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I took an Uber to the airport. My flight was on time, and once I was in the air, I took out my leather notebook. The words came far easier today than they had yesterday and the day before. The blockages in my chest and gut had loosened just from the afternoon and night I’d spent with family.
I had a family. Now I would see if I could build on to that base.
I’d come up with two more songs by the time I reached New York. I stepped off the plane into a solid wall of wet heat that instantly reminded me I’d used the last of my sunscreen in Tennessee.
Which brought back memories of Zoe slicking it onto my skin. And covering me with aloe when I burned.
Just what I needed, to walk through JFK with a hard-on.
I rented a car and marveled at the simple pleasure of slipping behind the wheel. I didn’t often get to drive these days. But there was something so satisfying about programming the GPS and seeing Zoe’s location—I hoped—triangulated on the map onscreen.
I’m coming for you, Magic.
Leaving the city and traveling into the more rural part of the state was a revelation. I laughed aloud when I saw cows grazing behind wooden post fences. Then there were horses, from the deepest brown to black and white. Corn grew high in the fields and the sun beat down through the open moonroof on the sedan I’d been given. I’d be burned when I finally reached Zoe, but I couldn’t close it. The sun and wind along my skin felt like glory as I zipped along the rural highways and neared my love.
Close. I was so close now.
The sign for Happy Acres Orchard made my heart trip. I clutched the wheel and let out a dazed laugh as the song I’d sung with Flynn poured out of the speakers.
And I didn’t turn it off. Just let it play.
Our voices were so different. Our styles more a clash than a complement. Yet there was harmony in the discordance.
Just like me and Zoe. Or there had been once. If I had any lucky straws left to pull, there would be again.
I drove up the gravel drive to Happy Acres and parked at the back of the lot. My palms were sweaty, and not just because of the relentless summer heat.
There were people milling all over. Families and children, running and laughing. For a place that grew apples—among other things—the place was bustling despite the fact that autumn was still to come. But from my research before I’d set off, there was a general store and a lodge, along with a distillery being built. They also sold other crops during the off months. And the mention of entertainment had caused a little buzz along my spine.
Surely this wasn’t a proper environment for me. But maybe.
Maybe.
I wanted to be part of Zoe’s world, just as she’d endeavored to be part of mine.
I might not understand farm life, and I might have had to do a reverse image search on the picture of growing corn I’d snapped to get a read on what crop it actually was, but that just proved I was willing to learn.
And I was willing to meet her family. I fumbled my cross out from under my shirt. After the tracker had been removed from it, it had been returned to me. Now was the perfect time to call upon its powers.
There was a reason meeting the parents had merited an entire movie. Add in meeting the rest of the family too and I was ready to find a hotel to try again tomorrow.
Perhaps next week.
But I got out of the car and walked up the slight rise to the general store. Gravel crunched under my feet and children whooped and screeched.
Instead of making my ears ring, I smiled. I hadn’t awakened and taken back my wish for children. If anything, their joy was cementing my desire even more.
&nbs
p; Foolish? Could be. But I was a man who had dreamed of singing for his supper and I’d made it happen, by hook or crook. No dream was too fanciful for someone who used the airwaves as his diary.
Nor was any apple taco too strange to sate a tired traveler, I soon discovered.
I’d ducked into the café tacked onto the general store first and filled my belly. I sucked down a cup of truly delicious coffee and felt ready to face the world.
Straightening my shoulders, I shifted my guitar case from hand to hand as I approached the counter I’d just checked out from. I had a different purpose now.
A kindly woman with snowy white hair mixed with the occasional hank of honey blond smiled at me. “Come back for more? You can put it away, can’t you?”
