Chapter 37
Chapter thirty-seven
Jaxon
The sky is turning the orange-and-gold mixture I equate exclusively with Wild Bluffs, and despite the heat of the summer day, my skin is dry—something it’d never be in Nashville.
Everything here cracks a little when the wind blows—grass, dirt, old porch planks, me.
It’s drier, sharper. Nothing lush about it. You have to dig for softness here.
Something I never attempted to do with my dad. Something he never tried to do with me.
I’m sitting by the firepit, watching the falling sunlight flicker over the edge of a whiskey glass I haven’t touched.
I’m idly rearranging the red lava rocks in the firepit, moving them to one side before shifting them back again.
I lit the fire an hour ago just for the noise when the silence of the house and my dad’s room became too loud.
Crackling helps me think. Or at least, it drowns out the thought spiral I’ve been free-falling into since last night.
I kissed Izzy.
And it wasn’t part of the fake-dating deal we made weeks ago.
It was real.
And I’m so far gone, it’s terrifying.
She was always the something I couldn’t name, and now she’s everything I can’t let go.
I’m not supposed to feel this way. We were supposed to keep things light. Be her date. Help her spice up her life. Help me write songs.
Simple. Easy.
But nothing about Izzy’s laugh is simple.
Nothing about the way she leaned into my chest last night, the way her fingers curled into my shirt like she needed me to stay, was easy.
She’s gotten under my skin, and now I’m sitting here, wondering when the hell it all stopped being pretend.
“Thought I’d find you out here,” a voice calls behind me.
I glance over my shoulder. Carter walks across the grass, two beers in hand. His boots kick up little dust clouds with every step.
“I brought peace offerings,” he says, holding one out.
I take it, twist off the cap, and nod toward the other chair. “Thanks.”
He lowers himself into the weathered Adirondack beside mine and holds his hands out to the fire. “Gotta love how it’s still chilly enough to light a fire at night.”
I hum my agreement, sipping slowly. “Everything in Nashville holds the heat. Here, it’s like the second the sun drops, the air remembers it’s got nothing left to give.”
Carter eyes me sideways. “That a new lyric you’re working on or just a weather observation?”
I smirk. “Maybe both.”
We sit in silence for a few beats, firelight licking the edges of our boots, flames crackling in that comforting way that lets a man stay quiet without it feeling like avoidance.
Then Carter says, “It was fun having you out with us all the other day.”
I nod in agreement.
“Izzy seems happy,” Carter says, watching the fire like he’s not interrogating me.
My stomach tenses. I should’ve known this wasn’t just a casual beer.
I keep my gaze on the flames. “Izzy’s always happy.”
Carter considers that, quiet for a beat. “She’s easygoing. I’m not sure it’s the same thing.”
“No?” In my mind, she’s always been a beam of sunshine. Joy wrapped in sarcasm. I never questioned whether it was real.
“She just has always seemed…like someone who puts herself last,” Carter says.
“Like she’s the one making sure no one else feels awkward or left out.
Classic middle child stuff, I guess. She keeps the mood up, fills the silence, smooths the edges.
I suppose that doesn’t mean she isn’t happy.
She just always seems more focused on keeping other people comfortable. ”
Now that he says it, I can see it. The way she always jumps in with a joke when the room goes quiet. The way she plays mediator. The way she brushes off questions that might get too deep.
“But now that you’re dating,” Carter continues, “she seems like she’s excited about something for her.”
“We’re pretty casual,” I say, knowing even as I say it how untrue it sounds.
He raises his eyebrow. “Really? You sure about that? Because you flying her to Nashville, hanging out at her house all the time, integrating with her friends like it’s the most natural thing in the world—none of that screams casual.”
I sigh and rub the back of my neck. “Okay. It’s a little like that. But it didn’t start that way.”
“Explain it to me, then,” he says, not unkindly. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks a lot like you two are dating. Seriously dating.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, hating how right he is. “That’s kind of the problem.”
Carter leans back, beer bottle resting on his thigh. “Go on.”
“It started as fake dating,” I say, knowing I shouldn’t confess this to him, but at the same time, knowing I need someone to talk to.
Someone who knows Izzy better than I do.
Even if it pains me to admit, I’m not the authority on all things Izzy anymore.
“She wanted her family off her back about not having a date for Bryn’s wedding.
And she somehow makes it so I can write music again. So we made a deal.”
Carter raises his brows. “So the kissing, the dating—that’s all just...pretend?”
I close my eyes. “That’s the part I didn’t plan for.”
“The part where you obviously have feelings for her?”
“Definitely didn’t plan for that. The romantic ones at least. I did—I do—want to be her friend.”
He nods, his gaze distant, before he turns toward me.
“Izzy has never talked to me about you leaving in high school,” Carter says.
“But Kelsey told me once that her family was really worried about her during her senior year and when she first started college. She bombed some college interview. She didn’t go to a single social event unless Bryn or Becca forced her.
Wouldn’t even try to make friends with any of the people on her floor freshman year.
Thought she must be a terrible friend if you could just leave without a word. ”
The words land hard, even though I deserve them.
“I know I hurt her,” I say. “I thought leaving was the right thing back then. And it’s pretty hard to look at my life and say it wasn’t. But we weren’t dating then. It wasn’t…this serious.”
Carter lets out a breath. “You were kids.”
“We were best friends,” I whisper. “She was everything to me, but at the same time, that’s all it was: friends.
I’ve never put words to it before, but now that I’ve been back, I’ve realized I was scared.
Not scared of leaving—that part felt like breathing for the first time.
But scared of what staying in touch would mean.
Of being pulled back. Of hearing her voice and wanting to go home.
I knew if I looked back, I might not keep moving forward.
Music wasn’t just a dream; it was the only thing that felt like me.
And at eighteen? I didn't know how to carry both her friendship and my dream. I thought it had to be one or the other. And choosing music meant cutting everything else off, clean. Fifteen years later, I still don’t have a good excuse.
But that’s the truth. I left because I wanted something more.
I stayed gone because I didn’t know how to do anything else. ”
“And now?”
I shake my head. “Now, it’s worse. Because she’s not just a girl I used to know. She’s a woman who rebuilt her whole life. She’s sharp and fierce and funny and so fucking capable. And she let me in again. Not just into her house but into her head. Into her space.”
“And your heart’s acting like it has squatters’ rights?”
I chuckle. “Yeah.”
Carter studies me for a beat. “Does she know it’s not fake anymore?”
“No. Or maybe she does. But I’m not sure I should tell her.
I don’t know how this works—how we work.
And I don’t want to make her promises I can’t keep.
Once this farm sells, I’m going to have to get back to the studio, and then it will be another tour.
I have a team relying on me that I’ve let down for long enough.
I can’t just take off a few months and come back to Wild Bluffs.
I’ve got fans and tours and contracts to think about. ”
Carter exhales hard. “Look, I’m not going to pretend to know what the right move is. But I’ll tell you this, I didn’t think I knew what the hell I was doing either when I started pursuing Kelsey. She had this whole wall built, and I had no business trying to climb it. I almost didn’t.”
He looks over at me, his voice quiet. “But if I’d waited until I knew exactly how it would all turn out, I would’ve lost her. She didn’t need me to be perfect, just someone who chose her and was willing to keep trying.”
“And if I’m not enough?”
“Then at least you’ll know you were brave enough to say what mattered. That you stopped hiding behind your fear.”
Inside, that old crack—right down the center of me—splinters deeper. It feels like it’s holding too much now.
My entire life is centered around my music. I don’t know how to make space for someone without losing the only thing that makes my life worthwhile.
“Are you in love with her?” Carter asks with a sympathetic grimace.
I drop my head back, staring at the two lone stars that are visible in the dusk sky. The words settle in the air between us, sparking with the kind of electricity that only comes when you’ve been avoiding the answer.
“Is it even called love when it’s so consuming that your life slowly recenters around someone who is unaware they’ve shifted your entire world?”
It’s the truth I’ve been orbiting for weeks. The one that burns hotter than the fire.
I’m falling in love with Izzy. It’s not a crush. Not nostalgia. It’s bone-deep. All-consuming. And if she doesn’t feel it too? I don’t know how to come back from that.
Carter lets out a low whistle and takes a long swig of beer.
“Well, shit.”
I huff out a laugh. “Yeah.”
“But at least the lyrics are back,” he says, as if trying to somehow bandage over the fatal wound I just realized I’d been given.
I shrug. “I wrote a whole song today, and I barely even care. Lyrics and melodies flow through me like the blood in my veins, but they don’t matter anymore. Izzy has become my anchor note—the one everything else in me is built around.”
Carter leans forward, elbows on his knees.
“I know you know this, but Kelsey and I—when we started dating—it was messy too. Not fake-dating messy, but complicated. There was timing and rivalry and a whole bunch of reasons it shouldn’t have worked.
But it did. Because when someone feels like that, you don’t walk away. ”
“I don’t want to,” I say.
Carter looks me dead in the eye. “Then don’t.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Listen,” he says, eyes narrowing slightly, “if you leave again, Izzy will close the door and find a way to never let you back in. And, honestly, I’ll be there helping her hold the door closed.
She is one of the most important things in the world to Kelsey, and on top of that, she’s my sister now.
I’d do anything to protect her. I want to root for you, Jax—but not if you’re going to leave wreckage.
But going to Nashville and leaving are two very different things.
We all travel for work: me, Kelsey, Bryn, Jameson, Lila, and JT.
All of us. So even though we spend time apart, it’s not leaving them behind. If you love her, you make it work.”
“And if she doesn’t feel the same?”
He leans back, eyes steady. “Then you let her go—but only after she knows exactly how you feel.”
We fall silent again, the fire popping and hissing beside us. I finally pick up the whiskey glass and toss back a small sip. It burns in a way that feels almost deserved.
Finally, I turn my attention back to Carter. “I know this is a shitty thing to ask, but please don’t tell Kelsey. Not yet. I need to figure out what to tell Izzy first.”
“Fine,” he says. “You have my word for now. But I don’t like keeping things from my wife, and I certainly won’t lie to her if she asks.”
“Of course.”
The fire hisses as the wind shifts, spitting sparks into the dark like warnings. Or promises. I don’t know which yet.
But I know this: when the smoke clears, I don’t want to be standing alone.
And I think I have just the plan to make it happen.
“Do you have Matthew Thatcher’s number by any chance?”