Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Livia’s house smelled like onions softening in butter and something bright with lemon.
Quinn was in the open kitchen talking wood grain with Tony while Axel pretended to listen and stole bacon off a cooling rack.
Hanna brought in a covered tray like a parade marshal and set it in the middle of the island.
“Cinnamon rolls,” she announced. “I named the big one Trouble. Axel, I don’t have to tell you who that’s for.”
Axel bowed. “At last, a pastry that understands me.”
Maddyn bumped him with her hip and slid a plate toward him. “Share.”
They ate like people who’d worked all day.
Livia’s salad did, in fact, make Axel think he liked greens.
They argued over hot sauce, told stories about bad motel coffee, and laughed at a photo Quinn produced of Tony in a paint-splattered T-shirt from the remodel, scowling at a level like it had betrayed him.
Carlene listened more than she spoke, then caught Quinn off guard with a question about stain warmth and surprised him with a smart answer.
He grinned, pleased, and handed her a sanding block like a knighthood.
Jami kept catching the small domestic beats that looped and overlapped.
Hanna refilled everyone’s water without asking.
Livia leaned into Tony’s shoulder when she laughed.
Quinn wiped the counter without seeming to notice what he was doing.
Carlene slid a tray of rolls closer to the middle when the conversation got loud, the smallest gesture of making room.
It felt like in the kitchen light he’d written in the bridge, the kind of light that waited for you at two in the morning. He didn’t know what to do about wanting it. A knot formed in his throat, and he swallowed to remove it.
On the porch after dinner, the air went velvety and warm.
Crickets started their song. Tony said, "Remember when we played at that old bar in Tampa back in the day.
The audience was small, but they watched us and listened to every word we sang.
" Everyone went still, the way you go still when the truth is walking through.
“We keep chasing that,” he said. “Not the noise. The listen.”
Carlene glanced at Jami and looked away fast, as if she’d caught herself.
They cleaned up together. Jami took a stack of plates to the sink and rinsed while Carlene set them into the dishwasher. Their shoulders almost touched. The simple rhythm felt dangerous and easy at the same time.
“Seven,” she said quietly, towel in her hands. “For the video.”
“I’ll be up,” he said.
“I know.”
When he got home, the barn had that late-night hush he loved.
He tuned Sunday and played through the verse, then the chorus, then the bridge sketch.
The words behaved. He didn’t push for more.
He went to bed with guitar smells on his hands and woke before the alarm with his mind already at the bluff.
He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and made coffee.
The house held its own quiet, something like permission.
A thin blue line edged the horizon when he crossed the yard.
The dew was heavy this morning, and his shoes darkened with the moisture.
The barn door clicked shut behind him with a sound he could find in his sleep.
Carlene was already there on the low platform, laptop open, hair pulled back. She looked like clarity.
“Morning,” she said.
“Morning.”
She slid the laptop so he could see. The fifteen-second cut waited behind a clean caption and a scheduled time. No hashtags. No flourish. Just the line.
“You good?” she asked.
“Good,” he said.
They didn’t talk for a minute. He set his coffee on the stage. She watched the countdown in the corner of her screen.
“Three,” she said softly. “Two. One.”
She tapped and set the machine aside as if it might break the moment if it stayed between them. Nothing in the room changed, but he felt something shift anyway, a tide catching.
They waited. The first ping came quickly, then a second, then the roll of it, comments and shares stacking like smooth stones. Local first. Then the circle widened.
Livia slipped in with two fresh mugs and a soft “hey” like she didn’t want to scare anything away. She took one look at Carlene’s face and slowly smiled.
“Good?” she said.
Jami didn’t read the comments. He listened to Carlene read them, not out loud, just with her face. Her mouth, usually set with intention, kept softening and firming, the way you do when something hits the center of the target more than once.
“They’re telling each other where they were when they first heard you,” she said. “And what it reminds them of. There’s a grandmother in Naples crying in her car on the way to yoga. She says it’s a compliment.”
“Tell her I’ll try not to cause a pileup,” Jami said.
“We’ll send her a cinnamon roll,” Livia said, and checked the time. “Hanna’s already texted. She put the clip, ‘it’s the feeling for me’ on the chalkboard with a winky face.”
Sean drifted in, hair damp, guitar case in hand. Tony, a minute later, scanning his phone, eyes bright. Axel jogged through with a protein shake and declared the morning holy. Maddyn grabbed a stool and hummed the chorus under her breath while she scrolled, head tilted like she was memorizing joy.
They let the room fill. They let the clip do its work. When the rush leveled, Tony exhaled.
“All right. Before the label asks for a full video, let’s rehearse.”
They ran the song top to tail. The verse felt like feet on dirt. The chorus rose without showing off. The bridge kept its sketch and hurt the way it should. Jami didn’t chase a high. He found the center. When they stopped, Carlene had a hand to her throat like she’d forgotten to take it away.
Tony’s phone buzzed. He stepped outside to answer, then lifted his chin.
“Local TV wants a quick piece for the six o’clock,” he said. “They’re sending a single camera at four. Light touch. I told them ten minutes and a walk around the property. No drones.”
“Fine,” Jami said, then looked at Carlene. “You good with that?”
“Friendly and brief,” she said. “We control the stops. No personal questions.”
Livia checked her watch. “I’ll call Hanna for a late tray.”
“Tell her how much I loved the special cinnamon roll last night,” Axel said.
By midmorning, sunlight had laid long strips across the barn floor. The video’s comments stayed warm. A podcast clipped the radio answer and tagged the band. Carter at KBS sent a “look what you did” text with three crying-face emojis and a wobbly heart.
Then the first wrinkle hit.
Sean pointed with his chin at Carlene’s screen. “You seeing that?”
A small gossip account had posted a grainy photo from Mae’s and circled Carlene’s hand near Jami’s on the courtyard table. The caption was bait dressed as a question. New muse for Hart?
Tony swore under his breath. Jami felt his stomach tighten, not with fear, exactly. With the memory of why he’d agreed to the rules. His eyes found Carlene’s. She didn’t flinch.
“I’ve got it,” she said. “Nobody engages. I’ll DM the owner.”
She typed, calm and precise. Jami watched her line up words like a carpenter lines up a joint. Firm. Clean. Not defensive.
“Hi, this is a friendly note,” she wrote.
“I’m the band’s marketing lead. That shot’s from a public morning at a local bakery.
Please remove the suggestive caption. We’re rolling a hometown connection story and would rather keep this on music.
If you keep the photo, please credit Mae’s and keep the caption neutral. ”
She sent it. The account didn’t answer. A few smaller accounts copied the grainy circle and posted it anyway.
“Block and move,” Tony said, jaw tight.
“Wait,” Livia said, leaning in. “Look at the replies.”
Locals were already in the comments, sweet and firm.
That’s Carlene, the new marketing gal.
They were all there. My cousin poured their coffee. It wasn’t a date.
Sit down and eat a cinnamon roll.
Carlene’s mouth tipped. “Bless this town.”
The gossip post changed the caption to Morning at Mae’s, credited the bakery, and removed the circle. No apology. That was fine. The heat leaked out of the thing like air from a balloon.
“Good,” Tony said. “Let’s get back to the song before somebody decides we owe them a live stream.”
They played it twice more. On the second pass, the bridge found a line that made Jami close his eyes and fight down a swallow.
He didn’t look at anyone when it ended. He didn’t have to.
Axel thumped a stick on the drum frame like, yes.
Maddyn reached for his elbow and squeezed once.
Livia nodded slowly, as if blessing something.
They broke for lunch. People drifted to the bar at the back of the barn, where someone had set out sandwiches and cut fruit. Sun pooled on the floorboards. The air tasted like sawdust and pepper. Jami took his plate outside and sat on the patio set where the shade held.
Carlene joined him, plate in hand, careful about distance, the way you are careful with a new instrument.
“You handled that,” he said.
“It’s what I’m here for.”
“I know. I still like the way you did it.”
She looked at him, then down at her hands. “Thank you.”
He chewed and watched the reflection from the water below. The world kept being green and ordinary, which felt like the right kind of miracle.
“TV at four,” she said. “We’ll do a walk-and-talk from the barn to the porch. Keep answers short. If they ask about the clip, give them one sentence on where the line came from. Don’t over-explain.”
“I can do one sentence.”
“You can,” she said. “You did it this morning.”
He smiled a little. “You hungry for noise?”
“Not today,” she said. “Today I like the quiet.”
They sat with that for a minute. She finished her sandwich and set the plate aside.
“I should say something out loud,” he said. “About Phase 3.”
“All right.”
“If it ever happens, I want it to be real. Not a show. Or I want to skip it altogether.”
Her eyes didn’t leave his. “Okay.”
The shade held them steady. A breeze came up the bluff and moved through the trees like someone smoothing a sheet.
“Then we’re aligned,” she said, soft but certain.
“Seems like it,” he said.
He stood and offered his hand to pull her up without thinking about what it looked like from the yard. She took it. Her palm was cool and sure in his. He let go too fast and felt ridiculous about it.
Back inside, the afternoon settled into that strange fast-slow rhythm that happens on days that matter.
The clip kept gathering kind comments. The town kept defending its own.
The rehearsal was tight. At three forty-five, a single camera crew rolled up the drive.
A woman named Patrice, with a microphone and quiet eyes, asked permission to step onto the porch.
Tony said yes and drew a quick boundary line that they respected.
The walk-and-talk ran eight minutes. Patrice asked about home and mornings and songs that start before coffee. Jami answered like Carlene had told him to. One sentence. True. He sang one clean line on the porch rail. Patrice smiled and said it would sit well between weather and sports.
When they left, the property sighed like it had been tested and found sound.
Evening crept in at the edges while they put gear away.
Sean scribbled a chord change on a Post-it and stuck it to Sunday’s case.
Axel texted Hanna a photo of Trouble with a bite taken out of its heart.
Livia reminded everyone to drink water. Tony answered a dozen emails and looked less tired than he had in weeks.
Carlene closed her laptop and looked at Jami across the stage. They didn’t need to say anything. There’d be other days where it felt harder than this. Today had been a clean line.
He picked up the guitar and played the chorus once, quiet enough that it didn’t make a show of itself. She stood still and let it move through the room.
Morning had started something. He could feel it in his hands. He didn’t know where it would land yet, but for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t afraid of the distance between here and there.
He was ready to walk it.