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Twenty-Nine

Isaac

L ola sits across from me at a large conference table while my publicist and tour manager stand at the front of the room, discussing with each other how they can use this sudden onslaught of attention to their benefit.

I still can’t understand what on earth we’re even talking about.

“So I wrote a love song,” I bark with my hands in my hair. “Who cares?”

“Theo, let us be very clear. We see no issue with the song or with any of the rumors,” Martina, my publicist, says as her eyes dash back to Jensen, who is standing against the wall with his arms crossed.

“But with any good PR, it’s always best to be three steps ahead and play the long game.”

“What does that even mean?” I ask with a whine.

“It means…we have to have a plan.”

“A plan for what?” I ask. I can hear how erratic and frustrated I sound. It’s because I feel it. She’s talking about getting ahead, but everything is flying at the speed of light. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since I played that song, and already the public is speculating about my sexuality. What exactly am I supposed to get ahead of?

Martina sits down at the table and pulls up her phone. She slides it over to me face up. And right there on the screen is a video taken less than two hours ago, out front of the hotel.

Jensen is holding me to his chest—not like a friend, but like a lover.

I glance up at him and he rubs at his forehead. I can practically see the veins popping out of his neck from here.

“It’ll blow over,” I say with a shrug. “People will forget. We just have to say nothing and move on like it never happened.”

Martina nods with a small smile. “Theo?—”

“Isaac,” Jensen barks. “His name is Isaac. If we’re going to discuss his personal life, the least you can do is call him by his real name.”

My heart bursts so large in my chest I can barely breathe as I glance up at him with adoration in my eyes.

Martina continues, “Isaac, we fully support your decision to either make a statement or stay silent in this scenario. However, we would be remiss not to warn you that making a statement of this caliber during your first major tour at the height of your success—and at the precipice of award season—could have a harrowing effect on the trajectory of your career.”

It’s like she’s just placed hundred-pound weights on my shoulders.

“Jesus,” Lola mutters with annoyance. I glance over at her and she gives a subtle shake of her head. I don’t need her to say another word for me to understand that she’s saying I don’t need to listen to this corporate bullshit.

But Martina is right. And Lola is right. And Jensen is right.

And every voice in the world could be screaming at me at once and it wouldn’t make any of this easier to decide. Or make any of these choices more right than the other. It has to be up to me and Jensen.

“I can’t decide anything right now,” I say with defeat.

“And you don’t have to,” Martina replies, touching my hand. “But if that’s the case, we need to discuss behavior and boundaries.”

“Like what?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at her.

“Staying out of the public eye for the next three or four days. After that, you should only be seen alone or with your bandmates. Don’t give them any fuel for their fire. No more hotel stays. You have to go directly from your bus to the stage and back. And that’s it.”

The weight just feels heavier. I want to look at him so badly, but I’m afraid. What she’s implying is that Jensen and I can’t be together anymore, at least for a while. What if he agrees? What if he thinks this is more than he wants to deal with and I’m not worth it?

“Okay,” I murmur sadly as I glance down at the video replaying over and over on her phone. He looks so protective in the clip. Because that’s who he is—my protector. The only person in this room concerned with protecting Isaac over Theo. And I can’t even see him anymore.

“You have a few days’ break after your next show in Chicago and then some television appearances we have set up. It will be the perfect opportunity to redirect the conversation publicly. During your break, we can fly you back to Austin, and you can spend that time in your house, out of the public eye. Sound good?”

I swallow what feels like knives in my throat. “So I can’t see him at all?”

The air in the room turns thick with that one question. In a tiny room full of my closest friends, and that one admission is stifling. I couldn’t imagine it on a massive scale.

“Just for a little while,” Martina says with a fake sweet smile. “You’re right. It will blow over, mostly. But when the public sees there’s something to grab onto, they will. Don’t give them anything. At least not until you’re ready. Then you just need to give us a heads-up first so we can devise a plan.”

I nod. Everyone around me stands up, but I’m frozen in place. For the first time in a few minutes, I glance up at Jensen. There is so much stress on his face it breaks my heart.

“Can we just…have the room for a few minutes?” I ask.

Martina nods. “Of course. We’d be happy to escort Mr. Miles wherever he needs to go when you’re done.”

Her words land like cement in my stomach. I hate this.

“Thanks,” he mutters angrily.

Rio shakes my shoulder in an act of support before he leaves the room. Lola gives me a tight smile. Waylon and Hugh both wave at me with sympathetic expressions.

As the door closes, I turn toward Jensen. There are no words left to say. Nothing we haven’t discussed or faced. There is just the circumstance and its overbearing, suffocating weight.

And when there are no words left to say, there is only action. I stand from my chair and cross the room, hoping I make it into his arms before the tears come.

He closes the distance, pulling me tight to his chest. Burying my face in his neck, I squeeze out the tears in my eyes as I clench them shut tight.

“I’m so sorry,” I sob.

“Don’t be sorry,” he replies. “It’s going to be okay.”

“You’re just saying that,” I argue. “But I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?” he asks, forcing out a sad laugh.

“Scared you’ll realize I’m not worth all of this.”

“This?” he asks in astonishment. “You think this is bad?” His arms squeeze around me tighter. “Isaac,” he mumbles, with his lips against my head. “I’d walk through hell for you.”

I hold back a sob and squeeze my arms around him, gripping him so tight I wish I didn’t have to walk away.

Kissing my head, he whispers, “You are worth everything to me.”

When I pull my face from his neck, he holds my jaw gently in his hand as he leans in and kisses me softly. I just hope he means the things he says. I feel it in his touch and the look in his eyes. But I wish I could look into the future and see that it’s him and me at the end of it all. Only then could I properly relax.

To evade some of the drama in Nashville, we head out later that night to drive toward Chicago. We play in Chicago in two nights and then we have another week off because my publicist scheduled us for some TV spots.

Lying alone in my bed on the bus, nothing feels as exciting as it did yesterday. Suddenly, I don’t care about performances on late shows or award show nominations. My life feels broken and in disarray.

Luke and Sadie call after they hear the news and I video chat with them for a while, doing my best to prove to them how okay I am. But I see the pity on their faces.

Talk about champagne problems. Please stop pitying the celebrity.

Jensen calls as soon as he lands in Austin, but our phone call feels empty and cold. I try not to look too much into it. This will pass. It has to.

I waste a couple hours on the drive watching mindless television and playing games on my phone. After falling asleep sometime between two and three in the morning, I wake up to the sound of my phone ringing around nine in the morning.

When I don’t recognize the number, I hit ignore and go back to sleep. They call again. And again.

So when paranoia sets in, I open my eyes and answer it.

“Hello?” I ask with grit and anger in my voice.

I only hear breathing on the other end of the call.

“What the fuck,” I mutter. “Who’s there?”

Is this the kind of bullshit I have to deal with now? Random fans get a hold of my personal goddamn number and call just to hear me answer.

“Isaac?”

It’s a deep, familiar voice that makes my heart seize up in my chest. My entire body is frozen as I wait for him to say something else.

“Is that you?” he asks, and my eyes widen, confirming my suspicion.

“What do you want?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady. “How’d you get this number?”

“I saw your video on the internet. I had no idea… You’re…a country star now.”

My father’s southern drawl sounds raspier than I remember, aged with time and poor life choices. It’s like static that hurts my ears to hear.

“You can’t…call me,” I reply, trying to sound more confident than I feel. “You shouldn’t even have my number.”

“It wasn’t easy,” he replies. “I was up half the night, pullin’ strings and makin’ calls.”

As soon as I signed with the record label, they offered to give me a new phone with a private number, but I didn’t see the point. I had been Theo Virgil with this number for years. There was no reason to go and change it.

Now, I guess I understand the reason.

“What do you want?” I growl into the phone line. “You want to rub all this shit in my face now? You want to try and make my life even worse than it already is?”

“No,” he replies, and I can’t believe how different he sounds. Not at all the loud, boisterous father I once knew who used to yell at us boys as kids. He used his voice as his power at home and at church.

Now…it’s meek and tired. He’s been beaten down, and I guess he had it coming.

“I just wanted to say…I’m proud of you.”

Sitting up in my bed, I drag my fingers through my hair as I let this moment set in. He’s proud of me? The man who once waved a Bible in my face and told me I was going to hell. The man who used to smack us around when we didn’t fall in line. The man who looked at me like I had killed his pride and joy the moment I told him I was gay.

I hate myself for the way it feels to hear him say that. To know I did what I had set out to do, to make him proud. From the first time I strummed a chord on my guitar, I have been doing nothing but trying to make him proud.

Even after everything.

I hate myself for how much I still want it.

“You’re proud of me?” I ask with the threat of tears in my voice.

“I know I haven’t been the best father, and I’ll probably never get a chance to say it to your face, but I stayed up all night trying to get your number just to tell you that.”

“Am I supposed to be grateful?”

He lets out a sigh, and he sounds so old as if he’s withering away.

“Isaac, listen to me,” he says, and it takes everything in me not to hang up right then. “Go home.”

“What?”

“Go see your mother. She misses you more than you’ll ever know.”

“It’s your fault I left,” I bite back with tears in my eyes.

“I know, and I can’t fix what I’ve done. But now that I’m gone, you should go home. Be with your family. And I won’t bother you anymore.”

I blink, and a tear slips over my cheek. Is he serious right now? Is this bullshit supposed to make me forgive him? He’s trying to act like the hero—like he can make everything right?

I want to tell him to fuck off. I should tell him to fuck off.

But I don’t. Maybe because it would feel like kicking an old man already on the ground. He’s lost everything, so what would be the point? Even if he deserves to be told to fuck off.

When I say nothing for a while, he lets out another sigh, this one sounding more like relief.

“Well, that’s all I wanted to say. That I’m so proud of you. And that I think it’s time for you to go home. I love you, son.”

In a panic, I hit the red end call button. Dropping my phone on the bed, I stare at it in shock. Tears stream down my face as I try to make sense of what the fuck just happened.