Chapter 8: Colt's POV: The Card

Colt's POV

The card was still in my wallet.

I had written it in the hotel the morning of the Grammys, on the back of a room-service menu, in block letters.

It said: LINNEA. SAY HER NAME. THEN SAY THE SONGS ARE HERS.

I had read it in the mirror four times.

I had put it in my inside pocket, over my heart.

Then I walked up on that stage and the lights hit me, and the whole world went white and loud.

I could see the front rows.

I could see my wife in the fourth, in the gray dress she'd worn to six other shows, holding our kids' hands.

And I could see Sonya at the edge of the stage, close to the lights, where she had stood at every big moment of my career.

She was mouthing something at me.

Two words, round and slow.

Say my name.

I want to tell you I decided.

I didn't.

I opened my mouth, and my body did what it had learned to do for six years, which was look at Sonya and do what she wanted.

I said her name.

I heard myself say it.

I heard "every song was you," and I thought, that's not what's on the card.

And then I kissed her, because it was the next thing in the room and I didn't know how to stop.

By the time I walked off the stage I knew what I had done.

I told myself I'd fix it by morning.

I told myself that for a week.

The house was quiet when I got home from rehearsal on Friday.

It was nearly ten.

Every light was on, which was Mom's way.

She was in the kitchen in her robe, writing in a ledger at the table, and she did not look up.

"There's a casserole in the oven," she said. "You've barely eaten."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Kissed His Muse. I Wrote Every Song. from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.