TJ gives me a sideways smirk and replies, “Well, that depends on how you define pretty.” I grin, grab TJ in a playful sort of half-tackle, half-hug, and Hoyt finds the joke way funnier than it is, cracking up so loud that even the football guys’ conversation is drawn to a halt.
TJ belongs here. With these people he’s grown up next to.
This town adores him. Every last person here.
The community he’s known. The gay men who’ve found love here and continue to set an example of what love should look like—some better than others, Malcolm sasses to me later in the afternoon over his third vodka tonic, eye on his cute-faced vet tech boyfriend Samuel, who is busy trying to talk Cissy into adopting a sweet pair (or triplet) of dogs to liven up her living space.
He’s meant to live here. To contribute to this joyful place. To be among people who love and care for him unconditionally.
I don’t know where that leaves me.
Or us.
On one hand, there’s no problem continuing things just as we are.
Me on the road. Hitting up Spruce when I’ve got time off.
Him flying to a venue or two to support me, then spend time with me in the hotel—without the need for sneaking around.
I can totally envision our lives, even with the distance.
On the other hand, will it eventually become too much? Will he eventually come to resent how often we spend time apart? Will our relationship stagnate and never reach the next step?
Is there a next step for us?
I don’t have an answer to that.
Today doesn’t have to be about answering that question.
It’s about living in the glory of TJ’s roots, friends, and family.
It’s wiping a spot of mustard off the corner of his lips after an enthusiastic bite of a hotdog, both of us laughing.
It’s laughing too hard when some ridiculous song gets put on, and Hoyt, Jimmy, and some guy named Anthony hop up onto the edge of the wishing fountain and attempt to out-dance each other. Spoiler: none of them win.
It’s cuddling up in the same chair with TJ tucked into my side, and with all the noise and laughter of the party around us, all we see for one beautiful moment are each other’s eyes.
He doesn’t look worried about our future. Not even a little.
So neither will I.
I’ll kiss him while he’s here in front of me. I’ll hold him in my arms and pray morning never comes, just so I can enjoy every last minute with this special guy.
I’ll love on him every second I get.
The rest of the afternoon slips by in that bittersweet way days tend to when you’re just having too much damned fun.
But when evening rolls around and the sky is barely dim enough for stars, a fireworks show begins, streams of fire soaring up into the sky and exploding into colors and sparkles and magic.
Everyone is around. Lying on chairs. On the soft grass.
Standing around with drinks or plates of food in hand.
Someone’s kids chasing each other over the grass.
The sky booms and crackles overhead, lighting up our eyes.
I’ve played shows bigger than this. Louder than this. With way more colorful lights over your head than you can count.
But none of those shows ever felt like home. Not like this. Not like here and now, in this precious little spot we’ve claimed on this enormous planet floating in an unknowable universe.
Not with this beautiful man in my arms.