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She frowned. “Why?”
Momma handed Paisley her coffee and stood across from us with her hands on the counter. It was her usual spill-your-guts pose, and even though I ordinarily wouldn’t discuss business matters with an audience if we were back in Nashville, we weren’t. We were home, and I didn’t wanna leave.
“Pais,” I started, clearing my throat and searching for words, “I need your help.”
“I know. We’ve been at it all morning,” she said, clicking away on her phone before turning it around to face me. “You’re officially a single woman. Well, unless you and the hot mechanic are together already. In which case you’re officially not fake cheating.”
I rolled my eyes as I took the phone, browsing the article she’d pulled up. Apparently, Riley and I had parted amicably and there didn’t seem to be any suspicion of foul play on either side. It was the best outcome I could have hoped for. Well, except for the fact that they’d used some ridiculously unflattering and out-of-context shots of us looking utterly miserable and brokenhearted.
I didn’t know what had Riley looking so bummed in his photo, but the one of me was taken after an all-nighter at the recording studio. My eyes were puffy and red because I’d just recorded a teeny-bopper version of a song that I’d intended to be so much deeper, and they’d just shown me the Daisy Duke meets Dolly Parton meets Tinker Bell outfit they wanted me to wear in the music video for it. I’d been brokenhearted in that photo, all right. Mourning the loss of my voice as an artist.
I handed Paisley back her phone with a sigh. “Thank you for handlin’ that.”
“Of course. Now, we’ll move forward, and once the right amount of time has passed, you can go public with your new relationship. Maybe after the tour? That way enough time will have passed, and no one will turn your love life into a two-bit soap opera.”
Momma and I shared a look before I turned back to Paisley. “About that. There’s somethin’ else I need your help with.”
“Name it.”
I winced at her quick reply, then took a sip of my coffee to stall. “I need you to help me with an exit strategy. I wanna come home. I don’t wanna go through with the tour—not like it’s planned now, anyway. I’m done.”
Paisley got so still I worried the breeze through the kitchen window might make her turn to ash right before my eyes. Then she let out a long sigh and her shoulders drooped just a little. “Well, I can’t say I didn’t see this comin’ a mile away.”
I pulled my lips to the side, not sure what to say to that.
“The second you told me about your not-so-ancient history with that man, I had a feeling things were about to go sideways.”
“I’m sorry, Pais. I really am.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why?”
“Because I feel like I’m lettin’ you down. The whole team. The road crew, my band, my stylists … everybody. Riley, too, even though he’s been so supportive through all this. Bless that man.”
I felt Momma and Dakota shift and look at each other, but I kept my focus on my manager. I needed to be professional about this, and if I looked at them, I might fall apart.
“Well, first of all, this is business. Your business. Everyone on the team will figure something out, and you’ll give them glowing recommendations.”
I nodded. “In a heartbeat.”
“Second, tickets for the tour go on sale next week, so unless you want to deal with refunding thousands of fans across the country, I suggest you make this decision quickly.”
“Right, yeah. I’d like to avoid that.”
“I won’t lie to you, though. You’re in a contract with Legends, and they’re not gonna let you get out of it that easily. You’ll have to buy them out, and it’ll be pricey, I can tell you that.”
“We can negotiate with them, right? Maybe I can still release the album and just not do the tour? And not re-up my contract?” I asked, hating the way I felt like my porch light was on but no one was home. Paisley was the one who handled all the business stuff, so really, I had no idea how any of it worked.
She licked her lips and looked down, her wheels turning hard. “You let me worry about all that. We’ll have to go back to Nashville for meetings. Maybe even head out to LA too. You’re not planning to stay gone, are you?”
“No, I can go back to get things settled,” I assured her.
Paisley reached over and grabbed my hand. “I can’t believe you want to give all this up. You don’t want to make music anymore?”
“Not this kind of music,” I said, almost in a whisper.
“You know what they say,” Momma spoke up. “A cat can have kittens in an oven, but that don’t make ’em biscuits.”
Paisley, Dakota, and I all wrinkled our noses at the visual, but then I turned back to Paisley with a short laugh. “I think what she’s trying to say is that the person Legends created was never me. I’d love to continue makin’ music—with Legends if they have any interest in the real me—but I can’t be this fake version of myself anymore.”
