“Yeah, you can go.” We enter the kitchen. “Before you get into the weeds with all the logistics, we need to go over a list of questions that I will answer and those I won’t.”
“Already on it, Ty.” She walks to the front door. “I do need to know what you’re doing after your month off, though. You have no filming till the new year, so the world is literally your oyster.”
“Fuck . . . a whole six months to myself.” I smile, grabbing a water bottle out of the stocked fridge. Another thing Cassie takes care of for me. “I think I’ll go stay at the ranch. Off the grid just enough but it won’t require a donkey to get my attention.” I smile at her, knowing she does truly love me even when I’m being a petulant, yet color-coordinated toddler.
Shaking her head at me, she tells me, “I just need the dates, and I’ll make it happen.” And with that, her work is done. She turns and walks out of the house, slamming the door behind her. I take my phone out and sit on one of the stools at the island, dialing my father.
He answers after four rings, his voice gruff. “Hello.” I’m not surprised that his voice is gruff. The only time his voice would have a different timbre was for my mother.
“Hey, Pops,” I say. “It’s me.”
“Son,” he says, and I can see him in my head smiling while he says that. “What are you up to?”
“Not much, just checking in. How is everything?” When I got my first big paycheck, I did one thing with it—I made my parents retire. My mother was a high school teacher, and my father had worked in construction all his life. He would start the day before the sun came up and return twelve hours later wearing his construction boots and dusty clothes with a tired as fuck look on his face, but he did what he had to do to support his family. So it was the best thing I could do for my parents when I paid off their little mortgage and gave them enough money to live. My father fought me tooth and nail, refusing to take my money, but he could only refuse so much. I went over his head and walked into the bank and paid off the mortgage. He wasn’t happy with me back then. I knew this when he said he would kick my twentysomething punk ass.
I smile now, thinking back to that day almost twelve years ago. With my second big paycheck, I bought them a ranch in Montana that sits on four thousand acres, secluded from everywhere and everyone. A huge barn with a stable where I have five horses. It even has cattle that roam the area. Just seeing the mountains, it’s everything. Nothing can touch me there. When I flew my parents in and saw my father’s eyes, I knew without a doubt they would be the ones living in the house most of the time. His face was shocked when I handed him the keys. Now, ten years later, he spends all day on his horse or in the barn. Either way, it’s been the happiest time of his life, and I can smile, knowing I gave him that after all he sacrificed for me growing up.
“Things are good. Busy. The weather is finally starting to get warm,” he says. “Barn roof was leaking.”
“Did you call Cassie?” I ask him.
“Why the hell would I call Cassie?” he says, laughing at my question. “I got the ladder out, and me and Miguel went up there and fixed it.”
“Dad, we have people for that.” I shake my head. He is not the ideal retiree. He’s always working, always going. Still gets up at six every morning. “My body is its own alarm clock,” he told me the last time I went down there. With so much land, I had my own house constructed near them. Not too far away, but far enough that I have my own space.
“Yeah, I also have two capable hands,” he huffs out. “Besides, it was an easy fix.”
“How’s Mom?” I take a drink of water, thinking about my mom. After I showed Dad that I had paid off their mortgage, she just placed a hand over his and blinked the tears away. Then she grabbed my face and kissed my cheeks right before she buried her face in my chest and sobbed tears of joy.
“She’s good . . . baking her ass off,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice; this one lights up his whole face. My parents met in junior high. He fell in love with her during homeroom and hasn’t left her side since. He loves her even more now, and he tells her every chance he gets. Every single time he talks to her, whether he’s on the phone or walking out of the room, he ends it with, “Love you, Liza.” She always turns around and nods at him, her own smile filling her face. “She’s worried about you.”
“Me?” I ask in shock. “What is that all about? There haven’t even been any stories in the media about me lately.” My leg bounces, thinking about the upcoming tour.
“Yeah, something about you being thirty-five and single.” He laughs. “She thinks you need someone to take care of you.”
“I have plenty of people who take care of me,” I tell him, taking another pull from my water bottle, my mouth suddenly going dry. I mean, it’s not like I can actually date anyone. The minute I date someone, their life is dissected and put under a microscope, and everything from when they were in high school to now is blasted across every tabloid and social media page. I only usually date women in the industry so they know what they are getting into. But then it’s all about them dating me for what I am and not who I am. Yeah, a complete recipe for disaster.
“Not that kind of taking care of you. Meaning someone who takes care of you by sharing your life with them.” I roll my eyes at him even though he can’t see it. He means get a woman to make sure you get your clothes washed, cooks for you, and holds your hand while you sit on the deck outside watching the sunset. He means a woman who will have my back, no matter what happens.
“Dad, it’ll happen when it happens,” I tell him like I tell my mother. “It’s a different world where I live. People want me for what I have to offer, not for who I am. You know this. Remember Tina?” I mention my ex-girlfriend. We had met through friends, and after being together six months, I could never pinpoint how the press knew where we would be. I never understood how they knew fucking everything until one day when she was in the shower, I picked up her phone when it buzzed and saw a message from a paparazzi guy. Bingo!
“Then you need to come live in the country. We can find you a nice girl,” he gruffs out while I groan. “Whatever. Just call your mom. She worries about you.”
“I will. I’m leaving for a month on a press tour all around the world. I want you and Mom to come to the premiere . . . it’s in Paris.”
“Fancy,” he says with a chuckle. “You going to put me in a monkey suit?”
“Probably.” I laugh, thinking of my dad in his favorite pair of Levi’s. “I was thinking,” I say, my voice going low, “of coming to stay at the ranch for a couple of months when I finish this tour.”
“Not going to lie, son,” my father says softly. “Your mother would kill to have you home, and so would I.”
“I’m still thinking about it, but I’ll need to decompress after a thirty-day prison sentence around the world, and the ranch is the perfect place to do that. Okay, I have to go. My trainer will be here soon, and I have to get ready.”
“Be good, son, and don’t forget to call your mother, yeah?” he says. “Love you.”