29. Boone
BOONE
I heard the car door shut outside.
My pulse kicked up before I could get a grip on myself.
I set down the guitar I'd been fiddling with.
I crossed to the window with my boots loud on the studio floor.
The parking lot was empty except for my truck and the sedan that had just pulled in.
Carly stepped out, her hair down, the wind catching it.
For a second she just stood there looking at the building like she was trying to decide whether to stay or bolt.
She looked nervous.
I moved away from the window before she saw me watching like some kind of idiot.
My hands were shaking, so I flexed them once, then shoved them in my pockets.
Four months of doing the work. Four months of showing up at Dee's bar and keeping my mouth shut and my phone in my damn pocket.
Now she was here. I'd rehearsed this a hundred times in my head, but my throat had gone tight anyway.
The studio door opened and her footsteps echoed in the hallway. I waited, trying not to look like I was waiting. I failed completely when she walked into the control room.
"Hey."
"Hey," she said back, soft and wary.
Carly stopped just inside the doorway. She wrapped her arms around herself, then dropped them like she'd caught herself doing it. Her eyes went to the mixing console, the stacks of files on the desk, the framed platinum records on the wall. Anywhere but me.
"Emily said you wanted to show me something..."
My voice came out rough, so I cleared my throat. I told her what mattered first. Before I asked her for anything, she needed to see what I'd been working on.
Her gaze finally landed on me, wary and guarded. I deserved that and a hell of a lot worse.
I crossed to the desk and picked up the folder sitting on top.
It was thick, every page a piece of the work I'd put in to fix what I broke.
I handed it to her and she took it slowly, her fingers brushing mine.
Even that small touch sent heat straight through my chest. God, I'd missed that.
I stepped back to give her space and told her to start with the first one.
Carly opened the folder. The top page was the cover sheet for the first track we ever wrote together, back when we were kids messing around in my parents' garage.
She'd hummed the melody while washing dishes at Dee's bar, and I'd scribbled it down on a napkin because I hadn't wanted to forget it.
The song had made it onto my second album, and I'd let them list me as the sole writer.
Her finger traced the line under the title. Her name was there now: Carly Hargrove, co-writer.
My heart was hammering. I told her I'd gone through the whole catalog: every song we wrote together, all twelve of them, her name on all of them now, registered with the performance rights organization, split down the middle, royalties and credits and everything.
She turned the page, then another, and another. Her throat moved like she was trying to swallow something sharp, and I watched her face, trying to read what she was thinking — but came up empty.
She finally said my name, barely above a whisper.
I pointed at the second stack on the desk. There was more — the relaunch materials, new album, new press kit, everything.
"Look at the credits."
Carly set the folder down and reached for the press kit. She flipped it open to the first page. I'd had them print it yesterday. I'd waited by the machine like a kid on Christmas just to see her name in ink.
The byline read: Boone Hargrove and Carly Hargrove.
Her name came first.
"Jesus," she breathed.
That was how it was going out: every interview, every piece of promo, her name on it. Not as my wife. As my partner, as the person who actually wrote half those songs and fixed the other half when I screwed them up.
Her hands were trembling now. She set the press kit down carefully, like it might shatter if she moved too fast. She started to say my name but I held up a hand.
"Wait."
I picked up the contract sitting beside the keyboard. My lawyer had delivered it this morning, signed and executed and legal as hell. I was done with my parents' management. I'd separated the business, hired my own team.
"This is the new contract for everything going forward. Read section four."
Carly took the contract, her eyes scanning the page, and I watched her face as she found it: the clause that named her as my creative partner on every project, the clause that said nothing got released without her approval, the clause that split the royalties fifty-fifty, retroactive to our first collaboration, with the back payment deposited in an account under her name only.
Her voice cracked. "Is this real?"
"Yeah." It was done. Signed yesterday, executed this morning, the whole legal separation complete.
She looked up at me, her eyes wet. She blinked hard and the tears didn't fall.
"Why are you showing me this... ?"
Because I needed her to know I meant it. My chest felt too tight, like something in there was trying to claw its way out. I took a step closer. She didn't move back.
"Carly, I love you."
She sucked in a breath. Her spine went rigid, her hands tightening on the contract.
"I should've said it every day. I should've shown you every day.
" My voice was shaking now. But I didn't. I was so busy chasing the next thing, the next tour, the next record, that I forgot to look at what I already had standing right in front of me.
I'd neglected her for years. I'd let my family tear her down and I didn't defend her. "I'm sorry, Carly. I'm so damn sorry."
"Boone..." Her voice trailed off.
"I know words aren't enough," I said. "I know I can't just apologize and expect you to believe me. I'm going to keep doing the work, Carly. Keep showing up. Keep proving it to you, for as long as it takes, however long you need."
Carly set the contract down on the console, her hand still trembling. She looked at me for a long moment. I couldn't read her expression. My heart was beating so hard I thought she might hear it from across the room. I took a breath.
She tilted her head slightly. "What do you think I need, Boone?"
The question hit me like a punch to the gut. I remembered the last time she'd asked me that. Months ago, standing outside Dee's bar with the cold cutting through my jacket. I'd had no idea what the right answer was. I'd offered her money like that could fix what I'd broken.
This time I knew better.
"I don't know. So I'm asking you. What do you need from me, Carly?"
She stared at me. Something shifted in her face, like she'd been braced for a different answer and I'd caught her off guard. She stepped closer. I held still, scared to move and break whatever this was.
"I need you to see me," Carly said, her voice steady now, but quiet. "Not as the girl you married ten years ago. Not as the help. As the person I am right now, standing in front of you."
I swore to God I saw her.
"I need you to defend me." Her jaw tightened. "When someone comes at me, when your mother says something or your father looks at me like I'm dirt on his shoe, I need to know you're going to stand with me. Not stay silent. Not make excuses for them. Stand with me."
I swore to God I would — promised her I'd do it.
"I need you to be present." She took another step, and we were close enough now that I could smell her shampoo, something clean and a little sweet.
My pulse kicked into overdrive. "When I'm talking to you, I need you to put the phone down.
Look at me. Actually listen to what I'm saying instead of waiting for me to stop talking so you can get back to whatever's more important. "
"Done."
"I need you to value my work." Her voice got stronger. "Not just tell me it's good and then take credit for it. Put my name on it. Tell people it's mine. Treat it like it matters, because it does matter, Boone. It matters to me."
It did matter. She was the best songwriter I knew, always had been. I'd known it since we were kids and she rewrote that first bridge I couldn't get right. I told her so.
"And I need your time." She stopped right in front of me, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off her.
My hands itched to reach for her, but I kept them at my sides.
"Not the scraps left over when the tour's done and you're too tired to do anything else.
Real time. Your attention. I need to be someone you make room for, not someone you fit in when it's convenient. "
My throat felt raw. I'd give it to her — all of it, whatever she needed. I'd do it.
"You're not going to negotiate?" She tilted her head, watching me. "Tell me some of it's too hard? Ask for time to think about it?"
"No." I met her eyes. She'd just told me what she needed to feel like she mattered, and I wasn't going to negotiate that. "I'm going to do it, Carly — all of it, starting right now."
She looked at me for a long moment. She reached up and touched my chest, right over my heart. Her hand was warm through my shirt. My breath caught.
"Okay," she said softly.
"Okay?" I echoed it back, barely believing it.
"I love you," Carly said. "I never stopped. I just couldn't keep being invisible while I did it."
I covered her hand with mine, holding it there against my chest. She wasn't invisible — not to me, not anymore — and I told her so.
She smiled, small and tentative, but real. Something in my chest unlocked, like a fist that had been clenched for months finally letting go.
I leaned down and she rose up on her toes, and our mouths met in the middle. I'd forgotten what it felt like to kiss her and mean it, to kiss her and be here. Not halfway out the door thinking about the next city or the next show.
Her free hand came up to my jaw, her fingers curling against my skin. I slid my arm around her waist and pulled her closer, and she came willingly, her body fitting against mine the way it used to.
When we finally broke apart, she was breathing hard, and so was I.
I told her I loved her again, because I needed her to hear it. I was all in, for good this time. She said it back.
I let go of her and reached into my pocket, my fingers closing around the small shape I'd been carrying for months, waiting for this moment. I pulled it out and held it up between us.
Carly went still.
It was the silver band she'd left on the mixing board at the studio the day she walked out.
Simple, unadorned, the only decoration the engraving on the inside: both our names and the date we got married.
I'd been carrying it for months, pulling it out whenever I needed to remember what I was fighting for.
My hand was shaking again and I didn't try to hide it. It was hers, but I wanted to ask her for it back, properly this time. I told her so.
Her eyes went wide.
I dropped to one knee and said her name. "Carly." It felt right, doing it here. In the studio where I'd been working to show her she mattered, where her name was on everything, where she belonged. Don't let her say no. Please don't let her say no. "Will you marry me?"
She stared down at me, her hand going to her mouth. For a second I thought she might say no, might tell me it was too soon, that I hadn't proven it yet. My heart hammered against my ribs hard enough to hurt.
Then she nodded.
"Yes."
I stood up fast enough to make myself dizzy.
"You mean it?"
"Yes," Carly said again, laughing now, her eyes wet. "Yes, I'll marry you."
I slid the ring onto her finger, and it fit the way it always had, like it had never left, like it was always supposed to come back to her.
She looked at it, then looked at me, and I told her we were doing this right this time.
"Yeah," she said. "We are."