Chapter 19 #2
“That woman.” I murmur under my breath.
“And it became her break-out single. Sabrina didn’t even tell me it was out there, charting.”
I draw in a sharp breath, the kind that feels as though it will cut on the way down. My hand tightens slightly around his, a simple tether to me. I don’t interrupt, but he must feel the tremor in my fingers, the way my body reacts to his pain.
“She gave me no credit. My name was nowhere in connection to that song. And suddenly, the words that meant the most to me belonged to everyone but me.”
He unwraps his arm from mine and looks down at the water. I follow his gaze. It moves lazily beneath us, a mirror to the ache in his voice.
“You already know some of that, I guess. But not how it happened. Not what it did to me.”
He pauses. The wind gusts once, then stills.
“The first time I heard her version, I was in line at the grocery store, soaked from the rain, juggling oranges and soup cans, just trying to keep my head down. Her voice came on over the store speakers—singing my song. The one I hammered out and reworked for months, as if I were building a cathedral out of words and sound.”
Beau runs a hand through his hair, and I sense he’s reliving the moment again in his mind.
“Maisie, I froze. Dropped everything.”
I picture it—him soaked, overwhelmed, incapable of moving while his song—his song—spilled through fluorescent-lit air, sung by the woman who had betrayed him.
“People were in line in front and behind me, but no one noticed me falling apart. I remember thinking, ‘Sabrina was right. My voice really doesn’t matter.’ No one cared that it was her voice violating my song. When I was breaking, no one saw or cared.”
He scratches his temple, then rubs it hard as if he can erase the memory.
“The lyrics hadn’t changed. Well, not entirely. She left out the fourth verse, the one I nearly didn’t write down because it felt too frightening to share. Opening myself to ridicule and rejection.”
“I know this is hard, Beau. Take your time.” Resting my head on his upper arm, I keep listening, sensing that he’s getting to an even more significant truth.
“But she kept the rest of my song the same. My sound, my truth, the emotional fingerprint of the song. She recycled it for her spotlight. But it was still me. Still everything I’d poured out when I didn’t know how else to hold the longing I couldn’t explain yet. She only erased my name, not my soul.”
My breath catches, not loud, but enough. I step closer instinctively, putting my arm around his waist.
Here. I’m here. I try to communicate without words, letting him keep going.
“The betrayal? Yep. That hurt. But the worst part? Realizing I started to believe that maybe the words only mattered when someone else sang them. That my voice wasn’t enough.”
His thumb strokes the guitar pick again, absently.
“So I stopped. Performing. Writing. Singing and playing even for fun in front of anyone. Because if no one saw it, no one could take it. Hiding wasn’t safer. It just felt like the punishment I deserved.”
“No,” I whisper, barely.
“Leaving my musical career behind became the price I thought I had to pay for trusting the wrong person with my inner being. I felt complicit in the loss of my song. Foolish, naive.”
He lets out a long sigh in which I sense a little relief, maybe even a sense of lightening, having told me all this. But there’s more.
“I did call her, afterward. Asked her why. She said it was bigger than both of us now. That the song needed a platform. That my name didn’t matter, only the message.
And when I pushed back, she told me I was being dramatic.
That I was imagining the slight. That I should be grateful it was getting heard at all.
Like I should thank her for stealing it. ”
My fingers twitch with the urge to throw something. Anger floods my gut. I feel like…like…pinching her. A low guttural rumble escapes from my throat instead. Protective.
“It wasn’t just a song to me. It was so much more. It was everything. I think part of me was writing it about her at the time. I wanted it to be about her. But deep down…I knew it wasn’t. I was writing for something I didn’t know existed yet. And after I met you—after I really saw you—then I knew.”
I reach for his hand again and trace my thumb across the back of it, needing to anchor myself to the truth of what he’s saying. He lets out a slow breath but doesn’t look away.
“It was never about Sabrina. I tried to make it fit her because she was there, and I thought love meant writing for the person you’re with. But the words didn’t belong to her. They belonged to the woman I hadn’t met yet. To the love I didn’t understand until you walked in.”
“Did you ever think about fighting for it?” I ask, softly.
His brow creases. “I did. For about a minute. And then the shame crept in. I couldn’t even play it while I was by myself for a long time.
It felt poisoned. I kept wondering if I’d made it all up.
If maybe it really was hers all along. That’s how fast doubt worked in me because someone I thought I loved rewrote the story without me. ”
He shakes his head slightly. “I didn’t want to let music go forever, not really. But it took you coming into my life to remind me of what it could feel like to be understood—not just by someone, but with someone.”
I nod slowly, heart full, and shift a little closer so our arms touch.
“Being with you didn’t erase the past, but it made me want to pick up my guitar again. Completely for me this time—and for you. Not to prove something or track down something I lost.”
He breathes out. “This all happened far enough away that Sweetpines didn’t know. I lived in Nashville at the time. Where all singer-songwriters go to chase dreams, right? Once I left Northern Chords, I left that part of me behind, and didn’t want anyone else to know about it.
“Cal Rivers.” He chuckles. “Tess helped me keep my story stashed away. I didn’t want to risk someone loving only the idea of me, or the past I came from. I hoped someone might fall for who I am now, still carrying those scars, yes, but not living in them anymore. Just moving forward.”
I nod again.
“You didn’t have to tell me all that,” I whisper.
His eyes meet mine, steady but glistening with unshed tears. “I did need to, though. Because you’re the first person who’s looked at present day me and seen something worth staying for.”
My throat catches. I swallow. And then I say what’s been building in my chest since the day he first looked at me as though I wasn’t too much.
“I love who you are now. Not because of your past. Not despite it. Because you let me see all of it.”
His expression shifts as if my words scratched open a small scab.
I add quickly, “And I didn’t fall for the songs. I fell for the man who wanted someone to sing them to.”
Beau’s shoulders lift with a sharp inhale, then drop and loosen. He looks at me like I’m the sunrise, and he’s not sure he deserves the light.
“It still doesn’t feel real,” he says. “You loving me. It’s the best kind of dream.”
I smile softly. “I’m not a dream, and neither are you, although you are a dream come true. Our love is genuine and strong, Beau. And you’re not getting away from me.”
He takes my hand in both of his.
“I love you, Maisie.”
“And I love you, Beau Callahan.”
Below us, the river ripples. Trees sway gently overhead.
After a while, his thumb begins to trace along my knuckles. Thoughtful.
“I’ve been working on something,” he says. “That song you overheard at the music hall…I’ve rewritten it so many times since you heard it, trying to find the right ending. But I realized recently that it isn’t supposed to be finished alone. It isn’t supposed to be just mine anymore.”
My head tilts. He’s turned and faces me completely now. There’s curiosity in my eyes.
“Would you…would you…want to finish it with me?” His voice quivers, and I know this is a huge thing to ask. “The melody, the lyrics. All of it. Help me write a song that’s ours?”
My throat tightens. But I find my voice. “I don’t know…my lyrics might make the song too flowery.”
He laughs full-out. It starts in his chest and spills out into the trees. Birds startle and scatter above us.
When his laughter quiets, he leans in and presses a kiss to my temple.
“And that’s exactly why I love you, Maisie Quinn. Keep being you, and I’ll never stop wanting you to be mine.”
I laugh too, because how can I not? I lean into him, fitting myself against his side, shoulder to chest. He lifts his arm and wraps it around me, tucking me beneath his shoulder until I’m nestled into the curve of him. He understands perfectly that I need the contact as much as he does.
“Well then,” I murmur, a touch of joy and laughter in my voice, “let’s make something beautiful and wonderfully unexpected. Like us.”
We don’t leave the bridge right away. We stay, letting the peace settle into all the spaces we used to protect, where fear once held tight.
And when we do move, it’s toward each other. No dramatic sweep—just a shift in position until we’re face-to-face again in the center of the bridge. Beau reaches up, brushing my hair back behind my ear. His hand is warm, and it settles against my cheek like it belongs there.
I lift my face up toward his first, initiating, here in the exact same place he kissed me for the very first time.
We keep eye contact until the moment before our lips touch.
I think of the note. Of the truth he trusted me with.
Of the bridge beneath our feet and how this place has held both silence and revelation.
My eyes close, not just to feel the kiss, but to store it away to think about later.
The kiss is firm and certain, imbued with the release of emotions and past wounds, acceptance and the strength of belonging to one another.
His mouth moves against mine with genuine desire to know me, as if he’s reading me, every soft give, every breath.
I feel as if I’m floating, and my fingers grip the fabric of his shirt for balance.
His lips taste of sweetened coffee, salt, and the faint traces of a musky aroma from his cologne, blended with a whisper of worn leather from the cord at his neck.
It’s woodsy and a little wild: earth, comfort and a hint of spice.
So distinctly Beau it sinks into memory on contact.
It’s a taste I’ll remember forever, the kind I could pick out of a thousand kisses.
When he exhales like he’s been holding it for years, his breath carries the fresh scent of the forest.
When we finally ease apart, he doesn’t step back.
He presses his palm to the back of my neck, holding me there as our breathing syncs, our lips barely apart.
I angle in for another kiss, slower this time, deeper.
His fingers grip my waist, and mine slide up to the back of his neck, keeping him near because I can’t bear to let go.
By now, I’m learning the language of his body, the small places that draw a shiver, the way his fingers tighten when I kiss just beneath the corner of his mouth, the soft catch of breath when my hand skims his jaw.
One of his hands stays at my waist, grounding us both, while the other brushes slowly along my cheek.
His fingers are a little calloused, and the contrast against my skin sends a jolt through me in the best way.
And I don’t want to pull away. I want to stay here, in this kiss, in this moment.
With him. With us. Exactly as we are.