You’d trade the fame and money for love and family.
I stared at that text from Cooper forhours, my pulse slowly working its way up into panic zones at the idea of all the people I’d let down if I walked away from my career.
And then my intestines worked themselves into a tizzy over who’d lose their jobs and what people would say about me if I canceled concerts and tore up my recording contracts and walked away from the entire Waverly Sweet empire with all of my side deals and endorsements and offshoot companies and honorary titles and podcasts and movies and appearances and and and and and…
Would I trade in what I’ve made of my life if I could spend the rest of it living with Hashtag in a little cottage by the sea, playing my guitar or my piano and singing, living and eating and breathing with people I could laugh with and talk to and love, knowing that they loved me not because I wasWaverly Sweet, pop sensation, but because I was a human being who wanted to be there for my family in all of their big and little moments?
Could a family like that even exist for me? I don’t have grandparents. I might have siblings, but they would be half-siblings, with no history between us and the complicating factor of a lifetime of being told I have to be careful who I make friends with because everyone wants something from me, and no one is interested in getting to knowme.
But that’s what I want.
I want a big, massive family that knowsme, who won’t care if I misspeak when I’m telling a joke or if I wear something unflattering.
I want it so bad my heart’s in more knots than my stomach is.
Or maybe that’s the Cooper effect.
I blew off my meeting this afternoon because Cooper’s here. In LA. Spending his first All-Star break afternoon volunteering at a baseball clinic for little kids with some of his buddies from my home team while I’m supposed to be in a meeting.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I say to Kiva. “If Aunt Zinnia gives you crap—”
Kiva’s face basically cuts me off.
If Zinnia gives me crap, she gives me crap, and you’ll politely ask her not to do that again, and she’ll ignore you.
I believe my aunt wants what’s best for me. Sheismy family. My only family.
But I’m realizing we have very different opinions ofwhat’s best for me, and for the first time in my life, I’m realizing that perhaps I’ve let someone else make all of my decisions for far too long.
Early in my career, I needed an adviser to help me learn who to trust, what was a good deal, when to sign a contract and when to walk away.
Aunt Zinnia wasn’t just my aunt. She was my guide. My mom had pulled her into the industry back when she was a rising star of her own because she, too, wanted the family she could trust around her. By the time it was my turn, Aunt Zinnia knew the players. The game. Who would lie to your face and who would get things done, when to push and when to quietly sit back and wait for the opportune moment to get what you wanted. She knew everything and I knew nothing.
I have more than enough experience to run the Waverly Sweet empire on my own now, but I still let her tell me what to do and when, because why argue or reinvent the wheel when those orders don’t conflict with where I think I want to go and what I think I want to do?
But the past few months, especially after talking to Cooper so much about whathewants next if all of the only dreams he’s ever had come true, I feel different.
What is my goal? Does this project make me excited? Do I want to do this? Where do I want to be in five years? Or even in two? Where does my career end and my life begin?
“You think I shouldn’t do this,” I say quietly to Kiva.
And bythis, I don’t mean randomly skipping a meeting to show up at a baseball diamond where no one has any ideaWaverly Sweetis coming and we might accidentally end up getting mobbed and have to make a super fast getaway.
I mean having a wild public fling with Cooper that leads me to making all kinds of choices that reflect poorly on me as a professional musician and businesswoman.
She doesn’t break eye contact. “You’re the boss, and this is your life.”
For once, I’m not sure how to interpret that.
It’s your life to fuck up?
Or does she meanit’s your life to live?
Or maybe both?
I text Aspen as Scott Two drives us through the parking lot toward the section reserved for buses closer to the field.Am I an idiot to blow off work to hang out with my playboy baseball player quasi-boyfriend while he’s teaching little kids how to hold a bat?
Her reply is instantaneous.
