I Always Will

VSCO Girls

Author's Note: Dearly Departed is one of my very favorite songs. Not quite The Civil Wars for  haunting harmonies, but Shakey Graves and Esme Patterson have great chemistry and rhythm together.

Riley, Two Months Later, North Georgia Mountains

As we pull up the the dilapidated farm house, I cut a side eye at Rowan. I can't tell if she's staring at the peeling paint, weathered roof and and meager landscaping, or just wondering how in the hell all her clothes are going to fit into the tiny domicile.

But she doesn't complain. She just shakes her head and laughs. "Oh my god, Riley! This is such a dump! I mean, I don't mind roughing it, but how in hell did Kat survive here?"

I smother a smile. It's always amusing to me, how slightly askew Rowan's self-perception is. Row tends to think herself such a bad-ass and her Instagram sister-in-law as slightly more...spoiled in her personal preferences. In reality, I think Row has been much more petted by her parents than the tomboyish HellKat ever was. I know that Kat embraced her time with Trace at the clink like an adventure that hearkened back to their outdoorsy childhood. I wonder what Row is going to think when she realizes there is only one bathroom and it's roughly the size of our broom closet at home.

At least we still have a home in LA. For the moment. After Row settled with Girl Band, and we sold the house in New Zealand and three valuable sports cars—keeping only Row's vintage Mustang—we can probably front the cash for our musical endeavor and pay the mortgage for a year or so, but it's unlikely we'll spend much time there. I'm honestly not sure of the wisdom of keeping this place, since the hope is that our life and livelihood will revolve around the Southern Music cities—Nashville, Memphis, Muscle Shoals, Atlanta, Athens, New Orleans, Asheville—but Row has come to view our home with the reverence one might afford a house of worship.

"It's where we found our way back to one another. It's the birthplace of our sound. It's sacred ground, baby," she had pointed out at one of our recent weekly financial meetings.

And what could I say to that? She's right.

So we compromised. We kept the house in the hills, but that meant we absolutely couldn't afford to buy or even rent a nice place down South. It didn't take me long to come up with an alternate housing plan—because the Clink is only two hours from Muscle Shoals, not much farther to Nashville, and is equipped with a professional free recording studio, but it took me quite a few days to swallow my pride and approach Trace with the idea of us squatting here.

Trace, being Trace, was entirely gracious. "Actually, it would save my life if you and Row took over the place for a little while. The new house is being constructed, and I sure as hell can't be flying from LA every week to check on the progress—not with the boys not sleeping for shit and Kat exhausted. The construction is a real stressor to me right now, especially with my dad and Kat's mom still recovering from the transplant. Adam was going to drive down and check on things occasionally but it would be so much better if you put in a little sweat equity and kept on top of it. You would really be doing me one final management service, yeah?"

A week later, we've arrived at our home away from home. Ever the pragmatist, Row's first priority is to unload the guitars from the U-Haul. It's fine by me; having her view the barn before touring the tiny house will likely go over better anyway.

I help her pile them on the Gator, thoughtfully parked in the drive and we're off to the barn. Row immediately takes to jumping on the trampoline, but within minutes I've arrested her play by jumping her on the trampoline.

Unfortunately, we're not very far into foreplay before a honking horn thwarts my dreams of an afternoon of trampoline sex. The old me would have definitely attended to the unpacking before love-making, but hey. Life is short and Row is fucking hot. My spectacular heathen has my drive running at break-neck speeds these days.