Every Song He Sang Was Mine novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Locked Door

Calla answers Linnea's own door in her robe, and the street films Linnea naming herself the writer; the awards lineup then credits Dax and Calla with 'Paper Moon'.

My mother was standing on her porch in a knit cap and a cardigan when I pulled into the driveway.

She had watched me carry a cable crate full of notebooks up her steps before.

She had never watched me do it at noon on a Monday.

"Donna Sorrell doesn't need a text," she said. "Donna Sorrell can read a crate."

"He fired me, Mom."

"I figured." She held the screen door open with her hip. "Did he do it in private, or did he want an audience?"

"Fourteen people."

"Of course he did."

I set the crate on her kitchen table and told her the rest.

She had already guessed the rest, so I only handed her my phone.

She read Dax's text with her glasses pushed up on her cap.

"He thinks I'm a lever," she said.

"He thinks you're a bill."

"Well, I'm a bill with opinions." She handed the phone back. "You are not apologizing to that girl in front of anybody."

"I know."

"Say it like you know."

"I am not apologizing to Calla."

"Good. Now go home and get your clothes. I'm not sleeping in a house where my daughter wears the same jeans for a week."

"I can't just walk in."

"It's your house. Your name is on the deed, and he's the one who should be nervous."

I laughed, and then I stopped, because my chest hurt.

"Go on," Donna said. "And take your passport and the good boots. Don't let him keep your underwear."

I got to our street in East Nashville a little after six.

The porch light was on.

Dax's truck was gone, and a white hatchback I didn't know sat behind my car's usual spot.

I put my key in the front door.

It slid in and wouldn't turn.

I tried it twice, then tried the keypad on the side door, and a red light blinked at me.

The locks had been changed while I was packing a crate in a parking lot.

I knocked.

The door opened on the chain, and then the chain slid off.

Calla Allbritton stood in my kitchen light in my robe.

It was the green one with the torn pocket that I had worn since I was twenty-six.

"Hi, Linnea," she said.

Her voice had changed.

It was still soft, but the apology had gone out of it.

"I'm here for my clothes," I said.

"Dax said you'd come crying."

"I'm not crying."

"He said you'd say that too."

I looked past her at the hall.

My jacket was gone from its hook.

Two of Calla's pastel coats hung there now, and her white sneakers sat on my shoe rack, beside my boots.

"Move," I said.

"He told me not to let you in," she said, almost pleasantly. "He said the house is part of the company. Everything is."

"The deed has my name on it."

"Then you can take that up with Gil."

Across the street a neighbor had come out to her mailbox and stayed there.

Another door opened two houses down.

A teenage boy on a scooter stopped on the sidewalk and raised his phone.

Calla saw that, and her face rearranged itself.

The sadness came back. Her chin dipped. She said, loud enough for the street to hear, "Please don't make this harder than it has to be."

I understood then that the whole speech in the control room had been practice.

I stepped back off the porch onto my own lawn.

I could have shouted. I could have thrown a rock.

I looked at the boy's phone instead, and I made my voice carry.

"My name is Linnea Sorrell," I said. "I wrote every song that man has ever sung."

The street was quiet.

"Ask her what key 'Paper Moon' is in," I said. "She's humming it, and I wrote it after my father's funeral. She never met the man it was written for."

Calla's smile held, but one hand slid down and closed the robe.

"Good night, Linnea," she said.

She shut my door and turned the deadbolt.

The boy on the scooter lowered his phone and looked at me.

"Ma'am," he said. "Are you the lady who wrote 'Stay Till Morning'?"

I hadn't expected anyone to know it had a writer.

"Yes," I said.

"My mom plays that in the car every day."

"Tell her I said thanks."

He nodded and rolled away.

I sat in my car at the curb with the engine off.

I hadn't gotten my boots or my passport, and I was not going back to that door.

I had my notebooks, my mother's address and a phone with eleven percent battery.

A notification slid down the screen from a country music account with four million followers.

It was a graphic with a glossy gold border.

Rhinestone Radio Honors, November 22. Live from Nashville. Featured performances.

Second line in the list: Dax Blalock, "Paper Moon."

Beneath it, in small type, a credit I had not agreed to.

"Words and music by Dax Blalock and Calla Allbritton."

I read it until the screen dimmed.

Then I turned the key and drove back to Madison.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend