Page 102 of Maybe We Can Find It

“Mason, bud, please,” Connor says, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder when he reaches us. “You’ve got to stop running off as soon as I turn around. People are going to think I’m a terrible father.”

He looks exhausted, despite the fact that, as a farmer, I assume he’s more than used to getting up at this time and even earlier. But I imagine he’s still adjusting to the single parent thing, even though it’s been a quite a while now since his ex-wife left. It can’t be easy running a whole farm and raising a clearly energetic kid, no matter how much time you have to get used to it.

“I wanted to say hi to Mr. Andy!” Mason defends himself. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Connor tells him. “But please wait for me to go with you next time.” Glancing at my brother now, he gives Andrew a curt nod. “Hello.”

“Yeah, uh, hi,” Andrew stutters out.

Connor clears his throat and starts swiveling his head around like he’s looking for an escape. “Right, yeah. So we should go find a spot to set up. Good to see you.”

“Right. You too,” Andrew says. And then he sort of trips over his own feet as he goes to sit down on his mat.

Ignoring Andrew’s clumsiness, Connor nudges Mason to get him to start walking. Mason gives us a friendly goodbye as his dad directs him away.

I turn to look at Andrew, who’s now sitting down next to me. “Okay, what was that? Are you mad at him or something?”

He shakes his head, looking alarmed. “No! I mean, we’re not—we’re not like friends or anything. But no.”

“So why were you weird?”

“I wasn’t weird.” He shakes his head again. “That wasn’t weird.”

“You’re still being weird.”

“No, I’m not!” he hisses at me.

I want to keep pushing him, because he definitely is being weird. I didn’t think he and Connor were particularly close, but Andrew’s normally really nice to everyone. And he wasn’t exactly being rude to Connor. But he was being something.

Before I can say anything else, though, the yoga instructor greets everyone from her place in front of the gazebo and lets us know we’re about to begin. I stop thinking about what was up with my brother, because I have to focus on holding the poses as the instructor leads us through the class. This class is supposed to be family friendly, but the stupid warrior pose still makes my thighs ache.

The thing with Andrew and Connor has almost entirely slipped my mind, until I glance over at Andrew to check if I’m doing a pose correctly and catch him staring off to the side, rather than at the instructor in the front. I follow his line of sight, and—Oh. Is he staring at Connor’s ass?

I mean, I can’t blame him if he is. It’s a great ass. In high school, I spent plenty of time staring at Connor, and he’s gotten even broader and more muscular since then.

But when Andrew fumbles in transitioning from one pose to the next, it’s obvious that Connor has truly distracted him. Which is surprising for Andrew. Maybe he’s really into him?

As far as I know, Connor is straight, so I hope my brother isn’t harboring a painful, impossible crush on the guy.

Been there, done that. Wrote the songs about it.

When the class ends, I’m eager to get over to Reed’s. Partly because I’m hungry, but mostly to see Addison. As Andrew and I are turning to head across the street, Mason comes running toward us again, so we stop and wait for him. This time Connor remains a short distance away whileMason says goodbye to Andrew. I notice he’s avoiding looking over at us, though. He’s staring down and scuffing his shoes into the grass, which seems odd.

I want to ask Andrew again about Connor, but it’ll have to wait until we have more time to talk alone. Addison’s already at the diner when we walk in. She’s sitting next to Brenden at the counter, chatting with him and Travis. As soon as she sees us, she gets up and comes over to greet me with a kiss. It’s brief and totally innocent, but my whole body lights up in response.

Being able to kiss her in public is still new to me. After I posted a video to social media of myself singing “Light as a Feather,” one of the songs I wrote for Addison, I stopped worrying about getting caught with her. I thought about posting “Sweet Like Peaches,” but I chose the song that used female pronouns repeatedly, because I wanted to be sure the message was clear.

Plus, I’m saving “Sweet Like Peaches” for when I record my new album. I think it’ll make a great lead single.

I took Addison’s advice and reached out to Skyler, which turned out to be wonderful. Even though he and I haven’t spoken in years, he was still so kind to me. And he put me in touch with his husband Trevor, who happens to be starting his own record label. Trevor loved the song demos I sent him, and he offered to sign me once he gets everything off the ground.

It feels good knowing I have other industry people in my corner. People who want to support me and help me take my music career in a new direction. I can trust that Trevor won’t ever expect me to hide who I am or try to be someone I’m not, because he and Skyler had to deal with that shit for years from their own label and management.

I was nervous about how my fans would respond to the song I shared, since it was essentially my coming out. But now that I’ve done it, I feel free. There were definitely plenty of negative responses, but I can dealwith that. I’ve had haters since the start of my career. That comes with the fame.

The public response as a whole, though, has been overwhelmingly positive. It seems like the song reached a lot of people who weren’t fans of my music before, and that’s really exciting.

But the most exciting thing for me is getting to be with the woman sitting down beside me at the table right now. The woman who helped me discover the parts of myself I didn’t know were missing, and who helped me forge a new path for myself. One where I can continue sharing my music with the world but not make music my entire life.

Now I get to start my mornings wrapped up in bed with the person I love, and I get to end my nights with sex that makes my toes curl. And I get to have all the beautiful moments in between.

While Addison asks me and Andrew about yoga, she casually slides her hand onto my thigh like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like this is something we’ve been doing our whole lives. Like it’s something we’ll keep doing forever.

It may have taken me a long road and many breakup songs to find her. But now that I have, I don’t intend on letting her go. Finders keepers, right?