Hold My Hand

6

*VANESSA*

When Juwany texted me and asked to help me unpack, I was excited because I thought it'd give us a chance to talk and catch up. But...he's been here for almost an hour and we've barely spoken.

I paused the music that was playing from my phone and sat on the floor across from Juwany.

"Is something wrong? I was hoping we would talk...but you aren't talking much. " I said, quietly.

"Um." He looked down at his hands in his lap. "Everything is fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Uh--yeah."

I shook my head and scooted closer to him.

"You're lieing Juwany. Come on, what's wrong?"

"I just...have something I wanna tell you about."

I smiled. "Ok." Finally, conversation!

"There's this website." He said, standing up. I stood up only to sit on my bed, and he started pacing.

"What website?"

"It's called YouNow and it's a site where people can broadcast."

I furrowed my brows. "Broadcast like...a livestream?"

"Yes!" He replied.

"Ok..."

I got worried when he took a deep breath and sat next to me on the bed.

"So I broadcast on that website. Well...I'm a YouNow partner, which means I get payed to broadcast. Not a lot, but some."

"Juwany that's so cool!" I gasped. "So you're partnered, you must be good at it, are you like...famous?" I asked,nudging him.

"No, I'm not, but I do have a few fans..."

"What's a few?" I asked him.

"Uh...about 130K."

"Oh my gosh! That's a lot!" I was genuinely excited to be learning something new about Juwany, and I wanted it to show.

"Thanks?" He laughed.

"So do you do it a few times a month? Or every week?"

He started laughing and shook his head. "More like every day."

"Every day!? Seriously!? 365 days a year?"

"Well excpet when we're on tour..."

"We"? I repeated.

"Yeah, me and three other broadcasters. They're some of my closest friends."

"How many tours have you done?"

"Only teo, it was just created in October. We start a three week summer tour in about a week."

I sighed. "My life is so boring! I have nothing cool to tell you about and here you are talking about tours!"

Geo was thinking about something, I could tell by the look in his eyes and the crease on his forhead.

"You could come."

"What?" My eyes widened when I asked. "Are you crazy?"

"No I'm serious, one of the guys, his name is Mario and his sister Cat is gonna be with us the whole tour. You could come, and your mom too, my mom would love it. She's missed your mom and she was sad about leaving so soon after you guys' arrival."

"I...I don't know about that." I hesitated.

"It would be so fun! And you'd get to meet all my friends!"

I liked seeing the sparkle in his eye as he spoke about the possibility.

"Um..maybe..." I decided.

"It WILL be a yes! I'll ask my mom to talk to yours." He said happily.

I couldn't argue with him when he smiled at me the way he did.