The Way Back Home

by Alecia Whitaker

  I use my other arm to wipe at my face with my shirtsleeve, and Adam pulls me into his lap. He stares at me, wiping my cheek with his thumb, and then pulls my chin toward him and kisses me slowly and deeply. I am relieved. In Adam’s arms, I am home.

  After a few seconds, I pull away and grab his face with both of my hands. “Listen, space is never what I wanted. Space is what kept us apart for too long.” I fall into the depths of his gorgeous hazel eyes and say, “Adam, I—”

  But then I stop myself. I’m about to say I love you—and it hits me that I do, that I love him with every part of my being, that maybe I have for a long time.

  “You what?” he asks softly.

  I watch his eyes searching mine… but I don’t know if he feels the same, especially if he’s suggesting space, especially after the way I’ve treated him lately.

  “I—I—” I stammer, letting my hands fall. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to say I’m really, truly sorry. I want to be me, the real me, but sometimes it’s like I lose sight of who that even is anymore.”

  Adam gives me a small smile and brushes my hair off my shoulders. “Cut yourself some slack, Bird. Apology accepted, but don’t turn a few bad days into a full reevaluation of your character.” His hand is at the back of my neck, the other rubbing my thigh. “You are the full package and I told you before: I’m all in.”

  He leans forward and kisses me again, passionately. My hands are instantly in his shaggy hair, and my heart pounds a hallelujah beat in my chest. We’re okay. I kiss Adam and he kisses me back hard, running his hands up my back to pull me nearer. I melt into him, snuggling closer.

  “Um, I can come back,” the sound engineer says when he slams the door open against the back wall and scares the living daylights out of me.

  “No,” Adam says, laughing at how loud I screamed. “No, I want to get this song down.” We stand and I know it’s my cue to leave, but now that we’re okay, I don’t want to go. “We’re making a rough cut of ‘Broken People,’” he explains as he opens the door and we walk into the recording space.

  “Oh, are you going to use it for your album?” I ask.

  He grins. “I’d like to,” he says, “but your people want it awfully bad.”

  “Oh my gosh, no,” I say, putting my hands on his chest. “That was your idea. I told Dan! No. No way. That song is yours.”

  Adam wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me toward the center of the room with him. “It’s ours, actually,” he says. “And I was hoping if we worked things out you might want to sing it with me. It is a duet after all.”

  I feel a flutter in my chest. Record a song with Adam? It’s so perfect.

  “Wait, is your label cool with that?” I ask.

  “Cool with a multiplatinum country artist singing a duet on my debut album?” he asks. “No, but I forced them into submission.”

  He flexes his biceps, and I laugh out loud.

  Then I kiss him again, just because I can, just because I’m still his girlfriend, and say, “Get me a pair of headphones, stud.”

  25

  “HOW ARE WE going to fit on the bottom bunk?” Adam asks as he flips me over on the bed in the back bedroom of my bus and runs his hand over my belly.

  “You’d think the headliner would have a little more sway,” I agree, pulling his face back to mine.

  When I rejoined the tour, we played the remaining pre-Thanksgiving shows with ease. Everyone was well rested, and it was nice knowing we were headed right back home. I actually found myself having fun again!

  Now, after the holiday, everybody is supposed to meet in Nashville for the next leg of the tour. Adam picked me up early so I could “clean out the back bedroom for my mom and dad” since they’ll be joining us through Christmas. My granddad is up and moving finally, and he practically shooed my folks out of Tennessee, saying they belong on the road with their kiddos. I don’t think it took much since it’s my personal opinion that they miss touring. And while I’m looking forward to having them around, it means I’m stuck with the bottom bunk now.

  Well, not right now. Right now, I’m on the master bed with my hands under my boyfriend’s T-shirt. I’m scratching his back as he leans over me, peppering my face with kisses. His lips trail my jawline and start to move down my neck, causing me to shiver. I kiss his forehead and he moves to my clavicle, kissing across that delicate bone and scooting my bra strap and shirt down over my shoulder. I keep my eye on the clock and my ears open for my folks, but it’s difficult to concentrate.

  “Welcome back,” Troy calls as he climbs the stairs of my tour bus.

  I push Adam off me with both hands and jump off the bed, adjusting my T-shirt and knowing just from the look on Troy’s face that he’ll definitely knock from now on.

  “Hey, Troy,” I say as nonchalantly as possible as I walk out of the back bedroom, past the bunks, and up to the little kitchenette. Besides the fact that my cheeks are burning from the stubble on Adam’s face, which would be a dead giveaway, my manager definitely saw us clawing at each other. His cheeks are just as rosy, although clearly from embarrassment in his case. “What’s up?”

  “Um, well, I—do you want to step outside for a minute?” he asks awkwardly.

  “No, no, y’all stay here,” Adam says, walking up behind me. “I need to get going anyway.”

  He purposefully brushes his hand against my butt when he squeezes past, grinning from ear to ear, and I think again how hard it’s been for us to find any good quality alone time.

  “Later, Troy,” Adam says, as he takes the stairs in a hurry.

  “Adam,” is all Troy says in response.

  I sit at the table, where Troy and I always do business, and prepare for him to debrief me on the next leg of the tour. First stop: Lexington, Kentucky, followed by Charlottesville, Virginia, followed by every-other-city-in-America, USA.

  “Bird, over the break I worked with Dan and Anita on an idea for the tour that we think you’re going to like,” he begins.

  I can still feel Adam’s kisses on my skin and am fiending for the next make-out sesh, preferably one where we don’t get interrupted. I text Adam under the table:

  We need a secret make-out place stat.

  I look out the window, see him get the text and nod as he replies:

  Top priority mission. #classified

  “Bird?” Troy says. “Bird, did you hear me?”

  I look up at him across the table. “Oh, sorry. What was that?”

  He exhales dramatically. Feeling thoroughly admonished by that one breath, I put my phone facedown on the table and fold my hands, giving my manager my full attention.

  “I said that Dan and I have been working on a way to help manage your image as well as give you a chance to really connect with your fans,” he repeats. “We know how much you love that special up-close-and-personal moment during your encore, and we were thinking that maybe more intimate meet-and-greets after your shows would interest you. Your fans would get to spend some real time with you, ask questions, and talk about their favorite songs or whatever they want to know. They’d actually get to know the real you a little bit.”

  “I love that idea,” I say, beaming at him. “It’s so great. I love it!”

  “Good,” Troy says, nodding his head. “We went ahead and had an IT guy build the webpage, but we didn’t want to go live with it until we got your approval. So it’s a go?”

  “It’s a major go!”

  I immediately pick up my phone and text Adam about the idea, along with at least twenty smiley-face emojis. Then I run and grab my iPad from my bed and come back to the table, where Troy is already putting the wheels into motion on his phone, texting Dan and Anita and who knows whom else.

  “How soon are we doing these things?” I ask as I type birdbarret.com into the search bar.

  “I think the first one will be tomorrow night in Rupp Arena. Is that okay? All the preliminary plans were arranged during your, um, time away,” he says delicately.

  “
I needed a break, Troy,” I admit quietly. “I appreciate the way you and Anita handled that, by the way.”

  “We didn’t lie. You were sick.”

  “Yeah.”

  Sure, I had the flu, but moreover, I was exhausted. My tank was totally empty. Physically and emotionally, I was a wreck, and nobody wanted to admit it, including myself. But now I’m healthy, I’m refreshed, and I’m determined to be my best self and take advantage of this amazing opportunity to continue headlining a tour, to write my own music, to be a positive pop culture role model, and to shake off those pesky haters. Bird Barrett on fresh batteries.

  Troy and I sit in silence for a minute as we each get lost in our screens. I see where Anita has tweeted about the meet-and-greets from Open Highway’s account, so I retweet that post and everything else I see about this idea. Troy mutters under his breath as he types on his phone, and then he stares at it as if it were his mortal enemy.

  “You want to use my iPad?” I ask, looking up.

  “May I?” he says, turning it toward him to refresh the site. “The page won’t load on my phone, and I want to see how it looks.”

  My phone buzzes on the table next to me, and I giggle when I see a text from Adam:

  How do you win one of those intimate meet ups?

  I send my thumbs flying over the screen as I reply:

  You’d have to buy me a Coke first, sir. Need I remind you? I am a Lady.

  He sends me back a line of big smiley-face emojis crying tears, and I laugh out loud. Troy looks up and grins, which reminds me that my iPhone and iPad are synched on the cloud. I blush and look away, but I know Troy’s relieved to see me so happy. Things are okay. Everything is okay. I just need to focus on my core group, my inner circle, and stay off the Internet.

  “Damned Internet,” Troy grumbles now. Shocked, I look over at the mind reader across from me, and he turns my iPad so I can see the screen. “We set these things up as a lottery through your website. Anita used social media to promote it as soon as I texted her that you gave the okay. That was only a couple of minutes ago, and the damned site’s already crashed from too much traffic.”

  I laugh and grab my manager’s wrist, shaking his arm. “These are good problems to have, Troy! Finally we have some good problems around here.”

  “I couldn’t believe it when I got the e-mail that said I won,” a fourteen-year-old girl named Sasha says to me backstage during my first meet-and-greet. “I was like, ‘Agh!’ and my best friend was like, ‘OMG!’ and then I was like, ‘Mom!’”

  “A riveting tale,” the girl’s mother says, her eyes dancing as she holds up her camera to take our picture.

  “They said the meet-and-greets filled up pretty fast tonight, so I’m glad y’all could make it to one,” I say as we smile together. “I think we’re going to post them last-minute like this at every stop. It adds to the excitement.”

  “How many people got picked?” Sasha asks, wide-eyed.

  “I think fifteen or twenty,” I answer.

  “That’s so cool!”

  It is cool. After my show, I headed straight for my dressing room and changed into regular clothes. Then I met my mom backstage and got my first glimpse of the “private lounge” she created, really just a small room decorated with wildflowers and candles. While Dylan isn’t psyched about our folks being on the bus with us for the next month straight, I’ve liked being all together again and this job is perfect for her.

  “Bird, may I interrupt?” Troy asks, smiling at Sasha and her mother. He gestures to a woman standing next to him with a daughter whose arms are cradling a fiddle and says, “I’d love to introduce you to Ibiza. She is the young fiddler I was telling you about a couple of months ago, whose mother wrote an article that was picked up by The Huffington Post—”

  “Which is so embarrassing,” Ibiza cuts in, stepping out from the arm her mother has across her shoulders. “I didn’t talk to my mom for, like, a month after that went viral.”

  I glance up at her mother, who crosses her arms and smirks. “True story.”

  “What songs do you know?” I ask as I nod my head toward her instrument.

  She blushes. “All of yours, obvi. And I learned that very first song you wrote when you were my age.”

  “‘Will She Ever Call?’” I ask surprised.

  The girl nods. “And tonight when you covered that one section of Tim McGraw’s song ‘Where the Green Grass Grows’ and changed it to ‘Where the Bluegrass Grows,’ I was screaming my head off with everybody else like, ‘Um, I really love you now.’”

  I laugh and offer her a fist bump. “I love you now, too, Ibiza.”

  “My friends call me Biza.”

  “All right, then, Biza. Want to get a picture? Did y’all grab some food?”

  We join the other fans behind us on the couches and comfy chairs that will now become a standard part of our traveling production. The assembled group talks a little about which of my songs resonate with them and why, but mainly—and this is what I think I’ll love about every meet up—they talk about their lives: what they deal with at school, what kind of heartbreak they’ve been through, whatever story is hot in the media right now, and even their viewpoints on politics and fashion. They ask me which other stars I know and who I’m actually friends with. And tonight, the big question is if Adam Dean and I are really dating.

  “You can’t believe everything you read in the magazines,” I say. “But I will say that Adam is an old family friend, and he’s one of the most talented singer-songwriters I’ve ever met. Hey, would y’all like to meet him, too?”

  The OMGs and screams and fervent nods prompt me to pull out my cell phone, take an ussie with the group, and text it to him with the caption:

  COME MEET MY FRIENDS!

  I stare at the screen, and it’s funny that the lounge has gone pretty quiet. “He may not be able to,” I say, tempering their hopes a little.

  But Biza reads over my shoulder and squeals, “He’s writing back. There’s the dot dot dot. He’s writing back!” which actually makes me as giddy as she is:

  Be right there.

  Biza and Sasha grab hands and scream. They met for the first time ten minutes ago, and now they’re fangirling like besties. It’s so great.

  The mood in the room grows a little apprehensive as we talk about the Shine Our Light Tour, with everybody glancing at the door every few minutes. And now, as my adorably handsome show opener strides into the room in dark jeans, old boots, and a green plaid button-down, I get the same butterflies as all the girls currently gripping hands and trying to play it cool. We are all Adam Dean fangirls at this moment.

  “I heard there’s a party going on back here,” Adam says as he makes his way over to the couch where I’m sitting and nudges me to scoot over. All the girls’ faces are different shades of crimson, but Biza is the one to break the ice:

  “Is the ‘Make Her Mine’ girl your girlfriend now?” Biza asks.

  “Is that song about Bird?” Sasha asks on her heels.

  Adam looks at me as if he doesn’t know how to answer, and I guess, truthfully, he doesn’t. We had the DTR between ourselves, but we haven’t talked about whether we should come out publicly as a couple. I’m sure our publicists will want some say in the matter, and after the rough patch we just went through, I’m not sure I can trust the media with the most special part of my life.

  “I hate to be the party crasher,” Troy says, coming over to save the day, “but our time is up. Thank you so much for spending a little extra time with us backstage, and we hope you’ve had an evening you’ll never forget.”

  “Why don’t y’all let Adam sign some autographs and take some pictures before we head back out on the road,” I say, turning to the fans. The meet up really went by fast, and I hate the look of disappointment on their faces, but they are gracious as they pass us CDs, T-shirts, and posters. Biza is smart enough to linger in the back so that she’s the last fan in the room, a strategic move I always admire in my most
enthusiastic fans.

  “Will you please sign my fiddle?” she asks, suddenly timid.

  “I’d love to,” I say, scrawling my name across the side with a black Sharpie.

  “And can we take one more picture?”

  “Of course,” I say.

  Biza’s mom holds the camera up dutifully, but her daughter stops her.

  “Mom, let Adam take it,” she demands. “Yours are always blurry.”

  I try not to laugh as her mother shakes her head and passes the camera to a very amused Adam. I put my arm around the girl and smile, but then she points at her mom again and says, “And don’t post it before me. It goes on my Instagram at least twenty-four hours before you can blog about it, deal?” Her mother nods, both exasperated and a little embarrassed to be put on blast like that.

  But as Adam lines up the shot and Biza and I lean our heads together, smiling into the lens, it hits me that while my fans got to meet Bird Barrett in person tonight, the guy behind the camera knows the real me.

  And hopefully loves me anyway.

  26

  “BIRD, I AM so sorry I can’t be with you right now in New York,” my publicist says a few days later over FaceTime.

  “Don’t sweat it,” I say. “What’s up?”

  Troy, my mom, and I have just landed in the city and have a full day of promotion to do, post-Grammy nomination, before flying back to meet the tour in Duluth. We all know this will be a strenuous couple of months, balancing the tour with Grammy press and appearances, but I was nominated in four categories, so I’ve got some extra motivation. Troy is my lifesaver. He asked me to shoot him straight about what I really think I can handle. As opportunities arise, we’re going to honestly weigh what their payoff will be versus the risk I take of pushing myself too hard again.

  Anita picks up a bunch of large envelopes and holds them to the screen. “These are your invitations to the Clive Davis pre-Grammy party as well as numerous after parties. You and Troy need to start thinking about which of these you’ll accept, if you want to perform at any, and how you envision your performance at the awards show itself. I want you to start brainstorming over the next few weeks so that when you’re here during Christmas break, the entire Open Highway team can come together and create something extraordinary.” She looks so smug as she says, “I want to show the world why Bird Barrett deserves Album of the Year.”