Bar Crawl (12 page)

***

And that is the story of my bar crawl. One that spanned several months and landed me as the author of the Foreword to this book. Thank you, CJ, for allowing me to share my story. Your story. Our story. Yes, it may just be the beginning, but, beginnings are stories, too.

“Done,” I whispered as CJ looked over my shoulder.

It took a few months of artfully crafted hints, suggestions, and demanding, but I finally got CJ to agree to self-publish
Bar Crawl
. He said he would, on one condition: that I write the Foreword. I had warned him that my story was kind of the story of us, and that it wasn’t completed. He said he didn’t care. He needed my support, he’d said, in print and forever if he was going to come out of his well-hidden author closet.

CJ tilted his chin downward and kissed my temple. “It’s awesome. Thank you, again. I’m still scared shitless, you know.”

I turned in the desk chair of my small home office.
My library
, I called it. CJ stepped back and ran a hand over his face. It had been three months since we’d identified ourselves as officially in a relationship, but still, the nerves were there. There wasn’t any jealousy or distrust, but we still tread carefully, more protective over our own motives than those of the other person.

“I know,” I answered. “I’m scared, too.” Standing, I put my arms around his neck and kissed his warm skin.

“I meant about the book,” he half-moaned as my lips worked to what I knew to be the most sensitive spot on his neck.

I chuckled. “I know.”

I knew he was full of it, and he knew that I knew, but we didn’t need to talk about it. We had no use for belaboring all of the fears we each harbored. We just wanted to take care of each other and grow the best way we knew how.

“Oh!” I stepped back and put a hand on his chest. “Georgia’s
Food Network
special is going to be on in, like, ten minutes.”

I raced to the kitchen and quickly popped a pot of popcorn while CJ pulled two beers out of the fridge.

CJ radiated excitement as we moved to my couch and flipped on the TV. “She’s got to be shitting her pants right now. I’m so bummed we couldn’t watch this with her.”

“She’s lucky to have a friend like you, CJ.”

He shrugged, perpetually passive about his own virtues. “I’m lucky to have her.”

As he put his arm around my shoulder, I snuggled into the warm nook of his body. “Will she be in the area when you have your first book signing?” I’d arranged for my library to host a signing for CJ on the book’s release day. That also took loads of prodding to get him to agree to.

“I still can’t believe we’re talking about me here.” His eyes looked wide and nervous. A look they were unused to, since he always carried himself with such pride.

“Believe it, baby,” I teased. “From the buzz you’ve generated on social media already, I think this book is gonna be huge. I bet you never thought your
big break
would come from your writing.”

“Not in a million,” he admitted, squeezing me close and kissing me on the top of the head.

I’d lived inside books my entire life, making games out of guessing plots and dissecting motives and symbolism. Still, as I sat in my living room next to the biggest plot twist my life had ever written, for the first time I was okay with not knowing what the next page held.