Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ANDI
We've played one venue after another almost nonstop for the last month.
The road seems to get longer every day, and living on a tour bus isn't all it's cracked up to be.
We've finished the East Coast; only a few more stops in the Midwest, and then we're heading into the last leg of the tour for the West Coast. Where Luke is.
The public separation has been in effect for six weeks.
That word matters. Public. Because what happened between Luke and me was real, and the fracture was real, and we are not where we were before. But we are also not broken. What we are is carefully, deliberately invisible to the outside world while we figure out what comes next.
The outside world has decided we broke up.
Luke is becoming a big name in the boxing world.
Syndi has been doing exactly what she was hired to do—his face, his upcoming fight, his career are getting the coverage they need.
The pictures of them together at events are professional, coordinated, and entirely what a PR campaign looks like. I know that.
The headlines about Luke are everywhere I look, so I eventually just quit looking.
Not because they hurt—well, not only because they hurt.
Because they make me angry in a specific, targeted way.
Someone engineered this public narrative.
Someone benefits from the image of Andi Morgan and Luke Woods as a broken story.
And every time I see another headline treating it as a settled fact, I feel the cold fury of watching someone else write my life.
"Boxing's new bad boy—or boxing's new boy toy? You pick."
"The Southern Stud-Muffin."
"10 Reasons Why We Can't Get Enough of Luke Woods."
He'd hate every one of those.
"All right, everyone, gather around," Katelyn orders, pulling me out of my thoughts. "I have new orders from the label execs."
We take a seat and wait as she builds suspense and drama with her silence, bouncing excitedly on her toes. "As you all know, one of the biggest fights in boxing is in five weeks."
Oh, hell no. She's not about to say what I think she's going to say.
"And we're adding a special concert for the night before the event. It's for a smaller audience than you're accustomed to playing for, but it's for Vegas royalty, along with all the fighters. This is a benefit concert, so only the exclusive high rollers can afford the tickets.
"It was requested by the nephew of the label's president, so of course, he said yes. When he says yes, we say yes," Katelyn says in her annoying, singsong voice.
I'm convinced she arranged this on purpose. My menacing glare tells her as much when she finally summons the courage to meet my gaze. My eyes are throwing daggers at her, and she knows it.
"Does anyone have a problem with this?" she asks.
"Yeah. I do," Travis says as he stands. "Sound Bar and Fireflies will play, but Andi's not performing."
"She's part of the package deal, Travis. All three acts were specifically requested. Andi has a large following of her own now, and rightfully so. The coverage around your performances together has fueled interest, and people want to see you two perform your songs together," Katelyn counters.
"It's fine, Travis. Thanks for looking out for me, but I can handle it," I interject before a fight erupts.
"Only if you're sure. I won't back down from this, Andi," Travis assures me.
"I'm sure." I smile at him.
Over the past several weeks, Travis has been a better friend than I deserved, given how complicated the situation around me has been for him.
He's never asked me for anything in return.
He's shown up when I needed someone in my corner and stepped back when I needed space.
He's navigated the press attention around our duets with more grace than I would have managed, keeping the narrative from getting away from either of us without making a production out of it.
He knows about Luke. Not all of it—I haven't told him about the arrangement specifically—but he understands the concept of it. That we are not what the tabloids say we are. That I am working through something that isn't over.
He respects that without needing it explained.
After getting all the details from Katelyn, the group disperses. When the caravan makes the next rest stop, I return to my bus and my solitary respite.
The pressure on the youth center has been quiet for two weeks.
I know better than to read that as a resolution.
Quiet is repositioning. Something is shifting, and I haven't been able to identify the new angle yet.
Bill says the audit documentation is solid, and the board is holding steady.
Marin told Brandon that the inquiry is stabilizing.
Marin told Brandon.
I sit with that for a moment.
Everything that gets back to me about the center's status comes through Brandon, and Brandon's information comes through Marin. I'm getting the picture she wants me to have. Not necessarily a false picture. But a carefully framed and curated one.
"Andi?" Travis calls from the front of my bus.
"Back here," I answer.
He appears in the bedroom doorway, reads my face immediately, and doesn't ask what's wrong. He just drops into the chair across from the bed and waits.
"Vegas concert," I say.
"Yeah."
"Luke's fight is the night after the concert."
"I know."
We're both quiet for a moment.
"You're thinking about going to see him," Travis says. Not a question.
"I'm thinking about a lot of things."
"You've been thinking about a lot of things since Phoenix was added to the schedule." He folds his arms. "The fight is important to him. You know that."
"I know."
"And you have unfinished business."
"I have a conversation I've been carrying for two months," I say. "Things I went to say in February and didn't. Things I should have said a long time ago."
Travis nods slowly. He's quiet for a long moment.
"I think you should go," he says.
"It's complicated."
"It's always complicated with you two." He says it without judgment. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't go."
I look at him across the small room.
"Travis."
"I know," he says. Again, without being asked.
He stands, and the silence between us feels like something acknowledged and gently settled. He's managed his own emotions about this situation with more grace than most men, and I won't embarrass either of us by pretending I don't recognize that.
"Thank you," I say. "For everything. This whole tour."
"You don't have to thank me for being your friend," he says simply. "That's what it was."
He heads back toward the front of the bus.
I sit in my small bedroom with the Southwest going dark outside the window and think about what I'm going to say when I finally say it.
I have until Phoenix to figure it out.