“Wait, is this a psychic hotline? Or a sex line?”
“Jay, why limit myself?”
I snickered… and then I sighed.
“Hey!” he complained. “Pardon me, Cinderella, but why don’t you sound like a guy who just got asked to the ball?”
I scuffed my foot over a tuft of grass. “You know that expression about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?”
“The definition of insanity?”
“That’s the one,” I agreed. “Well, here I am in fucking South Dakota, concentrating real hard on being a rock star, while the love of my life is currently flying to Florida without me. Facing his greatest fear. Alone.”
Oak was silent for half a second. “Dude, I talked to you a week ago. Who…? Oh, no! Tell me you haven’t fallen for Mr. Summer Lovin’. Not again.”
I laughed. “Notagain, more like…still. And I finally did something about it.Wedid something about it.”
I filled him in briefly—very briefly—and Oak fell silent for a long moment.
“Wow,” he finally said. “I’m starting to think I reallyampsychic. So what are you guys planning long term? Are you moving to Florida? Are you gonna come out publicly?”
“No. Maybe?” I rubbed my forehead. FigurednowOak cut directly to the point, when he was asking questions I couldn’t answer. “I don’t know,” I hedged. “I don’t know what we’re doing long term. Things got kinda rushed there at the end. He wants to do whatever I want to do…”
“And you don’tknowwhat you wanna do, is that it?”
“Jayd?” A PA person with a clipboard gave me a friendly smile. “Thirty-minute warning.”
“Coming! Oak, I’ve gotta go. Almost time for my set.”
“Jay Don, you want my thirty-second advice?”
I felt like “no” was not an actual option. “Of course. That’s why I keep calling the Gay Psychic Friend Sex Hotline,” I joked.
But Oak’s reply was as serious as I’d ever heard from him. “You’ve spent your whole career working for the next big achievement, and as soon as you get it, you change the goalposts. Reminds me of your dad, spending all his time figuring out when to buy or sell so he can move on to the next moneymaker. And that’s cool for him. It makes him happy in his way. But, you… Deep down, you wanna take your time with your music. You want to build a solid family. You want to be honest and stop hiding. You want to love and be loved. It’s easy to lose focus and let other people’s praise be the metric for your success and happiness, but that’s weak shit. It doesn’t sustain. Plant something and watch it grow, Jay. Live in the moment. Stop trying to convince everyone you’re capable of being successful and realize you already are.”
“Oak.” I gripped the phone tightly. “That was… I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He sniffed and cleared his throat. “That’ll be $5.99 for the first minute, and casual psychoanalysis isn’t even my best kink.”
“A total bargain,” I agreed, my chest tight and brain buzzing with all the information he’d given me. “Oak, I really love you.”
“’Course you do. You’re not a total idiot. Just remember I’m here.”
When we hung up, I stood in the field for a second, staring at the sky and thinking about what he’d said. Thinking about what I wanted.
Then I shook myself, because whatever my long-term plans were, I had a show to play.
“Jayd!”
I hadn’t taken more than two steps back toward the stage when Debbie blocked my path, stepping out of the shadows like a ghoul… if ghouls wore very expensive sheath dresses and heels that must’ve sunk into the ground with every step.
“Uh, hey, Debbie. They already came to get me. I’m on my way.” I lifted my chin toward the stage.
“Lovely! But that’s not why I ruined these Louboutins for you. Two words: George Maren.”
“One word: Who?”
Her eye roll was visible even in the twilight. “George Maren. The journalist. He wants to meet with you tomorrow to shadow you for a while and do an interview.”
