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Jesus. Roe and I weren’t fucking celebrities. Possibly in LA and… I mean, we had our bubble online. Fame looked different these days. I’d grown up with the view of celebrities like A-list actors and those big names you saw on the red carpets, and that just wasn’t how it worked anymore. In part, anyway. You could be a celebrity in a remote corner of the internet, make bank, sign autographs—all that—but out in the real world, so to speak, nobody had heard of you.
To appear on a big network like that seemed awfully official.
“Do you think this is exposure that would benefit us?” I asked hesitantly. Because in the end, that was my reason for saying yes to these hooplas. We’d done some minor shit before, which had garnered more attention and, most importantly, more connections. And connections led to more work. More opportunities.
“A whole lot, actually.” He nodded.
I waved a hand in there you go. No use in turning it into a thing. My dislike for certain types of attention and being in the spotlight couldn’t stand in the way of what I actually loved doing, and being out there, being visible, was what allowed us to keep going. Keep growing. A necessary evil.
Roe counted down on his fingers from three, two… “Good morning, you’re Off Topic with Roe Finlay and Jake Denver. I’m Roe, and Jake is sweaty as fuck from a morning of gardening, so he’s happy to give you the weather report.”
I snorted a chuckle and reached for my mug. “Sure thing. It’s sunny and hot in LA, and it probably won’t rain. Back to you, Roe.”
“See? Who needs a proper weatherman when you have us?” Roe said. “Does LA even need a weather forecast? It’s one season all year-round—unlike in New York, where we have at least fourteen.”
I shook my head in amusement and took a sip of my coffee.
“And if any of you out there bring up June Gloom in the comments, I’mma get real heated.” Roe really cranked up the Brooklyn guy on that one. “In other news, we have some questions from listeners and viewers. You wanna take the first one, Jake?”
“Hit me with it.” I’d lost my dislike for this part long ago. Because Haley vetted all the questions.
“I guess this is because we mention Jake’s gardening hobby quite a bit this time of year,” Roe went on, reading from the laptop. “Macy from Tallahassee wants to know where you got the passion from and—let’s see, your favorite plant to grow and your least favorite.”
I was gonna have to tell Grandma to listen to this episode once we aired it. She loved this topic.
“It’s all my grandparents on my dad’s side,” I answered. “Growin’ up, we’d drive down to their place in Florida every summer, and I would help them in the garden. Roses were a favorite back then, and I still have a soft spot for hybrid tea roses. But these days, I think I prefer to grow things I can eat when Roe screws up dinner.”
“Hey!” Roe straightened up and got defensive. “Who turned rice into pudding last week, huh? Sure as hell wasn’t me.”
“That’s neither here nor there,” I answered smoothly. “Thanks to my growing tomatoes in the backyard, we had something else to throw on the grill with the steaks, and you fuckin’ loved it.”
“Whatever—I actually know the answer to your least favorite thing to grow, because you’re always bitching about it.” He was good at steering us back to the topic, despite the title of the show. “Lemme tell you, everyone. The day Jake discovered that one of our neighbors was growing mint, he completely flipped his lid and ranted like a madman.”
“Because you’ll never get rid of it!” I argued. “Fine if you wanna keep a small pot or something, but in the damn ground? My God.”
Roe laughed at me. “Jake is very invested.”
“If you call me meme-material one more time, I’ll June the fuck outta your gloom,” I told him.
He cracked up harder.
It was always good to hear him laugh, I couldn’t lie. These past few months had been a lot for him. The fact that he was gonna be a dad made him soar, and he loved his job, which kept him in high spirits, but the rest had to weigh on him a bit. Deep down, he had to question his own decisions. Right? Or was I projecting? Was it wishful thinking?
Perhaps I was the one fooling myself. Maybe he wanted to get married. I bet it was common for grooms not to be particularly involved in the wedding planning. Roe’s only demand was the location. They were getting married in upstate New York so his family could all attend without traveling too far.
Roe eventually brought us back, and we moved on to the next viewer question.
