26. Change My Mind
TWENTY-SIX
CHANGE MY MIND
Halle
Splitting the driving with Cade and keeping each other entertained has felt so natural. I won’t deny that our drive started off a little awkward, but I think that was all the tour nerves getting to us. Within the first few hours of the drive, we were back to our normal Cade and Halle—including the butterflies in my chest.
And now we’re a week into being on the road and I’ve found myself loving our time driving as much as I love being at the shows. The views alongside the highways of the American West and the endless supply of music from both myself and Cade have been good company.
We have a bit of a daily routine—wake up, leave the hotel thirty-ish minutes to an hour earlier than the “Vanboys” as we’ve started calling them, and find a local cafe to have coffee and breakfast at before starting our drive for the day. In my opinion, our little pre-driving routine sets a good tone for the rest of the day. The first few days, we’d run in for coffees to go, but now we pick a table to sit at and stay for a while—hence why we leave before the Vanboys.
Even though we spend hours a day in the car together, we don’t run out of things to talk about during coffee hour. I think tour is just what we needed to get back to normal, our friendship feels stronger than ever. Obviously, my feelings for Cade haven’t gone anywhere, also strong as ever, but I’m feeling confident that I made the right choice deciding to be just friends with him—even if I’ve had to stop myself from giving him a kiss on the cheek when congratulating him after the first two shows.
We got into Denver late last night and checked into our AirBnb that we’re sharing with the Eager Eyes guys—making yesterday our last driving day until the end of our weekend in Denver. For most of the tour we will be staying in hotels, but we have a few cities that Eager Eyes found AirBnb’s big enough for us all to stay in together for cheaper than a bunch of hotel rooms. With the way this tour has been scheduled, we have a lot of free time on our hands, so the band and I have been finding fun things to do during our extra time between show days.
After our first two shows in Boise and Salt Lake City, we drove out to Beau’s family ranch in Jackson, Wyoming, and spent a few nights there before driving the rest of the way to Denver. Beau? A country boy? Who would have thought? I mean, he’s worn baggy camo pants to a show before, but I thought it was in a trendy rockstar way, not that he already had them in his closet long before being in the band. We couldn’t say no to a free place to stay and getting to explore the ranch one of our best friends grew up on. That’s going to be up at the top of my list of “best things to do on off-days.” I’m calling it now.
While my tour morning routine has heavily involved Cade, my night routine has been laying in my hotel room, alone, replaying all the events of the day. To feed into my brain’s constant craving to do something creative whenever I have free time, I decided I’d keep my best memories from tour in a junk journal. Ruby gave me the idea, and when she showed me her concert junk journal she’s been adding to since high school, I knew I had to start one too. I had her come to the craft store with me after one of our classic Tuesday shifts together to help me find all the supplies I could possibly need—and then some. I already had a huge collection of gel pens, but figured a few more wouldn’t hurt.
Gas station receipts, rest stop visitor guides, day passes into state parks—it all gets tucked away into my Tryhard tote bag. Since I knew I wanted to do this before tour started, I’ve been so attentive in keeping every little thing possible as a memento. I’m learning the art of making each show’s spread both cute and informative by adding a breakdown of the night’s merch sales in bold, pink, glittery pen, obviously.
Tonight, I will not be doing my nightly journaling alone. Everyone left to explore the downtown bar scene except for Cade and me, since I’m not even old enough to go to bars yet. Plus, even if I could, I’d feel bad if I left him here all by himself.
I dump my tote bag out onto the dresser in my room and start sifting through the pile of junk until I find everything I need. We spent all day wandering around downtown and sweating in the summer heat, but it was all worth it looking at my haul. The junk of the day is mostly stickers from coffee shops, an old postcard of Garden of the Gods Park I found at a vintage store, and my ticket from the Rockies game we wandered into since the tickets were surprisingly cheap. Looking at my stack, I might have to make two spreads from how many places we visited all in one day. I load it all up into my arms and head to the living room.
Cade’s laid out on the corner “L” of the couch, his guitar across his torso and notebook flopped open on the arm of the couch next to him with a pen. I don’t think he’s noticed me yet, he’s too locked in on whatever lyrics he’s thinking about. I manage to not drop anything while pulling my phone out of my sweatpants pocket and slide open to my camera. I click one candid of him, but forget that my ringer was on, and the digital shutter noise snaps his focus to me.
“Is that the papparazzi creeping on me?” he jokingly accuses.
“Just little old me,” I mutter and plop myself onto the floor, unloading my haul onto the coffee table between me and the couch.
“Now that’s no way to talk about yourself, Valentine.” He smirks.
There are those butterflies again. Gosh, how does he always manage to make me feel this way, especially when I’m not supposed to? Do I flirt back? Do I squash the moment and say something that would remind him that we’re just friends? Well, now I’ve probably waited too long, busy being flustered by his charm, I’m better off saying nothing at all. He probably won’t even notice.
I shift my focus to my journal, cracking it open to the next set of empty pages to get started. I manage to tape some floral printed cardstock to the page as a background before he interrupts me.
“Ignoring your favorite rockstar?”
He’s no longer laying back on the couch, he’s moved to sitting on the edge of the seat, feet planted on the floor, and elbows resting on his knees as he leans in my direction. No room has ever felt smaller. The air between us feels stuffier, like if I don’t say something it will get harder and harder to breathe. If these walls could talk, they’d be yelling at us to just kiss already. My heart rate skyrockets when I meet his eyes. They’re piercing into mine and it’s setting a fire in my chest so intense I’m scared he might actually be reading my mind.
I gulp down a deep breath before letting out a soft “no.”
“Okay.” He snickers and relaxes back into the couch again.
Focus, Halle. You said “just friends” for tour, you can’t fold the first week. Your most favorite person that you’re totally not in love with is totally not across from you and totally not watching your every move trying to get under your skin. That’s not happening at all!
All my efforts are now focused on regaining my composure and stopping myself from falling victim to Cade’s flirty mood. Can’t be that hard, right?
Cade goes back to working on whatever song he was trying to write, quietly strumming a chord, and then stopping and whispering to himself as he writes lyrics down in his notebook. Without him pestering me, I start making a decent amount of progress on my journal page, going back and forth between adding photos and making little doodles with my gel pens. But just when I thought Cade couldn’t be more distracting, he starts slowly strumming the familiar chords of my favorite song, Sweet Creature.
I’ve always loved the warm sound of the chords; there’s this feeling the arrangement of the song gives me like no other. And when Cade starts singing along, he has the same raw edge to his vocals as the original, it sends a shiver down my spine and I feel the hairs rise on my arms in reaction. This is dangerous .
Hearing him play the song has my mind wandering back to the question I never asked him after the Valentine’s Day show. Was he playing it for me that night? If it wasn’t for me then, it feels like it’s for me now. Feeling empowered, I decide it can’t hurt to ask. I don’t want to interrupt him in the middle of the song, but I also can’t sit here and watch him play through to the end with the question on my mind.
“Cade?”
“Yes, Valentine?” He practically sings the words that make my heart flutter, still softly strumming along to the song even though he stopped singing.
“You played this at the festival on Valentine’s Day, right?”
He nods.
“Remember Sean?” What am I doing bringing up another guy? That’s a terrible way to lead into this.
He stops playing his guitar and laughs. “Of course I remember Seen,” he pauses for a moment, his face growing concerned, then adds, “but he’s old news, right?”
“Yes! Oh my gosh, yes! I, uh, was just thinking about how I didn’t hear the beginning of the song because he was yelling in my ear, but I did barely catch you saying that you were playing it for someone. You were with Brooke then, so I thought that was really sweet if you were playing it for her?” Again, Halle, what are you doing? That is NOT what you were supposed to say.
He hesitates to say anything, which makes me worried that I could’ve upset him by bringing up both Sean and Brooke.
“Um, yeah, no, I didn’t play it for any particular reason, just thought it was a good acoustic for Valentine’s Day.” He forces a smile that I can tell isn’t genuine.
“Cool,” I respond, not knowing what else to say.
We both sit in silence for a few moments, until he cuts the tension by playing the song he was trying to write again. Hopefully I can get through finishing these journal pages without regretting everything I said. Cade gives up on the song after about twenty more minutes of trying to write, and turns on a movie instead. I move myself onto the couch, not wanting to stay in my spot on the floor where my back was to the TV. I stay a few cushions away from him, and keep working on my journal.
At some point after I finished my journal pages and locked in on watching the movie, I fell asleep. I wake up to the credits rolling—why is the music for movie credits always so shockingly loud? Cade’s already standing, gathering his things and getting the TV turned off. I quickly gather all my journal supplies into my arms to haul back to my room with me. Neither of us say anything, but we both start shuffling down the hall to our rooms for the night—conveniently, ours are right next to each other. They’re the only rooms on the main floor.
I pass the door to Cade’s room and am about to turn into mine when he stops me in my tracks.
“Hal?” he asks softly.
I turn around to face him, and can’t help but notice that he looks nervous.
“I lied.”
I frown. “About what?” Am I missing something? What could he be talking about?
“The song on Valentine’s Day. I did say I was playing it for someone. It was all for you, it’s always for you.” He stops there, even though he looks like there’s more on his mind he wants to say.
I don’t fight the heat rushing to my cheeks. Part of me hopes he noticed it too. I reach in my room’s doorway and flick on the light before meeting his eyes again. “Goodnight, Cade.” I give him a soft smile and then slip into my room and shut the door behind me.