Page 5 of For One Night Only

So even though it kills me, I lean on the thick slab of butcher block that makes up the espresso bar for strength and confirm Betty’s suspicions with a small smile.

“Yup, that’s me.” Since the ticket to a record deal for my old band was a viral video, fans tend to recognize my face. I square my shoulders, resisting the urge to duck my head. Sensing my discomfort, Sebastian Bark licks my free hand. I scratch his warm, silky ears in silent gratitude.

Betty’s eyes go wide. “Iknewit! Are you still in touch with the rest of the band?”

My heart hammers—I’ve never been good at answering questions like this, especially since I know the truth just lets our fans down. The fans were the best part of my Glitter Bats days. They were so kind and supportive, and they did amazing things like draw incredible art inspired by our music and tattoolyrics I wroteon their skin. They even wrote fan fiction, which I swore to never read again after the first one made me blush.

I owe every moment of success to people who were so inspired by my art. But I don’t have anything to offer anymore.

Suddenly, this quiet, spacious coffee shop I usually find so much comfort in, with its bare warehouse ceilings and walls bedecked with cheerful local art, feels stiflingly claustrophobic. Fortunately, I’m not alone this Saturday morning, so I don’t have to navigate the awkwardness by myself.

“Caleb is late for an appointment, but we love fans!” Leah, my sister-in-law, says. Somehow she manages to wrap an arm around my shoulders with a cold brew in one hand and the leash for Strawberry, her bouncy red border collie, in another. Sebastian Bark huffs for good measure as Leah steers all of us out of the shop.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Anytime,” Leah says, brushing her ponytail over her shoulder. She’s Korean, with almost-black hair and freckles across her face, and even though she’s fairly petite, she can easily sling an arm around my shoulder since I’m only five seven. As a PE teacher and track coach, she’s used to wrangling people—and teenagers are a much bigger challenge than harmless fans.

“I don’t know why I always freeze up,” I mutter as I squint against the late-spring sunlight.

“You don’t like letting people down. It’s cool, I’m happy to help.” My older sister, Cameron, is an ER nurse with intense work hours, so Leah’s kind of adopted me in her spare time, including for regular Sunday hikes like the one we’re coming back from. I’m only five years younger than Cam and Leah, but it’s enough that they both think they have to take care of me.

To be fair, I had a lot of growing up to do after becoming a rock star at eighteen. And now that Leah and I teach at the same school, we get to work together a bit—as much as PE and choir cross paths. (It’s more than you’d think.)

“We should have gotten drinksbeforethe mountain. I’m parched!” she says as we open the rear doors of my Subaru for the dogs. It was a cool enough morning that Licorice Mountain wasn’t too hot, but I hum in agreement as I sip my own drink. Once everyone is situated—us with drinks and the dogs with treats—I pull out onto the road.

Leah plugs in my phone and turns on the stereo, and I try to just ignore my feelings and drive. My entire music library starts to shuffle.

“Taylor Swift?” Leah asks as something from1989 (Taylor’s Version)plays.

“Taylor Swift is an incredible lyricist and I will not invite any slander in this car.”

She raises her hands, chuckling. “I wasn’t going to slander her. It’s only that your collection always surprises me.”

“I wish I could write songs the way she does,” I admit, clenching the soft leather of my steering wheel. It’s the closest I’ll get to confessing I’ve still got a notebook full of verses I’ll never record.

While I loved sharing my music with the world, there was something so raw and vulnerable about putting it all out there for public consumption. When people hear your lyrics, they make assumptions about your personal life, and it’s hard to navigate what’s safe to share and what needs to be kept locked away in your chest. There’s no going back now, so I’ll stick to helping the next generation find their voice.

The sun is getting unseasonably warm, but it’s such a nice day that I roll down the windows instead of blasting the AC on the drive back into our part of town. The dogs like it when I do this, because it means they can smile out the windows, tongues lolling in the wind. Still, the heat makes sweat bead down my skin as I drop Leah and Strawberry off at their condo. When I pull into my own driveway, I decide to hose Sebastian Bark off in the yard. Since he thinks the water is a toy and goes squirrelly with the hose, I strip my shirt off and change from running shoes to slides before beckoning him over to the spigot.

The water is a cool, crisp respite from the warm weather, and my anxiety trickles away as I maneuver eighty pounds of wriggly muscle to rinse off the dust from the trail. But he behaves, and I spend a few minutes taking pics of him being a good bath-time pup to post tomorrow. After I left the industry, I swore off social media, but Sebastian Bark’s account (where I never show my face or reveal my name) has almost one hundred thousand followers. Maybe that means I’m still an entertainer, but dog videos make the world better.

I used to think our music made the world better too, but that’s in the past.

By the time Sebastian Bark is clean, I’m soaked but sweaty, so I dunk my own head under the water. It’s almost freezing, but after a long hike it feels amazing. I start to think through my afternoon plans as I curl up the hose when a familiar voice makes my mouth go dry.

“Hey, stranger.”

Every muscle in my body tenses—like I’m waiting on a particularly jazzy chord to resolve into a smoother sound. I never expected to hear from her again, and definitely not in my front yard in an Oregon suburb. She’s been haunting me for years, a steady presence in magazines and TV shows and on the back pages of my songwriting notebooks, reminding me of our unfinished business.

Now she’s here on my doorstep, so I turn around to face Valerie Quinn for the first time in six years.

Despite the years of zero contact, I have to fight the instinct to pull her into my arms. She’s as gorgeous as ever, standing here in a faded T-shirt and leggings with platinum hair piled into a haphazard bun on top of her head. There are dark circles under her ocean-blue eyes, the tentative smile on her lips betrayed by an obvious exhaustion that still makes my stomach twist with concern. Something about her unkemptness reminds me of late nights writing music until the sun started glowing on the horizon.

It’s unsettling.

“What are you doing here?” My words are so harsh I canfeelher flinch, and I almost want to take it back. But what was she expecting—a hug? After so much time apart, my brain is short-circuiting in her presence.

“Would you believe me if I said I was in the neighborhood?” she asks.

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