Chapter 35
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
“All right, bud,” Otis said as he came down the hall from his music office. “We’ve got to get out to Bryce’s ranch.”
OJ sat at the bar and turned, a spoon dripping with milk in his hand. “I’m almost done with my cereal,” he said around a mouthful of food.
“You’re eating right now?” Otis asked.
“He’s starving,” Georgia said over her shoulder. She too sat at the bar, but she nursed a cup of coffee instead of a bowl of Lucky Charms.
“Where’s your guitar?” Otis asked. He hated feeling like he was rushing, and he certainly didn’t want to deal with Luke’s wrath if he showed up late.
It had snowed most of the morning yesterday, but nothing since.
He’d checked the weather and the road conditions, and he should be able to get to Bryce’s in the regular amount of time.
But they still needed to leave in the next few minutes.
“By the door,” OJ said around more marshmallows.
“You realize we’re eating in three hours?” he said. “No one in this family is going to starve in three hours.” He gave his son a look as he passed him, picked up his guitar, and headed out into the garage.
They’d had a celebratory birthday breakfast for OJ that morning, because tonight, he was performing in the concert with Country Quad. Then there’d be a whole-family party at Bryce’s house, partly for the beginning of this winter concert series and partly for OJ.
Otis had four guitars in the back of his truck already, but he managed to squeeze in a fifth and then OJ’s, along with his backpack of clothes and personal hygiene products. Adam had picked up the puffy vests that morning and would bring them to the venue.
A certain excitement Otis hadn’t felt in a while streamed through him. He loved being a dad and being home with his family. Georgia still ran her bookshop, and he didn’t want to be touring the world nine months out of the year the way he once had.
But at his core, Otis adored performing. Playing the guitar gave new life to his soul, and music had always existed in his blood. Some of that seemed to rub off on OJ, though none of Otis’s DNA existed inside the boy.
He turned back to the house just as OJ came out.
“Did you get your extra clothes like I asked?” Otis asked. He’d never had to be in charge of anyone by himself before, and having OJ perform had brought a new layer of stress he hadn’t anticipated.
“Shoot,” OJ said. “It’s in my bedroom.” He ran back inside while Otis sighed.
He followed his son and looked at his wife. “What else is he missing?”
“I helped him pack his bag this morning,” she said. “He’ll have extra clothes to change into for the party, and his Polaroid so he can take pictures.”
“What about his cowboy hat?” Otis asked, because he hadn’t seen it on his son’s head.
“It’s right there by the door,” Georgia said, nodding to it. She rose and came toward him as Otis took the hat off the hook. “It’s going to be fine.”
Otis didn’t want to snap at her that this was OJ’s country music debut, and that millions of people would be watching—including music executives and record producers from around the world.
The boy had turned eleven today, and he didn’t need to carry that kind of pressure. Otis seemed to be carrying it for him anyway.
“He’s playing two songs that he performs brilliantly,” Georgia said, smiling. “And he looks just like you.”
“Not without the hat,” Otis griped simply because he could.
His wife ran her hands along his shoulders and down his arms. “Baby, will you promise me one thing?”
Otis would promise her the world, but he kept his head ducked and grumbled, “All right.”
“Try to enjoy this,” she said.
“I’m going to enjoy it.”
“Really?” she asked. “Because it sure seems like you’re expecting everything to go wrong.”
Otis met her eyes, something sparking and challenging moving through him. “Have you met our son?” he asked. “He’d forget his own head if it wasn’t attached to his body.”
Georgia giggled in lieu of an argument. There wasn’t one to be made anyway.
OJ was no different than any other eleven-year-old boy, and they needed their daddies to make sure they had every piece in place before they showed up on a stage and performed for the world. Otis just wanted to be that dad for OJ.
“Got it,” OJ said, panting as he arrived upstairs again. “Did Bailey text, Daddy? She said she was going to try to watch.”
“I haven’t heard from her yet,” Otis said. Sometimes dealing with OJ’s questions about Bailey wore Otis to the bone. He glanced at Georgia, who said she didn’t mind them, but somewhere deep down inside her, Otis suspected his constant questions about his birth mom did bother her.
“Let’s go, son,” he said. “We don’t want to be late.”
“Yeah, I don’t need Uncle Luke yellin’ at me,” OJ said, as if he’d been waiting for the past twenty minutes for Otis to be ready. He marched past them and out into the garage while Georgia giggled and shook her head again.
“Hey, he’s got your family’s DNA in him,” she said.
Then she leaned in and kissed him, and Otis expected her to settle back on her feet and say she’d be out at the ranch later.
Instead, she kissed him for longer and then longer, and when she finally pulled away, Otis licked his lips and tasted her there.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she murmured, wiping her thumb along his bottom lip. “Just hoping you’ll have fun tonight.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide and earnest. “I mean, isn’t that why you retired? Whatever you do now should be fun, and if it’s not fun, then I don’t want you to do it.”
Otis nodded and swallowed. “It’s going to be fun.” He didn’t want to cause any undue stress inside his wife, and he ducked out of the house and into the pickup truck.
“All right, bud,” he said, putting on the most jovial voice he could come up with. “Before a concert, we do a check.”
“All right,” OJ said. “What kind of check?”
“Instrument?” Otis held up one finger.
“Guitar’s in the back,” Otis said, picking up on the game.
“Clothes?”
“I got my blue jeans on,” OJ said, clapping his hands on his thighs.
“And my black long-sleeve shirt, just like you guys. My black boots, my black hat.” He reached up and realized he wasn’t wearing his hat.
Otis held it up for him, and OJ grinned at him, grabbed it, and jammed it on his head. “Now I got my hat.”
“Equipment?” Otis asked next.
OJ looked in the back. “You got the amp, right?”
“I got the amp, and Bryce has two,” he said. “Uncle Luke brings all the drums and everything.”
OJ held up his third finger as well. “Equipment,” he said. “Check.”
“We’re having a party after our concert tonight,” he said. “You got extra clothes?”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Good, because we’re going to need those jeans and that shirt for our next concert in two days. We won’t have time to replace them.”
“I got extra clothes.” OJ patted his backpack.
“Water?” Otis asked.
OJ’s face went blank, and Otis started to laugh. “Adam’s bringing all the refreshments,” he said.
“Right,” OJ said. “Adam’s bringing all the refreshments.”
Otis quickly mentally ran through his instruments, clothing, equipment, and after-concert items, and then put the truck in reverse. “I think we got it all, bud.”
And even if they didn’t, Otis was pretty sure that Adam would have anything that he’d forgotten. The man didn’t miss anything, and he’d probably thought of a dozen things that Otis hadn’t troubled himself with.
He kept the country music low on the way to Rising Sun Ranch, because he never spoke more than he needed to prior to performing. He’d save his voice for the concert instead.
He pulled onto the ranch and moved to where Stockton Whittaker motioned for him to park.
Morris’s truck sat there, Adam’s SUV parked next to it.
Trace and Luke had already arrived as well, and as Otis pulled in next to the big black truck where he’d been told to park, he found Harry and Belle spilling from it.
“I don’t see Tex,” he muttered to himself, and he wasn’t sure why, but extreme pleasure ran through him that he hadn’t arrived last.
“Leave your backpack here, bud,” he said. “We don’t need it ‘til later.”
He killed the engine, got out, and started unloading his instruments. He had done a walkthrough with Adam only two days ago so that everyone knew where to park, where to stage, where the cameras would be, and what the performance would look like.
Jem and Blaze came out of the nearest barn, opening the doors wide and tying them back.
“Looks like everyone’s here,” Blaze called, and pure love for his brother filled Otis.
“I didn’t know you guys were helping.”
“Stagehand is the best job I’ve ever had,” Jem said, grinning. “What else you got?”
“He’s got a billion guitars in there,” OJ said, and both Jem and Blaze laughed outright.
“Not quite a billion,” Otis muttered, glad when Harry pulled back the bedcover on his truck to reveal five guitars as well. He moved over to his nephew and gave him a quick side hug. “Glad to see you have a lot of guitars too.”
Harry simply blinked at him. “How do you do a concert without guitars?”
“Great question,” Otis said.
Adam came outside and started issuing instructions and herding country music stars into the barn, where he’d heated the tack room—the one closest to the stage. It was too hot for Otis, and he eyed the puffy vest that Adam gave him like it was a viper and might strangle him.
Tex arrived, and Bryce came out from the house. With the instruments warm, and Luke tapping out a nervous beat on his drum set, Trace said, “Let’s play through a song just to get warmed up.”
Otis wasn’t going to complain about that, though he knew Trace had suggested it as a way to soothe his own nerves. They played through their opening number—one of their biggest hits in country rock—Wild Wild West.
By the time the song ended, Otis definitely had settled back into his country music star skin.
He glanced over to his son, who clapped, his face alight with joy and wonder, and he turned toward Tex.
“Let’s do the one with all of us,” he said.
“Great idea,” Tex said. “Final run-through for Journey Home,” he called. “Everyone on stage.”
Pure shock coated OJ’s expression, and then he jumped up from the stool where he’d been sitting. Otis moved over to the stand where his guitar stood and picked it up for him.
“Remember,” he said. “You never pick up your own guitar. Someone will hand it to you, okay?”
“I got it, Daddy.” He moved the strap over his shoulder while Adam set out the three stools for Bryce, Harry, and OJ. Warmth like Otis had never known moved through him with his son sitting only a few feet from him and looking at his uncle for instructions.
“I’ll blather on here for a minute,” Tex said, grinning widely. “I got a real good speech prepared.”
“Oh, brother,” Luke said from the drum set.
Tex ignored him and smiled around at everyone. “And then I’ll say this is the world premiere of brand-new song from the one and only Otis Young, with Trace on lyrics, and we’ve brought in our sons and significant others to play it for you today. When I say the name of the song, be ready to play.”
He looked at OJ and raised his eyebrows.
OJ nodded, and Tex turned to stand behind his mic, lifted the neck of his guitar about six inches, and when he dropped it, everyone started to play.
OJ stumbled for a moment but kept his gaze out toward where the audience would be, or in this case, the cameras, and caught up quickly.
The amount of equipment they needed for eight people to play on stage was a lot more than four, but Adam had procured it all and had it working properly, even from inside the barn.
Otis loved this song, as it had been wiggling around inside his head for months now. When Bryce had suggested the horse rescue charity concert series, Otis had known immediately that this song would be written and played.
It spoke of a person’s journey home to a physical place, as well as to a religious one inside themselves. It could be adapted for a horse or a dog or anything at all, and Otis sang, “The Journey Home is, it feels like loving you,” along with everyone else, to the final chord progression.
Adam was the only spectator, and when the song ended, he whooped and cheered as he applauded.
Then he checked his phone and said, “We have forty-five minutes until we go live. Harry, I’m going to assume you and Belle know what to do with your own cameras.
My Country Quad fellas, stay warm. Stay loose.
Bryce and I are going to go work with the stage crew to make sure the stage is ready, the sound equipment gets hooked up right, things are heated for you, and our own cameras are ready for this world broadcast.” He beamed an enormous smile out at everyone, and then left the barn with Bryce.
OJ took Otis’s guitar and set it in the stand for him.
He put his own in its proper stand, and he stayed out of the way as the stage crew came in and out to take Luke’s drum set, the instruments, and the stools out to the staging area.
He followed them once the barn was clear and stood just outside the door, so that he could see what he was dealing with.
Adam had arranged for a stage to be erected in front of all the stables at Bryce’s horse rescue ranch.
Not only that, but Bryce had opened all the top halves of the doors, and the horses hung their heads out and watched the activity around them.
It spoke of pure country, and slower times, and things worth fighting for.
Otis relaxed further, the serenity of the land out here seeping into his soul and slowing him down.
The stage had a roof, which would help keep the sound condensed and pointed toward the cameras, and Otis could see the slim pole heaters that were in all four corners, and then the four poles throughout the stage area.
Someone had dug a line through the snow and painted it bright blue, and in the cleared area on the other side stood all of their equipment, the stools, the guitars—anything they wouldn’t be using when they walked out on stage the first time.
Under the tent blew two more heaters that warded off the Wyoming chill and would keep their instruments warm.
Daylight had started to fade, and tension returned to Otis’s shoulders. Someone came outside and he looked over to Tex.
“This is going to be great,” his older brother said, ever the easygoing one. “Are you excited to perform with OJ?”
Otis found himself nodding. Finally, the thing that Georgia had asked him to do settled inside him. “Yeah,” he said. “This is going to be a great time.”