Page 70 of The Song We Lost

chapter 18

bailey

. . .

The last leg of the tour feels different. It’s hard to pinpoint why, it isn’t louder or bigger. Just… settled.

Every show is sold out now. There are no more dates to add, no last-minute schedule changes to squeeze another city in. Rachel shut that down weeks ago. This run is contained. Finite. After this, there will be press, a few appearances, obligations that live on paper instead of stages, but the tour itself is ending.

I know exactly how many nights I have left. And for the first time in a long time, I’m not counting them like I’m running out of oxygen. My social media manager, Brandy, has been gently persistent about behind-the-scenes content. Nothing invasive, just moments that are real. Coffee cups on the bus, soundcheck laughter and blurry photos of stage lights before the crowd comes in. Fans love it, she says. They want to seeme, not just the performance.

So I let her do her thing, it is hard not to get into what she is doing with her quirky infectious personality.

Morning light slants through the bus windows in pale gold, catching the steam curling up from mugs. Someone always has coffee going before I wake up. Today it’s Jackson.

He’s sitting at the small table near the front, long legs folded awkwardly, one hand wrapped around a chipped ceramic mug that definitely didn’t come with the bus. He looks…normal. Nostage presence. No legend aura. Just a man in a worn T-shirt, hair still damp.

“Tea?” he asks, lifting the second mug when he notices me hovering.

I blink. “How did you know?”

He smiles, as he shrugs, saying, “I’ve noticed you prefer to drink tea. You only drink coffee when you’re running on steam… or when someone offers it to you and you are being polite.”

That makes me laugh, but a pain stabs at my chest from the thought that he paid attention enough to notice and yet…

Pushing that thought away I sit across from him, the bus humming softly beneath us as the driver pulls onto the highway. For a few minutes, we don’t talk. We just sip and stare out at the passing landscape. Flat stretches of road. Low buildings. The slow waking of another city.

“Is this always what you wanted?” he asks eventually.

I think about it longer than he probably expects.

“Yes,” I say. Then, “No.”

Then I shake my head. “Not like this.”

He waits, he’s good at that. Not filling silence just because it exists.

“I wanted to sing,” I say finally. “I wanted to write. I wanted… music. But I didn’t picture arenas or charts or headlines. I pictured people. Small rooms. Choir risers. Anywhere that felt like being heard instead of watched.”

He nods like that makes sense.

“My parents died when I was young,” I continue, the words steady now, practiced in the way only old truths can be. “Before that, they weren’t really around. When they were, they weren’t present. My sister… she stepped in. She raised me, protected me.”

I swallow, warmth pressing behind my ribs.

“The Carters were the first place that ever felt safe outside of Sadie. They bought me my first guitar. My first piano. Encouraged me in ways no one else ever had.”

He glances at me. “So you and Luke really did grow up together?”

I nod. “Trailer park and a small bungalow a few streets over. Same school. Same age. Once I met him, he was…everything. I was shy. I sang whenever I could, choir, assemblies, but I didn’t put myself out there. He did that for me. Pushed me. Believed in me before I believed in myself.”

I smile faintly. “We used to sneak into bars. Play for tips. We were so excited the first time someone paid us twenty dollars to sing.”

Jackson smiles and waits for me to continue.

“He came up with the Nashville idea,” I say. “Or maybe I did and he refined it. Hard to remember. We wanted enough money to take care of our families. To give them something better. That dream… it grew. Took on a life of its own.” I pause, trying to separate the words from the raw feelings they evoke.

“So the day I turned eighteen, we got married at the courthouse near our town. Hopped in his truck and drove straight to Nashville.”