Page 6 of The Prodigal Son

As she pulls up to my house, we make eye contact momentarily before completely losing our shit. Lola and I scream in unison as we dance around in our confined spaces.

We’ve done this no less than a hundred times over the past couple of months. And who could blame us? Our last tour nearly wiped us out financially, and that was after skipping hotels to sleep in a tiny, pre-owned camper van packed to the brim with our instruments and gear while the rest of the band followed behind us in Rio’s old VW hatchback.

Now, we’re traveling like real stars. Like we’ve made it. Surely, every country star has these little freak-out moments before their first major tour.

“Aaaaah,” Lola cheers excitedly. “You fucking did it, Isaac. This is really happening.”

“We fucking did it,” I correct her.

“Sure, but you just wrote the songs, built your following, and performed in front of them every night.”

“Stop, stop, stop…” I say as I playfully shove her shoulder. “Okay, keep going.”

We laugh together for a while before I reach over the console and place a kiss on her cheek.

“Thanks again for picking me up. You are my savior, my queen, my goddess, and I love you.”

“Love you, too,” she replies as I open the door to climb out. Before I shut the door, she calls out, “Get some rest, Theo! We have a big day tomorrow!”

“Aaaahhh,” I say quietly with a big grin on my face.

With that, I shut the door and walk up to my apartment. After I signed with the Austin-based label, they offered to put me up in my own place. They want me to be able to focus on songwriting, but really, I know it’s just one more way they can own me, which is fine. They can own me if they keep paying me.

In the shower, I stand under the hot stream of water for long enough to make my skin wrinkle and turn red. Sometimes it feels like the shower is the only place I can focus and think clearly.

I relive moments from last night at the bar and with the handsome stranger. I conjure up feelings and turn them into words. Those words turn into lyric pieces I may never use, cataloged in my mind where I know they’re safe.

Blue jeans wrapped around my waist

That tequila trance on the dance floor

A one-night understanding

Shutting the water off, I grab a towel from the hook by the shower and wrap it around my waist before stepping out onto the mat. A man with dark hair and dark circles under his eyes stares back in the bathroom mirror.

Sometimes, I find myself wishing those lyrics could mean something more. More than drunk nights and meaningless hookups. More than moments, more like forevers. Real feelings.

Am I even capable of that?

Why does it feel like all I’m meant for is hookups? Every time a guy tries to get close, I push him away or sabotage the relationship. The moment anyone tries baring their soul to me, I immediately stop taking him seriously. I crack jokes. I find a flaw, and I fixate on it.

I have erected some chastity belt around my own fucking heart, and most days, I don’t care. I like it this way. I joke that I’ll be a slut until the day I die, but then I have sobering moments like this when I look in the mirror and hear the man staring back say, “You’ll be alone forever.”

I talk a big game, but even I don’t want that.

After getting dressed in a pair of joggers and a Nirvana T-shirt, I head down to the spare bedroom turned gym on the main floor. It was their not-so-subtle way of telling me to build some muscle. No one likes a scrawny country star.

But I have the attention span of a squirrel, so I scroll social media while doing leg extensions on the big machine with pulleys and weights.

My workouts are never more than half-assed.

While setting down the weights to do some shoulder presses, I get a text from Luke. It’s a picture of his eleven-month-old baby, Henry. He’s sleeping in his arms with his chubby fist perched under his chin, but one tiny finger is sticking out, so it looks like he’s flipping me off.

I laugh as I type out my response:

Your baby has an attitude problem.

Staring at the photo for a minute, I put off my shoulder workout. Henry has a tuft of copper hair on his head and the cutest damn nose.

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