More Than A Feeling, page 7
When she reached the car, she looked back. Jami stood in the open doorway, hand on the jamb, the barn warm behind him, the dark stretching out in front of all of them. He lifted a hand. She lifted hers back. A thrill ran the length of her body and back up. He was handsome and calm. She took a deep breath; sometimes he unsettled her.
Tomorrow would bring whatever it brought. Tonight, they’d kept the story theirs.
Chapter Eleven
Jami woke before the alarm, to his phone buzzing on the nightstand like it had opinions.
He rolled over, scrubbed a hand down his face, and reached for it. A string of notifications glowed across the screen: news mentions, tagged posts, a half-dozen texts from Tony, and one short line from Carlene.
Holding steady. No action yet.
He exhaled through a breath. The air in the farmhouse smelled like coffee grounds and sea air, the kind of morning that usually meant a good day. Except today carried the weight of the night before.
He padded barefoot into the kitchen, poured a mug of coffee, and scrolled through the feed.
The dock photo sat front and center on the band’s page. Evening on the water. Nothing else. No hashtags, no names, no hint of a story.
The comments were calm. Predictable even. Locals saying they’d seen the two of them walking.
A few fans arguing whether he looked happier.
No one was screaming, no one was accusing.
The quiet was almost unnerving.
By the time he walked across the dewy grass to the barn, the band was already filtering in. The open doors let in sunlight, and dust motes floated through the beams like lazy fireflies.
Axel sat on one sofa, tapping a rhythm on his thigh with his fingers. Sean tuned a guitar, and Maddyn leaned against the door frame, half-listening and half-staring out toward the water.
Livia and Tony stood near the bar, phones in hand, talking numbers.
Carlene was where she always was lately, in her corner at the end of the bar, laptop open, posture calm, eyes alert.
She looked up when he walked in, and the smallest smile flickered across her mouth before she caught it. “Morning.”
“Morning,” he said, setting his coffee beside Sunday’s case. “We still steady?”
“Steady,” she said. “Engagement’s high, sentiment’s positive, and the label has stopped calling every fifteen minutes.”
He grinned. “That’s a miracle.”
“Miracles require planning,” she replied, typing something quickly.
He laughed softly and sat on the arm of a sofa. “How’d you sleep?”
“Enough to form sentences.”
It wasn’t much of an answer, but it was honest. She had a way of keeping her walls neatly up without ever sounding cold.
Tony looked up from his phone. “Analytics are good. That walk at the marina did its job. We’re back in control of the narrative. Carlene, the label says we should post a rehearsal clip to reinforce the connection. Though Vivian's been asking for the raw data files. She never usually gets that granular.”
“I’ve got a cut ready,” she said. “Thirty seconds. Honest, not polished.”
Jami nodded. "Why don't we start rehearsing?"
They moved into the studio room in the front of the barn and began running through their usual set. The music filled the barn, sunlight pooling across the floorboards. He loved it here. He loved the way the barn felt and smelled when everyone was here and the barn was filled with music.
Axel’s drumming grounded everything. Livia and Maddyn’s harmonies blended soft and strong, and Sean’s guitar work tied it all together.
But it was Jami’s voice that shifted the air.
He sang like the last few days had scraped him raw in a way that made the lyrics mean more.
Carlene moved into the studio to watch them rehearse. Her head tilted slightly, listening. She wasn’t just hearing the notes; she was reading the man beneath them. Every time he looked up, she was already looking away, pretending to check something on her screen. It made him grin.
They ran the entire set, then moved into the next before Tony called for a break.
“Thirty-second clip goes live at noon,” Carlene said, unplugging her laptop. “Soft push, no captions beyond rehearsal day. Keep it natural.”
Jami nodded. “Works for me.”
When the break came, Tony suggested a quick run to the Sandbar.
“Margo’s making lunch,” he said. “She told me if we don’t eat it there, she’ll hunt us down.”
No one argued. His heart swelled with pride at the friends he had. They cared, all of them. In his mind, Hart & The Hurricanes was successful because of this town and the friends he made here.
The Sandbar sat on the beach like it belonged to the salt and sunlight. Jace waved them in through the side entrance; the smell of fried shrimp and citrus hung in the air.
They took the back deck, wooden tables, sea breeze, and the soft sound of waves rolling close enough to touch.
Margo herself brought out plates and dropped a dish in front of Jami. “Fried grouper and fries. And key lime pie because you look like a man who needs sugar more than sleep.”
He grinned. “You’re not wrong.”
Carlene sat across from him again, the sunlight catching her hair, turning the ends to gold. She wasn’t dressed for photos, no polish, no performance. Just jeans, a soft top, and quiet confidence.
“You okay?” he asked quietly once the conversation drifted down the table.
She looked at him, studying him for longer than she probably meant to. “I think so. The internet didn’t burn down. That’s progress.”
“You held the line,” he said. “You always do.”
“Someone has to,” she replied.
He leaned back, watching the ocean. “Last night felt strange. Like pretending to be something we weren’t… but not wrong.”
Her lips curved, almost a smile. “You handled it better than most. Half the people I’ve worked with would’ve turned it into a spectacle.”
“Guess I’m not most.”
“No,” she said softly. “You’re not.”
That quiet between them wasn’t awkward. It was charged, the kind of silence that hummed just beneath the skin.
He looked away first, mostly because if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure what she’d see in his eyes.
A handful of locals at the bar waved but didn’t intrude. Jace made sure of that. The Sandbar was protective that way; it was one of the many reasons Jami liked the place. It gave him room to be a person, not a headline.
After lunch, they lingered. Axel stole Maddyn’s hushpuppies, earning a mock punch. Livia teased Sean about his guitar obsession. Tony leaned against the rail, answering an email while smiling.
Carlene sipped her iced tea and glanced toward Jami, the wind lifting strands of her hair. Something in the way she watched the water reminded him of how he felt before every show: steady outside, chaos underneath.
When they returned to the barn, the noon post had gone live.
The rehearsal clip—the chorus, raw and unfiltered—was spreading faster than expected. A well-known music blogger had shared it with the caption:
No theatrics. Just truth. This is what rock should sound like.
Tony read it aloud, grinning. “Guess someone noticed.”
Jami exhaled slowly, feeling something close to relief. For once, the story wasn’t noise. It was the music.
He caught Carlene’s gaze across the room. She was smiling, small, real, and tired in a way that made him want to take some of the weight off her shoulders.
“You did this,” he said quietly.
Her eyes flicked up. “We did this.”
He wanted to tell her it wasn’t just about the campaign or the song. That something had shifted the moment she’d walked beside him on that dock, their hands brushing in the dark like an accident that still felt deliberate.
But saying it out loud would make it something he couldn’t take back.
Instead, he gave her a soft nod and turned toward the studio. “Let’s make sure the next song’s worth their attention.”
Carlene closed her laptop and sat back, watching him tune. He didn’t see her eyes linger, but he thought she probably did.
The sun dipped lower through the barn’s wide doors, painting the floor gold. When the first note rang out, it sounded like a beginning.
And for the first time since fame had found him, Jami Hart wasn’t sure if what he wanted next was the stage or the woman quietly rewriting his life one steady choice at a time.
Chapter Twelve
The barn had emptied by late afternoon, with only the hum of the amps and the gulls outside filling the space. Jami stayed behind, looping a riff he couldn’t let go of, half-finished, half-magic. The kind of melody that felt like a confession.
Carlene’s footsteps sounded behind him. “Still chasing it?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “It’s chasing me back.”
She smiled faintly and crossed the room, setting her laptop on the piano bench. “That’s usually how the good ones start.”
He played the line again, softer this time. “You’d know?”
“I’ve watched enough of you guys to recognize lightning.” She hesitated. “The clip’s going viral. Twenty thousand shares in two hours. You’re trending.”
He looked up. “Is that good or bad?”
“Too soon to tell,” she said, scrolling. “Most of it’s positive. Some... not so much.”
He frowned. “Not so much how?”
She turned the screen toward him. A headline blinked across the top of a gossip site:
Hart’s New Muse? Meet the Woman Behind the Comeback.
Below it, a grainy zoom-lens photo from lunch, his hand on the back of Carlene’s chair as he held it out for her, sunlight catching the moment.
Jami blew out a breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“They tagged the label. Someone must’ve sold the shot,” she breathed. “They’re framing it like a romance reboot.”
He met her eyes. “And it’s not?”
Her lips parted, a quick inhale, but before she could answer, her phone vibrated again. A notification lit the screen. Her expression changed. “Wait, what’s this?”
She tapped, and a new message appeared from an unknown account:
Pretty couple. Be careful what you wish for.
The words sat stark and ugly in the glow of her screen. Attached was a still image of the barn taken from outside through the wide doors.
Jami straightened, the sound in his chest more instinct than thought. “That’s here. Right now.”
Carlene swallowed. “I just got it. How...”
He was already moving. He strode to the doors, scanning the tree line beyond the gravel drive. The sun had dipped low, throwing long shadows across the water. Nothing moved except the wind.
Carlene joined him, tension tightening her shoulders. “It could be someone passing by.”
“It's doubtful. We're up here pretty far; it would be impossible to get that shot from the road, or a boat below,” he said, voice low. “Or someone who knows where to aim a camera.”
They stood there for a long minute, the only sound the water rolling against the rocks below. When he finally turned back, she was watching him, not the rock star, not the PR problem, but the man trying to keep the world from touching her.
“You shouldn’t be here alone,” he said quietly. “At least not until we figure out who sent that.”
“I’m fine,” she started.
“You’re not,” he cut in, gentler. “None of this is.”
She looked down at her phone, then up at him. “You can’t fix every headline, Jami.”
“I’m not trying to fix the headline,” he said, stepping closer. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”
Her breath caught. “You can’t save everyone.”
“Maybe I only want to save you.”
The space between them vanished in a heartbeat. She tilted her chin, ready to argue, but his hand found the side of her face first, thumb brushing the line of her jaw. The air shifted; coffee, salt, her perfume, something too human to ignore.
He leaned in, slow enough to stop if she wanted him to. She didn’t.
The kiss started carefully, then deepened when she reached for his shirt, holding on like the ground might give way. The world outside could wait, the cameras, the headlines, the threats. For one stolen moment, it was only them and the music still vibrating in the air.
When they finally broke apart, she stayed close, forehead against his. “This complicates everything.”
He smiled, rough and honest. “It already turned complicated.”
Outside, a gull cried over the water. Inside, the amp hummed a low, unfinished note, like a warning or a promise.
He kissed her again, slow and steady. Her heart tripped in her chest as if she'd run a marathon. His lips were soft and warm against hers. His tongue teased her lips, and she opened to let him in. His tongue slid along hers, slowly. He tasted like coffee, and he smelled like pine and wood and the oil he used on his guitar. All of it was pure Jami. The butterflies flitted in her tummy as his strong fingers slid into her hair at the nape and held her close to him. His other hand slipped behind her back and pulled her body into his. The solid wall of his chest sent a sizzle down her body. She hadn't felt this alive in...years. She'd grown accustomed to his voice, his quiet strength, and the sadness behind his eyes when he stared off into the distance.
Gripping his shirt tightly in her hands, she held on as if he'd push her over the edge of the bluff. She'd take him with her, and part of her felt like she already had.
He pulled back slightly, his eyes searched hers for a long time. No words were needed; they simply took in every line around his eyes, every color she saw reflected in his irises. His lashes were thick and long and enviable. His lips were slightly pink from their kissing, and she would be lying if she said she didn't love that. Knowing she was the one who made his lips turn pink and puffy made her stomach flutter and her knees wobble slightly.
Chapter Thirteen
Carlene woke to the steady thrum of rain against the window and the faint ache behind her eyes from too little sleep and too many thoughts she couldn’t quiet.
The kiss replayed in her head before she even opened her eyes. The warmth of his mouth, the way his hand had slid into her hair, the sound he made when he finally let go of the control he carried like armor. She pressed a hand to her chest and tried to slow her breathing.
It shouldn’t have happened. Not with her client, not in the middle of a campaign where everything they did was being watched and dissected. But when she’d looked at him last night, standing there in the low light, something inside her had cracked open.
She swung her legs off the bed and stood, pushing the thought away. She’d built a career on keeping emotion out of the job, and she wasn’t about to ruin that now.
Her laptop sat on the kitchen table where she’d left it. Coffee, she decided. Work. Logic. That was how she handled storms.
By the time she poured her second cup, she’d already pulled up the band’s social feeds. Engagement was still climbing, the rehearsal clip continuing to trend. The comments were mostly good—fans praising the honesty and media outlets reposting snippets—but something caught her attention. A duplicate upload, same video thumbnail, slightly different caption.
Her stomach dipped.
The file metadata looked wrong. It wasn’t her original scheduling. She clicked play and felt the color drain from her face.
The sound was warped. Someone had spliced Jami’s lyrics to make it sound like he was mocking the label and his bandmates. The clip ended with a new caption: Guess the truth finally comes out.
She froze, staring at the screen, pulse hammering.
No one outside of her or Tony had access to those files.
Her jaw tightened. Reed & Carr. Her former firm. They'd tried this type of tactic once before, and she'd stopped it. Would they try again? She opened the grainy photo and looked at the metadata. She scanned it through software to see if she could find the origin of the altered photo. While that scanned, she opened her email and began drafting a message to the label before they saw it elsewhere. Fingers flying, she outlined the evidence she believed she'd find, leaving room to change it if her suspicions weren't true. She'd attach screenshots and time-stamp her original upload. Then she opened her drives and prepared to trace the new file’s source.
It wasn’t hard. Whoever had done this had copied the original data structure perfectly...almost. They’d left a faint trail of code linking the post back to a Miami-based server she knew too well.
Her old firm. They were behind it.
Her phone buzzed. Looking at the name on the screen, she saw Marla.
“I see some things never change,” she said the moment Carlene answered.
“Yes,” she said. “And that isn't an admission from me. That means some folks we both know can't let things go.”
Marla was quiet for a long time. "Are you sure?"
Carlene clicked the computer tab that was scanning the photo, and her jaw tightened. "I'm quite sure."
Marla's tongue clicked, but that was the only sound that came through the phone. Carlene hissed, then ended the call before she could say more. She pressed a palm against her forehead and closed her eyes.
The sound of the barn door creaking open drew her attention. Jami stepped inside, hair damp from the rain, shoulders tense. He held up his phone. “Tell me this isn’t real.”
“It’s not,” she said quickly. “Someone tampered with the file.”
“Why?”
“Because they can,” she said, eyes meeting his. “Because we’re gaining momentum, and someone wants to derail that.”
He set the phone on the counter. “Can you trace it?”
“I already did.”
“And?”
“It came from Reed & Carr’s servers. My old firm.”
