Page 84 of The P*ssy Next Door
Chris let go of me and faced the rest of our families, then gave one big clap. “Put your heads together people. We’ve got a problem to solve.”
As he returned to his table with Trixie, I caught my dad’s eye. He gave me a slow nod and that atta-boy shake of his fist. I got the feeling he’d been waiting for me to show up to life like this.
Declan and Kelsey were sitting at one of the tables with Everett on one side and Penelope on the other. Kelsey sat up in her chair and tilted her head just like Seven did when he thought he smelled catnip. “Oh. I think I have an idea.”
She waved Penelope over, and Jules. Everett joined them too, and the five of them put their heads together, whispering and gesturing. I wished they'd do this brainstorming out loud. Willa leaned over and whispered to me. “This must be one hella idea. I can't even imagine what Kelsey thinks would work. It's not like I can go on The Choicest Voice, win it, and become an international pop star. I can barely carry a tune.”
Kelsey spoke up, her voice gentle but excited. “Willa, I think I've got it. See what you think.”
Declan nodded, and I took Willa's. hands, feeling an overwhelm of anticipation.
“I'm releasing a new album in the spring. Keep that quiet, it's not common knowledge yet and you know how the Besties like it when I drop hints. Anyway, I'll be doing an international stadium tour to promote it.”
Willa squeezed my hand. Did she already see where Kelsey was going with this? Because I didn't. Did Kelsey want to take Willa with her on tour? Doing what?
“I need someone on my team, someone I trust, to scout the locations we're going to for hotels, to make sure they're appropriate for me and the whole-ass entourage, especially for security measures. Would you be interested in doing that for me?”
Willa's eyes widened, surprise and uncertainty flickering across her face. “I... I don't know, Kelsey. That's an incredible offer, but am I really qualified for something like that? I don't know anything about the music industry.”
“You'd get to travel, see the world, talk to and charm new people, and I'm sure there will be crazy weird problems to solve.” It was perfect except for the part where I didn't get to go with her. “It's everything you're good at, babe.”
“But I'd be away from you the whole time. It's no different than if I just got another teaching job abroad. We need a way for us to be together. Maybe I should just—” She shrugged, hesitant, torn.
Everett stood up and pointed at the two of us. “Okay, you two, listen up. There will never be a perfect solution. There is no such thing as perfect. Relationships are all about compromise, and you two are the worst at compromising I've ever seen. You'll compromise to make the other person happy, but not yourselves? What the hell?”
He paced the room, his voice rising with each word. “You're already defying expectations by refusing to allow the other to give up their dreams for you. Everyone would expect Willa to give up her life to be with Hayes because it's always the women who follow the players in football. They give up everything for us. But you two have already said that's not what you're going to do.”
Everett marched right up to me and Willa, his eyes blazing. “I've been trying to tell all of you lovesick fools that you need to be true to yourselves. Stop trying to fulfill everyone else's expectations of what they think you should be or how your relationship should look. All of you need to get your heads out of your asses and go after what you actually want the most.”
With a final huff and a glance at the table with Declan, Kelsey, and Penelope, Everett stomped out of the room, leaving a stunned silence in his wake. Pen, eyes wide, hurried after him, murmuring something about calming him down. Declan and Kelsey shared a meaningful look. I didn't know what was going on there. Everett had never yelled at any of us like that in his life.
Willa looked up at me. “Is my head up my ass?”
I tipped my head to the side and glanced at her fine ass, then shrugged. I turned around and showed her my tight end, giving it a little wiggle. “Is mine?”
Xander answered for us both. “Yes.”
Willa gave him a very polite middle finger. “But we'd never get to see each other if I'm traveling all the time. That's not the point of all of this. How does that work?”
“Duh,” Xander threw scraps of his paper cup that had been torn to shreds at us. “Hayes travels almost every week too. And even if the Mustangs do go to the bowl, the off-season is only like a month away. So you take your trips when he does. It's not like Miss Superstar over there needs you to scout the entire world every week.” Xander looked at Kelsey and blushed. “Sorry, Ms. Best, I didn't mean to speak for you. I'm kind of a dick sometimes.”
When had he figured that out?
Kelsey laughed and waved him off. “You're not wrong. I don't even start the tour until April. Declan and I were looking forward to a little downtime too. I think you'd probably be gone a couple of times a month, depending on how far in advance of the tour you are and how the prospects for the hotels seem. Pen has all those details. You'd work closely with her.”
Declan pushed Kelsey's hair out of her eyes and looked at her like I imagined I looked at Willa. “The two of us are on crazy travel schedules too. But we make it work. Kels comes to games when she can, I go to concerts when I can. We have a lot of phone sex.”
Jules held her hands out like blocking the sight of them would help her not hear that tidbit. “Ugh. Can you not be all gross and talk about your sex lives in front of me? I'm a minor.”
Declan gave her his patented grumpy look. “A minor pain in my ass.”
God, could this work? It wasn't perfect, but was it close enough? “You'd still be... tied to Denver. Can you live with that? I'll see if I can get traded if the answer is no.”
Willa started to protest my offer, but Xander stood up and walked over to us. “I know the reason you don't want to be stuck in Denver is because of me. And Mom. But when I get drafted next year, it'll probably be somewhere else in the country. I'm leaving. You can stay.”
She blinked a few times and then punched her brother in the arm. Hard. “Great, Xan. You're going to leave just when I don't want you to? You are a dick sometimes.”
“I know.” Xan gave her a cocky grin. “I have been for a while. But I have one redeeming quality, I promise.”