Chapter 10
June, Now
Putting in my notice at work is a nonevent; nobody turns over staff like the restaurant industry. At the apartment, Folly spends a Saturday afternoon with me packing, and all the while, we spin around my bedroom blasting Penelope Parker albums until I’ve memorized her entire catalog.
I listen to Penelope’s podcast appearances.
I watch her interviews. I research the people on her team.
I’ve only ever been a casual listener of her music, but the more time I spend getting to know it, the more fascinating I find every song.
She’s half folk twang and half soft pop. Unthinkable but somehow seamless.
The first stop on tour is Spokane, Washington. The day I’m set to leave, Folly and Harry drive me to the airport with the windows down, all three of us fizzing with energy. As we pull into the airport terminal, Harry leans forward, shoots me a look.
“What?” I finally ask.
“You’re going to let them know you’re a musician, right?”
“They?”
“The band, the crew. Penelope.”
“I don’t know that I’ll ever be in the same room as Penelope,” I say.
Folly makes a disbelieving noise as she changes lanes. “Her openers, at least.”
Over the past few days, I’ve been so focused on Penelope Parker’s music that I forwent a deeper dive on her opening act: a band of two sisters called Etta Girls.
“When we started at Belmont,” Harry says, “you were…”
“Cute and fun? Horrid and off-putting?”
“I don’t know, Paige.” He frowns. “It was like you were embarrassed or something, when all the rest of us felt like we’d won the lottery of opportunity to be there. Even us nepo babies had to fight the other nepo babies for our spot.”
Harry’s right. I showed up for class my freshman year of college with a guilty pit in my stomach, like I’d snuck in through the back gate and was about to get caught and thrown out on my ass.
On top of that, I couldn’t move past what a novelty it was to discuss music so seriously, in a way that wasn’t inherently humiliating.
For two years, songwriting had been my private, secret thing, and suddenly I was thrown into a community of confidence.
It didn’t help that I was two years older than most of my classmates, made obvious thanks to my ability to drink with the upperclassmen.
Or that I couldn’t get my emotions in order that whole first semester.
Some days, I was a walking sad face emoji, some days I was so frustrated I could implode.
Others, my relief and joy to be learning about music again felt like it filled up the classrooms I occupied.
“It didn’t last longer than a couple of months,” I remind him. “And Misha Mohan will be on this tour. Remember her?”
Harry nods. “Stick with her when Liam is busy.”
How often will that be, I wonder?
I told Folly and Harry about Liam’s revisions to my proposal and the three scenarios he predicted with equally likely outcomes. They both agreed that so long as I was feeling vulnerable, and emotionally exposed, then I am probably on the right track where songwriting is concerned.
We pull up to departures and pile out of the car. Harry pops the trunk and unloads my suitcase and guitar while I shift from foot to foot.
“Listen, Paige.” Folly slides her focus to me, chewing on her lower lip.
One hand is on her belly, the other on my shoulder.
“I know I encouraged you to do this. I went all the way to that concert with you to make sure you didn’t chicken out.
And frankly, the romantic in me thinks this is a beautiful, if delusional, idea that will result in some interesting songs no matter what. ”
“But?” I probe.
She sighs. Harry comes to stand beside her. “But if you want to call this whole thing quits—tomorrow, next week, next month—because it isn’t working, or it’s working too well, or you’re scared of getting hurt … I will support you.”
Harry nods. “Me too.”
“Folly Lancaster,” I say. “And Harry Rivera. What have you done with yourselves?”
Folly laughs, instantly winded, and sucks in a breath. “Babies change perspectives, Paige. My protective instincts are multiplying. I have to think things through now. It’s mostly horrid, but I occasionally thank myself for it.”
“And you?” I jerk my chin at Harry.
He smiles weakly. “I don’t want you to get hurt either.”
“Isn’t that the whole point?” My voice is too soft for the clanging echoes in this tunnel. “Not getting hurt on purpose. But being brave enough to let it happen, because the hurt comes with so many other good feelings?”
Harry shakes his head. Sighs. “Maybe good music doesn’t have to hurt.”
My smile is wry. “Then how come so much of it does?”
He pulls me and Folly into a group hug, towering over us. “Because we’re all human or something. We hurt and we get hurt, but that’s only half of it. Don’t lose sight of the other half.”
“I love you both,” I tell them. “And I promise I won’t.”
“We love you,” they say together.
I blow Harry a kiss, give Folly’s hand a squeeze, and head to the other side of the country.
Where my brand-new boyfriend is waiting.
On the flight to Washington, I pass out from physical exhaustion. Hours later I wake up with drool on my chin, my hair smelling of sterile plane air. I have to pee so bad I become a loathed stander-upon-touchdown. The lady beside me glares like I’ve committed a mortal sin.
Waiting for you at baggage claim, Liam texts me.
I could have Ubered! I text back, fumbling like an idiot to restuff my carry-on with my headphones, book, and water bottle.
No is all he responds.
In the airport bathroom, I freshen up and give myself a pep talk before texting Folly and Harry that I landed safely. The closer I get to baggage claim, the giddier my heart feels.
This is fake, I tell myself.
It’s real, I argue back.
It’s fake, it’s real, it’s a lie, it’s the truth. He’s your boyfriend. He isn’t going to kiss you. But he’s here to greet you because he’s your boyfriend. You’re in Spokane for him, only him.
It’s never been hard for me to find Liam in a crowd; the Spokane airport is no different.
I catch sight of him immediately. His mop of brown curls, his stature and bearing.
His body is facing the escalator, relaxed and confident, like he’s more certain I’ll magnetically draw to him than he is of his own name.
When Liam sees me, his eyes light warmly.
I step off the escalator, then hesitate, wondering how we should greet each other.
Back then, even if it had only been half a day since we’d last seen each other, he would pull me straight into his arms, haul me against his chest, crushing our torsos together.
I would mold to fit his sturdiness like a wave spilling over rock, inhaling the woodsy, fog-on-morning-water scent of him.
Today, he doesn’t embrace me at all. Instead, he studies me head to toe, then lifts a hand to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my bejeweled ear.
“Hey, Bristol,” he murmurs, warm and low.
“Hey, Savannah.”
“I missed you.” His eyes turn flinty. He grabs my tote bag strap off my shoulder and lifts it onto his.
I don’t know which of his words, his behaviors, are a performance and which are simply Liam being Liam. He’d do this with no agenda behind it—carry my bag, announce that he’s missed me—wouldn’t he?
Are we performing for each other, or aren’t we?
Liam notices my frown. “Stop thinking about it,” he says. “That’s a new rule. You have to do your best not to think about it, or this isn’t going to work the way you need it to.”
“I’m trying.”
He exhales heavily, shaking his head at me in perturbed amusement. “I know what’s wrong.”
“What?”
“We skipped a step.” With that, he heads in the direction of the baggage carousel.
I trail after him. “What step?”
Liam keeps his eyes focused on the conveyor belt. “I never asked you to be my girlfriend.”
“Well, that’s because I asked you to be my boyfriend,” I remind him.
“No offense, but your way of asking wasn’t very romantic. It was depressing, in fact.”
“Tough, but fair.”
I spot my luggage and my guitar, and Liam helps me haul the cases off the belt. We head in the direction of his parked rental car.
“Are we sleeping on tour buses?” I ask.
“No. We’re sleeping in hotel rooms.”
“Is that normal?”
“For my job, yes. There are only a handful of buses, and we don’t make the cut. It’ll just be you and me most of the time in my rental car between tour stops. It works better for me that way. I’m first in, last out of every venue.”
Wow. That is a lot of alone time. Even when two people start to date in earnest, they separate for hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks without seeing each other. Liam and I aren’t dipping our toes into this relationship. We’re polar plunging.
Again, he reads me. “I’ll be gone from late morning until late evening most days.
You’ll have plenty of alone time to explore or write music in private.
Of course, you can come to any show you want,” he goes on, sounding mildly nervous.
“But you don’t have to. I mean, I don’t expect you to see Penelope’s entire tour just because I’m forced to listen to her songs every night.
But you’re allowed to come. I have a special pass for you. ”
“You should have led with that. Is it pretty?”
“Not yet, but we can go shopping for a sticker pack, on me.”
When we reach the car, Liam pops open the trunk and slides my luggage toward the back of it. “Sit,” he commands, tapping the edge.
He gives me an indulge me, please look when my brows draw in, so I pull myself onto the trunk, hands at my sides.
“Paige.” My name sounds like a plea on his tongue. He’s using bedroom eyes, even as he purposely keeps his hands off me. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
I swallow. “Okay.”
Liam leans a hand on the corner of the left wall.
“I laugh all the time when you’re around,” he says.
“I love how deeply you care about your sisters. How you can find the optimism in every situation. And when you asked me all those questions about baseball, and my dad, it made me feel like you wanted to understand me. I felt like I understood you, too, when you let me be the first person to hear your songs. Maybe in a way no one else ever had.”
This. This is the real Liam, right now.
“And this next point I’m going to make is incidental. Really just more of a personal bonus for me, but…” He trails off, eyes heating as they sweep over me. “Your body was made to my exact specifications,” he murmurs hoarsely.
For the second time.
“I was wondering, Paige Lancaster. Actually, I was hoping, wishing, on my knees begging to know, if you’re at all interested in being my girlfriend.”
My pulse shoots up like I swallowed a hummingbird.
This moment—this exact moment—is all we both wanted four summers ago.
Liam knows what he’s doing. I know what he’s doing.
It’s wish fulfillment. It’s making up for lost time, flattening it until the time gets folded into quarters, into eighths, into nothing.
With his body near mine, my mind hazy from his words, I fall into the trap with him and let time go, doing my best not to think about it anymore like he asked.
“Yes,” I whisper.
Liam leans in, maybe on instinct, then pulls away in the next millisecond, smiling faintly. “Then let’s go on tour, Bristol.”