Page 250 of End Game

The bridge is bothering me now too.

Fucker.

I've already written three possible lyric changes in my notes app and changed one chord progression in my head.

This is a problem.

A really, really fucking good problem.

I go back to Austin's email.

Chicago.

Studio.

Benefit.

My name.

Months ago, I stood in front of sixty thousand people and felt bigger than my own body.

Then I came home.

At the time, those felt like two completely separate things.

The stage and the house.

The version of me who belongs under lights and the version of me who steals Micah's hoodies and pisses Ronan off and lets Cami put her cold feet under my legs on the couch.

I never really had to ask whether both versions could exist at the same time.

Now I might.

The scary part isn't that I could go to Chicago and fuck it up.

If I suck, I come home.

Play at Lair 47.

Write songs nobody outside Colorado ever hears.

Keep pouring drinks and playing ten shows a year and being ridiculously fucking happy anyway.

Failure has an exit strategy.

I look at the studio schedule again.

At my name beside Austin Fletcher's.

My pulse kicks.

Because what if I don't fuck it up?

What if I walk into that room and belong there?

What if Austin was right to call me?

What if this works?