52. Bailey
bailey
. . .
The album doesn’t get made overnight, we build it slowly. I pushed back on any deadlines and they seemed happy enough to be getting another album so they agreed.
This time it is just us.
Some mornings Luke and I disappear into the studio before breakfast and stay there until the sky turns dark outside the windows.
Other days we barely touch the instruments at all, ending up out in the orchard with Iris asleep against one of our chests while Noah and Thomas argue over irrigation systems. And somehow…
The music comes flowing out of me. Maybe easier than it ever did before. Not because life is easier now. Because we stopped pretending it needed to be perfect.
Luke doesn’t avoid hard conversations anymore. That might be the biggest change of all. If something hurts him, he says it. If something scares him, he says it. If he sees me pulling away emotionally, he notices. And instead of shutting down or reacting… He reaches for me.
The first time it happens I nearly cry.
We’re sitting on the back deck late at night after everyone else goes to bed when I make some offhand comment about the label eventually ruining this album too.
Old Luke would’ve gotten defensive immediately.
This Luke just looks at me quietly and says, “You’re scared this is going to stop feeling safe. ”
Just like that he sees straight through me. The scary part? He’s usually right.
There are still hard days. Days where trust feels fragile. Days where I look at him and grief and memory and love all crash together painfully inside me. But there are more good days now.
Moments like Luke singing Iris to sleep against his chest while she stares at him like I hung the moon.
Him carrying tea into the studio for me every morning exactly the way I like it without asking.
My hand automatically finding his when we walk anywhere together now. Little things. Big things. Us.
Noah starts helping in the studio almost immediately once we begin recording. Mostly because, according to him, none of us should be left unattended with his equipment.
He sprawls across the sound booth couch eating chips and making sarcastic comments while Luke and I work through old songs from years ago. We decided together to include some of our past in this album. Songs we wrote when we were kids. Before everything got complicated.
Before fame and addiction and grief carved pieces out of us.
One afternoon Luke starts playing an old melody softly while I flip through notebooks scattered across the piano and suddenly I remember it.
“Oh my god.”
Luke glances up immediately. “What?”
“This song.” I laugh softly. “We wrote this in the trailer park.”
“We did.”
Noah looks between us. “You two are disgustingly adorable."
We ignore him and Luke starts playing again, slower this time, while I quietly sing the lyrics we wrote at seventeen sitting on the tailgate of his truck sharing gas station beer and talking about Nashville like it was another planet.
The song is rough, simple and honest.
And somehow… It’s good. Like really good.
Luke watches me carefully as I finish the chorus.
“You wanna put it on the album?”
Emotion catches unexpectedly in my throat.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I think I do.”
Because this album doesn’t feel like proving something anymore. It feels like finding ourselves again. Rachel comes up a week later with cameras, Jackson follows shortly behind her with pastries from the bakery in town.
“You both look like you are about to jump each other," she announces walking into the studio.
Noah groans dramatically from the sound booth. Luke laughs under his breath beside me while I flip Rachel off without looking up from my notebook.
The promo she films feels different this time. It’s us. Luke and I writing. Laughing. Arguing over lyrics. Me curled sideways across the studio couch with my feet in his lap while Iris sleeps nearby.
Real.
Stripped bare and the response online somehow feels different too.
Less obsessed with scandal and more connected to us and the music.
People talking about honesty, the emotions threaded through the lyrics.
I don’t feel like I’m performing a version of myself people expect.
I just feel like me. The realization terrifies me almost as much as it heals me.
Because now I actually have something real to lose again.
A few nights later Luke and I stay in the studio long after everyone else heads to bed.
Summer rain taps softly against the windows while dim yellow light spills across scattered lyric sheets and half-empty coffee mugs.
Luke sits on the stool near the piano absentmindedly playing guitar while I lay stretched across the old couch watching him.
I still don’t think he realizes how beautiful he is. And it’s not just that he is objectively handsome, it's his softened edges, the way his eyes light up, the way he listens now. The steadiness in him. I’m in love with this version of him so completely it almost scares me.
Luke glances up catching me staring.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
His mouth twitches. “Liar.”
I smile slightly but don’t look away this time. Because I’m tired of pretending I don’t want him. The distance between us these last months was necessary. But lately every time he touches me my whole body aches for more. Not just sex. Him. All of him.
Luke sets the guitar down slowly. “What’s going on in that head?”
I push myself upright on the couch before crossing the room toward him. His eyes darken immediately. And god… that still affects me.
I stop between his knees, my fingers sliding softly into his hair.
Luke exhales shakily. “Bailey…”
“I’m tired of fighting this.”
His hands settle automatically against my hips.
“You sure?”
I laugh softly at that.
“Can’t I want to make love with my husband?”
Luke laughs quietly, forehead dropping briefly against my stomach like he’s overwhelmed by the words husband and want existing in the same sentence again.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that.”
My chest tightens painfully. “I mean it.”
Luke looks up slowly then. Really looks at me and suddenly both of us seem nervous. Which honestly would be funny if it didn’t feel so emotionally overwhelming. Because this isn’t just sex. This is trust and forgiveness. This is everything…
Luke’s hands shake slightly as he reaches for the buttons of my shirt and mine aren’t much steadier when I start tugging his open. We both laugh softly when he nearly tangles us together trying to stand from the stool too quickly.
“Smooth,” I whisper against his mouth.
“Shut up.”
His grin disappears the second I kiss him again.
Slow this time. Luke’s hands slide carefully along my waist like he’s memorizing what it feels like to have me close again.
There’s something almost unbearably intimate about the way neither of us is pretending.
Just shaky breaths and trembling hands and years of loving each other woven through every touch.
“I love you,” he whispers against my lips.
The words hit me so hard tears instantly burn behind my eyes. Because I know now, without doubt. Without fear. That he loves me, chooses me, that he is all in and so am I. I don’t just love Luke, I’m in love with him too. Completely.
“I love you too.”
Luke closes his eyes briefly like hearing it still feels unreal.
Then he pulls me closer and kisses me like coming home.
We fumble through finally getting each other naked, Luke gives me a kiss and tells me not to move.
I stand naked in the middle of the recording studio as I watch him lock the door and grab the blankets from the couch in the control room.
Then he kneels down in front of me and spreads out the blankets, his hands shaking the whole time.
He closes his eyes and swallows, his adam's apple bobbing.
Then he looks up at me and there is so much meaning in his eyes.
I move without thinking and kneel in front of him, Luke pulls me close and we take our time exploring each other, like it's our first time.
When Luke finally pushed into me we both groaned and then held each other close. Like neither of us wants this to end. He kisses my forehead and then pulls back slowly, and I smile up at him, whispering, “I love you.”
He gives me a painstakingly beautiful smile and then he starts to move. Our eyes never leave each other's. Locked in this moment, in this feeling. We alternate making love, talking in whispers and sleeping wrapped in each other. And when I wake up the next morning I know exactly what I need to do.