The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(42)

It’s not hard to picture Ingrid’s golden eyes studying me now, trying to decide if I’m serious or not.

I’m not.

Except I’m starting to wonder if it’s possible.

I settle deeper into my couch and kick my feet up on the armrest. “You’re calling me a liar again, aren’t you?”

“Am I right?”

“Yep.”

She laughs softly. “Let me guess: she doesn’t date at all, and if she does, she doesn’t tell you about it?”

“Nailed it.”

“Do you ever have your people spy on her?”

“No, but lately…” I shake my head. “We’re talking about you. Not my mother.”

“And I very much want to know how you treat your mother when you’re not being a brat about her giving up her own time to take care of you when you get a concussion.”

“Hey!”

More laughter.

Does she know it’s better than any song I’ve ever written?

Probably not. “Everyone from my old neighborhood—we’re still tight. And in a lot of ways, it’s like we never grew up. Mrs. Ryder chewed me out last Christmas for not encouraging her to get out and live more. I blew her off, because I thought if Mom wanted to date someone, if she found someone worthy, she’d date someone. But I didn’t expect her to do it and keep it a secret.”

“You still think she has a secret boyfriend?”

“Know she does. Gossip train still works. Pretty sure Beck’s getting coal for Christmas this year, since he’s the one who let it slip. Guy can’t keep a secret for anything.”

“I’m sure coal in the ol’ stocking will be horrible for a happily married billionaire.”

“He’ll get excited about snowman eyes and disappear to his place in the mountains for a week.”

“While you’ll be grilling your mother on her secret boyfriend over a turkey dinner?”

“I get the feeling you’re on her side here.”

“Team Mom, all the way.”

I’d smile at her teasing tone, except I’m starting to wonder if I haven’t been as good to my mom as I should’ve all these years. “I used to think she didn’t want another guy in her business after raising two boys, but now I wonder if she’s been afraid all this time. You think your mom’s not afraid of anything.”

“Motherhood is basically constant fear about something.”

“Don’t live in the fear, Ingrid. You’re smart. You’re capable. Your kids know you love them. When shit happens, you handle it. When shit’s not happening—that’s you time. Don’t let the fear own it.”

She’s quiet again.

Heat creeps around my ears.

The last thing she needs is me lecturing her about how to live her life.

“What are you afraid of?” she asks softly.

And now it’s not just my ears.

It’s been a long time since someone who didn’t know me well asked that question. And even the people who know me well didn’t get a straight answer.

“You sound like you know fear pretty well,” she adds.

No judgment.

Commiseration, if anything.

I close my eyes. There’s no shame in what I’m afraid of. But it’s still hard to say it out loud. “I’m afraid of losing what’s important.”

“Your family?”

“No. Me. I’m afraid of losing me.” It sounds like a selfish asshole thing to say out loud when I’m surrounded by people who worry more about their kids and partners, but it’s true. “A few years after I went solo, I was on the road three hundred days a year. I worked. I wrote songs. I recorded them on my bus because I didn’t have time to take off the road and get into the studio. I played bigger and bigger venues. I wanted to make enough money to take care of my mom, to have a cushion if everything fell apart tomorrow and I had to start from scratch, and it became… It was like an addiction. I was addicted to success, but more success wasn’t bringing more joy. It was just bringing more and more pressure, until one night, I stepped out on a stage, not knowing why I was doing it when I didn’t need the paycheck, when I was missing my family even though Mom was literally six miles away that night, when my brother was settling down in love, when my friends were in all corners of the world and I almost never saw them together, and I didn’t want to be there, because I was an imposter. Just a kid from a middle-class neighborhood who got lucky a few times, and who was getting spoiled by the world for being born with a gift for music that I didn’t ask for and didn’t earn. And that night, I looked out at all those people, and I saw a woman in the third row holding a sign that my song was what had gotten her through three tours in a combat zone.”

She sucks in a breath, and I know.

I know.

It was her. She was the woman in the crowd.

And so I keep talking, because I’ve had this bottled up inside me for years, and if I don’t get it out now, I won’t ever tell her.

I want her to know.

“I lost me. I lost my why. I forgot that for every dollar that went in my bank account, there was someone out there who found happiness in my music. So I changed my attitude, I went back to who I was before Bro Code, I figured out what mattered most and where I wanted to change the world, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. Fewer big shows, but more time with fans. More visits to hospitals and nursing homes and schools. Charity work. Not in public, where everyone can see, but where I know it counts. Life without a purpose, without a meaningful goal—that’s not for me. So that’s what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of losing me again.”