Page 2

One

Isaac

“ W hat’s his name?” Lola asks as soon as I open the door of her car. I slide into the passenger seat, sweating inside this dark-black hoodie that’s about two sizes too big.

As I clip my seat belt in place, I make a contemplative expression. “Brady…no, Brody?”

She makes a laughing sound as she pulls out of the apartment complex’s parking lot. “You better be careful, Theo.”

It should probably feel stranger to be referred to as Theo by my closest friends, but I’ve had this stage name for so long that it’s honestly what I prefer to be called. I’m not Isaac anymore. It’s just easier to be Theo Virgil. Theo Virgil is the life of the party. Theo Virgil has a song on the Billboard Top Ten and a sold-out tour. Theo Virgil doesn’t have any skeletons in his closet.

“I’m always careful,” I reply haughtily as I kick my cowboy boots up on the dash.

Lola smacks my leg. “I just had it detailed, you prick.”

Laughing, I take my feet down and blow her a kiss. “Sorry, Mommy. Don’t be mad at me.”

She rolls her eyes but can’t fight her smile. “Did you check his phone?”

“Yep. He didn’t take a single picture of us, and he doesn’t even listen to country music.”

“You got lucky,” she mumbles.

“Damn right I did,” I say with a wicked smile and a wink, but she doesn’t laugh. Tilting her head in my direction, she levels me with a sober expression.

“I’m serious, Isaac.”

My smile fades as I turn my gaze forward, my insides souring from her use of my real name. Lola has known me long enough to know my history. My real name. How I ran away at seventeen. How I don’t really keep in touch with my family anymore.

Except for Lucas. And that one night I shared a couple of beers with Caleb.

And a few cryptic letters back and forth with Adam.

I call my mother from time to time, too. I’m not a monster.

But that’s it. I haven’t been in the same room with all of them at once in eleven years, and I don’t really plan to anytime soon. It would feel too weird. I don’t mind being called Isaac every once in a while by those who know me best, but I don’t want to be Isaac.

I built all this on my own. I created Theo to get away from that life.

“I’m just looking out for you,” Lola adds with concern in her voice. “You should be able to come out on your own time, not when some asshole in a bar leaks a few photos or, God forbid, videos.”

“I know. You’re right, but I’m careful, though. I promise.”

“You better be,” she replies sternly. “You’re a big deal now, dude. People are going to start recognizing you, whether they listen to you or not.”

I love Lola. She’s a badass with a real soft side, and she’s been my bassist since I moved to Nashville, like, six years ago. But I have to admit, it irks me when she tries to mother me.

It’s not her fault. I’m a fucking mess, and most people either jump onto the hot mess express alongside me or do their best to try and fix the course I’m on.

Lola tends to fall into the latter, but she does it out of love.

“Besides, the tour schedule is tight. You can’t be doing these little one-night stands while we’re on the road,” she says as she turns down the road that leads to my apartment in the city.

“Why do you think I’m getting it out of my system now?” I ask, trying to remain calm whenever she brings up the tour.

I can tell she’s doing the same.

“According to the tour manager, we’ll be taking off hours after each show and sleeping on the bus between stops,” she says with a hint of excitement in her voice.

“On that big fat sleeper bus with my name on the side,” I add.

“On a sold-out national tour.”

“No big deal,” I reply with a shrug, keeping my cool.

“Yeah, it’s nothing.”

As she pulls up to my house, we make eye contact momentarily before completely losing our shit. Lola and I scream in unison as we dance around in our confined spaces.

We’ve done this no less than a hundred times over the past couple of months. And who could blame us? Our last tour nearly wiped us out financially, and that was after skipping hotels to sleep in a tiny, pre-owned camper van packed to the brim with our instruments and gear while the rest of the band followed behind us in Rio’s old VW hatchback.

Now, we’re traveling like real stars. Like we’ve made it. Surely, every country star has these little freak-out moments before their first major tour.

“Aaaaah,” Lola cheers excitedly. “You fucking did it, Isaac. This is really happening.”

“We fucking did it,” I correct her.

“Sure, but you just wrote the songs, built your following, and performed in front of them every night.”

“Stop, stop, stop…” I say as I playfully shove her shoulder. “Okay, keep going.”

We laugh together for a while before I reach over the console and place a kiss on her cheek.

“Thanks again for picking me up. You are my savior, my queen, my goddess, and I love you.”

“Love you, too,” she replies as I open the door to climb out. Before I shut the door, she calls out, “Get some rest, Theo! We have a big day tomorrow!”

“Aaaahhh,” I say quietly with a big grin on my face.

With that, I shut the door and walk up to my apartment. After I signed with the Austin-based label, they offered to put me up in my own place. They want me to be able to focus on songwriting, but really, I know it’s just one more way they can own me, which is fine. They can own me if they keep paying me.

In the shower, I stand under the hot stream of water for long enough to make my skin wrinkle and turn red. Sometimes it feels like the shower is the only place I can focus and think clearly.

I relive moments from last night at the bar and with the handsome stranger. I conjure up feelings and turn them into words. Those words turn into lyric pieces I may never use, cataloged in my mind where I know they’re safe.

Blue jeans wrapped around my waist

That tequila trance on the dance floor

A one-night understanding

Shutting the water off, I grab a towel from the hook by the shower and wrap it around my waist before stepping out onto the mat. A man with dark hair and dark circles under his eyes stares back in the bathroom mirror.

Sometimes, I find myself wishing those lyrics could mean something more. More than drunk nights and meaningless hookups. More than moments, more like forevers. Real feelings.

Am I even capable of that?

Why does it feel like all I’m meant for is hookups? Every time a guy tries to get close, I push him away or sabotage the relationship. The moment anyone tries baring their soul to me, I immediately stop taking him seriously. I crack jokes. I find a flaw, and I fixate on it.

I have erected some chastity belt around my own fucking heart, and most days, I don’t care. I like it this way. I joke that I’ll be a slut until the day I die, but then I have sobering moments like this when I look in the mirror and hear the man staring back say, “You’ll be alone forever.”

I talk a big game, but even I don’t want that.

After getting dressed in a pair of joggers and a Nirvana T-shirt, I head down to the spare bedroom turned gym on the main floor. It was their not-so-subtle way of telling me to build some muscle. No one likes a scrawny country star.

But I have the attention span of a squirrel, so I scroll social media while doing leg extensions on the big machine with pulleys and weights.

My workouts are never more than half-assed.

While setting down the weights to do some shoulder presses, I get a text from Luke. It’s a picture of his eleven-month-old baby, Henry. He’s sleeping in his arms with his chubby fist perched under his chin, but one tiny finger is sticking out, so it looks like he’s flipping me off.

I laugh as I type out my response:

Your baby has an attitude problem.

Staring at the photo for a minute, I put off my shoulder workout. Henry has a tuft of copper hair on his head and the cutest damn nose.

Luke’s reply comes in.

This is his way of saying good luck on your tour.

I chuckle to myself.

That’s sweet of him. Tell him I said

Putting my phone on the bench, I do a few lazy sets, pulling the wide bar down without really counting. When I’m tired, I stop and pick up my phone again.

No messages. Just a couple thousand tags on social media that I can’t check anymore. It’s nice, but I miss being a real person on Instagram instead of a celebrity.

Not that long ago, I could respond to fans and message people. Now, all I’m allowed to do is post stuff to my stories to appear “relatable,” and even that has some very strict guidelines from my publicist.

All in all, it’s fucking lonely.

But how the fuck can I be lonely? I’ve got two point nine million followers. I have a loyal band who are my best friends. And Luke is always just a phone call away.

It would just be nice to have someone around—always around. To share meals with and come home to and bitch about nonsense. Not a phone call away. Not a stranger in a club or on the internet. More than a friend. Like a long-term fuck buddy.

I’m pretty sure that’s a boyfriend, idiot.

Eventually, I give up on my lazy workout when I hear my stomach rumbling. After ditching the gym equipment, I order some Thai food from my phone and lounge on the couch until it arrives about thirty minutes later.

The girl who delivers it does a double take when I answer the door. She stares at me dumbfounded while I’m reaching my hand out for the bag of food.

“Uh…here you go,” she stammers before passing it over.

“Thanks,” I laugh.

As soon as she smiles back, she curls a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know who you are,” she stammers sweetly. “I’m a huge fan.”

I start to close the door but stop to soak in some of her adoration. I mean…who doesn’t love attention?

“Thanks,” I reply, showing off the signature Theo Virgil dimples. She giggles again.

“Would it be rude to ask for a selfie?” she asks.

“Of course not.” Laughing, I set down my food and step outside as she pulls her phone from her pocket.

“Oh my god, I’m shaking,” she says. “This is crazy.”

When she eventually gets her phone up, selfie camera on us, I lean in next to her and throw up a cheesy backward peace sign as I grin brightly.

She snaps no less than a dozen pics before pulling away. When our eyes meet again, her gaze lingers, and I realize she’s working up the nerve to ask for something else. Maybe my number. Maybe a conversation. Maybe more.

She’s thinking right now that she has a chance. But she doesn’t. Not on God’s green earth or any other planet, for that matter. I have about as much interest in getting in bed with her as I do with a cactus, which is to say, none. No offense to her, of course. Just not my type.

Still, I’m thinking that I should flirt with her for no other reason than to keep up the whole straight-guy charade. But I’m too fucking hungry, so I back away as she works herself up to say something more. I slowly close the door, politely saying, “Have a good one.”

Taking my lunch to the kitchen, I dig in and scroll through videos on my phone. They’re all pointless, mindless entertainment. And for a while, it works to distract me from the loneliness.

It’s fine. Everything’s fine. I’m at the top of my game. Living on top of the world. I’m going on a fucking tour—a real one.

It doesn’t matter that I’m hiding this super intimate part of myself from the world. It doesn’t matter that all of my fans think I’m straight. Or that I haven’t seen my entire family together in eleven years.

Like I said, it’s fine.

The loneliness, the shame, the fear. All of that shit is Isaac’s problem, not Theo’s. Because things will probably never be as good as they are right now.

So who the fuck am I to complain?