Minglewood Hall was in Midtown, and it was an integral part of the city’s thriving music scene. It was a bit overrun with hipsters, but there was a great crowd, and it was obvious they were in the band’s home city. Sawyer took her place on the side of the stage when the show began, and her eyes searched the crowd as she got ready to play. She felt a burn behind her nose and her eyes filled with tears as she saw her parents, up front and center, looking—actually, looking right at home. She’d come by her love of alt-country and Americana honestly, that was for sure.
“Hi!” Vix’s voice was warm and cheerful as she addressed the cheering crowd. “We sure are glad to be home.” With that, they dove right into the music.
Sawyer missed a few notes, she was so thrown by everything. The crowd singing along, her parents, Vix looking gorgeous and singing like it was the last night of the tour. Smiling, Sawyer closed her eyes and got into the music, letting it wash over her, letting it move her bow as she found the now-familiar notes. She didn’t want to think how close she’d come to losing this.
After everything that had happened, Vix’s lyrics all seemed so personal in a way they hadn’t before. For the first time, she realized that was why the people in the crowd sang back. They were Vix’s words, but they were intensely personal to the listener. Sawyer had spent most of her life playing music and thinking about notes, not words. Now she could see how intimately the two were entwined, and since she also knew all the words by heart, she thought about what they meant to her, how they spoke to the soul deep inside. It was a little cheesy, maybe, but Sawyer found herself playing different notes on her fiddle. Notes that went with the lyrics, and what they meant to her, Sawyer Bell.
It was Sawyer’s way of singing along.
The future, the uncertainty, it all fell away beneath the lights. Caught up in the music, Sawyer let everything she was sing through the notes of the violin, her eyes half-closed, swaying and moving with her bow—as if she were the instrument. Playing music had never felt more natural in her entire life. It took her a moment to realize she was grinning, and her face was wet with sweat or maybe tears.
Great. Crying while playing the violin? She was never gonna live that one down with her bandmates.
Her bandmates. The thought brought a renewed wash of fresh energy, and she attacked each note with gusto. God, she loved this so much. And it wasn’t only playing music with the girl she loved, though that was great too. It was playing her music. Finally, she’d found where she and her fiddle belonged.
Sawyer was so into the performance, she went off on a solo without realizing it, until the fiddle was literally the only thing she could hear. She stopped playing and flushed, laughing over at Vix and giving a little shrug. Oops?
“This, ladies and gentleman, is our fiddle player, Sawyer Bell. And I’m thrilled as can be to tell you that she’s a full-time member of Victoria Vincent. Pretty fucking awesome, isn’t she?”
The cheers made Sawyer blush, but she was proud too. She swept an elaborate bow, her loose hair falling all around her face, blocking her view of the crowd. She straightened and waved the fiddle to acknowledge the cheers. If she’d ever felt as at home on a stage as she did in that moment, she had no idea when it was. Though maybe that wasn’t quite true. She’d performed the hell out of that Paganini for her Juilliard audition. Maybe it hadn’t been what she’d wanted, but that didn’t mean she was a failure. She’d still kicked ass to get there.
Grinning, Sawyer sang along with all the other songs, right up to the encore. They did “Ozone Break” for that one, and Sawyer had so much fun she wished the song would never end. She turned her face up to the lights and played with such joy, she totally would have won that golden fiddle if the Devil was up for a contest.
“Thank you all so much! That’s usually when we’d end the show, but I got a special treat—if y’all aren’t ready to go home yet.” Vix paused, and Sawyer saw her grin as the crowd roared their approval.
Her father was raising a bottle of Coors Lite in the air. Sawyer didn’t know how to process that. As long as he doesn’t spray anyone with it.
“Like I said, tonight’s the last night of the tour. Then I’ve got some new material I wanna work on, for an upcoming album—which I’m gonna call Highway Lyrics.”
Sawyer blinked, then smiled so hard her face hurt. All those miles, all those nights talking and writing words in a notebook . . . falling in love, finding friends, and finding home. Perfect.
“So, I’m gonna tell Kit, Connor, and Jeff—and let’s give them a hand, yeah?—to hit the bar, and me and Sawyer here are gonna play a song we wrote this summer while we were on the road. It’s a duet, and it’s gonna be on the new album.”
Sawyer glanced at her, and if she weren’t already a sweaty mess from playing and from the heat of the lights, she’d be blushing at the look Vix was giving her.
“Come here, Sawyer.”
Sawyer obediently went over, and they had a moment when they tried to adjust the mic so they could both sing without it being too tall for Vix. The crowd laughed, Vix gave her some good-natured shit, and then they were ready.
Before they started, Vix shot her a mischievous look and said sweetly to the crowd, “This song’s called ‘The Bell Curve.’ You ready, Sawyer?”
Sawyer’s heart stuttered, and she couldn’t draw a breath. “The Bell Curve.” Emotion threatened to overwhelm her, so she did the only thing she could think. She thwapped Vix on the head with her bow while she blinked rapidly to dispel the tears.
“Ow!” Vix gave her a playful scowl. “Ready?”
“Ready,” said Sawyer, and put her bow to the violin.
The two of them stood alone on the stage, singing with only the notes of Sawyer’s violin to accompany them. A duet they’d written together—a song about falling in love, a song about finding themselves. If Sawyer had ever been happier, she didn’t know when it was.
At the end of the song, there was a trembling moment of silence before the applause. Caught in that moment, caught in the heady promise of it being a beginning instead of an end, Sawyer threw her arms around Vix, pulled her in, and kissed her.
Put that on YouTube, she thought smugly, as Vix kissed her back and the house lights went up.