Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
She claimed a stretch of the bar and opened her laptop, the wood still cool beneath her wrists. Across the room, the band filtered into the studio, strings thrumming, Axel's drums setting the beat. Their noise settled in her chest as proof that they were still themselves.
“Coffee?” Sean called from the end of the bar.
“Yes, please.” She didn’t look up. The inbox had multiplied while they watched Vivian posture.
Grant’s email sat at the top.
Breach notice served. Confirming receipt by Summit’s counsel. Drafting a cease and desist for further defamation.
She exhaled. One brick set.
Tony leaned an elbow on the bar. “You need anything from me?”
“I need the original touring timeline and your notes from those early meetings.” She met his eyes. “The ones before Summit got involved.”
He nodded. “On my drive. Give me five.”
She opened a clean doc, titled it Narrative Anchor, and started bulleting what she knew fans felt when they watched the band. Connection. Work ethic. The way they took care of people in a room, not just a crowd. She wrote quickly, trimming every sentence until it read simple and true.
Footsteps echoed on the old wooden floorboards. Jami slid onto the stool beside her, a to-go carton balanced in one hand. “Egg sandwiches. You ignored breakfast.”
She set her fingers on the warm lid. “You noticed.”
His brows rose, and that grin appeared. "I did."
She tilted the carton open and took a bite. “Grant served the notice. Next one goes in an hour.”
“Good.” He studied her face. “You okay to drive the quiet plan? Keep it steady, show the work, nothing reactive.”
“That’s the only plan that holds.” She reached across and smoothed the crease between his brows with her thumb. “You go make music. Let me handle the noise.”
He caught her hand and pressed it to his mouth, just once. “I like us as a team.”
Something inside her loosened. She took another bite so she wouldn’t say too much too fast.
Sean’s laugh floated out from the studio. “Hit that again.”
Jami glanced toward the door, the pull obvious. “Come in when you want. Or stay out here and boss us with love.”
“Tempting.” She nodded at his guitar calluses, rough and familiar. “Go before I try to keep you.”
He stood, but lingered. “About the house.”
Her stomach dipped. “Jami.”
“I am not rushing you. I am staking a claim on my life.” His tone remained quiet. “You can eventually go, and I will still cook you dinner and try to meet up with you on the road. But I want you there. With me.”
She stared at his chest rather than his eyes, because it felt safer. “I forgot what home feels like with a person in it.”
“Come remember.” He brushed two fingers under her chin, not lifting it, just offering. Then he left her with the sandwich and the ache.
Tony reappeared with a flash drive. “Everything from pre-Summit to the first handshake with them.”
She slid it into her laptop. “You’re a saint.”
“I’m practical.” He checked the studio window. “They’re already building something in there.”
“Good.” She pulled up file after file, skimming dates, screen-shotting calendar entries, dropping them into a proof folder. “We will not argue online. We’ll just show the timeline. Fans aren’t dumb.”
“Agreed.” He hesitated. “You eating?”
“Yes. Jami fed me.”
“Of course he did.” Tony’s mouth tipped. “Shout if you need me.”
She worked. She tightened their About copy, stripped any hint of defensiveness, and wrote a caption for later that was nothing but gratitude and process.
Today looks like guitars on stools and ink on legal pads. No drama, just songs. Thanks for sticking with us.
She scheduled it for late afternoon, then created a content calendar for the next two weeks. Studio candids. Lyric scraps with no context. A clip of the barn lights warming up. The band setting up mics with smiles on their faces. Little things that told the bigger story.
Tony set a mug next to her elbow. “Cream, no sugar.”
She took a sip. “Thank you.”
He glanced at her screen. “Are you always this calm?”
“No.” She moved a folder to the desktop. “I just know what panic costs.”
“Fair.” He angled his head toward the studio. “He writes differently with you here.”
“How?”
“Less trying to prove he should be the one holding a mic. More… telling the truth, he already carries.” Tony lifted a shoulder. “Not my business to say, but you steady him.”
She didn’t answer. The truth hit a place she didn’t touch often.
When he left, she clicked open a photo still from last night’s livestream and cropped it until it was just four hands in a loose stack on a guitar top. No faces. No poses. She saved it as hands.jpg and set it aside.
Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. She stared at it, let it go, then opened the message when it landed.
We can help shape coverage. On your terms. If you want it.
A reputable outlet. Not one of the gossip feeds. She typed a simple reply.
Not now. I will reach out with assets when it is time. Thank you.
She set the phone face down and opened a new doc labeled FAQ: For Fans. Short answers. Straight lines.
Are you going on tour?
We'll play music and tell you where and when once we have a solid schedule.
Plain talk. Nothing to twist.
The studio door opened a crack. Maddyn stuck her head out. “Borrow your brain?”
Carlene slid off the stool and followed her into the control room. Cables snaked across the floor. Two legal pads lay open, both messy with chords and halves of phrases.
Sean strummed and looked up. “We need a gut check on a line.”
Jami stood with his guitar, hair pushed back, eyes on her first, then the page. “Sing it to her.”
Sean sang a raw line, the kind that sits too close to the bone. She listened twice, then shook her head. “Good image, wrong pronoun. It makes it about the crowd when the song’s talking to one person.”
Jami’s mouth curved. “Told you.”
Sean rolled his eyes. “You were right. Happy?”
“Yes.” Jami tapped his pencil on the pad and shifted the words. “What about now?”
She read the change, heard it inside the beat he hadn’t played yet. The new line landed clean. “There it is.”
Jami caught her gaze like he wanted to say more. He didn’t. He played the progression, the room falling quiet around the notes. The melody found a pocket and settled. Her throat went tight.
She moved back to the bar before she started crying like a fool in a room full of musicians.
Grant’s second email arrived.
Cease and Desist delivered. Third letter drafted regarding tour use. Holding per your timing.
She typed back, Send in forty-five. Then she stood, stretched, and walked the perimeter of the barn with her phone, framing small shots. Sean’s bare feet braced on the rug. Maddyn checking a cable. Axel counting off under his breath. Tony leaning on the soundboard, eyes closed, just listening.
She stitched a ten-second reel of those quiet beats and saved it for later. No captions yet. She wanted to watch more before she chose the words.
“Hey.” Jami’s voice was behind her, lower now, used up in a way she recognized from show nights. “Come hear something.”
She followed him into the studio. He shut the door, not to hide, but to build a small place where the sound stayed theirs. He set a travel notebook on the stool between them and flipped to a page filled with lines she couldn’t quite read from the angle.
“Rough,” he warned.
“I prefer rough to polished lies.”
He huffed out a laugh and played. The chords were familiar now, the skeleton getting muscle. Then he sang a verse that wasn’t a declaration, wasn’t a performance. It was a simple admission set to a melody that felt like a hand, held steady in a crowded room.
She blinked fast. “It works.”
“You’d tell me if it didn’t.”
“I would.” She touched the edge of the notebook. “Who are you singing to here?”
“You.” He didn’t soften it. “But also anyone who needs a door that opens.”
Her breath snagged. “That’s a lot to promise.”
“It's not a promise. It's a wish I can work for.”
She looked at him for a long moment, every part of her aware that this man loved like he sang, full voice or not at all. The divorce had taught her to love with the lights on. The years since had taught her to set her own terms. She heard both lessons in the way he waited without pushing.
“About the house,” she said.
He didn’t move. “Yeah.”
She glanced around to see if the others were listening.
Taking a deep breath, she exhaled and lowered her voice.
“I am not sloppy with my life anymore.” She rubbed her palms on her jeans, needing the scrape of denim.
“If I move anything into your place, it is because I intend to show up there after bad days and good ones. I do not need a rescue. I need a choice.”
“That is all I want you to have.”
She nodded. “Then here is mine. I will move my office upstairs if the offer stands. I will move in with you. Not in a suitcase-on-the-floor way. In a toothbrush-in-the-drawer way.”
Relief flickered across his face, quick and unguarded. “Yes.”
“One more thing,” she added.
“Name it.”
“We do dinner at a table. Phones somewhere else. At least twice a week when we are in the same town. I am not building a life that runs on headlines.”
He smiled with his eyes, not his mouth. “Twice a week is light work.”
“Start small. Keep it.” She glanced at the notebook again. “Play it once more.”
He did. The second pass landed deeper. She slipped out while he continued honing the song, and she pulled up the scheduled post from earlier. She changed the caption.
Today looks like hands finding the right chords and hearts choosing where to live. Thanks for staying while we build.
She scheduled it for six. Not now, not later. Six felt like the hour people wanted something to hold before they turned to whatever waited at home.
Grant’s third email chimed. Sent.
She closed her eyes and let the click of the metronome through the wall set her pulse. Then she opened a new sheet labeled Move Plan and wrote the first line.
Keys. Not to a place. To a choice.
“Carlene?” Tony called. “Got a minute?”
She swiveled the laptop closed and stood. “Always.”
They met at the door of the studio. “This is what fans never get to see. The stop-and-start. The patience.”
“That is what we show them now.” She reached for her camera again. The patience is the proof.
Music swelled in the studio. Jami’s voice slid in, clean and warm, and the barn answered him with the kind of quiet only earned by work. She lifted the camera, caught a second of it, and lowered her arms.
Enough. Keep the sacred part inside the walls.
She returned to the bar, opened her laptop, and typed a note to herself across the very top of the content calendar.
No battles. Only truth. Lead with the work, then with the heart.