Page 16 of A Song for Another Woman

I nod in the right places. I say yes. I keep saying yes until the word stops feeling like a choice.

By ten-thirty that night, Melody Hunter is telling a journalist she is “trying very hard not to steal anybody’s husband.”

The room laughs.

We’re in Studio B, but it doesn’t feel like a studio anymore. It feels like a set. Two lamps instead of overheads. My black cherry Lonesome Strings prototype propped in the corner, visible but not obvious. A photographer from CMT near the console. A Silver Creek publicist holding a clipboard. Duke by the door, listening to every word like it’s a mix he plans to master.

Melody sits cross-legged on the couch, barefoot, blond hair falling over one shoulder. She looks sweet when she wants to. That’s part of the problem. She knows exactly how to make trouble look like innocence.

The journalist laughs into her little recorder. “Is that hard?”

Melody glances at me. Not long. Just long enough.

I should cut in. I should say,My wife is Emmy. Leave her out of whatever bit this is.I should put my voice in the room before the room decides my silence means agreement. Instead, I smile like a man who knows how to take a joke.

Melody puts a hand over her heart. “Cade is a gentleman. Painfully unavailable. Tragically married. We suffer for art.”

More laughter. Duke looks pleased.

I feel my wedding ring against the guitar neck. The edge bites when I shift my grip.

The publicist says, “That’s great. We can pull that.”

Cy, from behind the steel, says, “Maybe don’t.”

Everyone looks at him. He adjusts one tuning peg without expression. “Just a thought.”

The journalist’s smile goes uncertain. Melody’s doesn’t.

“Oh, Cy hates fun,” she says, bright and easy. “He thinks we should all communicate in minor chords and tax forms.”

Duke chuckles. The publicist chuckles. The room moves on.

Cy’s eyes find mine. There are warnings a man hears and ignores because he doesn’t understand them. Then there are warnings he understands perfectly and steps over anyway.

My phone lights up on the stool beside me. Emmy.

For a second, all the studio noise pulls back. I can see her name. Just her name. No message yet, only the incoming call and the small photo I chose years ago: Emmy laughing on the porch at June’s old place, hair blowing across her mouth, one hand up like she’s trying to hide from the camera while still wanting me to see her.

The phone vibrates once. Twice.

Duke’s voice cuts through. “Cade, give them the bridge story.”

I look down at Emmy’s face. Then I turn the phone over.

The call ends against the wood. I tell the bridge story. It gets a good laugh.

That's the worst part. How easy it is for the room to reward me the second I abandon her.

After midnight, the useful people leave. The journalist goes first, then the publicist, then the photographer. Duke stays long enough to remind me the Lonesome Strings dinner rolls into the after-party tomorrow, the after-party rolls into press on Friday,and Friday rolls into a year I already sold before thinking hard enough about what it costs.

“Keep the energy loose,” he says from the doorway.

“Loose,” Cy repeats.

Duke ignores him. “Melody’s good at it. Let her be good at it.”

“She’s getting comfortable,” Cy says.