Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“I’m not saying you don’t. I’m saying be quiet about it. People do that all the time—people you’d never imagine were doing it.”
“People are also public about it,” I spit out, feeling an unfamiliar burst of disgust at keeping who I was to myself. But it had been my choice. It always had. Between Mom, anxiety, and my career, I didn’t know how to do it any other way.
“Is that something you’re considering?” Steve’s words were slow, measured, and it was clear from his tone he hoped I said no.
I tugged at my hair with my free hand, my breathing speeding up. “I don’t know. Fuck, I don’t know.” I thought about Law. About going out with him and spending time with him. About how it felt to hear those women talk to him and tell him to call for sex, and how I had to sit there and pretend it meant nothing to me. That he meant nothing to me. “Maybe?” This was the danger in being around Law. It made me want things.
Steve sighed again. “Listen…just be careful for now. Don’t make any rash decisions. If this is something you’re really thinking about, you need to be sure. You can’t take it back. And it’s going to be hard for a while. That’s all everything will be about. You need to make sure you can handle it. Talk to me first. We’ll need to talk to your label. We’ll make a plan together, but I’m telling ya, kid, it won’t be easy on you.”
I knew he was right. Not merely because of homophobes, though there would obviously be those, but again, because that’s who I would be—gay Remington. How many interviews would be about my sexuality rather than my music? The thought of people in my personal life like that made me break out in a sweat. “Yeah, I know. I’m going to go.”
“I might need you to come back for some interviews here pretty soon. There are a couple of things in the works.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll talk to you later, all right?”
“Be good, kid,” Steve said, and hung up.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lawson
It was earlier than I usually headed to Griff’s. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wait too long for everyone to arrive, but I also figured the earlier this got done, the better. I pulled my truck into a parking spot when my cell rang. I plucked it off the passenger seat, thinking it might be Remy, only to see Mere’s name on the screen. I thought about ignoring it, but she’d been a good go-between with my family since the lunch where I’d blurted out I was bi.
“Hey, Mere, can I call you back?”
“It’s your mother, Lawson.”
I rolled my eyes and dropped my head back against the seat.
“But it’s good to know you answer Meredith’s calls, when you won’t speak to the rest of us.”
“Maybe because Mere is the only one who won’t act like this is a big fucking deal?”
“There’s no reason to be crude,” she said as I heard my sister in the background, “Mom! What are you doing on my phone?”
Well, I guess that explained it.
“You skipped the last Sunday lunch and ignore my text about it,” Mom said.
“That’s because, again, I didn’t want this to be a big deal. I like men and women; who cares? I don’t want to run Grant’s. You wish I went to church with the family. You don’t approve of my friends, and you wouldn’t approve of the fact that I’m sitting in Griff’s parking lot right now about to go inside with said friends. We know I’m not what you expected of your eldest son, but I am who I am, so why do we have to keep rehashing all of it? I’m not gonna change, Mom.”
“No one is asking you to change.” She used her terse I-don’t-want-to-do-this-with-you voice.
“You wish I would. You don’t make it a secret that you disagree with me. It’s my life.”
“Are you dating someone?”
“Oh my God. I can’t do this with you. What in the hell does that matter?”
“There has to be a reason you mentioned it.”
“Because of the conversation we were having?” I countered, but I knew that wasn’t true either. I’d told them because Remy was back. Even though I’d still been angry with him, it was his being in Havenwood that made me tell them. “Mom, I’m going to go. I’ll come to the next lunch, okay?”
“Your father and I would appreciate that very much.”
I sighed, and heard Mere in the background, “Sorry, brother!”
Mom was a force to be reckoned with, so I didn’t blame Mere for Mom snatching her phone to call me.
I was tense when I got out of the car and walked inside the bar. Griffin looked up from behind the counter and smiled. I headed over and sat down.