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I roll my eyes. “You’re exaggerating.”
“Not really. But my point is, it’s always been about girls wanting you. Never seen you want a girl. It’s been entertaining, honestly.”
“I didn’t think you’d noticed.”
Hudson chuckles. “Morgan might have been the one who said something first. But we all saw you two disappear for twenty minutes at Whiskey Cowboy. Were you talking aboutyour contractin the back alley?” He smirks when I’m silent. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”
I blow out a long breath, staring at the unlit firepit. Tommy and Danny are off grabbing wood. “When were you sure about Morgan?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know if there was one moment really. Just the more time I spent around her, the more time I wanted to spend around her. Until it became a lot easier to picture my life with her than it was not to. Just made sense.” He grins. “That doesn’t sound that romantic, I guess. I’ll work on something better before I propose.”
I tilt my head back, studying the star-strewn sky. “No, it sounds good. Logical. Inevitable.”
“You going to share or make me ask?”
“I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”
“So, what’s the problem? She’s clearly into you.”
“The problem is, she wants the one thing I can’t give her. I’m done with music for now—probably forever. My plan was to come back here and figure out what my life would have looked like if I’d never gotten onstage at the fair that night. And her life is in New York. She’s bored here. I’m a story she’ll tell one day.”
“Are you sure you’re done with music? I mean, you’ve got it pretty good.”
Ever since I found success, I’ve made an effort to never complain. To suck it up and accept the bad with the good. I don’t want to seem ungrateful. And that goes double when I’m in Oak Grove. This place, this community that knows me. That’s proud of all I’ve accomplished and would actually care if they knew how miserable fame could be.
“Parts of it are great. Parts of it really suck.”
Hudson’s eyebrows fly upward, suggesting I’m a better actor than I thought.
For years, I’ve swept in and out of town like a hurricane, bringing back stories of parties and gifting season tickets for professional sports teams. I’ve shown one side of my life while also keeping Miles and Kyle completely separate. My friends have a good idea of what the situation was like with my mom from growing up, but none of them know how bad things got toward the end. That I got the call she was gone and then had to go put on a show for seventy thousand people because it was a sold-out venue, and when you’re Kyle Spencer, you can’t just send out a replacement with a guitar.
“It’s supposed to look easy and amazing because that’s what sells albums and tickets. But, man? I can’t go out in public without bodyguards, and I still get swarmed. Streets get shut down. My last tour, I slept in a different bed every night for months. Sat alone on a bus for months. A girl snuck into the hotel I was staying at in Los Angeles, and so I had to switch hotels in the middle of the night. On the ranch, there’s always stuff to do, but I don’thaveto do any of it. Kyle Spencer barely has any control over his own life. If I want to have sex with a woman, someone on my team makes her sign an NDA. It’s”—I blow out a breath—“a total circus.”
“I had no idea. I mean, I figured it wasn’t always easy, but you made it sound…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Do you hate me, for daring you to get up on that stage?”
“Of course not. Things here were tough. I wanted that escape route. Hell, I probably needed it.”
Hudson leans forward and taps his beer bottle against mine. “Well, for whatever it’s worth, I’m thrilled you’re moving back. It sounds like you made the right decision.”
“Thanks.” I mean it, but there’s an uneasiness too.
Distant voices sound, suggesting Danny and Tommy are coming back from the barn.
He glances at me. “How soon is she leaving?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to say something before she does?”
I exhale. “I don’t know.”
It seems selfish when I’m offering her nothing. I’ll run out of projects on the ranch eventually, and then I have no clue what I’ll do then. And I know Piper is already bored with sitting around. She’s used to a way more exciting life, the sort I’m sick of.
Danny and Tommy return, tossing the wood inside the stone circle and pulling out matches. A minute later, the fire flickers to life, crackling and spitting flames.
