Page 107 of Find You Again (Nashville Star 2)

“I know, I know. I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut about Griff.” Holly’s nails drum against the side of the phone. “But I figured you’d want to know. I swear, if some California city slicker moves in there I’m gonna stone ’em to death with their avocados.”

Alabama chuckles. Her phone buzzes, telling her she has an incoming call. She glances down, and when she sees her father’s name, her heart sinks. She hoped, wished, prayed, it would be Griff.

Not like it would be. After the way she treated him, she doesn’t blame him for going straight no-contact.

As if Holly’s read her thoughts, she asks, “Have you talked to Griff?”

“You know I haven’t.”

Absentmindedly, Alabama flips through her notebook. Pages and pages of songs she wrote pre- and post-Griff. The after-Griff songs are angry. Stomp-on-your-heart, put-a-boot-in-your-ass countrified blues.

“How can I after what he said?”

As if to prove her wrong, the notebook opens pointedly to “Find You Again,” prompting a fresh sheen of tears to blur her vision.

“Al, you know I hate to disagree with you, but I have to bring up a strong and important point that you’re failing to see.”

“I thought you were on my side?”

“Just hear me out.” A strong inhale of breath from Holly, and then a rambling, “Yes, Griff said a shitty asshole thing that doesn’t endear him at all to me, but ... he did what he had to do for his music.”

Alabama scowls. “I don’t see how any of this—”

“Like you did with Mort,” Holly interjects. “And later, after you were in too deep, you realized it was probably a very, very, very, very, very—”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

“—very, very dumb decision.”

Alabama sighs.

Holly continues. “All I’m saying is, to Griff, it was a job. And then you were there, and then suddenly it wasn’t. He probably never thought it’d go this far. But it did. And good thing too, because it was the happiest I’ve ever seen you.”

Alabama shakes her head and crosses to the window. “Again, not on my side.” She looks down on Nashville, pressing a palm against the glass.

“Hey, what can I say? I’m on love’s side.”

“Oh, so you’re a romantic now?”

“After all those sappy country songs you made me listen to, hell yes, I’m a romantic.”

Alabama bursts into a laugh.

Softly, Holly says, “Did he make you happy, Al?”

Alabama nods even though Holly’s not around to see it. “He always made me happy.”

“Then you should hang on to that.” Holly’s voice is filled with sympathy. “Right now, I guarantee he’s goin’ through the same thing you are. Absolute misery. So find you again, find him again, and make that second chance yours again.”

A hitch of her breath. Her heart.

The words spark something inside Alabama. “I gotta go, Hol.”

“Wait! Did you just think of a song?” Holly asks, her tone smug and excited. “Because if it’s a song, I demand a cut of all profits—”

Alabama hangs up on her.

With a pounding heart, she grabs her notebook and a pen and settles herself on the couch. She flips to the tattered pages where her and Griff’s song lives, her heart pounding out a melody in her ears. Her eyes scan the lyrics, then drop to the last verse.

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