Page 6 of Anything But Lonely

So I leave before I can prove myself right.

CHAPTER 4

MATEO

What the fuck just happened?

This is why I should really only ever open my mouth to sing.

I don’t flirt. I don’t do banter.

I don’t play into the hotshot rockstar reputation that precedes me.

That version of me works fine on stage—carefully manufactured chaos I started stepping into like a costume and taking off again when I’m done.

And people believed it.

They still believe it.

That’s the funniest part.

Because in reality, I’m a theatre kid who got his big break and has been mildly panicking about it ever since.

The only boy in the school choir who traded his all-black clothes and stupid studded belt for basically the same outfit, just in higher quality and better lighting.

Meanwhile I’m sitting here trying to remember what to do with my hands when I’m not holding a microphone.

On stage I can command a room. I can make the crowd scream my name. I can make it seem like confidence is pouring out of me.

Easy.

In this bar? With the way that woman was looking at me? It made me want to apologize for existing before asking to close my tab even though I haven’t ordered anything.

My head falls into my hands, and I’m thankful that the woman I just made a fool of myself in front of left when I still had some of my dignity intact.

And that no one I know was here to witness it.

“Matty?”

I look up from my hands to find my ex-wife staring at me with the biggest shit-eating grin on her face.

“Please tell me you just got here.”

“I could,” Talia says, stretching out the words as she sits down, “but I’d be lying.”

I let my head fall back down into my hands with a groan that probably has people turning and looking our way.

“It’s okay,” my ex-wife says as she pats my shoulder. “Maybe she was wondering all about your hat choices, and you saved her from having to ask.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” The words come out muffled from where my face rests in my palms.

It’s normal to be recognized when I’m out, especially when I’m in my hometown, and especially here. Lenny’s is one of the bars Cross My Heart played at when we were just starting out, and the coffee shop next door used to be our practice space before the owner knew what he was going to do with it.

But the recognition here is more like someone seeing an old friend—a huge difference from what my bandmates and I get when we go out in towns we’re touring in.

I could’ve explained that to the woman at the bar.

Or, I could’ve just asked her name. Maybe even bought her a drink.