Honestly, I still can’t tell whether I’ve really made him happy or he’s holding back. That’s something I’ll give Ian: he listens and takes what I say to heart. Maybe our convos recentlyhave been sitting with him. That could be what it is: Ian holding back his usual criticism. Letting the moment be. Trusting in our instincts.
“Sorry, no, can’t, not another second,” grunts Raj, splitting from our circle and darting down the hall for the bathroom.
Hope the fella makes it in time.
Fiona perks up suddenly. “Tomorrow, we’re off again, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” confirms Ian.
“Hmm,” grunts Wily, who never knows what to do with spare time, likely preferring we have a show every single day.
When one of our new sound techs calls Fiona over to ask her something about her keyboards, our circle is disbanded, and we all go on our separate ways. Ian’s gaze lingers on me a second longer than the others. I give him a nod and a, “Good show,” as we always say to each other. He still looks like a puppy holding back a bark. But he smiles, returns a, “Good show, Chase,” and then I’m off to finish packing up my dressing room.
It’s not at the venue that it happens.
It’s at the hotel bar that Ian pulls me aside for a drink. Fiona and Raj join us along with seven of the crew, including Dee and Rob. Wily was wiped and just went straight up to his room.
Ian and I sit apart from the others, huddled over a table in the corner like we share a secret. “Look, I acknowledge that the crowd tonight was eating out of y’all’s palms,” he tells me after wriggling his way through pleasantries to get to his point, “but I can’t help feeling like you’re chasing something lately.”
Chasing something.
That puts me right back in my rental car yesterday morning. Zooming from the hotel after just a quick word to Dee and no one else. Didn’t wait for the official go-ahead. Did I really need one?
And walking down those streets of Spruce had me in such a different headspace than any other town, city, or college campus we’ve been at. I felt like I shrunk away. Shed off the skin of Chase Holt. Became a normal human being.
Is this what I’ve lost?I asked myself, hands in my pockets, going down one street, coming up another. Feasting my eyes on the ma-and-pa businesses. The cute storefronts. A church with a group of ladies out front chatting away. Nearby, two men holding hands under the shade of a tree, and just as my eyes found them, they exchanged a kiss.
I didn’t come here chasing after a guy, I kept telling myself again and again. I would have said I went there chasing after myself, but that’s too corny to even use as lyrics.
Honestly, I think I went to Spruce to getawayfrom myself.
I didn’t expect to find him so soon. The worst part is, I didn’t seehimat first. I saw an adorable guy in an adorable apron outside an ice cream shop sweeping the sidewalk with a broom like a total dork. Who sweeps a sidewalk? I don’t know what dirt he imagined he was cleaning up, but all of it was bound to just settle right back into place the second he walked away.
And when I did realize who it was, I swear, I’d never better understood the saying of having a rug swept out from under you.
Then smacking headfirst into a pole.
It was all Dee could chirp about the second I returned from Spruce. Yeah, it goose-egged a bit. I was tended to immediately, as if I’d just returned from a dramatic battle. No one needed to know my mortal nemesis was a lamppost. It was about dinnertime, and from what I understood, Ian was frantically searching for me for hours. When he finally found me, all his panic vanished. He didn’t even ask about my bandage. He probably just assumed whatever he wanted to assume, then told me to get a good night’s rest and that he’d see me in the morning.
It was as if he thought our conversation had inspired me to abandon him and the tour completely. Mostly him. Less the tour.
I told him I never felt more like myself—he gave me a look—and then I took my dinner up to my room. I ate by the window in a happy silence, notebook opened on the ledge, every now and then jotting down another lyric.
Thinking of Timothy—my new fixation.
I’m gonna finish that song.
“Chase,” says Ian, bringing me back to now.
Right, he said I was chasing something. I drum fingers on the side of my glass, like I think I’m Raj. “Chasing …?”
“The birthday moment worked,” he says, “but only because it happened to be a respectful fan and you took control of the whole situation. It could have gone … very differently. I know.” He lifts a hand to stop something he assumed I was about to say. “You’re tired of hearing me bring up safety concerns of crazy fans, danger, all of that, but youdidhave a stalker situation not so long ago and Idon’twant to invite someone else to take their place and put us—oryou, rather—through that again.”
“I can’tnotinteract with the audience ever again on account of one or two crazies, Ian.”
“Of course you gotta work the crowd,” he says back, “I get it, it’s part of your appeal. But you can’t keep going off-script every time a feeling hits you. Look at Wily, switching up bass lines now. Is Fiona about to throw a key change at you mid-show? The others look at you to set a standard.”
“And I think the standard’s fantastic,” I come back at him not unkindly. “Freedom is where we thrive. It’s where we’ve always thrived. ‘Hate Me For a Reason’ came from a sarcastic rant I went on in the recording studio. It was perfect.”