Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Morning came in a wash of pale light across the farmhouse ceiling.
Jami lay awake listening to the quiet. The water below the bluff whispered against the rocks.
Somewhere in the grove, a bird called, sharp and insistent.
He could have rolled over and willed himself back to sleep, but his head was too full.
He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and padded to the kitchen.
Coffee, black. He drank it standing at the back door, watching sunlight lift over the palms and lay itself across the grass.
The barn sat a short walk away, red and proud, the big sliding doors no longer slid.
They'd been fixed to keep critters out. Inside the sliders was a neatly cut door allowing them entry and exit.
He'd always liked being the first one inside.
You could hear the room breathe before the day got loud.
He took his guitar and a notebook and crossed the yard. The barn smelled like wood oil and history, with a hint of salt air that drifted through whenever they left the doors open. He flipped on a few lights, no more than he needed, and sat on the low platform they used for small rehearsals.
The first chord echoed too brightly in the empty space. He tried again, softer, letting the sound settle. Music always told the truth. Lately, it had been telling him things he did not want to hear.
He picked at a simple progression, something he and Sean had messed with on the road but never finished.
The melody wanted to lift and then fall, like breath.
He hummed along, rough and low. Words came in scraps.
He wrote them down and crossed them out.
Try again. Write. Cross out. The pencil smudged the edge of his hand.
He heard her voice in his head. Not the business voice from yesterday. The softer one from last night. Fans need to believe that you believe. He had smiled for years and meant every one of them. Somewhere along the line, he had started smiling on cue. It was not the same.
He set the guitar aside and stood to shake out his hands.
The empty space answered with a faint metallic ring from somewhere in the rafters.
He looked toward the doorway, half expecting to see Carlene walk through, and snorted at himself.
She had probably been up since dawn, writing a plan, while he sat here arguing with a blank page.
Footsteps sounded on the stones outside. He turned and saw Sean’s silhouette, backlit by the bright square of morning.
“You're up early,” Sean said, coming inside. “I brought muffins from Mae’s. Livia texted and said we would need carbs for whatever Carlene is about to put us through.”
Jami laughed. “Smart woman.”
Sean set the paper bag on the platform and crouched beside the notebook. “What are you working on?”
“Trying to find words that do not lie.”
Sean studied the chords he had sketched and hummed a few bars. “Feels like a sunrise.”
“Or like trying to remember how to breathe.”
“That too.” Sean’s mouth curved. “You want help?”
“Always.”
They played through the progression together, letting the second guitar slip under the first like a shadow.
The melody steadied. The shape of a verse formed, slow and simple.
After a while, the back door opened again, and Axel wandered in, hair damp, sticks in one hand, and a to-go cup in the other.
“You two started without me,” he said, but there was no heat in it. He tapped the sticks against his thigh, testing the room.
Jami grinned. “This needs a heartbeat. Not heavy. Just there. We're trying to work out a new song.”
Axel gave them a pulse, the kind you felt before you heard it, and the song settled into itself. Jami tried a lyric. It landed close, then fell short. He tried again.
“No,” Maddyn said from the doorway, soft but sure. “That one tasted like you were saying it for the crowd.”
He looked up as she stepped inside with Livia and Tony behind her. Maddyn had a second bag from Mae’s and handed it to Axel the way she handed him everything he needed before he asked. She set her coffee on the platform and leaned one hip against a speaker.
“What if the first line is a question?” she said, eyes on Jami. “You have been giving answers for a long time. Maybe you start by not knowing.”
He nodded and wrote it down. He sang it, not fully formed, a man asking the room for something he could not name. The small hairs on his arms lifted.
“Better,” Sean said.
They circled the words. They carved the verse tighter. The barn warmed as the sun climbed. By the time Tony finished a call with their sound tech and came back, they had a verse that worked and the bones of a chorus that did not. Jami hated forcing a chorus. It should arrive like the tide.
They took a break on the sofas. Axel demolished two muffins and a banana without slowing down. Maddyn tucked her feet under her and rested her head on his shoulder. Tony leaned into Livia, who reached up and toyed with his collar in a way that made Jami look away.
“You're doing it again,” Livia said to Jami, eyes kind.
“Doing what?” He reached for another coffee he didn't need.
“Watching us instead of the page.” She smiled. “That has always been your trick. You watch people until you know what they feel, and then you sing it. It's one reason the fans believe you. But today you have to look at yourself too.”
He swallowed. He looked at the notebook and then at his hands.
“Try the chorus as a promise,” she added. “Not just a feeling. A decision.”
Something in his chest clicked into place. He stood without thinking and picked up the guitar. Sean followed, always the right hand at his back.
A promise, not a feeling.
He played the verse again. He let the last chord hang. He took a breath and sang the first line of a chorus he had not found yet. His voice caught on the first attempt. He tried again and found the center of the note.
“It has to be more than a feeling,” he sang, quiet and sure.
Silence held for one long second. Then Sean nodded once, firm. “That.”
Axel’s sticks tapped the rim in a clean count. Maddyn came in under him, a low harmony that braided their voices together. Livia found a third line above, and it lifted the whole room. Jami sang the line again, this time opening it up, letting the words ring.
More than a feeling. More than hands in the air and cameras in his face. More than lights and noise and a smile you learned because it worked.
He wrote fast while Sean played the chords on a loop. He scratched out the bones of the chorus.
It has to be more than a feeling
More than a moment in the light
If I give you what I am now
Will you meet me in the quiet
It was rough and it was true. He looked up and saw the others watching him with the kind of attention that made him want to do better.
Tony cleared his throat. “That is the headline,” he said. “Right there. That line.”
Jami rolled the words around in his mouth. They didn't feel like a slogan. They felt like the thing he had been missing and had not known how to ask for.
The barn door at the far end opened a little wider. Carlene stood there, hair pulled back, tablet in one hand, watching like she had been there the whole time. He hadn't heard her come in. No one had.
She lifted a hand in a small and careful hello. “Don't stop. Please.”
He sang the chorus again. This time, he didn't think about the way her gaze held him in place.
He thought about how every night, a hotel room felt too quiet.
He thought about walking offstage and feeling the high rip out of his chest before he reached the wings.
He thought about last night at the bar when she asked what he believed in, and he could not answer.
He believed in good music, loyal friends, and work that made his bones tired. He believed in the feeling when a crowd went silent for a high note and then thundered back at him like a storm. He had not believed in much else for a while.
He finished the chorus, and the barn exhaled with him. Carlene took a step closer. Her eyes shone in a way that tightened the back of his throat.
“That,” she said softly. “That is the story. Not a stunt. That.”
He tried to shrug it off, but the words landed. He nodded once and looked down at the page.
“Bridge ideas?” Sean asked, businesslike, giving him a step forward.
“Keep it simple,” Maddyn said. “One image. The thing you want when the lights go black.”
Jami wrote down porch light and found it too easy. He scratched it out and wrote something truer. He wrote a kitchen light at two in the morning. He wrote bare feet on cool tile. He wrote a mug on the counter with lipstick on the rim and felt insane and also very alive.
They worked on the song for another hour. Carlene grabbed a legal pad and quietly noted structure, timestamps, and mood words. She did not offer marketing language. She didn't offer any language at all. She listened like a fan.
By late morning, the verse held steady, and the chorus had muscle. The bridge was a sketch that made his chest ache in a way he trusted. Livia tried a descant harmony over the last chorus, and it sent a ripple up his spine.
They took a breath together. The room hummed.
Tony checked his phone and then slid it into his pocket. “We have a label call at one. Lunch in thirty. Rehearsal after that. Jami, send me that chorus line. I want to push it to socials later this week.”
Jami hesitated. “Not yet.”
Tony studied him and then nodded. “Your call.”
The others drifted toward the sofas. Livia squeezed Jami’s arm again as she passed. You found it, she said without words. Don't let it go.
Carlene lingered at the edge of the platform. “May I?” she asked, motioning to the notebook.
He handed it over. She read the chorus and the bridge sketch. When she looked up, her gaze was steady and warm.
“If you want the campaign to work,” she said, “we build it around this one line. Not as a hook. As a truth.”
He tried to play it cool. “Thought you liked math.”
“I do,” she said. “But this is the part you can't measure.”
He laughed under his breath. “You are full of contradictions.”
“So are you.” She handed back the notebook. “Rehearsal at two?”
“I'll be here.”
She gave a small nod and stepped away to take a call, already in motion, already making a path he couldn't see.
Jami looked at the page again. He set the pencil beside it and picked up the guitar. He played the chorus once more, soft and private, just for himself.
It had to be more than a feeling.
For the first time in a long time, he believed it could be.