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Chapter One
Krissy
This wasn’t the craziest thing I’d ever done.
But it was pretty close.
“Thanks for the ride, I appreciate it,” I said to the Uber driver as I slid out the back of his car. I was at the airport, and in my pocket was a one-way ticket to Florida.
I was flying as far south onto the panhandle as I could, then I was taking a bus the rest of the way, and I was stoked.
“Good luck to you,” the man told me before he drove off, and after taking a moment to take a breath and pull back my shoulders, I marched into the airport with my head held high.
I carried my backpack, my guitar case, and a single duffel bag—all that remained of my life back in Nashville.
And I was okay with that.
After checking in, I sat in a long row of chairs to wait. I intentionally showed up early, so with more than an hour to kill, I called Erin.
“Where are you?” she demanded. “I’m seriously dying here!”
“I’m at the airport, still in Tennessee,” I told her. “My flight isn’t until noon.”
“God! Just get down here already!” she laughed. “I mean, I know I’m not going to see you today, but just having you close is making me so excited!”
“Girl same,” I agreed. “I can’t wait to only be like two hours away than sixteen. And that’s driving. It’ll be nice to be able to see you without having to get a plane involved.”
“Right? Even with a flight cutting the time from sixteen hours to five, that’s still more than half the time you’ll spend just driving down here,” Erin said. “And trust me, I can’t wait for that to happen! I’m going to come see you all the time.”
“And me, too,” I promised her. “I mean, you’re the one with two kids, and I would feel bad if you were the one to come up here to me all the time.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “Besides, Lib is a teenager now, and Connor’s getting bigger by the day. It’s only getting easier for me to take them with me these days.”
“Fair,” I admitted. “But I still feel like it’d be easier for me to come down to Key West, and like we were just saying, it’s not like it’s going to take us much effort to do it anymore. Two hours is nothing, especially after this whole past year.”
“I was thinking I wasn’t going to get to see you again anytime soon, and it was really beginning to wear on me,” Erin teased. “With how things were going for you back in Nashville, I wasn’t sure how long it would be before you were able to make the move.”
“Right,” I agreed. “So many things are going to be better, I can’t wait.”
“Do you have a job lined up?”
“Not yet,” I told her. It had been on my list of things to do before leaving, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. Once I decided to move to Florida to be closer to Erin and her family, I sold all the possessions I could, waited out the rest of my lease, and bought a plane ticket as soon as I could.
It was cheaper for me to live on Islamorada instead of Key West since I didn’t want a roommate, and I was already looking forward to getting to my little bungalow later that afternoon.
“It’s not like you’re going to have a tough time finding one,” she said. “With all the jobs that are available, not to mention you’re already kind of a Jackie of all Trades.”
“I’ve reached out to a few hotels and have a few more to contact. I’ve got a few gigs lined up already, mostly on the weekends,” I explained. “They don’t pay much, but it’s enough to add some cushion to my wallet while I figure out what’s next.”
“Not bad,” Erin told me. “Maybe you’ll have better luck with your music career down here than you did up in Tennessee.”
I laughed. “Doubt it. A few gigs are about the same as what I’ve done here. I just don’t know if I’ve got it in me to be a musician full time.”
“You do, you just have to find the right market,” she told me. “The fact that you are in the heart of the music industry up there isn’t doing you any favors.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean you are just another drop in the bucket. But if you move away from there and get a footing somewhere else, I think it’s going to work out a lot better for you,” Erin said. “You have the talent. The only reason, and I really mean this, the only reason that you haven’t made it big at this point is because of the competitive market.”
