“Your twenty commenters.”
“Mmhmm.”
“When you usually have hundreds, Tobias. Sometimes over a thousand.”
“What can I tell you?” I sighed again. Sighing was a super-underutilized way of coping with stress. Much like Peanut Butter Party. “Quality’s more important than quantity, darling.”
Jeanette made a noise halfway between a growl and the whistle of a teakettle. “Not. To. Our. Advertisers,” she bit out. “But alright, fine, let’s talk quality. This response is perfectly unoffensive, but it’s trite. ‘When you love hard, you’ll fight harder’? Seriously? I’m almost positive I read that inside a chocolate wrapper. People expect more of Hagatha.”
This was extremely annoying because “When you love hard, you’ll fight harder, even when it seems hopeless” was something Littlejohn had said a few days back on one of our nightly Jeopardy! calls, and I’d actually found it kind of chest-squeezingly profound in the moment… though, come to think of it, he had been gobbling chocolate while we’d chatted, goddamn it.
Next thing you knew, I’d be getting teary-eyed over Hallmark cards. Where would this emotional bullshittery end?
“Been thinkin’ Veronica Hampton might just be the lady for me, Trey,” Littlejohn had said. “She rollerblades like a dream, she’s fair at trivia, and she agreed to be the sexy Scully to my badass Mulder come Halloween. I’m a simple man. I don’t need much more.”
“That’s enough for anyone,” I’d agreed. “Have you made her SpaghettiO Surprise?”
“Mmm… not’chet,” he’d hedged around a mouthful of candy. “I was savin’ that for something special.”
“Nah. If you think she’s the one, you can’t hedge your bets, trust me.” I’d brandished my ice cream spoon and spoken with way too much confidence for a man who’d sunk his own relationship like an inflatable dinghy. “If she likes it, you’ll know the tea. Our fears make us our own worst enemies.”
“True enough, and when you love hard, you’ll fight harder, even when it seems hopeless. Which makes a body wonder… why the heck ain’t you back on the Key yet?”
I hadn’t had an answer.
Littlejohn had assured me multiple times over the past few days that no one hated me—that, in fact, no one on Whispering Key outside LJ, Mason, Fenn, and the three Goodman brothers even knew I’d been involved in the Jayd scandal, and Maddie McKetcham thought it was absofreaking adorbs that I was somehow, impossibly, both Mason’s college roommate Toby and Beale’s summer camp lover Trey. LJ had even explained my abrupt departure, saying I’d had an emergency back in the city.
But how in the world was I meant to go back and “fight harder” when I wasn’t sure there was anything to fight for anymore?
Mason had called a bunch and texted several times, telling me he loved me and apologizing again for being harsh. I’d texted him back to say I got it, because I did, and that I wasn’t upset, because I wasn’t. Not at him. Not at Beale. Not at anyone except myself.
Even if no one else on the island hated me, Beale had to hate me, right? I’d made him feel foolish when I knew that was the thing he hated most in the world. I’d held on to my secrets when I knew how much he valued trust.
I would hate me. Hell, I did hate me.
I’d had something really good at the edge of my fingertips, something that was maybe almost—oh, who was I kidding? Something that was totally—love, and I hadn’t been careful with it. Beale deserved so much better.
And as if that weren’t enough to keep me from ever dragging my dumpster fire of drama back to the Key, there was still the issue of the paparazzi. I’d sort of expected them to be camped out on my doorstep when I got back to the city, but they hadn’t caught up to me yet. There’d been a moment earlier in the week when I’d thought maybe the world had moved on, but then Jayd had been caught with some other guy—in freakin’ Colorado, of all random places—and suddenly my ridiculous tattoo was all over the news again. Where’s Waldo? Right freakin’ here.
I was going to get the damn thing covered—which was what I should have done in the first place, if I hadn’t panicked. Maybe I could find a tattoo artist who’d turn Waldo and his hat into a mountain. Or a replica of the Washington Monument. Or an enormous, erect phallus. Something meaningful like that.
Anyway, I’d tried contacting Jayd’s management team to get in touch with him, but they had no idea where he was either, and apparently I wasn’t the only one he was avoiding. In short, it was becoming pretty clear that Jayd didn’t have a plan for coming out; he simply didn’t plan to come out at all… which meant my life wasn’t going to be any less dicey anytime soon.
“Tobias, I know you’re still there.” Jeanette’s voice was an uninvited guest crashing my truly epic pity party. “I can hear you breathing. So listen up. I don’t know what happened down in Florida, but it seems like you packed Aunt Hagatha in your checked luggage and the airline lost her. I need you to find her again. The column is not called Toby’s Mediocre Musings.”
I clenched my free hand into a fist and sat up straight, letting anger burn off some of my self-pity. It was funny how everyone in the world wanted something from me—a laugh, a fuck, a shoulder to cry on—but no one wanted all the shitty parts that came along with cute, fun Toby.
Except Beale. And look what I’d done with that.
“And if your plan,” Jeanette continued mercilessly, “is to tank the column so I’ll let you out of your contract, think again. I’m willing to give you lots of latitude, Tobias, and I’m even willing to renegotiate certain terms, including your salary, but I’m not letting you run away. To put it in chocolate wrapper language, I love the Hagatha column hard, and I’ll fight harder.” She snort-laughed at her own joke. “So pull your head out of your ass, understand?”
I opened my mouth to tell her where she could shove her understanding when my phone beeped. I’d like to say my heart didn’t give a crazy leap when I saw it was a Florida number, but that would be an utter lie.
“Jeanette, I’ll call you back,” I said, not giving her time to respond before I hit End and Accept. “Hello?”
“Heya, Trey! It’s Jonquil. Jonquil Pepper. Littlejohn gave me your number.”
“Oh. Hey…a.” I tried not to let my disappointment show and braced myself, expecting… I wasn’t sure what. A reprimand? A string of curse words?
“Honey, it’s so good to hear you! We miss you.”
Okay, definitely not that. “You… do?”
“’Course! Listen, I’m calling about the flyers for the bridge fundraiser. We got the rendering back from the architect Big Rafe hired, but I’m not sure where I’m meant to send it? I’m thinking we need to get this started this week, what with everything happening, but you’re in charge, so I guess maybe I’ll just send it to you and let you forward it on?” she asked hopefully.
“Oh. Sure.” I swallowed. “I… I missed you, too,” I rushed out belatedly, then rolled my eyes at myself.