More Than A Feeling, page 6
“I can do one sentence.”
“You can,” she said. “You did it this morning.”
He smiled a little. “You hungry for noise?”
“Not today,” she said. “Today I like the quiet.”
They sat with that for a minute. She finished her sandwich and set the plate aside.
“I should say something out loud,” he said. “About Phase 3.”
“All right.”
“If it ever happens, I want it to be real. Not a show. Or I want to skip it altogether.”
Her eyes didn’t leave his. “Okay.”
The shade held them steady. A breeze came up the bluff and moved through the trees like someone smoothing a sheet.
“Then we’re aligned,” she said, soft but certain.
“Seems like it,” he said.
He stood and offered his hand to pull her up without thinking about what it looked like from the yard. She took it. Her palm was cool and sure in his. He let go too fast and felt ridiculous about it.
Back inside, the afternoon settled into that strange fast-slow rhythm that happens on days that matter. The clip kept gathering kind comments. The town kept defending its own. The rehearsal was tight. At three forty-five, a single camera crew rolled up the drive. A woman named Patrice, with a microphone and quiet eyes, asked permission to step onto the porch. Tony said yes and drew a quick boundary line that they respected.
The walk-and-talk ran eight minutes. Patrice asked about home and mornings and songs that start before coffee. Jami answered like Carlene had told him to. One sentence. True. He sang one clean line on the porch rail. Patrice smiled and said it would sit well between weather and sports.
When they left, the property sighed like it had been tested and found sound.
Evening crept in at the edges while they put gear away. Sean scribbled a chord change on a Post-it and stuck it to Sunday’s case. Axel texted Hanna a photo of Trouble with a bite taken out of its heart. Livia reminded everyone to drink water. Tony answered a dozen emails and looked less tired than he had in weeks.
Carlene closed her laptop and looked at Jami across the stage. They didn’t need to say anything. There’d be other days where it felt harder than this. Today had been a clean line.
He picked up the guitar and played the chorus once, quiet enough that it didn’t make a show of itself. She stood still and let it move through the room.
Morning had started something. He could feel it in his hands. He didn’t know where it would land yet, but for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t afraid of the distance between here and there.
He was ready to walk it.
Chapter Ten
The six o’clock segment ran like it had somewhere to be.
Patrice’s piece opened on the porch, sun soft on the railing, Jami leaning in, voice steady as a heartbeat. Then the cut. The roaring Miami crowd. A freeze-frame of Jami between songs, face set, eyes unreadable. Back to the porch, his mouth forming a kind truth about mornings. Another cut, tighter and meaner, someone’s phone video of security moving a fan back from the stage while Jami looked down to step on a microphone peddle. The narration said words like “reserved” and “distant,” then slid in the bakery photo from Mae’s, the one with her hand near his, and asked if a new romance might be the reason the front man seemed “elsewhere.”
Ten minutes later, the clip was everywhere.
Carlene watched the first shares from the end of the barn’s elevated stage, her laptop screen a little square of storm. Comments shifted tone in waves. A few kind ones tried to hold the line. More came in questioning. A handful got sharp.
"Is he bored with us now?"
"Always thought he was full of himself."
"He used to smile like he meant it. Now money's coming in and he's bored."
“Okay,” Tony said, voice low, eyes on his phone. “Everyone breathe. A local site reposted the piece. Two mid-tier blogs have already picked it up. The label’s calling in three."
Livia moved to Carlene’s side as if by gravity. “Do you think this is a blip?”
“It can be,” Carlene said, even while her stomach tightened. The segment wasn’t a hatchet job. It was worse. It was neat. It stitched a story out of pieces that didn’t belong together and made it feel like fact.
Her phone vibrated in her palm. The label’s digital head. She answered and set it to speaker, Tony and Jami close enough to hear, the others hanging back, a hush settling over the barn like dust.
“You’re seeing the hit,” the woman said without hello.
“We are,” Carlene said.
“Then you know where this goes,” the woman said. “If we don’t flip it by morning, we’re looking at cancellation chatter in two markets and soft sales in a third. TikTok will run the porch clip against Miami and call it proof. Your hometown strategy worked. This undercut it.”
“We’ll hold comments,” Carlene said. “We’ve got locals helping.”
“That’s good,” the woman said, not impressed. “But slow. If you want a fast pivot, you need warmth you can’t argue with. You need a hand-in-hand on a dock. You need a smile that isn’t for the camera. You'll need Phase 3. And tell Vivian we're handling it." Which struck Carlene as odd; why would Vivian be personally tracking this?
Silence held for a beat. Carlene felt Jami go still beside her.
“We’d planned to assess next week,” Carlene said. “The song’s carrying its weight. The town’s with us.”
“The internet isn’t your town,” the woman said. “It wants a face. Give it one, or it’ll pick one for you, and it’ll be the worst possible choice.”
Carlene thought of the circled photo at Mae’s. She thought of every time a simple moment turned teeth-first. She closed her eyes for the length of a breath and opened them again.
“If we move, we do it our way,” she said. “No tabloids. No blind items. One image in a place we control.”
“You’ll have our support,” the woman said, hearing the yes under that. “If you can deliver something tonight, we can seed a softer read by morning shows. Keep the segment from setting.”
“Not tonight,” Carlene said. “That reads desperate. Tomorrow, early evening. At the marina. At sunset. One clean sighting. Then we'll go quiet.” She glanced at Jami and found him watching her, his face careful. “We’ll confirm to one reporter after the photo runs and keep it light.”
The woman hesitated, calculating. “It could work. But your window’s small. Call me when you’ve got a time for its release.”
The line went dead.
The barn air felt heavier when the sound cut out. Axel set his drumsticks down like he was worried they’d break if he breathed wrong. Maddyn slipped her hand into his and held on. Sean stared at the floorboards.
Jami stayed still, shoulder to shoulder with Carlene, like he was bracing a beam.
“This is what it looks like,” Tony said, reading faces. “We either let the segment write the story, or we write one that doesn’t make us hate ourselves.”
“I’m not lying,” Jami said quietly. “If we do this, it can’t be a circus.”
“It won’t be,” Carlene said. “It’ll be two people walking on a dock, and then we’ll go home.”
Jami shook his head once. "But it's giving the impression of something else."
Carlene looked into his eyes. "So does everything we're doing."
"Not everything. I do live here. I do sit on the bluff and, while I don't go to Mae's often enough, I have gone there, and I do love her bakery."
She took a deep breath. "It's necessary."
Livia studied Carlene’s expression like she could find hairline cracks if she looked long enough. “Who?” she asked gently.
For a second, the world narrowed to the word.
Who.
Carlene’s mind did what it always did. It pulled lists. Names. Risk profiles. Nice local. A publicist’s cousin. A teacher Livia knew. The more she thought, the worse it all looked. Every name felt like stepping on a person to fix a problem that wasn’t theirs.
“Someone he respects,” she said, stalling, “who reads as ease. Someone who won’t sell the shot for a payday. Someone who can handle eyes.”
Jami turned to her, steady. “You.”
“No,” she said, too fast. Heat crawled up her neck. “I’m the last person. I’m already in the room. It muddies the work.”
“It clarifies it,” he said. “We’ve already been seen together. They’re already circling your hand in a photo. This stops the guessing. And I’m not dragging someone from town into a mess they didn’t make.”
Tony made a quiet sound that meant he agreed, even if he didn’t like the whole idea.
Livia didn’t smile, but her eyes warmed. “Boundaries,” she said. “You set them. Then you go in, do ten minutes, and you get out.”
Carlene’s heart beat slow and hard against her ribs. She hadn’t built a career on being the story. She’d built it on the idea of never being the story.
“I don’t date clients,” she said.
“You’re not dating me,” Jami said. “You’re giving the internet something harmless to point at while they get used to the idea that I’m a person and not a screen.”
He sounded calm. He looked calm. Underneath, she felt the thrum of something that wasn’t calm at all. He was choosing this because he’d rather take the heat than see it land on anyone else.
“Sunset,” Tony said, already moving. “At the marina. I’ll call Jace at the Sandbar and make sure the dock lights are on. Then I'll call the stringer photographer I know. No press alert. We’ll let one stringer who plays fair ‘happen’ to be at the bar with a long lens."
“This is a bad idea,” Axel said, even while he nodded because he knew they were doing it. “But fine. If it keeps idiots from yelling, I’ll hold my nose and clap.”
Maddyn squeezed his fingers. “It’s our story. Not theirs.”
Sean lifted his gaze to Carlene. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she said, honestly. “But I will be.”
They broke fast. Tony went outside to call Jace and the stringer. Livia texted Margo and Jace for something takeout-ready and wrote private dinner in all caps so no one tried to be helpful with a selfie. Axel went to the bar corner and pretended to inventory cables while he was actually refusing to say anything else that might make Carlene change her mind. Sean tuned his guitar out of habit, the room warming to the familiar sound of an open G.
Jami didn’t move. He stayed right there beside her, a solid, quiet presence that she could lean on if she wanted to and not hit air.
“Are you sure?” she asked, low.
“No,” he said again, then steadied. “But this is cleaner than using someone else.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll write rules,” he said. “No kissing. No hand on the small of your back. We walk. We talk. We smile once, like people who like each other. Then we leave in separate cars.”
Her mouth tilted. “You forgot ‘no touching faces’ like we’re in a teen drama.”
He laughed, short and real. “No touching faces.”
She pulled her legal pad from the table and wrote the rules anyway. It helped to see them take shape in ink. She added exit times and the line they’d use if a mic got shoved in a face.
We’re taking things slow. He’s focused on the music.
It read like truth and deflection at the same time. It would do.
“Clothes,” Maddyn said, materializing with purpose. “Nothing formal. Nothing black. Carlene, soft blouse, flats, hair down. Jami, sleeves pushed, no hat. Keep the watch. It photographs as steady.”
Carlene didn’t argue. Practical felt like oxygen. "Thanks, Maddyn. That's all great."
The stringer texted Tony a thumbs-up and a time. Jace replied that the dock lights were working and he’d have the marina clear of fishermen for fifteen minutes. Margo said the takeout bag would be at the back bar in twenty minutes, no charge, with a heart sticker and a winky face.
They ran a rehearsal pass because music was how this room breathed when nerves showed up. Jami sang clean. The chorus did its job. The bridge hurt in the right place and made you want to earn the chorus again. When they stopped, Carlene realized her hands had steadied.
“Okay,” Tony said, scanning the clock. “We meet at the marina at seven fifteen. We walk at seven twenty. We leave at seven thirty. Nobody runs late. Nobody improvises. We do not invite chaos.”
“Copy,” Jami said.
Carlene nodded.
The hour before sunset stretched thin. She drove back to her rental, stood in front of an open suitcase like a person who’d forgotten how to pick out clothes, then picked the blouse Maddyn had named, forgetting she'd packed it. She wore flats because Maddyn told her to and because docks and heels didn’t mix with grace. She let her hair down and brushed it out until it shone.
In the mirror, she looked like someone she almost recognized. Not the strategist. Not the ghost in a room full of lights. A woman who could walk next to a man and look like it didn’t cost her anything.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Marla.
Saw the edit. You okay?
I’m fine,
Carlene wrote.
We’re handling it.
You always do,
Marla replied.
Just don’t forget you’re a person in this.
I won’t,
Carlene typed and set the phone face down because if she didn’t, she’d keep looking for permission she didn’t need.
The marina parking lot smelled like salt and summer. The sky leaned toward peach. A handful of boats cut seams in the water, engines low, gulls loud and opportunistic near the bait shack.
Tony waited by the path, face sober. He looked at Carlene the way a good manager looks at a person taking on an extra burden. With respect and a hint of apology.
“Stringer’s set,” he said. “He’ll shoot from the outside bar. He knows the rules. If anyone else lifts a phone, we keep walking.”
“Got it,” she said.
Livia hugged her quickly and whispered, “You’ve got this,” then melted back like she hadn’t been there.
Jami stepped out from the shadow of a palm, hands in his pockets, sleeves pushed to his forearms. He looked like a man who could give the internet what it wanted and keep most of himself anyway.
“You ready?” he asked.
“No,” she said, then smiled a little because honesty had become a habit around him. “Yes.”
They fell into step, not touching, not awkward. They talked about nothing that would look like everything. The ridiculous price of dock slip rentals. The best place for key lime pie. The boat with the name painted crooked for charm.
Halfway down the planks, he looked out at the water and said, quietly enough it wouldn’t carry, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, and meant it.
The stringer did his job. No flash. No shouted name. Just the faint click of a shutter, the way you hear a watch in a quiet room. A couple on a bench lifted their heads and smiled, and then went back to their conversation because this was Blossom Springs, and people knew how to be kind.
At the turn by the bar, Jami reached for her hand the way a man would if he were careful with the person he was walking with. He didn’t lace their fingers. He let their palms rest, light pressure, a promise of nothing more than this moment. It lasted four steps, then he let go and pointed toward a pelican perched on a piling like a bored old king.
She laughed without meaning to. He did too.
They hit the exit time like they’d trained for it. Separate cars. A small wave as if they were normal and going on with their lives. Tony texted a single word thirty seconds later.
Clean.
Back at the barn, the team regrouped without noise. Carlene uploaded the shot to the band’s account with a caption that refused to fuss.
Evening on the water.
No tags. No hearts. No names.
She sent the image to the label’s digital head, then set the phone down and looked at Jami across the stage. He was looking back at her with a relief she felt in her own bones and a complication she didn’t name.
The comments rolled in slowly and calmly. The worst accounts had nothing to grab. The kind ones did what they did. The earlier segment kept floating, but it didn’t find a hard edge to catch.
Livia stepped up beside Carlene and set a takeout container near her elbow. “Margo sent dinner with a note,” she said. “Eat. Sleep. Don’t read everything.”
“Bossy,” Carlene said, grateful.
“Experienced,” Livia said.
The barn quieted like a big animal settling for the night. Axel put his sticks away. Sean clicked Sunday’s case closed and stuck the Post-it note chord change on the outside so he wouldn’t forget. Tony checked three locks he’d checked every night.
Carlene sat for a minute with her hands open in her lap, letting the adrenaline drain.
Jami crossed the room and stopped at the edge of the stage. “You okay?” he asked softly.
“I think so.”
“We did the hard thing. You did the harder thing.”
She shook her head. “We did the necessary thing. That’s my job.”
He didn’t argue. “Thank you,” he said again.
She nodded, then stood. “Tomorrow, we go back to the song.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Tomorrow’s music.”
She picked up her bag and the takeout box and headed for the door. Outside, the night felt like a steadying hand on her back. She didn’t know yet if she’d sleep. She didn’t know what the morning shows would do with a quiet photo and no gossip bones to chew.
She did know she hadn’t broken her rules. Not the ones that mattered. She’d drawn a line and walked it with him, and the world had not set itself on fire.
