“Oh, my God. Youarejealous!”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“That’s it, isn’t it? You think if I wasn’t seeing Shane, I’d go out with you.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’ve noticed the way you look at me. You can’t deny you’re interested.”
I appraised him out here in the sun that really set off his light eyes and smooth bronze skin. He maintained his soft brown hair in a way I didn’t mind at all. If I didn’t loathe him, I’d find him cute. “You’re attractive, I’ll give you that. But looks alone don’t cut it.”
He laughed. “When I perused your fan site, you seemed to ogle the looks plenty.”
His confession gave me a cramp. My forum was public, but his snooping still felt invasive.
“I don’t mind a pretty face, Gabe. But like I said, it’s not sufficient.” I tossed my trash. “And besides, it’s a moot point. Iamseeing a musician. Sorry.”
I turned and walked away before he could ensnare me in another dead-end conversation.
The first thing I did when I got back to my desk was to text Ash to say:I think we need to talk about transferring the site to you.
She took no time to respond:Why?
I didn’t want to get into all the myriad complexities, so I just said:I’m way too busy to keep up, and you’re doing all the work anyway. You could ask someone to help. Maybe give the blog duties over to Jayhawk?
On the one hand, it would feel weird to drop out and let her take over. On the other, it wasn’t like anyone knew me. For that matter, I could tell Ash to log in as me and pretend I was still in charge. But that wouldn’t solve my problem. My forum was starting to affect my real life, and I needed to make a break from it so people like Gabe wouldn’t have ammunition to undermine my professional credibility.
Ash wrote back:Let me think about it. I’ve never minded helping out, but I’m not you. I don’t know if I could run the whole site.
Fair enough. I could maybe build a team and distribute the load. But she was right. She wasn’t me. She couldn’t upgrade the software. She couldn’t skip around the admin center or create banners or add widgets to the blog. If something ever went seriously wrong, she wouldn’t know how to handle it.
Huge sigh. It wasn’t important enough to worry about.
I turned back to a section of code Ajit had asked me to review so he could explain it to me later. This was what I cared about. The forum would wait.
Monday night, in Shane’s empty apartment, I suddenly felt exhausted and alone. It made no sense. I’d seen him less than forty-eight hours before, and I was surrounded by proof of his existence. I poked around his things, trying to get to know him better, but his things weren’t him. I found a super soft Arctic Monkeys T-shirt with holes in it that looked like he’d owned it since high school. I put it on.
On Tuesday night, Eden called to invite me to come over to hang out at Jo’s for a while, saying, “I know you can start to freak out a little when they’re on the road.”
Freaking out. That was what I was feeling, not loneliness after all. Just a pent-up impatience and curiosity about where they were and what they were doing. I’d found fan video, but watching the band onstage wasn’t what I needed. I’d talked to Shane on video chat, and that helped, but I was a pinball of anxiety. I’d only feel settled when he came back.
As I sat on Jo’s patio sipping a beer, I explained, “It isn’t that I don’t trust him out there. It’s just—”
“Tour widow.”
“What?”
“You’re a tour widow. You’re living with a ghost while he’s away.”
“God, yes. That’s exactly it.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I hate it. But it’s the life you’re signing up for. Are you cut out for it?”
Her tone didn’t convey judgment. More like warning. I didn’t want her to worry. “Look. I’ve been alone plenty. I can do solitude. Everything’s just so new. And I miss him.”
Knowing he’d be home the next day only made it harder to fall asleep that night, but I finally drifted off. I woke to sheets lifting as a body slid in next to mine. A hand caressed my shoulder. Lips gently kissed my neck. I spun around.
“You’re home?”
“We decided not to spend the night when we were just a few hours away.”
