He shrugs, eyes flicking up to meet mine. “It happens. And for a while, the pain made for good music. There was something electric about bleeding on the page. The label ate it up.”
His smile turns wry, bitter around the edges. “But eventually, the drama dried up because I just didn’t give a damn anymore. And so did the music. I couldn’t fake it. Couldn’t force it.”
He leans back against the booth, the leather creaking under his weight.
“Record label started breathing down my neck. Sales tanked. My marriage was over. And what did my brilliant team suggest?” He lifts his glass again. “A tour.”
“You couldn’t do it,” I whisper.
“No. I couldn’t.”
His voice drops a little lower, quiet with memory.
“Got served the divorce papers in Montana in the middle of a festival, still sweaty from the stage. Signed ’em in Idaho. By the time I hit Oregon, I was single and pretending I was fine.”
I don’t speak. I just let him sit in it for a second. Because it’s not fine. And he deserves someone who doesn’t rush past that.
“And that’s when you started skipping concerts,” I say softly.
He nods. “I’d show up, stare at the stage, and feel nothing. Like the part of me that used to write and sing and feel had just gone dark.”
He turns toward me again, eyes searching. “I haven’t written a single song in almost three years. It felt like I’d lost a piece of myself, and I didn’t know how to get it back. Even being back at the ranch didn’t help.”
Then his gaze softens.
“Until now.”
My chest tightens, breath catching somewhere between my ribs and my heart. “Sam.”
He covers my hand with his.
“You walked into my life in a damn flood,” he says quietly. “Maybe you didn’t just wash everything away. Maybe you brought something back.”
My heart stutters.
“Sam…”
We’re still. His eyes lock with mine, warm and searching, like he’s trying to see all the way through me.
And I let him.
The words press against the back of my throat.I love you.They ache there, ripe and ready. But I swallow them down. Not because they aren’t true but because some words need the right moment to bloom.
Instead, I lift my glass and drain the last of my drink, setting it gently on the table.
“Let’s find a computer so I can let my boss know I’m alive.”
Sam blinks once, lips twitching with a smile that’s still soft from everything we didn’t say. He rises after me. “Alright.”
“And then,” I say, slipping my coat on, “I want to go home.”
He stills for just a second. “I see.”
I tilt my chin toward him, a slow grin spreading across my lips. “I don’t think you do. I want to go back to the ranch. That kind of home.”
A beat.
Then his face cracks open into something so pure it makes my chest ache.
