Page 37 of The Roads We Follow

But as I stare into the abyss of my dark cocoon, my mind is not rehearsing my plan to hack into Adele’s computer while she sleeps; instead, it’s being held hostage by the statement Micah made about Tav and me earlier today.

“‘Only, my guess is Tav doesn’t wantit to be over, and you’re still debating on what it is you want.’”

It’s the reason I couldn’t even look at Micah when Tav called after dinner tonight.

I squeeze my eyes closed, wishing it could be as simple as Micah made it sound.

Perhaps that’s the danger in dating someone you’ve known allyour life. Cutting them off is like cutting off a part of your own history. Our lives have been entangled since birth, with commonalities too impossible to ignore: both artists in our own rights, both youngest children of prominent families with ties to the music industry, both set on making our own way despite the influence and affluence of our last names. Only, Tav is actually living his dream as the lead singer of a band, and I’m ... I’m several unpublished manuscripts deep with nothing to show for it.

I think of the magical portal Micah and I discussed on our way to Memphis, and I wish I could change my answer now. If I could, I would go back in time and talk to that head-in-the-clouds teenage girl with the crush on her best friend. I’d tell her that, much like her writing dreams, all the pining and hoping and journal-filling about Tav’s every move wouldn’t amount to anything but heartache.

Much to that young girl’s surprise, Tav wouldn’t fall for her in high school like she’d written about. Truth is, our relationship had survived on sporadic texts and phone calls until I was home from college and he was gigging at venues in the outskirts of Tennessee, trying to build a set list Farrow Music would be willing to sign. It was during those late-night road calls when Tav asked for my help with his lyrics. By my senior year, I’d filled three notebooks with song hooks, bridges, and choruses. And his set grew from three to thirty.

Tav had stayed in town for my college graduation party, and I was certain he was about to confess what I’d been feeling since girlhood. Only, when he pulled me aside, it was to tell me he’d been signed with Farrow Music Productions, which would require him to be on the road for a full year. That was when my patience had officially run out. I told him I was in love with him—just blurted it out like a fool, hoping with everything in me that he would say it back.

But instead, Tav claimed he needed space to think, and that he was sorry I’d misunderstood his intentions. Crushed was an understatement to the devastation that followed his rejection.

Our communication dwindled to silence for eight long months until the random June day when a VIP invitation for a small showhe’d secured in Denver appeared in my inbox, along with two plane tickets and a note asking me to come. He promised he’d make it worth my time if I trusted him enough to show up. When I’d arrived at the venue, Tav pulled me up on stage and sang a song we’d cowritten together years prior.

He’d kissed me on a spotlighted stage while a bar crowd roared and cheered our names. The grand gesture had gone viral overnight—as views ofTav Z + Luella Farrow’s Daughter’s LIVE KISS ON STAGEticked north of three million.

In less than a week, my identity had been redefined by two things: my famous last name and my lead-singer boyfriend. I’d tried to convince myself that this was a small price to pay for the happy-ever-after I’d written about for a decade, but there were other factors at play I couldn’t ignore. Like how Tav’s downloads had skyrocketed across every streaming platform after our kiss went viral. Like how he’d been given the green light at venues that had previously turned him down. Like how the timing for our future plans was never quite right.

Just one more tour and then we’ll settle downwas the line he’d fed me for nearly three years.

We didn’t make it to a fourth.

Pulling the emergency brake on my runaway thoughts, I focus once again on the loud static of Adele’s white-noise machine and Hattie’s heavy, rhythmic breathing. Slowly, I pull back my privacy curtain and stare across the aisle at the closed bunk directly across from mine. I haven’t heard a peep from Micah since he turned in after losing a round of Canasta, joking that all the mineral water he’d absorbed at the thermal pools earlier must have weakened his ability to strategize. We’d all laughed—even Adele.

I plant both feet on the cool floor and note the trash from dinner has been taken out. I’d volunteered for the job, but then Tav had called, asking for lyric help again.

When I told him things had been busy, he’d fallen quiet. Tav knew all about life on the road. Only, for Tav, “busyness” on the road hadincluded developingconfusing feelingsfor his fill-in keyboardist, and then later alerting me, his girlfriend of three years, that he needed space to “figure out” what he really wanted. Or in this case,whohe really wanted.

Our breakup last fall had happened in the midst of Hattie’s custody trial with Peter and Adele’s fight to keep the negative morale at FMP from making headlines—all while Mama’s song continued to sweep the charts at number one.

There was little time to mourn a broken heart.

But then Tav called me three and a half weeks ago, asking for my forgiveness and trying his best to assure me he was finally ready to settle down. He claimed his lapse in judgment was a result of being caught up in the loneliness of fame.“You were right all along, Rae Rae. Our historyis special. It’s worth too much to throw away.I know we can make this work this time if you give me another chance. Will you at least thinkabout it? We can talk when I’m home.”

I push the nagging conversation aside and creep with stealthy steps toward the darkened dining table. With the shades drawn on every window inside the bus tonight, the tiny green charge light on Adele’s laptop is impossible to miss. And much like this morning, adrenaline floods my gut at the thought of what I’m about to do—what I need to do in order to confirm or deny my ex-brother-in-law’s involvement in the tell-all against my family. My fingers tremble as I pry open the lid on the table, but the glow of the screen is so blinding I immediately rotate the laptop away from the bunk hall. Suddenly, the dining area feels much too close to the sleeping quarters. If someone were to wake to use the restroom, I might as well be a lighthouse.

Making sure to mute the sound of her keyboard first, I type in Adele’s password and then slowly stand and walk backward into the front lounge, shielding the light by lowering the screen. Once I can get to the driver’s cockpit, I’ll be able to close the privacy curtain and search through Adele’s emails for some more information on the fired employee and their relationship with Peter—

“Raegan, stop.” A hushed voice lashes out through the darkness, right before my heel collides with something solid near the base of the sofa. In a hellish montage of cause-and-effect, I trip, stumble, and clutch the laptop to my chest, determined to sacrifice every bone in my body if it means avoiding Adele’s wrath. But instead of hitting the floor as I expect, two large hands reach into the darkness and pull me upright.

“Don’t scream,” a familiar tenor says in my ear, arms still secured around my middle. “Not unless you want to wake this entire bus.” He waits a beat and then another. “You good?”

I nod but realize he probably can’t see the movement in the darkness. Then again, how was it he’d seen me at all? “Other than wondering how it is you’re always nearby to catch me at my worst? Sure.” I exhale a shaky breath. “It’s really too bad for you those Red Cross punch cards aren’t a real thing. No doubt yours would be filled by the end of this trip.”

I feel the rumble of his chest against my back when he chuckles. “Perhaps I better settle on a prize, then.” He releases me, and I turn around to face him in the dark right as he flicks on the headlamp strapped to his forehead. I bite back a cry from the instant attack on my retinas and shield my eyes with my forearm.

“Sorry about that, I thought it was still on the night mode. There. It’s safe to come out now.”

I peel my arm away and note the dim glow of the space around us.

“What are you doing out here with that thing? Mining for silver?”

Again he laughs, then plants himself on the sofa. “No, I was reading. I turned off my light as soon as I heard the creak of a bunk, figured someone was coming out to use the restroom. Didn’t want to startle anyone. Guess you saw how well that worked.”

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