Dreamland(70)

“How about I AirDrop them?”

“What’s that?”

She rolled her eyes. “Turn on your phone and hit accept when it comes up.”

I did what she said, and almost instantaneously, the photos were on my phone.

“Do you really not know what AirDrop is?” Morgan laughed.

“If you really understood my regular life, you wouldn’t have bothered to ask that question.”

She smiled before growing quiet. Staring into her glass, she took a deep breath. I knew what was coming. It was a conversation I wasn’t sure I was ready for, the one that had no answers.

“What’s going to happen to us?” she asked, her voice subdued.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“What do you want?” she asked, her eyes still fixed on her wine. “Don’t you want us to be together?”

“Of course I do.”

“What does that mean, though? Have you even thought about it?”

“It’s all I’ve been thinking about,” I confessed. I tried to see her face.

She finally raised her eyes, a strange fire burning in them. “You know what I’m thinking?”

“I have no idea.”

She put down her wineglass and took my hands in hers. “I think you should come to Nashville with me.”

I felt my breath catch. Then: “Nashville?”

“You can work on tying things up at the farm, take whatever time you need…and then meet me there. We can be together, write songs together, chase our dreams together—it’s our chance. If things work out, then you can hire more people at the farm or make it larger or raise that grass-fed beef like your aunt suggested. The only difference is that you wouldn’t have to be the one actually doing it.”

I felt my head begin to spin. “Morgan…”

“Just wait,” she said, her voice brimming with urgency. “Hear me out, okay? You and I…I mean…I never thought it was possible to fall in love with someone in just a few short days. I’m not romantic in that, like, hoping-to-find-Prince-Charming kind of way. But you and I…I don’t know. From the moment we met, it was like…we fit somehow….”

Clicked like a tumbler falling in a combination lock, I couldn’t help but think.

“It was almost like I knew and trusted you from the very beginning. That hasn’t ever happened to me, and then the way we made music together…” When she paused, her expression was full of hope and wonder. “I’ve never felt so in sync with anyone.” She turned her gaze on me. “You don’t want to lose that, do you? You don’t want to lose me, do you?”

“No. I want you, and I want us to be together, too.”

“Then come with me. Go to Nashville when you can.”

“But the farm. My sister…”

“You said yourself that the farm is easier now, and you said you have a general manager. And if your sister wants to come to Nashville, bring her. She can probably run her business from anywhere, right?”

I thought of Paige, thought of all the things about my sister that I had yet to admit. “You don’t understand….”

“What is there to understand? She’s an adult. But here’s the other thing.” She took a long breath before going on. “You have an amazing voice. You’re an amazing songwriter. You have a gift that others only dream about. You shouldn’t let that go to waste.”

“I’m not you,” I demurred, feeling suddenly trapped, needing another excuse. Any excuse. “You didn’t see yourself up on that stage.”

Her expression was almost wistful. “The thing is, you don’t see yourself, either. You don’t see what I see. Or what the audience sees. And you also understand that music is something powerful, something that people all over the world can share, right? It’s like a language, a way to connect that’s bigger than you or me or anyone. Do you ever think about how much joy you could bring people? You’re too good to stay on the farm.”

Dizzy, I could think of nothing to say, other than the obvious. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“Then don’t,” she urged. “Did you mean it when you said that you loved me?”

“Of course.”

“Then before you say no, even if you don’t want to go to Nashville because I think you should or because we could be together, then maybe think about doing it for yourself.” She drew up her legs, kneeling on the couch as she faced me. “Will you do that? At least think about it?”

As she’d spoken, it was easy for me to imagine all of it. Writing songs together, discovering a new city together, building a life with each other. Enjoying life, without the worries and stresses that defined my world now. And she was right about my aunt and the managers being capable of keeping things going. Now that we’d built a rhythm and routine, things were easier, but…

But…

Paige.

I took a long breath, so many thoughts and impulses racing through me.

“Yeah,” I finally said, “I’ll think about it.”





We didn’t speak about it again that night, and I found myself confused and preoccupied. Though I’d expected her to ask how to keep a long-distance relationship going, I was blindsided by her suggestion that I follow her to Nashville.