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“And I’m telling you we’ll figure it out.”

He looks at me for a long moment.

I step closer again. “Maybe I fly out somewhere. Maybe you come home during one of the longer breaks. We call when we can. We text when we can’t. We do what people do when they care about each other and one of them has to travel for work.”

His mouth curves slightly. “You make it sound easy.”

“I didn’t say easy.”

That gets a real smile, finally, but it doesn’t last long.

He pulls me against him, and I wrap my arms around his waist. For a few seconds he just holds me, his chin resting against the top of my head.

“I really am happy for you,” I say.

“I know you are.”

“And you should be excited.”

“I am excited.”

I believe him, and that’s what makes the rest of it harder to understand. He isn’t looking for a reason to stay. He wants the tour, and I want him to take it.

But somewhere between Europe and now, home stopped being something Zander assumes will wait for him unchanged. Now there are people and pieces of a life here that he’s afraid of losing. Including me.

When he leaves later, he kisses me at the door and tells me he’ll see me tomorrow. I watch him cross the narrow strip of porch toward his side of the duplex, carrying the same worry he walked in with.

I wonder if Zander is more afraid of leaving me or of trusting that I’ll still be here when he comes back.

Chapter twenty-four

ZANDER

By the third run through the new song, I can already hear what it’s going to sound like in a room a hundred times this size.

The chorus needs more space. We figured that out in Europe. A song can sound huge in rehearsal and still get swallowed alive once there are thousands of people standing in front of you. The guitars need somewhere to breathe, the drums need to hit harder without turning everything else into noise, and the chorus needs enough room for the crowd to come in if they know the words.

They might actually know them this time.

That thought still gives me a rush.

I stop playing halfway through the outro and look toward the rest of the guys. “Lose eight bars before the last chorus.”

Our drummer frowns. “Why?”

“Because we don’t need them. Let it drop out, then come back bigger.”

He taps the rhythm against his thigh while he thinks about it, then nods. “From the bridge?”

“Yeah. Give it more room.”

We start again, and this time it works. By the time we hit the final chord, I’m grinning.

This is the part I know how to do.

We’ve spent the last few days talking about contracts, travel days, interviews, release schedules, and about a hundred other things that have nothing to do with actually standing onstage. Here, none of that matters. It’s four guys in a room figuring out how to make a song better before we play it in front of thousands of people.

I love the work we have to put in as we get ready, almost as much as I love the shows.