The next tour.Jeff’s heart sank. He felt like such an asshole. It wasn’t fair to string Max along like this. He needed help, nothandling.
The thing was, Jeff knew exactly what would happen if they broke the news that they wouldn’t be doing another album after this until Max got clean again. And that was a few hours of Max faking it very convincingly until he OD’d. So he said, “You got any destinations in mind?” and let Max spin his wheels. He wanted to see Bath and Stonehenge and Dublin and Edinburgh and Manchester—Max had specific taste in English football clubs—and half a dozen rock landmarks along the lines of Abbey Road.
“Were you a travel agent in another life?” Jeff asked somewhere around the bottom of his own third beer, and Max blew a raspberry.
Sothatpart of Calgary went okay. By the time Jeff got back up to his room, he knew Carter would be in bed, but he had an actual email waiting for him, so things weren’t all bad.
Hey,
Feels super weird to write you an email after fifteen years, but I know how you feel about voicemail and I’m not secure enough in my masculinity to send forty unanswered texts. So: email.
Everything’s fine here. Nothing burned down. Someone did replace my back door, which is a little bizarre. You wouldn’t know anything about that?
Charlie wants your autograph. Dave’s pretending he’s not butt-hurt that you’re her favorite Willow Sound famous person. Mom and I have a bet on whether he’s going to try to buy her a pony. Personally I think Charlie’s going to convince him to get her a dirt bike.
Katie started working at the garage, and she already has things sorted to where my services are no longer necessary. It’s weird having free time. The house is too quiet. I hate it.
In other news—well, “news”—the Gazette’s decided to try its hand at clickbait-style articles. Check out this one. I feel like Mrs. Bially would’ve had a thing or two to say if one of us ever turned in a newspaper article like that.
I’m back in the office starting tomorrow, still not allowed to drive, though. Bet I get a lot of requests for Howl songs at campfire night.
If someone asks for “Heavenly Bodies,” I’m out.
Carter
That made Jeff laugh. The idea of Carter having to sing that, knowing Jeff had written it about him—yeah, he could see how that would be a bit much. He hit Reply.
Thank you for not forcing me to check my voicemail. You’re the best.
I definitely do not know anything about your back door or its Energy Star efficiency rating or the fact that it is made of mostly recycled materials, and I certainly don’t know whether your previous back door ended up at Habitat for Humanity. Very mysterious. Maybe you have a secret admirer.
I’ll pick Charlie something up from the merch table and sign it for her. Gotta keep my #1 fan happy. Maybe I can find a Howl dirt bike. That’d really cheese Dave’s cheddar. Make up for that time he put my underwear in the freezer.
He paused there and clicked the link for theGazettearticle.
Hometown Heartthrob
By Zachary Schmidt
Anyone who’s lived in Willow Sound for any length of time has heard the name Jeff Pine. At thirty years old, Pine is one of the most recognizable musicians in North America, and he got his start right here. It’s no surprise the town has long held Pine as one of its favorite sons.
To the disappointment of many, though, the affection has been one-sided. Pine hasn’t returned to his hometown since he left at fifteen… until now.
Music media across the country have speculated on what kept him away, but here at theGazette, we’re more interested in what brought him back. And the answer to that question seems to be our very own hometown heartthrob, Carter Rhodes.
Whether the relationship lasts remains to be seen, but this reporter hopes we’ll see more of Pine in Willow Sound either way.
Suddenly he wasn’t smiling anymore. Why would someone write this? It didn’t seem right in a close-knit town like that. Jeff had felt more or less safe from tabloid-style exploitation there, and now…. His stomach turned. Reading such callous disregard for Carter made him sick and furious.
Idly, he wondered what it cost to buy a small-town newspaper these days. It couldn’t be much, surely. TheGazettewas a once-weekly paper, otherwise online only. It couldn’t have much circulation.
Buying a newspaper so you could fire someone because they were mean to your boyfriend was probably only likely to make people talk about Jeff in bigger papers, though. Maybe he could have a word with the editor instead. Or with Mrs. Bially. She’d tear a strip off someone for sure.
Remind me to cancel my subscription to theGazette, and tell your campers I’ll do “Heavenly Bodies” for them next time I’m in town.
J
Jeff went to bed in a decent mood, thinking of his inevitable reunion with Carter and fantasizing about a private getaway when neither of them had to work.