Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Over the months, we’d become close enough that I began to confide in him. Things I hadn’t told anyone else.
DrunkenPoet: Do you ever worry about letting your parents down?
It had taken a few minutes for him to respond.
IndexEcho: Not really. My parents passed away years ago.
I’d stared at the screen, stomach tumbling with regret and guilt at being so thoughtless.
DrunkenPoet: Index, I’m so fucking sorry.
IndexEcho: Me too. But please don’t be sorry you brought it up. Tell me what’s on your mind.
So, I had. I’d confessed about having incredible parents, about being spoiled with an embarrassment of riches. And still feeling smothered by expectations.
IndexEcho: You deserve a chance to be yourself without family pressure.
I’d started to respond that they didn’t pressure me, exactly. They loved me and wanted my happiness. But then I’d realized their assumption that I would take over the vineyard was pressure enough.
DrunkenPoet: I don’t want to disappoint them.
IndexEcho: Your family loves you. They’d want you to live your best life, no matter what that looks like.
IndexEcho: Not everyone wants to be a farmer, Poet. Surely your Mom and Dad know that.
We’d still been early enough in our online relationship for me not to correct him. I didn’t tell him it was a vineyard, not the kind of family agriculture business he probably expected. And I hadn’t told him it was two dads instead of a mom and dad. At that time, all I’d known about him was that he was a military contractor working on aviation firefighting equipment somewhere overseas. I hadn’t known whether he was phobic or not.
Later, once we’d kept talking and he’d casually referred to a bad date with the word “he,” I’d stared at the word in shock and excitement.
He. As in, the date had been a man.
DrunkenPoet: You’re gay?
IndexEcho: Bi. That a problem?
DrunkenPoet: No. Shit. Sorry. No. I’m gay.
He’d only sent back a GIF from the TV show Brooklyn 99 that said “Hot damn.” And the grin on my face had made my cheeks ache.
Our conversations had immediately turned flirty and personal, and over the course of the next few months, I’d fallen completely in love with a stranger online.
Unfortunately, he’d still had five months left on his work contract, which had meant putting off any plans or pressure to meet in real life too soon.
The promise of it had been there, though. A thin, vibrating string of hope and excitement that ran through all our interactions.
IndexEcho: Poet… the minute I’m stateside, I’m coming for you.
DrunkenPoet: Promise?
IndexEcho: Nothing will keep me from finding you. Nothing.
But three weeks before he was scheduled to fly back to the States, he’d failed to answer a simple question about whether he preferred barbecue chicken or pork. I’d been testing ideas for a new pizza recipe for my sister’s birthday dinner, and I’d tossed the question out while I’d been creating a shopping list.
After twelve hours, he still hadn’t responded.
DrunkenPoet: Index, you there? Get caught up on a long shift?
Nothing.
I’d scoured the news for any mention of incidents he could have been involved in. There’d been a mortar strike at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, a border clash in Syria, and a hotel shooting in Dakar, Senegal, all during the same forty-eight-hour period.
I’d tried so hard not to assume it was the air base strike because that one had resulted in seven deaths and two dozen injuries.
Later, I’d prayed for him to be one of the injuries.
After sending a long string of embarrassing messages, culminating in sobbing and begging that he just tell me to fuck off if need be, but to let me know he was alive, I’d finally given up.
Well, more like Mattie had forced me into therapy over it, and I’d agreed with my therapist’s suggestion to close my message board account in an effort at closure.
Closure hadn’t come. But I’d finally picked myself up off the pyre of self-pity and done what IndexEcho had encouraged me to do. I’d had a hard conversation with Blue and Tristan Marian.
IndexEcho had been right.
My fathers did love me. And they wanted me to live my best life, no matter what it looked like. Even if it looked like buying a crumbly old roadhouse in Montana and turning it into a gourmet pizza restaurant and wine bar.
“There he is.” Mali smiled brightly from the host stand when I pulled open the door to Timber. “Alex, there’s someone waiting for you at table twelve. Said it’s about something related to the vent hood?”
My stomach dropped, expecting it was Chief Kincaid again, here to complain. But when I walked over to the table in the corner, I saw an older woman in Carhartt overalls with short hair, a tablet, and a canvas tool bag.
“Vic Norman,” she said, offering me a firm handshake. “I’m here to fix your fucked-up nozzle.”