Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“Oh.” Reg jerked, looking surprised. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like I was keeping secrets, JJ. I’ll tell you anything anytime. It’s just that there’s nobody worth talking about.”
“I know you don’t keep secrets; you’re probably the most honest person I know. But usually people are eager to talk about every person they ever had dinner with, and you never say a word.”
“Seriously?” Reg asked in surprise.
“Oh, yeah. In this business, the first rule of dating is you always talk about who you’ve dated. I mean, if you don’t tell every single person you meet that you once had coffee with Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, then it doesn’t count.” Jeremy scoffed. “I’ve known lots of people who’ll go out on a date with someone they know they’ll never be interested in just so they can say they’ve dated in interviews. There are some agents who go so far as to set that up for their clients. A couple of public dinners, a premiere, and then they’re through, but the pictures last forever.”
“Man, your world is so deeply fucked-up.” Reg shook his head in apparent disgust. When he didn’t say anything else right away, Jeremy thought he’d have to press harder or give up on knowing anything about Reg’s past, but then Reg took in a deep breath and said, “Okay, so you want to know my dating history?”
“Only if you want to, uh… yeah.”
“It’s boring, but at least it’s short.” Reg lay down on his side, folded his elbow, and propped his head on his hand. “I didn’t date in high school because I wasn’t interested in girls, and I wasn’t ready to say I was interested in guys, you know? Then in college, I did the whole hookup thing a couple of times—nothing worth mentioning or remembering—but it wasn’t my speed.”
Even though his reason for forcing the conversation was his suspicion that Reg was gay, Jeremy was still taken off guard by the easy way Reg announced it. Clearly, he assumed Jeremy knew. Forcing himself to focus, Jeremy said, “What do you mean not your speed?”
“Hookups. Getting off is fun, but I was hoping for something more, and then I met this guy—Kirby.” For the first time since Jeremy had met him, Reg looked sad.
“That’s your ex?”
Reg nodded. “We were together a year and a half.”
“That’s a long time.” Longer than Jeremy had ever dated anyone.
“Yup. Especially in college, because you’re together practically nonstop. He lived on my floor freshman year, so it got serious pretty fast. We’d bunk with each other whenever one of our roommates was out.” Reg turned his lips up at the corners, like he was remembering something happy, and Jeremy found his stomach rolling, which was a weird reaction. “Sophomore year, I lived in my frat house, and he moved in with some friends.” Reg gulped. “That’s when it fell apart.”
“What happened?”
“He got real big into Tina. Real big.”
“Tina?” Jeremy repeated.
“Crystal meth. He played around with it a little when we met, but he was more into pot back then.”
“Did he overdose?” Jeremy’s voice broke when he asked the question, the memory of the phone call telling him his father was dead suddenly fresh in his mind.
“No.” Reg shook his head. “But he was getting high all the time, especially when we had sex. He was all into booty-bumping.” Reg looked at Jeremy and elaborated. “He’d inject it up his ass, and then we fucked.”
Though he had what he considered an unusually close and open relationship with Reg, Jeremy was taken aback by that level of frankness.
“You know, you’re really sheltered for a guy who’s seen the world,” Reg said.
The comment could have been offensive, but Reg’s tone was soft and kind, so Jeremy wasn’t upset.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” Reg shrugged and furrowed his brow. “I guess I always thought rock stars were wild and crazy, with parties and drugs and all that.” He smiled at Jeremy and, for the first time since they’d started the conversation, reached out and combed his fingers through his hair. Jeremy scooted closer to him. “Here I am, a guy from Munds Park, Arizona, whose most exciting adventure until you came along was a trip across the border to Nogales to get drunk and camp on the beach in Rocky Point, and yet you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Having a father who had abused drugs for as long as Jeremy could remember, and who’d ultimately died as a result, meant he had less interest in them than people expected. And aside from that, he’d always been carefully managed, both in his personal life and his professional one.
“I came up different from a lot of guys in this business,” Jeremy explained. “My parents said I could start playing publicly when I turned eighteen, so I had to wait, but everything was lined up: manager, record company, promo. They were all ready for me, watching me. My grandfather too, before he died. My father’s people. My mother’s people. I wasn’t one of those guys who grabbed a guitar and went out on the road solo.” Sighing deeply, Jeremy added, “Besides, I never wanted to turn into my dad.”