Page 142 of Goodbye Note

“All yours, baby.”

His smile returned. Not the full one he gave me in private, but it was enough. “So I shouldn’t read into it?”

“It wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.”

“Is it always word games with you?”

“I told you, it’s not word games; it’s lyrics and poetry!” I wiggled my brows, earning me an eye roll.

“What, are you sitting with a damn dictionary on your tour bus?”

“Close. It’s a thesaurus.”

He rolled his eyes with a laugh. “Goddamn, I’d give anything to be back on a tour bus with you.”

“I don’t want a tour bus.”

“No?” he asked, brows pulling.

“No, I want a house or someplace private and real time.”

“You’re right, as per usual. I want that too.” He was quiet for a second, almost like he was listening to something far off. “It’s nice to actually get to talk to you.”

“Right? I feel like we’ve been missing each other since you left.”

“It would be nice to do better. Maybe we need to set times.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Like, schedule each other.”

“Do you think we could make that work?”

“Why not?”

“Think about how Kiernan will react when I tell him I can’t do anything between two and three because I have an hour blocked off for you.” I made a face.

He laughed. “Can you please do it while you’re on the phone with me so I can watch his head explode? If you loved me, you would.”

Joy expanded my ribcage, imagining it. “I missed laughing with you.”

“Same.” Varian groaned. “I should go try to sleep. We just got to our hotel.”

“Goodnight, my love.”

“Have a good show.”

We did not have a good show. Everything that could go wrong did.

We had a mic stop working, and the backup was dead. Someone hadn’t checked the batteries, and it was half a song before it was fixed. Our merch sold out and almost caused a riot, which no one was prepared to deal with. Our manager had never seen it happen, and neither had the label who did the estimates for each show based on some equation that ‘always worked.’

And when I was ready to just go to bed and be done with the day, my parents decided to fuck my shit up.

FORTY-TWO

VARIAN

i know you can’t forgive me for what i can’t change, but I can’t changE the fabric of how the universe is woven together.

i’d write another love letter, but it would go the way of all the Missed calls.

just another shot into the void between us

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