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When I looked up, Flynn was manipulating levers and hitting buttons and generally doing the kinds of things Rory and Deacon had done. “You think so?”
“Oh, yeah. Van will rush it out the door sooner than I can say I told you so.”
I smiled. “So, sometimes heartbreak pays?”
“It’s gonna pay you. Me, I’m just mostly along for the ride.”
“Why did you want to sing with me anyway? Surely there’s no appeal for you, dueting with someone green like me.”
“You’ll find as you go along that you like a new challenge. Working with new blood, being surrounded with new enthusiasm. It’s easy to get pretty fucking jaded.”
“I understand.” I watched him work the board. “I used to be jaded about most things other than music.”
Now I was finding a new way to view life.
“The business will chew you up and spit you out if you let it. So, you can’t. You have to remember why you started. And not give up because you’ve already come so far.”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat and rolled closer. “Will you teach me some of that stuff?”
“Sure, if you’ll get on a boat with me and drop a line.”
“Back to that again, huh,” I muttered. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
We did do it the next morning. And the morning after that, and the one after that. It was our new routine. Before we came to the studio—we, not just me—we climbed in a boat that seemed more suited for a child’s bathtub than a lake yet was surprisingly sturdy. We set off across the calm water, talking shit, casting lines, passing back and forth a bottle of pop since I’d given up on alcohol and Flynn did his drinking after lunch.
Mostly.
I never caught a fish. Flynn was convinced I didn’t want to. He wasn’t altogether wrong. After the first time I saw him land one and proceed to tell me all about it and then rip it open as if he was discussing the nightly news, I’d deduced I wasn’t exactly cut out for the life of a fisherman.
Though I didn’t mind the results on the dinner table, that was for certain. I could admit I was a bit of a hypocrite.
Not only about fishing. I was growing to love the Tennessee countryside. There was a smell to the air when I woke up every morning that drew me out onto the back deck with a cup of coffee—French pressed no less, because Flynn enjoyed the good stuff—and my notebook and my thoughts. I could hear better in that endless quiet, surrounded only by the quiet bubbling of the lake, the chirp of hungry, happy birds, and the wind sighing through the mas
sive trees.
Day by day, I felt the load lift off my shoulders. My chest still ached just as much as the night I’d said goodbye to Zoe, but time moved on. And I did too, writing songs and finding my way back to myself.
The man I’d lost so many years ago.
Flynn appeared in the doorway behind me, his heavy footsteps loud enough to break my concentration if I wasn’t already well used to them. “We’re gonna have a guest.”
I kept writing, finishing the line of the song I’d been working on. Most likely, I’d have to scrap it, but I tried to put even the worst ideas down in case a gem laid buried beneath the rubble.
“Oh, really? Some lovely lady?”
Flynn hadn’t brought anyone home since I’d been there. It seemed surprising. He wasn’t the type to be indiscriminate, but I was sure he’d had his share of wild nights. He just didn’t seem like the kind of man to deny himself much.
I wondered if he had his own sob story to tell. If so, he hadn’t spilled it, and I wasn’t nosy enough to ask.
He chuckled. “I did see Rory in a wig that one time on Halloween.”
Immediately, I straightened. “Really? He’s coming here?”
“Should be here any minute. Bribed him with a night of debauchery after we do some work and get that single ready to send to Van. A preliminary version anyway. You’ll want your band to sit it on it and our takes were rudimentary at best.”
“You really think it’s ready for prime time? The song, I mean?”
I didn’t know why that particular one being out in the public for anyone to hear hit me so much harder than any other piece I’d worked on. Except that it was for Zoe. It was my heart laid bare for her.
