Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardley
CHAPTER 39
Tobin just wanted to be alone with Lily for a few minutes before going back in and having fun with their friends. He had every intention of bringing her back to his house, if all went well, and then they’d enjoy each other . . . hopefully with the understanding that it was the beginning of their relationship. He wanted that more than he wanted anything, he realized. He was also more nervous than he could remember being in a long time.
He tugged her over to the abandoned Bowl, where the group of them had lunch so long ago. The moon was full, leeching color out of everything, making it all seem like a strange bluish-black-and-white movie. He smiled at her, nudging her. “I’m glad to see you,” he said. “Missed you.”
“I wasn’t gone that long.” She looked at him coyly from under her eyelashes, which were beautiful and long, as usual. She looked stunning, which he thought would always be true—even if she were a hundred, wearing a holey tracksuit and Godzilla slippers, he figured she’d look stunning, at least to him. But she was also smiling, and she just looked happy.
He loved to see her happy.
He loved her.
And telling her scared the crap out of him, because it seemed so damned soon.
“I don’t think I’ve been down here in years,” she noted, wrinkling her nose. “I can still see us all here, you know? Like nothing’s changed, and we had everything in front of us.”
“Well, I’d like to think we still have plenty of time,” Tobin joked. He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her temple, then her cheek, then her lips. “We’re only twenty-eight.”
She smiled. “Yes, but we’ve just come so far in ten years, you know?” She grimaced slightly. “Not that everyone wants to acknowledge that, apparently,” she muttered.
He thought about his parents, and how they downplayed what he’d done in the past ten years. “Yeah,” he agreed on a sigh. “But hey, what they think ultimately doesn’t matter, right?”
She shrugged, then pressed a kiss against his lips . . . one that lingered sweetly, one that went on long enough for his body to go tense and taut against her, his heart rate bumping up. “Please tell me you’re going home with me tonight,” he breathed when they pulled apart.
She laughed. “I was counting on it.”
He nuzzled her nose. “Speaking of the past, and the future,” he said awkwardly, wondering how to word it, “I was thinking about us. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, actually.”
“Me too,” she said in a low voice, rubbing her cheek against his chest. He wondered if she could hear his heart racing like a freaking castanet beneath her ear, showing how damned nervous he was.
“Hopefully we’re on the same page,” he said, laughing nervously. “Listen, I know we haven’t been in each other’s lives again for a while, and I know we’ve changed. I also know that in the past month or so that we’ve spent together, I have enjoyed spending time with you.”
That sounded so tepid, he berated himself. Was he completely screwing this up?
“I know that I wanted to strangle you a lot when we were younger,” she said, shaking her head, “but I figured out that a lot of that was just tension—and honestly, a lot of it was posturing. We were enemies, but we had fun with it. Then I got to know you, and I can’t remember ever having as much fun as I have with you.”
It felt like he’d swallowed the sun. Heat just expanded through him, warming him to his fingertips and toes. “I guess I’m saying I want to date you,” he burst out, his voice breathless. Then he closed his eyes.
Awkward!
When he cautiously opened an eye, he saw her smiling at him, her lips curving in a bright, happy grin. “I guess I’d like to date you too,” she teased, squeezing him.
He felt the tension that had plagued him for months—maybe longer—slowly unravel. It was like he didn’t realize how unhappy he’d been, what a rut he’d driven himself into, until he found someone and something that made him happy. And a relationship with Lily made him almost giddy, which was admittedly a weird thing for a guy in his twenties, but fuck it. He was taking it.
He kissed her again—because he could, which in and of itself was amazing—and then smiled at her. “How do you feel about Australia?” he asked, cuddling her.
“It’s . . . big? There are a lot of things that could kill you there? I hear it’s beautiful?” She chuckled. “And you say I break out non sequiturs.”
“It’s not a non sequitur,” he protested, “although I could’ve transitioned better. It’s just . . . I’m going to be making a few changes, and I’d love it if you could be on board,” he said carefully.
She tilted her head, her eyes widening slightly. “Changes?”
He released her with one arm and rubbed the back of his neck. He probably should’ve thought this through better, but here he was—and as with most good things in his life, he was just leaping in. “I’m going to go travel, maybe a month or two. I was thinking of hitting Australia, maybe New Zealand. And I thought, there is no one I’d love to visit them with more than you.”
She was quiet, staring at him.
“It’s a lot, I know,” he quickly said, trying to fill the void of silence with his nervous chatter. “And I know we’re just starting to date, and stuff. But it could be great. I know you like traveling—you used to go to Taiwan all the time, and you went to Europe, I think?—and I thought it’d be fun if we did it together, you know?”
She looked pensive. “So . . . you’re planning on filming content there, I guess?” She bit her lip. “I mean, I’m sure I could come up with some things for content, and if we have enough time to plan, maybe get some cross collabs . . . actually, that could expand our international viewers.”
He pulled away for a second. “I wasn’t actually planning on filming anything. This would be a vacation.”
Her mouth dropped open. “A vacation?” she echoed. “For a month?”
“Maybe longer,” he said, and seeing her look of shock was like taking all the relief he’d felt and suddenly cramming it back into a tiny box as his whole body got squeezed in a vise. “Lils, I desperately need a break. I’ve been getting more and more burned out. I can’t come up with new content. I’m kind of hating what I do. And I don’t think it means I need to abandon it entirely, and I’m not looking for a new career. I just need a breather. Sabbatical. Just . . . a break.”
“But you’re at the top of your game!” she said, and he laughed mirthlessly.
“No pun intended, I suppose.”
“You have nearly ten million subscribers now. Your social stats are huge,” she pointed out. “I heard your agents. They have stuff—voice-over stuff, that live tour. There are so many opportunities for you right now!” She looked scandalized. “You realize that if you decide to just bum around Australia or whatever for a few months, all that would go away, right? When were you even planning on going?”
He felt his shoulder blades pinch together. He couldn’t help but notice that she kept saying “you”—no mention of herself in this plan at all. “I was planning on leaving as soon as I could, honestly,” he said. “But I could wait, if you’re willing to go with me. But I’m still not going to film anything, and I’m not collabing or doing any live events or anything. That’s not what this is about. I need a mental health break.”
She looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “But . . . you know how this business is.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, and he couldn’t help the note of bitterness that crept into it. “My agent Jeffrey’s pointed out that it’s like being a shark: if you don’t keep swimming forward, you die.”
“He’s not wrong,” she protested. “You’ll lose viewers when you don’t have consistent content. You’re going to get replaced. You can’t want that.”
“What if I do? What if I don’t give a damn?” he found himself spitting out, then winced. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I value each and every one of my viewers. But if it means my sanity—if they don’t give a shit about my well-being, what the hell am I killing myself for, doing something I hate for people who will just push me for more?”
“It takes hard work!” she argued. “It takes effort, and time, and dedication. Sometimes it just takes pure brute force.”
“Apparently I don’t have that endless well of brute force, then,” Tobin shot back. It felt like a tiny ball of ice had formed in his stomach. “I don’t have to ask if you’d go with me, because it’s obvious that you wouldn’t. And it seems like you’re judging me pretty hard for not doing what you’d do.”
“I just . . .” She sighed. “I think we should think this through, talk about it.”
“I’ve already thought it through,” he said. “And I’ve made my decision. I already told my agents that I turned down the show and the live tour. I’m taking the break, ill advised or not.”
She looked wild eyed. “Jesus, Tobin, this is crazy.”
It was the final straw. “No. You know what’s crazy?” he asked and let out that bitter, humorless laugh again. “Thinking that we were going to work.”
“That’s not fair,” she snapped. “Just because I think that you’re not living up to your potential, that you’re going to turn your back on people who have made your career, that you’re basically self-sabotaging, doesn’t mean—”
“It means you don’t believe in me,” he said, and it felt like his heart was being shredded. “It means you don’t give a shit about my mental health either. And it means this conversation is over.”
He pulled away, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
“See you around, Lily,” he said, then abruptly turned and headed toward the parking lot.