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Chase glances at me quickly—you know the look. Flashing, swift blinks before returning his gaze to the road in front of him, his eyebrows slightly drawn. “They didn’t give you the schedule?”
I laugh and tilt my head. “Shockingly, no. And I didn’t think to ask for it either, so I’m flying blind until you let me in on the details.”
He nods then and pauses…almost like he’s considering something and the best way to tell me. As a professional awkward exchanger, I don’t like the look one bit.
“What?” I ask. “What is it?”
“Well, the first stop is your hometown. Hometown, Ohio,” he clarifies with a laugh that says he knows I know the name of my own town and its irony, but humor seems like the only way to handle dropping this bomb without getting blown to bits.
“What?” I shriek, detonating the thing anyway. “Why would they do that?”
Chase shrugs. “I thought they’d okayed it with you and it was kind of like a comfort thing. To get your toes wet without too much pressure. June, the liaison I’ve been working closely with, even said they were going to contact your family about the Hometown tour stop.” He meets my eyes, and I can imagine they’re currently looking too big for their sockets. “Although, I’m sensing now there are lots of asses by assumption walking around Netflix headquarters at the moment.”
He glances at me several more times, frankly taking his focus off the road a little too much, while I try to gather myself.
The first stop on this tour is my old stomping grounds, and they’re planning on contacting my family to join the party? I’m starting to wonder if the people at Netflix even like me.
“Are you…okay? Is home really bad? Do I need to call someone and make them change it?”
“No, no,” I muster with a shake of my head. Obviously, I need to dial back the drama a little bit if Chase is ready to tell Netflix execs how to do their jobs on my behalf. In my experience, the leaders of large companies usually don’t like that. “Home is…fine. It’s not bad or anything—it’s just…small. Intimately knowing, you know? And I haven’t been back there in years.”
“I get that. I’m officially from Nashville, but I really lived in a town outside of the city, so I understand what small-town life is like. Everyone knowing your business and their business and Tom’s, Dick’s, and Harry’s business. But you’re a super-successful author now, and I’m sure they’re all proud of what you’ve accomplished. Towns wouldn’t make signs to say what celebrities came from them if they weren’t impressed.”
I snort. “I doubt Hometown has a sign out for me, but thanks for the pep talk. I’ll be okay. I just wasn’t expecting it, I guess.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, we won’t be there today. We’ve got a planned stop at a campground in Pennsylvania for the night before we get back on the road tomorrow. You won’t have to face anyone from your childhood for at least twenty-four hours.”
“Oh, great,” I manage while my mind spins over the fact that Chase and I are going to be alone for the next turn of the planet instead. No Netflix handlers, no readers, no fans—nobody but me and the guy I wrote a book about.
Ha. Ha. Shouldn’t be difficult at all.
Chase seems to notice my uneasiness, or I don’t know, maybe he just wants me to stop chatting while he’s trying to navigate this monstrosity on wheels down busy city highways. No matter the reason, I’m eternally thankful when he suggests, “Why don’t you go back in the bedroom and take a nap? I’ll get us on our way, and you can just relax.”
Still, I don’t want to be a Selfish Sandy, so I double-check just to make sure. “You don’t mind? I don’t want to leave all the hard stuff to you. I can’t drive, but I can pull some other kind of weight.”
“You and Benji go rest. We’ll regroup when we get to the campground in a few hours.”
I nod. That sounds like the best plan for everyone. I can stop embarrassing myself, and he can take a break from consoling me.
The Brooke Baker Motor Home Tour is a full-time job.
“Thanks, Chase.”
“Rest easy, Brooke.”
Oh, if only it were that simple.
Brooke
I close the bathroom door behind myself and settle onto the toilet to unleash the kind of pee that shouldn’t be possible. You know the one. A wild spring, a pressure-washer, and a raging river combine their forces for world domination of toilet bowls and convene in a half-hour event of relief.
We’ve been on the road for an undisclosed amount of time—my nap made keeping track of the hours and minutes hazy—but I could tell by the urgency in my bladder as I came out of the bedroom and then overhearing Chase checking in with the front gate of the Pennsylvania campground, that it’s been quite a while.
