and the stars will all come out

chapter fourteen! ☆

LANDRY WOKE UP DAMP AND SWEATING.

Since forever, packing at the last minute had never turned out well for her, so she didn't know why she'd been expecting this to magically change now. Sure enough, it had been two in the morning before she'd been able to collapse into bed, exhausted, her mind racing, unsure if she'd been able to shove everything into her duffel bag. Sleep didn't feel like sleep, and from the moment she woke up, two seconds later, her heart wouldn't stop hammering.

I'm going to Nashville.

Panic rising, she instinctively glanced over at her alarm clock. The blinking, neon green numbers told her it was 6:30 AM, and Dave had wanted her to be ready for eight thirty.

Yawning, Landry rolled over in bed, figuring that she had time.

As she settled back into the bed, her mind wandered, and she once again couldn't believe she was going to fucking Nashville.

She couldn't picture what the city was going to be like beyond the stereotype of a country music utopia, but that didn't even matter: the most appealing thing right now was getting to be with Dave, alone, for the entire weekend. He knew it was a foreign city, that she'd never been out of the state, and somehow, he trusted her enough to take her.

He wasn't taking Taylor or Nate. Not even Adam, like she'd first thought.

He was taking her.

It was the kind of thing that made Landry blush. She'd never really thought of herself in this way before-- like she was someone considered special to Dave. It filled her with this gushingly warm, contagious, giggly happiness. It was the thing that kept her coming back to the cabin, really: life was stressful and depressing and the bills never stopped coming and she kept finding strange-looking needles in her apartment while Hope was passing out at an increasing rate, but smiling and laughing was always made easier whenever she was with Dave. She couldn't even move her fingers down the fretboard of her guitar without thinking about him now.

If it had been any other morning, her mind surely would've wandered to where she'd been particularly indulgent over the past few days, but she knew this would only make her Nashville anxiety worse, so she forced herself to get up.

☆

SURE ENOUGH, DAVE PULLED UP TO THE FRONT DOORS THE VERY MOMENT LANDRY'S WATCH HIT EIGHTY THIRTY: grinning widely, she waved at him through the glass doors as soon as the U-HAUL slowed to a stop in front of the building.

Through several feet and tinted glass, she saw him waving back, and suddenly her heart was beating a lot faster.

It didn't matter if Dave was intending to come inside to greet her: wasting no time at all, she flung her duffel bag over her shoulder and rushed out to meet him.

Dave was grinning through a wad of chewing gum as he rolled down the window. "Morning, blondie."

"Good morning!" Landry responded brightly, beaming at him in return. "Where should I put my bag?"

Dave took a glance down at her duffel bag. "Oh, just chuck it in the back there."

"Great!"

Her heart was hammering wildly in her chest as she tucked her bag away in the back. She couldn't remember being this excited about anything, ever, and it was maddening.

Excitement building, Landry's legs were shaking as she climbed into the U-HAUL.

"Well, you definitely got a decent-sized one, for sure," she observed, looking around the inside of the vehicle as she buckled her seatbelt. They had several long hours ahead of them on the road; she wanted to try her hardest to make conversation. "How big's the soundboard supposed to be?"