Page 8 of Independence Bae

“It’s an amazing contract, Raven. For you professionally, I don’t think you could get something better if it you had submitted a request to a fairy godmother. You get to write your own rules. The contract states the two of you have total creative license to do exactly what you want. It’s what you’ve been telling me is the perfect scenario. The once in a lifetime, reach for the stars kind of shit. Ivy just handed you a box, wrapped and adorned with some diamonds for extra luck.”

“It’s pretty sweet isn’t it?”

“Aha! I knew it was there!” Penn caressed my face, looking straight into my eyes.

“What?”

“The look. The excited passion that lights you from the inside whenever you talk about what would happen if this exact scenario fell into your lap.”

Lots of zeroes aside, it was what Bear and I always dreamed about. A show where we could just be who we are—Bear and Raven, King and Queen of Rock. We’d have a healthy budget to book guests, attend or sponsor music festivals, have fantastic trip giveaways. And, we have the final say on where we broadcast from.

“What happens if the show has to move?”

“Well, since we already don’t live in the same city—”

“Yeah but a four hour train ride or a five and a half hour car ride is different than a transcontinental flight.”

Despite my racing pulse, cradled against Penn’s chest, hearing his steady heartbeat, smelling the subtle hint of his aftershave—it was exactly where I needed to be.

“Tillie Raven, if it meant you grabbing hold of your dream—I’d follow you anywhere.”

“Penn—your hotel is in Pennsylvania.”

“That one is, yes. But do you think it’s the only hotel property I’m managing? It’s just the one that needed the most hands-on attention. But you’ve seen it lately, the old girl is thriving. This might be the perfect opportunity to step away and see how well Kyle can handle the reins he so desperately wants to take hold of.”

“And, what if he royally fucks it up?”

“Then I’m an hour and a half flight back to go and see him in person. Raven, I love you. Part of loving someone is enthusiastically cheering for them in reaching for their dreams. This is your dream, is it not?”

I could only nod. Penn was genuine and the best hype man. That he couldn’t wait to cheer for me from the sidelines shocked me into silence. Shocked not by his actions, but by the realization that I’d been walking alone for so long that walking alongside someone who wanted the same things I did felt totally foreign. But I had it, in him.

Maybe he was right and all of the stars were aligning and the dream Bear and I had pined over for years, was just within our grasp. There was a nagging in my gut that Marley had been right after all. Despite knowing I had Penn’s support always, I couldn’t help but worry that this contract truly was the beginning of the end.

Chapter Seven

Fuck yes.The granter of wishes had pulled our ticket and is delivering us out of purgatory. National syndication. Raven and I had dreamed about national syndication for years. It was the apple at the top of the tree that kept us motivated and reaching every day since we’d arrived in North Pole. And here it was.

“Can you believe this?”

Marley melted into my embrace as soon as I pulled her into my chest. Her Christmas cookie scent wrapped around me highlighting how fantastic my life was right now. Next month, we’d be married, soon—hopefully—assuming Raven was equally as excited as I was—we’d have a show broadcast across the country. One where we wrote the rules. Marley looked up at me, those big blue eyes broadcasting a myriad of emotions—none of which seemed to be excitement.

“Hey—talk to me, love. What’s wrong?”

While in reality it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, the longer I watched her face, the faster it morphed from pretending to be excited to almost shockingly sad.

“I don’t want to leave North Pole.” Huge droplets leaked from her eyes, slipping down her cheeks and falling off her chin.

“Hey,” I kissed her tear moistened lips, before pulling her in close. “No one’s leaving North Pole.”

“Come on Ted!” she yanked herself out of my arms and stomped across the room to the bed, flopping onto it and wrapping her arms around a pillow, “Not leaving yet, sure. But if you sign that contract, don’t you think they’ll want you close by?”

“Honestly I hadn’t even thought about it.”

Now that she mentioned it, in seeing the contract I’d assumed that we would continue with the Bear and Raven Show broadcasting out of WNPL and they would just grab our audio files and then push them out across the country. Thinking about it outside of the initial pleasant surprise of receiving the offer—it was glaringly obvious that couldn’t happen. We would be employees of Hursch if we accepted this contract not WNPL.

“Well think about it, Ted. North Pole is my home. It’s the only place I’ve ever known.”

It was at that moment that it hit me. The Bear and Raven show wasn’t just Bear and Raven anymore. Our perfect pair had grown. A foursome of people who each had goals, dreams, and fears. Two new people whose personal and career trajectories mattered as well. This was new terrain we had to navigate without a map. The question of course was whose dreams took precedence?

---