Songbird

Nineteen: Lennie

"You know Colt's at home losing his fucking mind, right?" Cora asked with a not very sympathetic sounding giggle as she tossed her bag and then herself on the bed in the hotel room we were sharing.

We were having a quick girls' weekend in Nashville. Well, not so much a girls' weekend, considering it was just the two of us. More of a best friend's weekend. I wanted to get the last bit of my belongings from out of storage and tie up the last of the loose ends before I officially called Snyder home again. I also had a meeting with my label that I hadn't told anyone about yet.

It wasn't that I was trying to hide it really. I just wanted to make sure I had things at least partially set in stone before I ran around blathering to anyone who would listen. If what I was about to pitch was actually accepted, this would change things for all of us. For me, for this incarnation of Whiskey River, for Leon, for Colt... for us, big time for us. It was a big deal, and I was a bit nervous that the folks practically begging me to get back to work weren't going to like it, but the fact of the matter was: they weren't going to have any option. My contract was technically over. If they wanted me to resign, to continue being the in-house writer for their litany of artists, it was going to be on my terms. And I sure as heck wasn't going to be in Nashville to do it.

I rolled my eyes as I sank onto the second queen bed in our room. "He'll be fine," I stated. "I don't know what the heck he has to be freaking out over anyway."

Cora scoffed. "The Colt I know rarely needs a reason to throw himself into a tizzy. His brain makes up outlandish scenarios for him."

She wasn't wrong.

I wasn't going to tell her that, but she wasn't wrong.

Colt had voiced his concern a few times before his sister and I hit the road. His hang-ups ranged anywhere from not liking the idea of the two of us traveling alone, to him hinting at the fact he was worried I wouldn't come back. I did my best to reassure him that I was definitely not running away, but I could only do so much to squelch his anxiety. The only way to really put it to rest was to come back and prove his worried mind wrong. Which was exactly what I planned on doing.

Any interest I'd had in returning to Nashville for good had evaporated into thin air the second Colt and I started up. To be honest, it was already fraying the second I stepped foot back in Snyder, no thanks to the disaster of Brad and I ending. I'd been feeling a bit angsty in Tennessee for a while. I knew I wasn't truly happy there, and now that I didn't have a boyfriend there, or a house, or really a job holding me back, it was the perfect time to go home. I'd loved my time in Nashville, don't get me wrong. I'd accomplished so much that I wouldn't have had I never left Snyder, but I was more than good with where things stood. I was ready for something new. I was ready to focus on something other than my career. And I was really hoping that thing was going to be a family. My family. Colt and Beau and Mama Rose and Cora and... who knows, maybe some day we'd add to the clan with kids of our own. I wanted to be a mom, but if that just meant being a stepmom to Beau, I was fine with that too. It was time to turn my focus elsewhere. It was time to leave the hustle and bustle of Music City behind and start something smaller, cozier, but so goddamn fulfilling it made my heart swell.

"Helloooo? Earth to Lennie. Come in, Lennie."

I snapped out of my brightly colored wishes for the future and landed my eyes back on Cora. "What?"

Cora snickered. "Are you even listening to a word I say?"

"Sorry... kind of distracted."

Cora's eyes rolled so hard I thought they would drop out of her skull. "Ya know, if you're just gonna lay there and daydream about my brother, I could've just as well stayed home."