Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
I hope he doesn’t turn this way and realize belatedly that I’m out here. The only thing I wanted to eavesdrop on are a bunch of balls of gas light years away.
Then suddenly Ian and I are staring at each other.
“Hails,” he says with a wiggle of his phone. “I’ll be missing the little one’s birthday with the shows we added. She’s turning five.”
His daughter was born the night my album Hate Me went live. It’s a thing we used to laugh about—our greatest creations coming into the world at once. Now it seems sad and twisted up, that my music is what’s keeping him from his family. “I told you—” I start.
But he cuts me right off. “No. I’m sticking by you. This is all for them. They’ll see that when this is over with. I don’t give up. This is gonna pay off, it will, it must. To the top.”
After a second, I nod. “To … the top,” I return less heartily.
He leans against the wall next to me. The Italian restaurant is sandwiched between a car rental shop and a nail salon. The whole road and intersection is crowded with random businesses, just off the highway. Ian keeps telling us someday we’ll afford penthouses and suites and this and that. Guess that’s the thing about getting to the top; you’ve gotta climb through some rough valleys in the mountain. One hit five years ago helps, but isn’t enough to do it.
“Something’s up with you.”
I throw my eyes back to the sky. “Let’s not do this out here,” I nearly beg him. “Not when I’m with my stars.”
“I’m not coming at you. I’m reaching for your hand.”
“I’m not danglin’ from a cliff.”
“You kinda seem like it.” Ian peers at the side of my face. “I’m worried. I don’t want to worry, but … I also care about you. Forget those stars. I gotta make sure mine is still burning bright. And right now, you’re not burning bright. You’re like …”
“Like a falling star? Like a black hole? You really wanna keep up with this metaphor bullshit? Careful, you’re writin’ me lyrics.”
“Simile, not metaphor. Just tell me what’s up.”
I push away from the wall, boots scuffing along the gravel. It’s so quiet out here you can hear a cricket fart. “Reach way back with me, Ian, way, way back. Do you remember the Saltshaker?”
“Of course I remember that old-ass bar. We started there.”
“I mean really remember it. Me up on that tiny stage, just me, my guitar, and a fuckin’ stool. Do you remember the crowd? How huge it got? Packed wall-to-wall? The way they roared after every song? How I had the whole room gripped by the balls?”
The more I paint the picture, the more Ian’s eyes go further away, drawn back to that bar, to that time. “Yeah, I do.”
“The small Chase you were talkin’ about the other night. Old smoky bar Chase. My first days. You remember how alive I was?”
Ian shuts his eyes, realizing where I’m going. “Chase …”
“Didn’t seem so ‘small’ back then, did I? I felt huge in that bar. I knew my fans by name. I’d call them out and sing songs to them, right to them, right into their eyes. I was a snake charmer. Every soul in that room was dancing. Not like these big-ass auditoriums that turn me into an ant where I can’t even see past the third row. Ian,” I say before he has a chance to respond, his lips twitching. “I’m tryin’ to tell you I … I think I’ve lost something.”
He sighs, flipping through a whole rolodex of replies before he says, “Snakes shed their skins. Stars make sacrifices in order to grow, too. These big auditoriums will start to feel smaller, too. You will fill them not just with ticketholders, but with your next big hit. I don’t think you’ve lost a damned thing. You’re finding something new, Chase. You’re evolving, and it’s scaring the shit outta you.”
“Evolving? That’s what you call this?”
He comes into the parking lot and takes my hands. “Chase.”
“You about to propose to me? Shit’s gettin’ serious when you gotta hold my hands.”
“I’ve been with you since the start. I’ve watched you grow. I’m certain you haven’t lost anything. Your music is like … like fucking medicine for the soul, no matter the genre. And I know everyone in that Saltshaker was made better by hearing you. And the more people we touch with that music of yours—the more you touch—that sure ain’t a bad thing. Higher you get to the top, the more you see around you, y’know?”
And the farther the world gets, I want to add, but something just won’t let me. A look in his eyes. The call he just had with his wife. Another bit of his life he’s missing because of me—because of this.