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“With Dana and the girls,” Keane says.
Elle smiles at the sight. “I love that for her.”
“They’ve really taken her under their wing,” Keane says. “Treating her like she’s their little sister.”
“Family,” Elle adds before turning back to the table. She smiles at me. “I’ve really created a whole new family, haven’t I?”
I don’t know who she’s directing the statement to, but I nod in agreement. It does help that Chandler’s a minor. It keeps our on-the-bus antics kid-friendly.
Drinks, appetizers, dinner, and dessert are served. We laugh, tell corny jokes, reminiscing about earlier stops, and tease the road crew, who take our jabs about their minor blunders with jest. They know we love them, and we show them at the end of the show, before Justine and I come back for the encore.
Five hours later, after we pose for photos and sign merchandise Elle put together for the restaurant staff, we’re walking through the lobby of our hotel for the next two nights.
In my room, while the bed is inviting, I’m not tired. My mind is revved, energized with the thought of writing more music. I open my worn guitar case and take out the notepad that certainly won’t fit into my pocket and flip to a clean page, bypassing every lyric or note I’ve written about Nola.
The lighting in my room isn’t the best and casts a yellowish hue over everything. I don’t know if this is purposeful because it’s so late and white light could be blinding this time of night or what, but I don’t like it. It’s dull and makes my tired eyes strain.
Nola’s ring knocks against the table as I lean forward. The sound and feeling of it hitting give me pause. On instinct, I grab it and hold it between my fingers, and then slowly undo the clasp around my neck. My chain dangles from my fingers, the ring swaying softly. Without another thought, I let go and watch the ring drop to the table, clanging against the wood, and put my chain around my neck again.
The ring sits there, missing the finger it used to be on, but as I try to imagine it on Nola’s finger, I can’t. Even as I recallmemories of it being there, they seem out of place. I don’t want to stare at it anymore or feel it press against my skin, night after night. I take it and slip it into the pocket of my guitar case, where it’ll have to stay until . . . well, who knows when. I don’t see myself slipping it back on her finger when I see her in Charleston. I don’t care if all the happy, lovey feelings come rushing back; we’re not in the same place we once were and will need to work on that if we have any semblance of a future.
For weeks, everything I’ve written has come out like static. Grief on a never-ending loop. The same lines reworded a million different ways, all of them leading back to the same girl.
A girl who walked away.
But tonight, the pen moves differently.
I’m not writing about Nola.
I’m writing aboutnow.
About stage lights and cracked harmonies. About shaky confidence and the way a single voice can split open a moment and stitch it back together in three chords.
Her voice is smoke in morning light
Not meant to stay, but warm enough to hold
I pause, read it back, then underline it.
It’s not a love song. Not even close.
It’s a song about presence. About being heard when you least expect it. About how sometimes, healing doesn’t come from the person who broke you but from someone who stands quietly beside you and refuses to look away.
I scribble out a chorus—just an idea, nothing solid—but the melody is forming in my head already. And this time, it’s not Nola’s face I see when I hum it.
It’s hers.
Not because I want it to be.
But because it justis.
I close the notebook and slide it under my pillow like a secret.
No one needs to see it. Not yet.
Not until I know what it means—or who it’s really about.
For now, it’s just ink on paper. A verse without a chorus. A thought that might never become a song.