Page 24 of Sweet Music (Sugarville Grove #7)

CASH

C ash glanced down at his phone, smiling at what he saw.

He had never understood the fans who practically stalked him online, commenting on every single photo the instant he posted it.

But he was starting to get it now.

Following Cody’s socials was a little frustrating because the kid almost never posted anything. But even looking at what he’d put up a few days ago brought Cash a smile.

The last picture was from a volunteer session at the local animal shelter. Cody had a gigantic golden retriever half on his lap and a big smile on his face. Cash could see that Bella was there too, though she was mostly out of the frame. Cody had hashtags that said #thisislove and #wishheweremine.

I could get him a dog, Cash thought to himself.

Then he thought about Bella’s tiny apartment and realized something like that would have to wait until he could get the two of them into something a little bigger.

I need to make things better with her…

His timer went off in the kitchen, and he jogged in to check on the lasagna he’d started earlier.

It was kind of wild to have time to make lasagna. It had been years since he’d really cooked. He had a place in LA, but there was a live-in housekeeper there who did the cooking too.

He had forgotten how much he liked puttering around in the kitchen.

The plan was to invite Bella and Cody over for dinner, and maybe even to impress them with his domestic skills. He had kind of wrecked the kitchen along the way, but he had plenty of time to clean up.

Hopefully, seeing him make the effort would soften Bella’s heart toward him and she would finally tell him what he’d done wrong and how to fix it.

He grabbed his phone from the charger by the window, noticing that the whole screen was covered in notifications.

But before he had a chance to unlock it, he heard a familiar sound from outside—the bus-horn version of “La Cucaracha,” which could only mean one thing…

“What in the world?” he murmured to himself as he headed for the front door. “It can’t be them.”

But it was. The tour bus was parked out front, the Cash Law logo emblazoned across the side along with a guitar and musical notes flowing out of it.

As he watched, the doors opened, and his bandmates piled out .

“Look at this place,” Hank said, shaking his head. “You weren’t kidding about being a real country boy.”

“It’s like a dang Christmas card,” Pete laughed. “Except the purple house. That’s all you.”

“Did you see all those cows?” Nigel asked, his baby-face looking amazed. “There have to be like a hundred of them.”

“Come on, city boys,” Aimee said. “Let’s go see Cash.”

“Hi, guys,” Cash said, still trying to wrap his mind around what was going on. “What are you doing here?”

“We have to talk,” Aimee said, pushing past him to walk right into the house.

The guys jogged up to follow her inside, and there was nothing for Cash to do but trail after them all with a goofy grin on his face. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been missing these guys until they were here.

“Man, this is nice,” Nigel yelled out from the dining room. “It smells good in here, too.”

“So, this is how the other half lives,” Hank said, waiting for Cash and clapping him on the back as he caught up.

“This is how I grew up,” Cash said with a smile, trying to see the wavy glass windows and old-fashioned wallpaper through his buddy’s eyes. “I mean the house was a lot more full of kids back then.”

“You’ll get there,” Hank said, winking at him.

When they joined the others in the kitchen, he saw Aimee studying the oven.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Lasagna,” he told her. “You guys are right on time. I was just about to take it out to cool and start the garlic bread.”

Nigel let out a celebratory whoop, and Aimee backed away from the oven with her hands up.

“Definitely don’t let us get in the way of that,” she said. “I like seeing you eat real food instead of all those hamburgers, Cash.”

“You know this is just ground beef and cheese and carbs, right?” Cash teased her, winking so she would know he was just giving her a hard time. “Same as a cheeseburger?”

“At least it has tomatoes in it,” she said with a smile. “I’ll take the win. Can we help? I don’t suppose you’ve got stuff for salad in that massive refrigerator?”

“Matter of fact, I do,” he told her.

“It’s like you knew I was coming,” she said.

“Whoa,” Nigel said, lifting the receiver from the landline that was installed on the kitchen wall and playing around with the rotary dial.

“Put that down,” Pete told the boy, laughing. “If you aren’t careful, you’ll call the Kennedy administration.”

“It doesn’t really call back in time,” Nigel said, sounding like he wasn’t one hundred percent sure about that.

They all laughed, and Cash found himself happy to see his bandmates all over again.

“What?” Nigel asked.

“You’re lucky you can drum, kid,” Aimee told him. “Go help Cash with the garlic bread.”

“What’s everyone doing for Christmas?” Cash asked.

They all shared their plans as they worked, and soon the garlic bread was in the oven and Aimee was putting the finishing touches on a garden salad.

“It’s really good to see you guys,” Cash said. “But seriously, why did you come?”

Hank looked to Pete, and Nigel looked down at the floor.

“It’s time for us to have a talk about the future,” Aimee said crisply, when it was clear no one else was going to speak. “You’ve had a big change in your life.”

Cash lowered himself to one of the stools and sighed, trying to figure out how to move forward.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I canceled that late night appearance, and I’m sorry about that. And I guess I got lucky that all this came out just as the tour hit a break for the holidays.”

Aimee was nodding, no judgement on her face. He knew how lucky he was. He’d been doing fine when she came along, but she had made him a truly wealthy man. He owed her, owed all of them, even Nigel, who was new to the band. It made what he had to say next even harder.

“I know I’ve been focused on touring all these years,” he said. “And I still believe in spreading the music. But I missed out on too many years with my kid, with my whole family. And I’m finally hearing the music again in my mind. I think I need to get back to writing while I can.”

Hank nodded, a serious look on his face.

“But I know this isn’t just about me,” Cash went on. “A lot of people are depending on this tour, you guys, the crew. I don’t want to let anyone down by cutting back the schedule we already talked about…”

“Are you kidding me?” Pete put in. “You know most of us have kids too.”

“And wives,” Hank said. “And the road crew has been grumbling for a while now. We’re not a bunch of twenty-somethings anymore. But we all know you believe in staying on the road, so we didn’t want to complain.”

“Really?” Cash asked.

“My sister just had a baby,” Nigel said, his sweet face wore an almost accusatory expression. “I’ve barely seen him at all.”

“Why didn’t you guys say something?” Cash asked.

“We didn’t know how,” Hank told him gently. “You’re the reason we’re all here. We’ve always followed your lead. And forgive me, but more and more lately it seemed like touring was all you had.”

That hurt, but it was true.

“I was acting like it was all I had,” Cash agreed, nodding. “But I’ve got family here and old friends I haven’t seen since I left the first time. I shouldn’t have needed a kid to know I wanted more time with my parents and the rest of the family.”

“So, what’s the plan then?” Aimee asked, ever practical.

“Well, I had a couple of thoughts,” Cash said, excited to share now that he was pretty sure no one would be unhappy about his ideas.

“First one was that I’d build a studio in the house and start writing and recording.

Anyone who wants in on that can come and stay as long as they want, whenever they want. ”

“Nice,” Pete said, nodding.

“Secondly, I don’t want to stop performing,” Cash said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever really want that. It’s in my blood. But maybe we can scale back dates, and stick to the east coast for a while?”

Hank and Pete were from New England too.

Aimee was from New York, where they had assembled the road crew for the tour, back in the day.

And Nigel’s family was in Philly. The more Cash thought about this after what they all had shared, the more he realized it could benefit every single member of the tour.

“That sounds great,” Nigel said as the others nodded their approval.

“All right,” Cash said, smiling and feeling at peace with the life he could see ahead of him for the first time since Aimee had shown him the video of Cody.

“Good work,” Aimee told him with an approving smile. “You did what you set out to do—you came up with a sound that people love, and that’s here to stay. There’s no reason to push yourself so hard anymore.”

“Yeah man, enjoy your time with your kid,” Pete said.

Cash grabbed the bread out of the oven, and they all sat down like a family and talked and laughed for a happy hour over the meal like they used to.

Only this time, when the meal was finished they cleaned it up themselves.

When they were done, Cash got out his guitar and they fooled around with one of the songs that he’d been playing with.

Pete grabbed his guitar out of the bus, and they got right down to work turning it into a song that had as much promise as any of Cash’s earlier material.

As he made up the spare bedrooms later that night, Cash thought about how he’d planned to reach out to Bella to try to see her and Cody today.

He felt a pang of regret, but reminded himself of the progress he’d just made toward building the kind of life he could share with a family instead of living on the road, and he felt much better.

“This life suits you,” Aimee told him quietly as he showed her the room he’d prepared for her. “I think your music is going to go to a whole other level now.”

“Why’s that?” he asked. Aimee was a believer in hard work. And he’d just told her he was backing off.

“Because you’re happy,” she told him, patting his shoulder, and looking prouder of him than she ever had before.

She slipped into her room and closed the door, leaving him in the hallway trying to believe that the puzzle pieces of his life and career could really be falling into place so easily.

He just needed to figure out where Bella fit.