“I get it.”
“And we’re going to look at our schedules to figure out when I can come home for a quick visit or when you can come to me. Because, Jurnie, when you’re comfortable or when your schedule is open, I really want you to come on tour for a visit. See what we do. You’ve never even seen us play.”
“I know.” She nodded. “I’m horrified by that fact.”
“We are in Detroit next Saturday. Can you come? I’ll make sure you have a ticket.”
“I’m going to need two,” she told me right away. “I can buy them, but if I don’t take my sister, she’ll probably disown me.”
“Two it is and no. You won’t be paying for them because I want you close.”
“We’ve got to go,” Mack called out the window he’d just rolled down, making us both laugh.
“I’ll call or message you when we land,” I told her quietly.
“Please do.”
I still took the time to lean in and kiss my girl goodbye. This kiss was something I wanted her to be thinking about in bed tonight when I couldn’t be there with her. Spending these last two nights holding her had spoiled me. I was going to miss the fuck out of her.
In fact, I took so much time kissing her goodbye that Mack honked the horn, startling both of us.
“Asshole,” I muttered, but Jurnie was smiling.
“You have to go.”
“Yeah.” I ran a hand through my hair. “If you don’t want to have lunch with my parents, tell them you got a text from work and have to go. They won’t be mad.”
She shook her head. “I want to have lunch with them.”
“OK.”
She moved away from the car so that I could climb in. As soon as my door closed, Mack started giving me a hard time.
“You’re going on tour,” he said. “Not to war. Fuck.”
“I’ve said this a million times, Mack. Find a girl you love and you’ll understand.”
Daltrey’s head almost spun off his shoulders as he whipped around to look at me. “Love her? I know you fall in love faster than any of us, but seriously? You’ve known her like a week.”
Mack pulled out of our neighborhood and hit the gas.
“No,” I said. “I’ve known her a week and I probably shouldn’t love her, but I fucking do. Deal with it.”
“You gonna tell her that?” Mack glanced at me in the rearview.
“Probably not for a while.”
Not because I didn’t want to tell her or didn’t want her to know. What I didn’t want was to scare her off because I’d gotten attached to Jurnie faster than anyone I’d ever dated.
18
Jurnie
Regrettably, I went home after lunch with Bonham’s parents. They were such good people and made me feel completely at ease and then I had to return home to my own family. Lucky for me, my parents were super busy and I didn’t see them for a while. It happened that way sometimes. It’s not like I needed a babysitter. Plus they wouldn’t want to dive into anything like the changes I wanted in my life without having the time to talk it all out.
It’d been two days since Bonham had left to go on tour and for the first time, I did an Internet search for the shows they were doing, hoping someone had posted a picture of him on stage. I wanted to see him on stage so badly now.
We’d been talking as much as possible. Sending Snaps and anything else we could think of to stay in contact. It was hard, though. His schedule and mine didn’t always match up. But I wasn’t going to worry about that.
I had something else on my plate today.
Standing outside of my advisor’s office, I said a silent prayer that he’d have a solution for me. I needed something solid before I told my parents I wasn’t going to be an accountant. Especially now that they knew I’d had sex with a rock star. It wasn’t the conversation I’d wanted to have with them, but hey. They’d asked why I’d spent the night with someone whom they’d never met.
Finally, I knocked.
“Come in,” Diane Hotchkiss called out. I’d been working with her since freshman year, making sure I was staying on track. Everything was digital now, so I’d only met her in person maybe once a year, but for this, we needed the face time.
“Hi.” I shut the door behind me.
“Please, sit down,” she offered. “What brings you in? How is the internship going?”
“I love working at the radio station, but being there had taught me something.”
“What’s that?”
“I hate accounting.”
The smile slowly slid from her face. “What? You were so sure.”
“I really just don’t like it. I chose accounting because I thought it was the safe choice and numbers make sense to me, but it’s so boring that I can’t see myself doing it for the rest of my life.” I swallowed hard and willed my suddenly dry mouth to moisten up. “I’m thinking of changing my major.”
She blinked several times. “You’re about to start your last year.”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here. I don’t want to be an accountant. That’s what this internship taught me. Obviously, I’ll complete that, though. I want to talk to you about what it’s going to take to make it work and how much longer I’ll have to be in school.”
“We can do that.” She tapped away on her computer. “Do you have any thoughts on what you’d like to switch to?”
“Broadcast journalism,” I said so quickly, it was like the words tumbled out of my mouth. “I’ve been working at the station and sometimes they pull me on air and I love it. I want to do that.”
Diane nodded and took a deep breath. “Let’s work some magic.”
It took a lot of conversation and a lot of her looking at things to come up with an answer.
“OK.” She sat back in her chair. “There is
