“What were they going to tell me that I didn’t already know?” I asked. “I already have the investment secured for the new locations. This TV gig is just for show.”
“Uh, I’m pretty sure when you called me two weeks ago to tell me you’d be crashing here, you said it was part of your contract with Mark Cu—”
“I’ll get there. I’ll give them the pizza pitch. Feed ’em a slice or two and that’ll be it. I’m charming. It’ll be fine.”
Bee stepped forward and waved her arm in my general direction. “I don’t know that I would call this current version of you charming.”
Nolan turned to Bee. “You said that way nicer than I was going to, babe.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, babe.”
“Babethis,” I muttered. “Babethat.”
They both looked at me the same way my mom looks at one of the grandbabies when they’re crying for no reason.
“I’ve got to get to work,” Bee said. “Are you good to handle this?”
Nolan nodded. “I peeled this guy off the floor when he fell in love with our tour manager who had a husband and two kids at home.”
“Michelle was a crush. This was love,” I moan.
“Oh boy.” Bee sighed. “I really wish I could stick around for this.” She looked to Nolan. “Did you talk to Gary next door about checking on my tomato plants while we’re on set forDuke the Halls 2?”
Nolan smacked a hand to his forehead. “No, but I will.”
They shared a quick kiss and then he whispered something in her ear that made her growl like a deranged little kitten.
Once she walked down the hall, and he watched her go for a moment, he turned back to me and clapped his hands together like a mechanical monkey. “Okay, bud. It’s time to get out of this bed, take a shower, and get your ass to the studio. I took your Slice, Slice, Baby apron to the dry cleaners yesterday, so if we can just wash the feelings off of you, you might not look as depressed as you feel. Then when you get home, we can order a pizza from every good place in town and make a pizza flight. We’ll talk about your feelings and get you in with a therapist back home first thing in the morning.”
“I never said you could plan my life,” I told him as I dug myself out from the pile of decorative throw pillows that I’d used to shield my body from the world for the last two days. “But I am sorry for coming here and turning your guest bedroom into a black hole.”
“It’s cool, bro. That’s what your best friend’s guestroom is for. Plus it’s always sunny and seventy degrees here, and it’s been raining since you arrived, which feels ominous, but is sort of nice. I was starting to feel like I was living in one giant simulation.”
“I just wasn’t prepared for how much it would hurt to be near her, but so far away.”
Nolan clutched his heart. “God, that hurts. Why didn’t they ever let you take a stab at our lyrics?”
“That’s not really how boy band factories work.”
“You really got it bad for her?”
“She’s my person,” I told him. It had been ten weeks now since I’d left Christmas Notch, and I’d spent all of it falling asleep to her old movies and reaching for her every morning. “I love Winnie Baker. And I thought when I found my person, I’d just be overjoyed that they existed and that there actually was someone out there for me. But this fucking hurts, Nolan. I’m terrified that this is how our story ends and the only future out there for me is pizza and being a semi-okay uncle.”
And after one of our locations burned to the ground when Topher was in charge of the business, I wasn’t even sure I could say that. Thankfully Paul the delivery driver was alive and fine, despite hot-boxing his own car before dozing off in an old Dillard’s parking lot before he could make it over to the Lawrence location. When the cops found him he was high as hell, but alive.
“She won’t answer her phone,” I said. “And now it just goes to voicemail. I’ve tried getting to her through Steph, Teddy... hell, even Gretchen. But no one could help me.”
Nolan scrubbed a hand up and down his face. “I’m about to give you some shitty advice.”
“My favorite kind,” I told him.
“You’re here. In Los Angeles. Go get her. This is your moment. Profess your love. Do the big gesture. Get the flowers. Sing to her if you have to. But this is your shot, man. So go take a showerand become human. FilmShark Tankand then go get your lady.”
“Yeah?” I asked, feeling hopeful for the first time in months. “How do I even find her? Last I heard she was living with Addison Hayes, but that was back when she was talking to me.”
Nolan took my phone off the charging dock on the nightstand. He held my phone up to my face to unlock it and mumbled, “Not that I don’t know your passcode. It’s been the same since we were kids.”
“Not true.” I stood up and began to dig through my bag for beard oil and whatever other toiletries I’d thrown in during my depression brain fog.
