Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
LEVI
The morning is perfect. That’s the problem.
I’m sitting on the wrap-around porch of my rental, bare feet propped on the weathered railing, watching the sun climb over the Atlantic.
The coffee in my hand has gone lukewarm.
My guitar is balanced on my knee, and for the first time in months, the melody coming out of it doesn’t sound like background music for a funeral.
It sounds like hope and possibility—like a woman with brown eyes and a laugh that makes me forget my own name.
I play through the chorus again, scribbling lyrics in the notebook balanced on the arm of my rocking chair. The salt breeze ruffles the pages. Somewhere down the beach, a dog barks. The ocean does its eternal push-and-pull against the sand, steady and unconcerned with my emotional breakthroughs.
This is really good.
My phone vibrates on the porch railing. I ignore it. It vibrates again, and I keep ignoring it.
It starts actually ringing, which means Diane has escalated from “annoyed” to “about to say something I’ll regret.” I silence it and go back to my guitar.
The thing about writing music is that it requires a certain amount of denial. You have to pretend the outside world doesn’t exist. You have to believe, at least temporarily, that nothing matters except the next chord, the next line, the way the melody rises and falls like breathing.
My phone lights up six more times in the next ten minutes.
Denial is getting harder.
I’m about to cave and check my messages when I hear the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway. Dean’s truck appears around the bend, Rex’s golden head hanging out the passenger window like a furry hood ornament.
The truck parks, and Rex bounds out before Dean even opens the door, making a beeline for me like we’re long-lost friends reuniting after war.
“Down,” I say, which Rex interprets as “please put your sandy paws directly on my clean shirt.”
“He missed you,” Dean says, climbing the porch steps with two paper cups from Twin Waves Brewing. He hands me one. “Michelle says hi. Also, she says you looked ‘disgustingly happy’ yesterday, and she wants details.”
“I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Since when?”
“Since it’s Delilah, and I’m not screwing this up.”
Dean settles into the rocking chair beside me, stretching his legs out with a groan that sounds older than his fifty-two years. Rex has given up on me and is now investigating a very suspicious patch of porch with intense dedication.
“So,” Dean says. “You’re writing again.”
“I’m writing again.”
“Songs about Delilah?”
“Songs about…hope, possibility, second chances.”
“So, songs about Delilah.”
I take a sip of coffee instead of answering.
Dean grins—the same one he’s been giving me since I was twelve and he caught me practicing kissing on my pillow. Being older by fifteen years means Dean has witnessed every embarrassing moment of my adolescence and has never once let me forget any of them.
“Play me something,” he says.
“It’s not finished.”
“Play me the unfinished thing.”
“It’s rough.”
“Levi.”
I sigh, adjust my guitar, and play the first verse.
When I finish, Dean is quiet for a long moment. Rex has given up on the suspicious patch and is now sprawled at our feet, snoring lightly.
“That’s not bad,” Dean finally says.
“High praise.”
“I’m serious. It’s different from your other stuff. Warmer.” He pauses. “Less like you’re auditioning for a sad-boy documentary.”
“My last album was not sad-boy—”
“It was literally called Distance. The album art was you staring at rain.”
“That was artistic.”
“That was tragic. This—” He gestures at my notebook. “This sounds like you actually want to be alive.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just sit there, guitar in my lap, watching the waves roll in.
My phone buzzes again.
Dean glances at it. “You gonna get that?”
“It’s just Diane.”
“Your manager Diane? The one who calls when there’s a problem?”
“No problem.”
“She’s called twelve times this morning.”
“Diane’s dramatic.”
Dean gives me a look—the same one our dad used to give when I was clearly lying and we both knew it.
“Fine,” I mutter. “The label wants me back for a meeting. I told them no.”
“And they’re not taking no for an answer.”
“They’ll have to.”
“Will they?”
I set down my guitar harder than necessary. “I just got her back, Dean. I’m not leaving.”
“Nobody’s saying you have to leave forever. It’s a meeting.”
“It’s never just a meeting. It’s studio sessions, then a tour, then two years of my life swallowed up by—” I stop. Breathe. “I’m not doing that again. Not now.”
Dean doesn’t respond right away. When he speaks, his voice is gentler than I expect.
“You know what Dad used to say about running from your problems?”
“That I should face them head-on?”
“No. He said running from your problems is fine, as long as you’re faster than they are.” Dean grins. “Dad was not a great advice-giver.”
“I remember.”
“Point is—you can’t outrun Diane forever. And you definitely can’t outrun the label. So maybe deal with it before it deals with you.”
I know he’s right. I hate it.
“Come to the station with me,” Dean says, standing. “I’ve got a shift, but the guys have been asking about you. Apparently Tommy’s kid is a big fan.”
“Tommy has a kid?”
“Three of them. You’ve been gone a while.”
I look at my guitar, at the pages full of half-finished lyrics, at the ocean still doing its thing, completely unbothered.
“Fine,” I say. “But if anyone asks me to sign body parts, I’m leaving.”
The Twin Waves fire station is exactly what you’d expect from a small coastal town: two gleaming red trucks parked in a garage that smells like diesel and industrial cleaner, a communal kitchen that’s seen better decades, and a common room with mismatched furniture that looks like it was donated by every grandmother in a fifty-mile radius.
What you might not expect is the wall of photos near the coffee maker, featuring every firefighter’s “most embarrassing moment” captured for posterity.
There’s Tommy stuck in a window during a training exercise.
Josh covered in what appears to be marshmallow fluff after some unspecified incident.
Dean, twenty years younger, posing proudly next to a truck with toilet paper trailing from his boot.
“Nice photo,” I tell Dean.
“Shut up.”
“The toilet paper really makes it.”
“I said shut up.”
The guys are in the common room when we walk in—five of them scattered across couches and armchairs, a poker game abandoned on the table, some home renovation show playing on the ancient TV mounted in the corner.
Asher Lennox sees me first. He’s the newest member of the crew, late twenties, with an easy grin and the kind of relaxed confidence that comes from being good at his job. He’s also Jo’s son, which makes him practically family at this point.
“Hey, Levi.” He nods at me like it’s no big deal, because to him it isn’t. “Dean mentioned you might stop by.”
“You could have warned the others,” Dean mutters.
“And miss this?” Asher gestures to Tommy, who has just noticed me and is rising from his chair like he’s witnessing the second coming. “Not a chance.”
Tommy is a big guy, barrel-chested, with a beard that could house a family of birds. His face lights up like a kid on Christmas.
“No way.” He stands so fast his chair scrapes the floor. “Dean. Dean. You didn’t tell us you were bringing him.”
“I’m bringing him,” Dean says flatly.
“Levi Cole. In our station.” Tommy is advancing toward me with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever. “My daughter is going to lose her mind. She’s seen you in concert four times. She has a poster in her room. My wife is concerned.”
“Tommy, give the man space,” Josh calls from the couch. He’s early thirties, with the calm confidence of someone who runs into burning buildings for a living. “Sorry about him. He’s a fan.”
“I’m not a fan,” Tommy protests. “I appreciate good music. And good lyrics. And the way you harmonize in ‘Distance’ gives me chills every time, but that’s not being a fan—that’s just having ears.”
“Tommy.”
“What?”
“You’re being a fan.”
“I am not.” Tommy turns back to me. “Can I get a picture? It’s for my kid. Not for me.”
“Sure,” I say, because refusing would be cruel, and also because the look on Dean’s face right now is worth any amount of awkwardness.
What follows is fifteen minutes of increasingly chaotic photo-taking. Tommy’s shot “for his daughter” becomes a group photo, then individual shots, then Josh admitting that actually, he owns the album, and could I sign his phone case?
Asher stays out of it, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, watching the chaos with obvious amusement.
“You’re not going to ask for a photo?” I ask him when there’s a break in the madness.
“I’ve heard you sing karaoke at Jo’s birthday party. The mystique is gone.”
“That was one time.”
“You did ‘Islands in the Stream’ as a solo. Both parts.”
“Kenny and Dolly are sacred.”
“You cried during the key change.”
“It’s an emotional song.”
Dean is sitting in the corner with his head in his hands. “I can’t believe this is my life.”
“You’re marrying my mother,” Asher says cheerfully. “Welcome to your future.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“She’s going to make you do karaoke at the wedding reception. You know that, right?”
Dean’s groan is audible from across the room.
“I didn’t propose,” Tommy says, apparently still stuck on an earlier conversation. “I asked if he was seeing anyone. Those are different things.”
“He’s seeing someone,” Dean says. “So everyone calm down.”
“Who?” Josh perks up. “Is it that flower shop lady? The one who just moved back?”
“How does everyone know everything in this town?” I ask.
“Small town,” all four firefighters say in unison.
“Also, Brittany at the gym told everyone,” Tommy adds. “She saw you two at the coffee shop. Said you looked at each other like—and I’m quoting here—‘two people who were about to either kiss or kill each other.’”
“They went with kissing,” Dean says dryly.