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“I can see that.” He took her hand in his, and she adjusted the fabric so she carried it all in her other hand. Otherwise, the dress would drag on the ground.
“We got the best shots, Kyle,” Hadley gushed. “You’re going to beg this woman to marry you once you see them.” With her long legs, she bustled ahead of them, chattering to the photographer about this shot or that one.
Kyle’s heartbeat skipped and stalled. He cleared his throat and kept his steps slow. “Do you need to change?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Maddy said. “My clothes are in the stable, actually.”
He looked over to her. “You changed in a stall?”
“Yes.” She didn’t seem super jazzed about that, but she didn’t say anything else.
“When are you leaving in the morning?”
“After I finish with the chores.”
Kyle nearly tripped over his feet. “The chores? What chores?”
She gave him a withering look. “I feed the chickens, Kyle. I’ve told you this at least twice.”
“Oh, yes, the chickens.” He regained his composure and commanded his brain to think before it allowed his mouth to speak. “I knew that.”
“Mm hm.”
“What?” He slung his arm around her shoulders. “I did. I just wasn’t thinking.”
She slipped her hand into his. “how’s the song coming?”
“Slowly,” he said. “I feel like it wants me to rip out my lungs before it’ll come together.” He’d written songs like this before. Some came easily, and some…didn’t. “Sometimes, when it’s being stubborn like this, I scrap it and start over.”
Maddy slowed her step and looked up at him. “Kyle, I know you’re not great at balancing things. I know that. I’m trying to be supportive and patient. But…are you always like this when you write music?”
Embarrassment ran through him. “No,” he said. “I swear.”
“What really happened in Nashville?” She wore a pretty straw sunhat, and Kyle simply wanted to kiss her and forget about his troubles. She’d asked him a few times now, and he felt like he had to trust her.
“George wasn’t thrilled with the song,” he admitted. “I really think they’ll only make the record to save money.”
She frowned. “How would them making a record save them money?”
“If they don’t make it at all—even try to make it—they owe me the whole sum on the contract.”
“Okay,” she said.
“For all three albums,” he clarified. “If we make one album, and it ‘doesn’t do well.’” He made air quotes around the last three words. “Then they can pull out of the other two and save that money.”
Maddy looked stunned. Her hand in his tightened. “Do you really think they’ll do that?”
“I don’t know.” Kyle sighed and looked toward the stable they’d been approaching. “I know it’s too hot out here to stand here talkin’ about it.”
They started walking again, and Maddy gripped his forearm with her left hand. “Tell me what’s really got you cooped up in your bedroom day and night, laboring over this song.”
“I just did.”
“Mm, use different words.”
A spark of irritation jumped through Kyle. He didn’t like it when she treated him like one of her kindergarten students, and she’d told him she spent a large part of her day encouraging small children to “use different words.”
“It’s…” He trailed off, because there was something more seething beneath the surface. He wasn’t sure how to articulate it. “It’s just that, I’ve made a lot of demo tapes, right?”
