Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
KBS Radio sat in a low white building tucked between a surf shop and a bait place that sold ice by the block.
The sign out front was sun-faded, the front walk swept clean.
Jami liked it immediately. The kind of place that had been here before the band and would still be here when a new sound took over the world.
Tony parked the black truck and checked the time. “They’ll walk you right in. Two questions, one clip, then you’re free. We’ll hit Mae’s after.”
“Copy that,” Jami said, and slid out.
Inside, the lobby smelled like coffee and paper. A woman with silver hair and bright eyes popped up from behind the desk like she had been waiting her whole morning for them. Her badge read DIANE.
“You must be our Hurricanes,” she said. “I’m Diane. I’ve got stickers for you, and I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Jami laughed. “I love a sticker.”
She slapped a KBS logo on his shirt like she was his aunt. “We’re so glad you’re here. My granddaughter is at Mae’s right now, frosting muffins. You tell her her grandma said to give you extra.”
“We won’t argue,” Sean said, stepping in behind Jami with a guitar case.
They followed Diane down a short hall lined with old show posters and blurry photos of guest DJs who probably owned the town at one time.
The station manager waved. A board op in a ball cap gave them a thumbs-up without looking away from his screens.
They all felt familiar, like the neighborhood version of a backstage crew that had kept a thousand shows from going sideways.
In the control room, the host —a guy named Carter with a warm drawl and laugh lines cut deep around his eyes —stood to shake hands. “Jami Hart,” he said, like he was tasting a name he had said a hundred times on air. “Heard you brought a chorus that might make me cry.”
“We'll try to keep it clean for the morning commute,” Jami said.
Carlene slipped into the corner behind the glass, legal pad tucked under her arm.
She caught Jami’s eye through the reflection and gave a small nod that steadied him like a drum count.
Livia stood near her, quiet, that neat calm in place.
Tony took a spot by the door, phone set to do not disturb, eyes on the room like a lighthouse.
Diane slid a pair of headphones toward him. “We go live in two.”
Carter pointed to the chair across from his mic. “You sit there, I'll try to be charming, and if I fail, just sing and everyone will forget me.”
The on-air light glowed red. Carter did the fast patter, time checks, weather, and a traffic note about a stalled truck near the marina. Then he smiled the way you can hear even if you cannot see it.
“Blossom Springs has itself a morning, folks,” he said. “Because we’ve got Jami Hart in the studio, and rumor has it there’s a new line floating around the bluff that has people at Mae’s humming to their coffee. Good morning, Jami.”
“Morning,” Jami said into the mic. He remembered Carlene’s advice. Keep it simple. Keep it true.
“You could live anywhere,” Carter said. “Why here?”
“Because I need somewhere that doesn’t care about my set list,” Jami said. “Somewhere that smells like breakfast and ocean and old wood. I grew up in this town. I like that Blossom Springs feels like it knows how to breathe.”
Carter nodded, pleased. “I like that answer. Now tell me about this line. You sing that it has to be more than a feeling. What is more than a feeling?”
Jami let the question sit. He could see himself reflected in the glass. He could see Carlene too, still and focused, waiting like she always waited, for the truth to show up.
“More than noise,” he said. “Quiet after the noise.
Company that feels like family. There is a part of this work that looks like a dream, and it is.
There's another part where the room is quiet, and it's you and your guitar, and whether you have something honest to say. I want more of the second part.”
“Buddy,” Carter said softly. “Preach.”
He tipped his chin at Sean. “You two brought a guitar. Would you sing a touch of that line for folks headed to work?”
“Happy to,” Jami said.
Sean took the second chair, flipped the case latches, and handed over the guitar they always called Sunday because it sounded like church when the air was right. Jami tuned by ear and breathed with the instrument until the room felt ready to hold what he was about to do.
He sang the chorus into the mic. He didn't fill the space. He let the words carry their own weight. It has to be more than a feeling. It was simple and it was enough.
When the last note settled, nobody spoke for a few beats. In the control room, the board op swiped at an eye. Carter cleared his throat like he had to make room for his voice again.
“Well, all right then,” he said, brightening. “If you’re in line at Mae’s, be patient with each other. These folks are about to walk in, and the place will forget its own name for ten minutes.”
They wrapped quickly. Carter shook his hand like a friend and asked for a photo to send to his wife.
Diane stuck another sticker on the back of his phone.
Tony signed a couple of papers and thanked everyone by name.
When they stepped into the Florida heat, Jami felt the good kind of tired, the one that starts in your chest and eases out of your shoulders because you did the thing you said you would do.
Mae’s Bakery looked like a postcard. Blue awning. Hand-lettered chalkboard with the day’s specials. An open door with a bell that rang like a laugh. Inside, it smelled like butter and sugar and coffee and the sweet vanilla glaze Hanna used on everything that did not run away first.
The place went quiet for half a second when the band walked in. Then the hum rose again, louder, like a wave pulling back to gather itself.
“Morning, Hanna,” Livia called, familiar and warm.
Hanna herself popped up from behind the counter, flour on her cheek, eyes bright as the bell at the door. “Livia, sweetheart. Tony. You brought your troublemakers. And you brought Jami.”
“We did,” Tony said. “He promised not to cause a riot.”
Hanna pointed a baking spatula at him. “No one in this room believes that. Now come take these trays to that corner table and let people stop pretending they're not looking at you.”
They carried muffins and croissants like offerings to a very happy crowd. The room closed in with soft bodies and hopeful eyes. Phones lifted, then lowered. The first brave one stepped forward, a teen with a backpack and a purple nail polish bruise on her thumb.
“Could I get a selfie?” she asked. “My mom is going to pass out.”
“I'll pick her up,” Jami said. “Promise.”
They took one photo, then two, then it was a line that was not a line, just neighbors bumping gently against neighbors, smiling and waiting their turn.
Jami asked names. He asked what people were eating.
He told a man at the end of the case to get the cinnamon roll because it would change his week.
The man grinned like he'd already been changed before he took a bite.
Carlene didn't direct. She stood by the specials’ chalkboard and watched like she had at the barn, quiet and alert. She kept an eye on the room and let it move. Every now and then, she lifted her phone to take a quick shot, then set it down again. No angles. No staging. Just what was there.
A girl no older than eight slipped through the cluster, braid bouncing, clutching a notebook with unicorns on the cover. She looked up at Jami as if she were evaluating a very tall tree she planned to climb.
“I wrote a song,” she said. “Do you want to see?”
“I always want to see,” he said, and crouched to her height.
She opened the notebook and showed him words written in big letters and carefully drawn lines. My dog is my best friend, it began, and the chorus was about peanut butter and loyalty.
“I think you have a hit,” he said. “You have a chorus that says what you mean and a verse with details I can see in my head.”
Her mother blinked back tears. “We listen to your music every morning before school,” she said. “Thank you for being kind.”
“Thank you for bringing your writer,” he said.
They took a picture together. The girl slipped the notebook back into her backpack like a treasure. The room exhaled and then filled again.
When the last person had their moment and the coffee machine sighed a final refill, Hanna waved them all toward the back door. “Break,” she said. “You can get out to the courtyard before someone else invents a reason to come ask for a napkin.”
They stepped outside into a rectangle of shade. Potted herbs lined the wall. A small fountain trickled. Jami sank onto a bench and stretched his legs out until his heels hit the edge of a sun patch.
Carlene followed and took the spot beside him, not quite close, not quite far. She had a cinnamon roll in her hand, which she had not taken a bite of yet. She spun the paper wrapper without looking at it.
“You did good,” she said.
“So did you,” he said. “That room could’ve turned into chaos.”
“It wanted to,” she said, and smiled. “But the cinnamon rolls helped.”
He looked at her. Some of the polish she wore like armor had softened in this light. The line of her throat looked less like a defense and more like something he wanted to trace with his mouth. He looked away, annoyed with himself and a little amused.
“You were right,” he said. “About starting here. It felt like we were talking with people, not at them. I haven't been down here in a long time. I just realized, I stay up at the farm most of the time.”
“That's the point,” she said. “If they feel like they know you, they'll carry the song for you when you're not in the room.”
He nodded. “About that clip. You want to post it tonight?”
“Tomorrow morning is better,” she said. “I want people to wake up with it and carry it into their day. I'll drop two stills later this afternoon from the bluff. Quiet, then the video. It tells a story without your voice yet.”
“Okay,” he said, and meant it.
A breeze slid through the courtyard. She tore off a small piece of the cinnamon roll and finally tasted it. She made a face that said she was surprised by happiness, then tried to hide it. He shouldn't have loved that as much as he did.
“Phase 3,” he said, because it needed air. “I know we're not moving on it, but I keep thinking about it.”
“So do I,” she said softly. “We'll be careful.”
“I want to be honest,” he said. “If we do that part, I want it to feel like choosing, not working.”
Her gaze held his. “Me too.”
Hanna stuck her head out the door and ruined the moment like an angel with good timing. “I have a cinnamon roll that doesn't know it needs to be eaten,” she said. “Anyone feel called by destiny?”
Axel appeared at her shoulder like he had a tracking device for sugar. “I feel called.”
Livia laughed and reached for Tony’s hand, then gestured at Jami and Carlene with her chin. “You two want to split it?”
“I'm good,” Carlene said, and set her wrapper on the table like she had to put something down or she would say something she couldn't take back.
“I'll pass,” Jami said and stood. He tipped his head toward the alley, where a slice of bright morning cut between buildings. “I should get back to the barn. I want another hour with the chorus.”
“I'll meet you all up there,” Carlene said. “I want to cut the radio clip and get times for the morning post.”
They walked through the bakery together without touching. At the door, he paused and reached for the handle. He could hear the bell on the other side waiting to laugh again.
“Thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“For not making it a stunt,” he said. “For letting it be a day.”
“You made it a day,” she said quietly. “I just wrote it down.”
He opened the door and held it for her. The bell did its job. The light spilled in. The town kept breathing.
Back at the Barn, he sat on the low platform and picked up Sunday.
The chorus was right there where he had left it, patient and true.
He played it once for the rafters, once for the floorboards, and once for the woman cutting a fifteen-second clip that would go out into a world he suddenly wanted to meet on his own terms.
Today felt like a good start.