by Gia Riley
“I’m not judging you,” I tell him.
“You should be. I’m judging you.”
“What’s your take so far?” I ask as we stop in front of the second bedroom door.
“This is your room. The last one belongs to Tom. And my take is simple. You’re hot, and that accent is going to kill me in the best way possible.”
From what I can tell, Hollis is a painfully honest guy. It’s going to take some getting used to, but I guess it’s better than living with a liar.
“Maybe you’re the one who talks funny. Ever think of that?”
“You’ll be talking like me before long. Just wait and see.”
I sure hope the Southern in me doesn’t disappear that fast.
“Is Tom around? I’d like to meet him.”
Hollis shakes his head. “The sucker went and got himself engaged tonight. Got down on one knee in the middle of the party and then ran away with her. So, they’re pretty busy tonight, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s exciting.”
He gives me a look. One that says marriage is some foreign institution he wants no part of. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s around my age, so I can agree with him there.
At twenty-two years old, I’ve never been serious enough about anyone to consider marriage. I’ve never even dreamed about a wedding day.
Dancing was my first love, and with the number of hours it requires, the only people I meet are usually new additions to the studio. And they’re just as focused as me.
But I’m okay with not dating. I’ve finally made it to New York. My dreams are in the palm of my hand, and I’m not about to get distracted and mess that up.
“You’re probably tired, so I’ll let you get unpacked. If you need anything, my door’s always open. And I mean, anything, Chandler,” he stresses.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” I question before he walks away.
He gives me another gleaming though slightly lopsided smile. “You interested?”
Laughing, I shake my head. “No, nothing like that. I’m just asking.” I honestly don’t know why I’m asking. It’s none of my business.
Luckily, Hollis is laid-back and chill and not at all offended that I don’t want to date him. All he says is, “I’m single. Keep that in mind.”
“Noted.” I’m about to close my door, so I can get settled when he turns back around.
“Almost forgot,” he says. “The Wi-Fi network is Pretty Fly for a Wi-Fi.”
“I’m afraid to ask what the password is.”
Hollis cringes and then says, “Blow me. There’s an exclamation point at the end.”
“For emphasis?”
“Nah, they just make you use a special character. I apologize, but in my defense, I didn’t think I’d ever live with a chick.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I never thought I’d live with a dude.” Even my dorm in college was all girls.
Hollis points to his heart, and with sad puppy-dog eyes, he says, “I promise I’m not always filthy. There’s substance in here.”
“I can handle you and your filth, Hollis.”
He swallows and then slowly backs into the hallway. I can’t entirely make out what he says, but I think it’s something along the lines of, “I’m so fucked.”
Agreed.
Because, if Tom is anything like Hollis, I think I might be, too.
Chandler
It only takes me an hour or two to unpack my clothes, change into pajamas, and then fall into bed. The cab passed a few places that I want to check out online before I fall asleep, but the combination of alcohol and flying has worn me out more than I realized.
Once the adrenaline wears off, the emotion of the day hits me full force, and all those first-night worries vanish. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, and before I know it, I’m opening my eyes to sunshine.
Waking up in a new city is terrifying. I can’t believe I’m here. But at least I didn’t have to sleep on the floor. Thanks to my boss, I had a bed here for my first night in my new apartment.
The rest of my things should arrive tomorrow. I was actually pretty lucky to get the movers here at all this week. Everyone was stretched thin with the holiday, but I was willing to pay whatever it took to get them here as soon as possible.
I knew, the sooner I got my room feeling like home, the sooner I’d feel like I belonged. My head’s mostly here, but my heart’s still in Nashville. And I can’t help but wonder what I missed last night, so I grab my laptop, laughing as I type in the password for the Wi-Fi. Hollis wasn’t kidding though; it works.
As I scroll through my social media feed, my chest aches a little more. There’re more posts than usual, and seeing my friends so happy stings a little. While I was thirty-five thousand feet in the air, my best friend and her boyfriend were kissing in my old living room, on the couch I’d bought the day we moved into that apartment.
I wish I weren’t so homesick. New York is what I wanted, but I can’t help it. I went from a life full of friends to none. The closest I have now is Hollis, and that’s not saying much for my social game.
As I drag the mouse to the top of the page to sign out, I notice a new friend request. Expecting someone from high school or a stranger I’ll automatically block, I’m shocked when I see those eyes looking back at me.
“Wirth,” I whisper as my heart beats double time, both excited and terrified that he found me.
I never thought I’d see him again, especially since I don’t remember telling Wirth my last name or anything that could have helped him find me. The only connection we had was the Salty Boots Saloon.
That has to be it, so I grab my phone off the pillow beside me, typing out a text to Jansen, the only mutual friend we have in common.
Chandler: Did Wirth Sutherland ask you about me last night?
I wait for a reply, chewing on my thumbnail as the seconds tick by. But then I remember I’m an hour ahead of Nashville. It’s still seven in the morning there. The chances of Jansen being awake after a late night at the bar are slim to none. I’ll have to wait at least a few more hours to get an answer.
But, now that I know that friend request is there, I can’t pretend it’s not. Wirth could be lurking on my page, waiting for me to accept. And, truth be told, I want to scour his profile just as bad. There’s so much I want to discover about the guy I made out with on a whim.
I still can’t believe I kissed him. I’ve never done anything so bold or out of the ordinary. But there was something about Wirth that made me want to take a chance. We had an instant connection that I’d never experienced before, a spark I’d thought only existed in Hallmark movies.
I’m so nervous as my fingers linger over the mouse, debating if accepting the request is the right thing to do.
Talking to him can’t hurt, can it?
Maybe he just wants to see if I made it to the apartment okay. It was late, and there was a lot of traffic. I’d had a few too many drinks, and checking on me would be the polite thing to do. But that would mean he cared, and surely, Wirth does not care about girls like me. He just kisses their lips when they throw themselves at him, like they probably did after every show in Nashville.
You’re not special, Chandler.
“Morning, sunshine.”
I jump at the sound of Hollis’s voice, and by the time I realize what I just did, it’s too late to take it back. “Shit, Hollis. You just made me click the button!”
“Do you need some help with that?” he asks suggestively.
“Now is not the time,” I tell him. “I just did something stupid.”
“It can’t be that bad. Look how cute you look in the morning.” He’s leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest and a smug grin on his face. Apparently, he’s a morning person.
“Where’s your shirt?”
“Does my nakedness bother you?” he asks.
“I’m just wondering if I’ll have to look at that all the time.”
I can’t deny that. Hollis is hot. The lopsided smile, blue eyes, pecs that bounce when he laughs—it’s sensory overload. He’s like Mr. Pectacular or something.
But I don’t necessarily want to be attracted to my roommate, so I tell him, “Maybe you could cover it up once in a while.”
“I’ll take your request into consideration, buttercup.”
“Don’t call me that,” I shoot back.
“Until I come up with something better, it’ll have to do.”
Rolling my eyes, I know I won’t make any progress with this right now, so I let it go. “What did you come in here for in the first place?”
He shrugs and then says, “I was just going to take a leak and saw you were up.”
“Gross. Wait, how did my door open?” I’m almost positive that I closed the door last night before I got into bed. The only person who could have opened it was him unless I started sleepwalking.
Hollis suddenly can’t look me in the eye, so I know he opened it. I just want to know why.
“Spill it,” I tell him.
“Well, it was your first night here. I thought maybe you’d have trouble sleeping, so I knocked to check on you. You didn’t answer.”
“Because I was asleep.”
“I know that now. But, at the time, I thought maybe you had left or were upset. I didn’t want you to be all alone if you needed company.”
“That’s actually sweet, Hollis.”
“I told you, I’m not always an asshole. We didn’t get off to the best start, but I’m a good guy, Chandler.”
I can see it. He’s thoughtful if nothing else.
“Thank you for checking on me. I’m having more trouble this morning than last night, I guess.”
“How can I help?”
“Is it too soon to ask for a favor?”
His eyes light up, and I roll mine.
“Nothing like that,” I tell him. “I was just wondering if you’d show me around today. Don’t worry about it if you have plans, but maybe you could show me where the theater is from here, so I don’t get lost on Monday. A grocery store or something, too.”
“Are you asking me out, Chandler?”
“No. I’m asking for your help. Nothing more than a little bit of your time.”
“This sounds an awful lot like a date.”
“Hollis, we’re friends,” I stress.
“Are we?” he questions.
I guess I shouldn’t have assumed. “Do you want to be?”
“Of course. We’re dating, remember? Be ready in an hour. We’ll stop for breakfast first.”
He’s out of my room and in the bathroom before I can tell him that we’re definitely not dating. Not even close. Mostly because I can’t stop thinking about Wirth. Or if I’m going to hear from him.
Wirth
“Wirth? Are you up, honey?” Aunt Judy asks from the laundry room.
“I’m up,” I tell her as she peeks her head into the kitchen.
“Did you get some sleep?”
“Some.”
Her house is usually the one place where I can shut my brain off long enough to relax, but last night, that wasn’t the case. Thoughts of Chandler lingered in my head until dawn. I told myself not to look her up, that she was better off without me. Everything I’d touched lately went to shit. But then I heard Maisie’s voice, and I knew I couldn’t ignore what had happened on the plane. My sister had set me up, and I had to follow through.
Pretending to check my messages, I grab my phone because I can’t stand not knowing if Chandler saw the friend request or not. After I swipe away the missed call alerts from the screen, I pull up social media, more than a little surprised when I see she accepted.
“What’s the goofy grin for?” Aunt Judy asks with a smile of her own.
“Nothing,” I tell her, setting my phone down.
But this grin of mine is way more than nothing. It’s something. I feel like I’m back on the plane again, about to descend into the airport.
“Something’s bothering you, Wirth. I see it in your eyes.”
My aunt’s been my second mom since my own passed away. Her house has always been my safety net. It’s where I go when I need to run away and hide. Last night was one of those nights. Last night, I hid from failure.
That hasn’t always been the case. In high school, I came here to face a different kind of demon.
My senior year, Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. They found it late, too late actually, and by the time I graduated, she was barely hanging on.
She wanted nothing more than to sit in the bleachers and cheer as I walked across the football field to receive my diploma. And I wanted nothing more than to look into the stands and see her with a full head of hair and excitement in her eyes.
I never got used to the scarfs she wore, wrapped around her head. Every time I saw one lying around, I wanted to throw it out. I just wanted my mom back. You could keep all the ribbons and pink shit everyone wore. None of that took away the cancer. It didn’t change the fact that my mom was dying, and there was nothing the doctors could do to make it stop. All the medical advances in the world couldn’t stop that beast.
It was unfair, and so was my anger. On the days it was too much to process, I would go to Aunt Judy.
“Get mad,” she’d tell me. “And then treasure every minute you have left.”
Looking back, I wish I had been less angry at cancer, so I could have enjoyed those last few months Mom was still alive.
I played for her at night when she couldn’t sleep. I sang like she wanted me to. But I wasn’t performing. Instead of getting lost in the music like I usually did, I resented it. I pretty much hated the world. And I’m afraid I wasn’t the best son I could have been.
But I was determined for her to see me graduate, so I put on my cap and gown and created a ceremony in her hospital room. She cried, and Aunt Judy brushed the tears off Mom’s cheeks because there were no lashes to catch them. The ones Aunt Judy missed streamed down her face and soaked into her blue robe.
“I’m so happy,” she whispered.
I didn’t believe her. Those tears weren’t joyful. They were years of our future being torn away from us, decades of time we were supposed to have together and wouldn’t ever get.
I didn’t know if I’d ever get married or have kids, but I was angry when I thought about those imaginary kids never getting to meet their grandma.
The nurse handed me a fake diploma, and I clutched it so hard; it almost crumpled. Before I destroyed it, I took off the red ribbon and tied it around her frail wrist.
“I love you, Mom,” I told her. “Just rest.”
Later that night, her condition worsened. She was barely breathing, but she proudly held the end of that ribbon between her fingers.
“Sing for me,” she said between labored breaths.
I sat on the edge of her bed, and with my throat raw as hell, I got through a couple of verses of her favorite song. It was one I sang at open mic nights in the city. I knew I’d never sing it again. There was no way I could make it through the intro without picturing that moment in her hospital room. The second her eyes closed completely, and her entire body went limp. The ribbon fell to the floor along with my guitar, and all the oxygen was sucked from the room. The walls closed in on me, and I begged God to give her back. Because I knew Mom wasn’t napping. She was asleep forever.
“We’ll get through this,” Aunt Judy said as we cried together, waiting for someone to come take her body.
I didn’t want them to put her in a morgue, and I couldn’t stand going to a funeral home. But that was exactly what happened, and there was nothing I could do about it.
My entire life was out of control, and as badly as I wanted to pack up my shit and run as far away from town as I could, I remembered what Mom had wanted. And I still wanted to make her proud, so I put Nashville on hold and sat through college classes. F
our years later, I was given another piece of paper.
That degree is the only reason I have a job to come home to. Mom was right; she knew I needed a backup plan. I just pray she wasn’t watching when Shannon was on her knees, begging for my next gig.
“Why don’t you eat something, Wirth?” Aunt Judy says. “Maybe then you’ll want to talk about it.”
“I’m not hungry,” I tell her.
Without telling Aunt Judy any of the details, she gets it. She knows I only came back to New York because I had to, not because I wanted to. She’s the only one who can read me as well as my own mother did.
“Just do you, Wirth. She’ll be proud as long as you are.”
I’m not proud.
I’m ashamed.
“I’m going back to the theater, Aunt Judy. There’s a new show that’s doing really well. I can slip back into my old position.”
“And what about your music?” She knows that, without it, more than just my mom is missing.
“I’ll do some open mic nights and contact some of the bars and lounges I’ve played at. I still have a few contacts in the city.”
I hate lying to her. Sure, I have contacts, but I don’t know when or if I’ll ever have the desire to get back onstage. After you fail in Nashville, what’s the point?
“Okay,” she says. “I’d like to hear you play sometime. It’s been a while.”
No matter what I decide, getting settled and dealing with the remnants of Nashville have to happen first.
“I’ll let you know,” I tell her. “Thanks for letting me crash.”
Aunt Judy nods and then goes back to folding the laundry. I love her for not pushing me on this. Or for asking more questions than I’m ready to answer.
Someday, I’ll tell her everything. But, right now, it’s time I go to my apartment. I was only supposed to be here for one night. And I have to do something about Chandler. I’ll be distracted all day if I don’t.
Clicking on Chandler’s profile, I type out a message, erasing it five times before I settle on a bland and boring, “Hi.” I just don’t know that I can actually send it.
I’m so fucking lame.
