Page 7 of A Song for Another Woman

I take the phone back too casually. “It’s promo.”

Emmy turns on her side, facing me. In the dim light, her eyes look darker than usual. “Is it?”

The right answer isn't complicated. The right answer is,I’ll talk to Duke. I’ll tell Melody to stop feeding it. I’ll make sure nobody gets to turn you into the woman standing outside the joke.

What I say is, “You know how this works.”

Her face changes a little. I see it. Then I choose not to.

“Em,” I add, softening my voice, reaching for her hip under the blanket. “You were radio. You were the voice people stayed up for. You know better than anyone there’s an on-air version and a real version.”

“I know that,” she says.

“There’s stage Cade and your Cade.”

She looks at me for a long second. “I miss knowing which one is coming home.”

Then my phone lights up on the nightstand with Duke’s name, and I look. Emmy rolls onto her back.

I tell myself I’ll fix the look on her face after this call.

Cy corners me outside Studio B two weeks later, while Melody is inside filming herself pontificating about how bad studio coffee is.

“You’re getting sloppy,” he says.

I lean against the wall and rub at the back of my neck. “Good morning to you too.”

“It’s almost midnight.”

“Then good almost midnight.”

He doesn’t smile. Cy has known me since I had two good songs, one bad truck, and no health insurance. He played steel on the first demo I recorded in a room that smelled like mildew and fryer oil. He stood beside me at my wedding and cried harder than Emmy’s sister, though he threatened my life if I ever repeated that.

When he looks disappointed, I feel twelve years younger and twice as stupid.

“You’re not chasing that girl,” he says.

My head comes up. “Watch it.”

“I am watching it. That’s the problem.”

“There’s nothing going on.”

“I know.”

Cy folds his arms. “You think I’d be this calm if I thought you were sniffing around Melody Hunter?”

“I’m not.”

“No. You’re sniffing around being twenty-five again.”

I laugh, but it sounds rehearsed. “That’s poetic for you.”

“You’re chasing the first year. First buzz. First room that shut up when you opened your mouth. First time strangers knew the words.” His voice stays low. “And Emmy’s paying the tab.”

The hallway hums around us. Through the studio glass, Melody holds her phone up, panning across the players, the takeout containers, and my guitar in the corner. Proof of life.

“Emmy gets it,” I say.