Chapter 9
WOLFE
My hands shook as I drove into the campground and headed for my campsite. Heat still burned in my cheeks from Jake’s attempts to kiss me goodbye.
“Um, sorry,” I’d stammered, pulling away and feeling guilty about it. “I, uh, need to go deal with something.”
“Who was that guy, Will?” he’d asked, a frown of concern on his face. “He obviously made you uncomfortable.”
“Friend of my, ah, dad’s,” I’d said, wincing. I’d meant to say friend of the family to make it less weird, but I hadn’t been exactly in my right mind. Still wasn’t.
As I drove into the campground, I noticed a new tent camper by the entrance.
It was an unusual site choice for a campground with plenty of empty spots near the back with better views and way more privacy.
But then again, maybe it was someone who preferred being closer to the office for safety reasons.
I made my way to my own campsite and hopped out, taking a few minutes to hook my utilities back up before closing myself inside and pulling my guitar out of the case.
I learned to play guitar before I could remember. There’d always been music around my house, and Papa’s voice singing lullabies had been a part of my daily life for years.
I’d been asked about it once, standing at a red carpet event at age seventeen with Dad and Papa. “Wolfe, what was it like growing up with Jude Marian as your father? Did he sing to you when you were little?”
I’d looked at the reporter like they were insane. “Don’t all parents sing to their children?”
Everyone had laughed, and I’d felt the red-hot scorch of embarrassment on my cheeks that was pretty much par for the course at events like those. We didn’t do them often because Dad and Papa were protective as fuck.
One of my friends at school had joked that I could be a millionaire for life if I could dig up videos of Papa singing me lullabies as a kid.
I’d bitten my tongue to keep from snapping back that I was already a millionaire for life.
That probably wouldn’t have ingratiated me with very many people, but censoring myself always felt isolating.
I’d confessed those feelings to Trace once. When I was eleven and he’d stayed over to watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve. Papa and Dad had taken Rosie and Lennon to bed, and Trace had asked what was wrong.
I’d shrugged. “’S fine.”
“Okay. But you know if it wasn’t fine… if, say, there was a theoretical situation you wanted to ask my help with… you could do that, right?”
I’d picked at a loose thread on my jeans until it unraveled into a long string. “Theoretically… sometimes I feel like everything I do or say has a price on it,” I’d admitted in a small voice.
He’d moved closer on the sofa until he could pull the long string out of my hand and yank it off with a snap. Then he tied it around my pinky finger in several loose loops. I stared at the motions while he began to speak.
“I think,” he said carefully, in a slow, calming voice, “that if you feel like everything you say or do has a price on it… maybe stop hanging out with people who are always looking for something to buy.”
He continued manipulating the thread into a small bow. “Which isn’t always possible. But if you can find someone who isn’t interested in you as a commodity—which is what that’s called—then you can at least find a safe person to talk to when everyone else around you feels unsafe.”
Looking back on it, I wondered if maybe Trace had wanted to put his arm around me to comfort me. But he hadn’t. He’d recognized that I was an eleven-year-old boy who would have felt like a baby if he’d tried to coddle me.
Alright, I’d give him that one.
Six weeks later, he’d given me a leather journal cover for my twelfth birthday with my initials engraved on it and a composition notebook inside. On the first page of the notebook, he’d written, “A journal doesn’t have any need for cash. It won’t sell your stories. You’re safe here.”
I reached for my journal, which bore that same leather cover, now battered, scarred, and softened from years of handling.
Dozens of composition notebooks had taken the place of the original over the years and now lived tucked safely in my home safe.
All except the current one, which had the notes, songs, and thoughts from this trip in it.
I’d considered it my most prized possession since the day Trace gave it to me, and it usually lived under my pillow, in my backpack, or in the zip pocket of my guitar case. If I had to choose between the journal cover and my beloved Martin guitar back home, I’d choose the journal every time.
Ironically, some of those composition notebooks were now worth an unimaginable sum, especially the one where I’d written the first draft of “Not Mine.”
But they weren’t just reams and reams of my song lyrics.
They were also filled with my private thoughts.
From the preteen angst in the first volume, where I admitted I’d secretly trashed Rosie’s favorite orange bucket hat because I couldn’t stand looking at it anymore, to the most recent entry, where I admitted I’d imagined Trace’s hands on me when Jake had kissed me last night.
Those thoughts were between me and myself, so those notebooks would never be sold. My estate planning documents even had instructions to destroy them immediately in the event of my death so my secrets would be forever kept.
I opened the windows to let fresh air in and picked up my guitar to play something. “Into the Watercolor Morning,” a song that would always remind me of the Grand Canyon, was a new favorite. So I played the chords and sang the lyrics about chasing something I couldn’t hold.
The song was about letting go. Not letting go of Trace exactly, or of wanting him. But letting go of an old part of myself. One that had felt stuck in a dead end.
The rap on the van door startled me. I glanced up, heart rabbiting in anticipation of another confrontation with Trace… but it was only Brennan.
“Hey,” I said, suddenly breathless.
“Hey,” he said. “Mind if I come in? I need a sanity check.”
I gestured for him to come in and sit on the passenger seat, which was turned to face the van interior. Then I hopped back on the bed and sat with my feet dangling. “What’s going on? Something with Val?”
He nodded, looking miserable. “He stayed over last night. In my van. In my… bed.”
I felt my eyes widen. “Did something happen?”
“No,” he groaned. “That’s just it. He didn’t even touch me. No cuddles. No brushing up against each other. Just… two bros sleeping side by side, completely bro-like. It was fucking torture.”
“I don’t understand. Why’d he even stay over?”
“Right? That’s my question. He said he wanted to come say good night to Pup, which, fine. That’s normal. Val loves that cat almost as much as I do. But then he kind of hovered awkwardly until I started saying good night and moving him toward the door.”
Brennan looked down at his hands. “He just kind of blurted out, ‘Hey, I was thinking maybe I could stay here tonight.’ And I, like, looked at him. I must have seemed really confused because he kind of winced and mumbled about a strong epoxy smell in his van from some work he’d done.
But, like, that makes no sense because he told me earlier yesterday he couldn’t glue his mount-thing down because he left his epoxy back in Vegas. ”
“Babe,” I said gently. “Is it possible he’s actually into you?”
He looked at me with a flat look. “We’ve been over this. He’s straight.”
I nodded. “And I told you about my cousin Tommy. Also straight. On the verge of marrying his girlfriend when he fell for a dude. Definitely not straight anymore.”
“Val and I have been friends for three years, Will. Best friends for at least two of them. And we’ve only spent like six weeks apart in all that time. Don’t you think something would have happened by now if I had any hope?”
I hesitated before nodding. “I guess so. But could there be another explanation? Maybe he’s scared of something.”
Brennan shook his head. “He’s been living solo in a van for five years. He doesn’t get spooked easily. If anything, I’m the scaredy-cat.”
I reached out and ruffled his hair while bouncing my eyebrows. “Maybe he thought you were scared, and he decided to keep you company.”
He opened his mouth to disagree, then seemed to remember something. “Oh. Shit. Maybe?”
“Wait, what? You were actually scared?”
His eyes shifted to mine and then away. “I mean… there was a guy last night that was kind of looking at me funny. I mentioned it to Val, but then…” He huffed out a laugh.
“I realized the guy was only trying to read the Veteran’s Day Fun-Run slogan on my shirt.
I think he was a vet himself. I, uh, might have forgotten to tell Val that part. ”
I didn’t have a chance to say anything before he blurted, “Okay, fine! I deliberately didn’t say anything because Val moved closer to me and put his arm around me. There, are you happy? Jesus.”
I snorted and burst out laughing. “Yes, I’m happy. Happy to know I’m not the only person who does stupid shit. Finally, another idiot.”
His cheeks were flushed, and he started laughing with me, even though he was embarrassed. “Do you really think that’s why Val stayed over? The vet guy was ancient. He was like forty-five or something! Probably served in one of the world wars.”
The idea that forty-five was ancient made me laugh even harder. And hell, maybe it was simply because I needed the laugh, but the whole thing seemed hilarious.
“Poor Val,” I said when I finally caught my breath.
“I should go talk to him,” he said, yanking my van door back open. “Thanks, babe. You’re the best.”
He leaned back in and pressed a kiss to my cheek before stepping out of the van…
Right into the broad chest of an angry Trace Bishop.