Chapter 24
twenty-four
Cash
I should’ve been relieved that Charlie was gone for the evening. My inner battle could cease for a little while. I didn’t have to wander the house, hoping to run into her around every corner while dreading it at the same time. But it felt weird not having her there. Like the walls were holding their breath, waiting for her to return. Just like me.
It had been a long day in the recording studio which meant we were eating a very late dinner.
“I’m full.” Addie’s brown curls flounced against her shoulders as she flopped back in her chair. “Can I please be excused?”
Mom eyed the chicken breast on Addie’s plate, barely touched. “Sweetie, you need more protein in your body than that. Don’t you want to grow tall?”
“No,” Addie said matter-of-factly. “I want to be short like you. Dad calls you fun-sized and it’s so cute. I want my husband to call me that.”
Mom glowered at Dad like his nickname for her was responsible for Addie’s terrible eating habits.
“Don’t look at me,” he said. “I love chicken.” He stabbed another breast from the serving tray and ripped a hunk off with his teeth.
I chuckled.
“Ford!” Mom huffed. Dad swallowed and answered with a kiss to the end of her nose. She couldn’t be mad at that, so she turned her scowl on Addie. “Three more bites.”
“Mooom,” Addie whined. “You know how I feel about chicken.”
“And beef and ham and eggs,” Dad said. “And bacon,” he added as an afterthought. “What kind of weirdo doesn’t like bacon?”
“I’m not a weirdo.” Addie huffed.
“Debatable,” I coughed into my hand.
She gave me the side eye.
“You’re going to get scurvy if you keep it up.” Mom forked a piece of chicken off Addie’s plate and zoomed it toward her mouth.
Addie scowled but slowly opened, letting Mom land the food plane. She pinched her nose as she chewed.
“Really?” Mom said. “So rude.”
Addie gagged, her cheeks chipmunking, her stomach convulsing.
“Don’t you throw up, young lady,” Dad ordered.
He had a personal vendetta against vomit ever since the time Liam and I had a sleepover and Liam puked off the top of my bunk bed in the middle of the night. It splattered everywhere. The carpet, the dresser, the walls…on me. It had taken hours of elbow grease and a professional carpet cleaner to right that wrong.
“I can’t help it,” Addie said around the poultry pouch in her cheek. “I just keep thinking about the Fat Lady.” Our plumpest laying hen. “And how it might’ve been one of her babies. Or her brother.” Her bottom lip curled, letting a droplet of chicken-flavored saliva slide out of the corner of her mouth. “I mean, how do you think I would feel if someone cooked Cash on the grill and ate him with a side of rice?” She looked at me longingly. But she was turning a little green. She jerked, her legs kicking out as she dry-heaved. And then, a loud belch shot out of her nose right before she puked all over the Williams Sonoma dinner plate, spattering onto the tablecloth.
Mom threw her hands up. “Oh, good grief.”
“Well.” I scooted away. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
I guess Dad loved Addie more than he cared about the vendetta because he hurried over, knelt down and rubbed circles against her back.
“Ford,” Mom scolded. “Do not coddle that child. She’s playing us and you’re falling for it. She just got out of eating her dinner. And you know good and well that she’ll be asking for a PB and J in an hour.”
He shrugged. “She gets it honest. My grandpa was the same way. Said he kept thinking about how the meat had been a real live animal.” Dad had a twinkle in his eye. “Hard nose,” he said to Mom.
“Somebody has to be. You’d do anything that girl wanted. Next you’ll be offering to go vegetarian with her.” She pointed her fork at Dad. “I am not giving up steak. So don’t even ask.”
“Ditto.” I pushed back from the table and walked to the trash receptacle located in the island to scrape my plate.
Addie groaned. “If I eat another bite, I’ll actually die.” She reached for Dad dramatically. “Please tell my stuffed animals goodbye.”
“Oh my gosh.” I laughed.
Mom tisked. “You can be excused but you’re rinsing your plate and putting it in the dishwasher. Also, I need you to run up to Charlie’s room and get the clothes she was wearing today. They had some flecks of manure on them and I want to see if I can get them out.”
“Good luck with that,” Dad said.
Addie had her plate rinsed and put in the dishwasher in twenty seconds. She raced up the stairs to Charlie’s room, no worse for the wear.
I started clearing the table.
Dad hooted, staring at his phone. “Tally had the baby.”
“Really?” Mom said, surprised.
“Already?” The hope in my voice was embarrassing. Maybe Charlie would be home soon.
His mouth fell open. “In the car. They didn’t make it to the hospital.”
Mom’s head gave a little shake. “My worst nightmare. Is everyone okay?”
“Mom and baby are doing great. It sounds like Charlie delivered her.” Dad chuckled. “Look.”
I walked over to see. Uncle Ash, Aunt Tally, and Charlie were huddled in the van—a screaming baby lying against Tally’s chest, all of them beaming. Charlie looked like she’d been crying—eyes red-rimmed—but exuberant. Seriously, she was glowing.
I smiled. “She has dark hair like Charlie.”
“She’ll be a beauty for sure,” Mom said.
“What’s a reply song?” Addie said behind us, dropping Charlie’s manure-stained clothes onto the counter.
Mom released an exhausted-sounding sigh. “Don’t put those there. Cash, can you wipe that off?” She hopped up and carried them to the laundry room down the hall. I gave the counter a quick swipe with a Clorox wipe and tossed it into the trash.
“Aunt Tally had her baby,” Dad said, holding out the phone for Addie to see.
“Oh, she’s so cute,” Addie cooed. “What’s her name?”
“Hmm. No name yet.”
“What’s a reply song?” she asked again.
Dad set his phone on the table and steepled his fingers against his chest, giving Addie his full attention. “It’s when one artist writes a song and another writes one that answers it using the same melody. Kind of like lyrical ping-pong.”
“So you’re saying people just…steal songs and answer back?” she asked.
I chuckled. “Not steal. It’s like…a conversation, but with music. Like Taylor Swift wrote ‘Enchanted’ after meeting Adam Young of Owl City. Then he wrote a song also called ‘Enchanted’ as a response. Why?” What had happened between the time she left the kitchen and the time she returned to make her ask that?
Her brows flicked up. “I think Charlie wrote a reply song to ‘Hard to Love You.’”
I jerked my head back. “What makes you think that?”
“Because she left a notebook on her bed that has your song on one side of the page and then another song on the opposite page that says, Reply song: ‘Hard to Leave You.’” She tapped her chin. “Oh, and she wrote your name and initials everywhere around it with heart doodles. Like, a whole army of pink hearts.”
A sharp jolt struck my chest, like a firework detonating under my ribs. What was happening right now?
Addie reached over and pinched my arm.
I jerked it away. “What’d you do that for?”
“Because I could tell you thought you were dreaming. You’re not.”
Dad looked at me, his head tilting sideways, shocked.
“You’re sure?” I asked Addie.
“No.” Her shoulders dropped. “I made all that up.” For a half second, my hopes crashed. But then she rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. I know how to read. I’m eight, not six.” She poked me in the arm. “Told you, you’re going to marry her.”
My gaze flashed toward the stairs leading to Charlie’s room.
“First of all,” Dad said, voice full of rebuke. “You shouldn’t be snooping through Charlie’s things?—”
“I didn’t!” Addie scoffed. “She left it lying on the end of her bed like she wanted someone to see it.”
“And second,” Dad clipped, eyes on me, his tone stern with warning. “Songs are personal. Only to be shared when you’re ready to share them. Just because it was on the end of her bed?—”
I took off, jogging through the kitchen and up the stairs.
“Cash!” Dad yelled.
Nope. Nuh uh. Was this a breach of trust? Probably. Would Charlie be mad if she found out? Definitely. But nothing was going to stop me. Not my dad. My mom. Not even an act of God.
I had to know.
I burst into the room right as I heard Dad’s feet pounding in my direction. I locked the door and sprinted for the open notebook on Charlie’s unmade bed. My lungs heaved as I stared down at it.
Addie hadn’t exaggerated. If anything, she’d undersold it. My hands fisted in my hair, my heart tripping over itself.
The second half of ‘Hard to Love You’ covered the left page. Not just the words, but the entire composition—staff lines, notes, chords—my song, laid out in black ink like she’d pulled it straight from my head. The sheet music wasn’t available online. She’d figured this out on her own. Sure, a few notes were missing here and there, but it was ninety-eight percent right. This must've taken her hours.
On the opposite side was the first part of a song titled: ‘Hard to Leave You,’ (Reply Song to ‘Hard to Love You’). Unlike a normal reply song, she hadn’t simply put her lyrics to my melody. No, she’d come up with a Charlie Dupree Original. The date next to it told me she’d started it…the day after I dropped ‘Hard to Love You’ on TikTok.
I could dig into the song in a moment—and I would. After I wrapped my head around the doodles bordering the music. My name and initials whirled over the page in every form. CD. CLD. Cash Dupree. Cassius Dupree. Cassius Levi Dupree. A laugh bubbled up in my chest when I spotted Mr. and Mrs. Cash Dupree.
And finally, Cash and Charlie Dupree.
I hooted, fists to the sky. But it was weak. I was too overwhelmed to catch my breath. “I knew it.” I laughed.
Wait. Had I?
Yeah. Deep down, I had. There’s no way you kiss someone back the way she’d kissed me—twice—if you don’t feel something intense. Which is why it had hurt so much when she said she didn’t feel the same. It felt like she was denying what I knew in my core to be true.
Dad shook the handle, then pounded on the door. “Don’t do it, son.”
“Yeah, right.” I laughed, feeling lighter than I had in years. “You’re telling me you wouldn’t look if this was Mom back in the day? If you knew there was something that would’ve ended all that waiting?”
There were a few seconds of tense silence and I wondered if he’d try to pop the lock. But then he sighed the sigh of a resigned man. “Fine. But I wash my hands of this just like Pontius Pilate.”
I chuckled. “Didn’t work for him and it won’t work for you. But I’ll tell her you tried to stop me if it helps.”
I heard him mutter a curse word. Then he trounced down the stairs. I grabbed Charlie’s guitar from the corner.
I collapsed onto the bed, the notebook propped against a pillow, and played as I sang the words quietly.
I still hum that old song you played,
The one I swore I’d never learn your way.
A rumble shook in my chest. She was talking about ‘What Could Go Right,’ by Thomas Rhett. A friend confessing to another friend that he’s in love with her. It was one of the first songs I’d taught her, hoping she’d see it was us. But she couldn’t play it the way it was written. She kept replacing basic chords with fancier ones. I’d say, “You do not need to put a G7 there,” and she’d say, “Oh, I absolutely do.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and exhaled, releasing the overwhelming emotions. Then I kept going.
Didn’t know what you meant when you kissed me that night,
Thought it was a dream, just a trick of the light.
I never believed I was worth your time,
So I walked away, left you behind.
Was that really how she felt? That she wasn’t worth my time?
I see your grin in the rearview glass,
Hear your voice in the echo of my past.
Same, Charlie. Same. Every day she was gone.
Didn’t think you’d wait for me,
Didn’t know love was what you’d seen.
I made myself slow down on the chorus, savoring every beautiful word.
Hard to leave you when you were all I ever wanted,
Hard to pretend when my heart never stopped.
I was too scared to take your hand,
Didn’t think I’d get a chance.
And I’ve regretted it every day ? —
But walking away never meant I didn’t want to stay.
Dang. She could write. Lyrics and music. The melody was equal to the words—full, rich, and evoking deep emotion. It evoked all of mine. My eyes burned and my chest filled with want. No, need . I needed to hold her. Needed to tell her she was all I’d ever wanted too.
I flipped the page, desperate for the rest of it.
Thought you deserved someone better than me,
Didn’t see that I was all you’d need.
Every song you sang felt just like home,
Even two thousand miles away, I wasn’t alone.
I wondered if she’d known back then that my songs were meant to do exactly that.
My eyes took in the stacked chords, the break in pattern, the way the measures opened up like a sharp inhale before the plunge. All a signal that the bridge—the best part—was here, waiting to knock the song off balance before bringing it home.
I dove back into her words, ready to drown in the weight of them.
That night in the water, when you kissed me slow,
I should've known you meant it, should’ve let it show.
Didn’t know then, but I know now ? —
I should’ve stayed, should’ve figured it out.
I had regrets too. So many. But as my dad always said, ‘Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.’ Maybe, just maybe, I could take Charlie by the hand and prove to her that the best parts of our story weren’t behind us.
I held my breath as I came upon the outro. Would this be a happily ever after or a bittersweet ending? I closed my eyes, took a breath, and let myself find out.
So I’ll let you sing me home from afar,
But who I am now, doesn’t belong where you are.
You loved a dream, I woke up alone,
And some hearts aren’t meant to find their way home.
And some hearts are…because here she was.
I shot to my feet, my mind a whirlwind. The elation of what she felt for me was overwhelming in the best way. But I was confused too. If this was how she felt, why had she said otherwise?
I fished my phone from my back pocket and tapped on her name. But if I called or texted, what would I say? ‘So, uh… hypothetically speaking, if someone were to, maybe, accidentally read your super-secret song lyrics, should they pretend not to know you’re in love with them, or…?’
Yeah. I couldn’t sideswipe her like that. She was going to be upset, at least a little. This conversation needed to happen carefully and in person.
Then I had a terrible thought: what if she’d changed her mind after being around me the past few weeks? Maybe she’d thought she loved me but now she realized she didn’t.
I fell back onto the bed, pulled the notebook into my lap, and flipped, searching for any clue. I didn’t have to go far. One page. It felt like the air had been punched from my lungs. There was another reply song. This one to ‘Please Come Home Tonight.’ I turned three pages and found another. Then another and another and another. Each song pulled me in deeper, my mind spinning, my heart lifting higher with every turn.
She’d filled an entire notebook. Page after page, the dates inched closer to the present. Her feelings hadn’t faded. If anything, they’d only grown stronger.
By the time I got to the last song, my hands were shaking, nervous system completely overloaded. If I flipped this page and this song was an I-just-don’t-feel-that-way-about-you-anymore song…I didn’t know what I’d do.
I blew out my breath and turned one more time.
She did not disappoint. This song wasn’t a reply song at all. It was all her and it was all about us. A leave-it-all-on-the-table confessional called “Sing Me Home.”
And the date?
The day after I’d kissed her in Anna and Blue’s pool.