The Way Back Home

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This one's for Matt, for reading all three.

And for Bobbie Jo, for making sure I wrote them.

“B
IRD
,” D
YLAN WHISPERS
in awe, his eyes going wide as we board the tour bus. It's his first glimpse of our living arrangements for the next nine months, and it's obvious that he's as shocked as I was the first time I saw it. After the brutal writer's block I had while trying to create a worthy follow-up album to
Wildflower
, watching
The Road to You
skyrocket to the top of the charts made all the stress and long days worth it. Thanks to the best fans in the world, I'm now headlining for the first time ever, bringing the Shine Our Light Tour to forty-nine cities across North America. We opened tonight and it was the highlight of my life, playing to a full arena and hearing the Memphis crowd sing my songs along with me. Having my big brother in tow was just the cherry on top.

Now, as we step up into the lounge area, he lets out a low whistle. “It's… it's…”

“Pretty awesome, right?” I finish for him, setting my fiddle case down on the plush gray carpet.

“Awesome?” he echoes as we take in the white leather furniture, stainless-steel appliances, and flat-screen TV. “This is insane.”

“When Dan Silver promises the best…” I say, trailing off as I allow myself once again to be blown away by the luxury. My label president wasn't lying when he said he'd make my time on the road as comfortable as possible. It feels like I'm in an upscale condo, not a motor home.

I follow Dylan past the spacious bathroom and the three bunk beds with curtains for privacy, and into the master bedroom, where he just stops and stares. This is a level of opulence neither of us could have imagined.

“I'm assuming this is mine?” Dylan asks as he tosses his duffel bag onto the queen-sized bed. He lies down and folds his arms behind his head. “Not bad.”

“Very funny,” I say, flopping down beside him. We hear the other musicians outside boarding the band bus next to ours, but we don't move. Instead, we lie in silence for a minute and relive the night's performance. This was the first time we had performed live together in a while, but the way we connected onstage felt natural and easy, just like our days growing up in the Barrett Family Band. I know exactly what he's doing right now—going over every song we played tonight and thinking of times he messed up or ways he can improve as the tour continues. And he knows what I'm doing—coming down from the postshow high of my first official tour date.

For months I labored tirelessly with the whole Open Highway team to put together a show that brings my songs to life. I was given unlimited creative input on everything from set to wardrobe, lighting to schedule, and seeing it all come together tonight was indescribably rewarding. When I popped out of the trapdoor in the floor, I could feel the excitement in the arena. They loved the pyrotechnics and video feeds. And the eleven costume changes? Totally worth it.

My manager, Troy Becker, had a brilliant idea. At the beginning of the concert, fans are shown hashtags on the big screen that they can use to tag me and their seat number so I can find them in the crowd. They send me questions through Twitter, and I answer live, right from the stage.

“That guy you posed with in the crowd is going to be the most popular kid in school when he goes back,” Dylan says with a grin.

“Like I always was,” I reply.

“Bird, we were homeschooled.”

I look over at him. “Yeah, but Mom and Jacob clearly liked me best.”

Dylan rolls his eyes and screws up his face, with his features so much like my own, and I chuckle. Then I nudge him affectionately. “Kind of feels like the old days again, huh?”

He nods. “Yeah, when we used to tour the country with a massive mural of your big old face on the side of the RV. Like déjà vu, really.”

I punch him in the arm.

Okay, so it's not at all like the old days. We aren't scraping by, living payout-to-payout, playing dives and bars hoping to sell a few CDs. Over a hundred and fifty people have jobs because of this tour. It's massive, and if I let myself think about the risk involved, it causes me major anxiety. A lot of people are counting on me. Leave it to Dylan to remind me of all that.

“I wish Jacob could've come,” I say with a sigh. “He's the brother I like.”

Dylan laughs. “Yeah, he's the brother
everyone
likes. Get this: Adam told me that before Jacob started dating Ashlynn, he was a total player at UCLA.”

“That's disgusting.”

“No, what's disgusting is”—he stops and bats his eyelashes—“infinity.”

I groan. “Oh man, if I'd heard him say ‘infinity' on the phone to that girl one more time this summer, I swear I was going to murder him.”

“How much do you love me?” Dylan asks in a high-pitched voice.

“Oh, Ashy-poo, to infinity!”

“Infinity?” Dylan continues. “Is that long enough?”

“No, double infinity,” I say. “Triple infinity!”

We both crack up.

“I'm just mad she stole my bass player!”

“Aw, take heart,” Dylan says. “You've got me. And because you've got me, you
don't
have Mom and Dad.”

“And because you've got me—” Stella says from out of nowhere. She flops onto the bed on my other side. “You
don't
have to be alone with him.”

“Thank God,” I say, and we all laugh.

But it's true. With Dylan taking off a year from college and me turning eighteen in a few weeks, my folks decided to take a break from the road, after a stern conversation about responsibility, of course. They'll check in from time to time and meet me somewhere every other week or so, but my granddad broke his hip a few days ago and they want to stay in Tennessee while he recovers. I personally think it's killing them—at least my dad—not to be along for the ride, but my granddad's on his own and he needs the help.

“Remind me again why you hired her?” Dylan asks me, while looking pointedly over at Stella.

“Because I am a gifted designer with a natural eye for fashion and Bird's stylist needed an assistant,” Stella answers for me. “The
talent
wanted everybody from her dancers to her band members flinging their clothes off backstage.”

“Ha-ha,” I say dryly, although the show
is
quite a spectacle.

“I thought it was because your grades tanked,” Dylan goes on, trying to get under her skin.

Stella shrugs. “That too. I suck at math… and English… and apparently Design Fundamentals.” She gives me a big grin. “Aren't ya glad you hired me?”

“Oh, please,” I say.

“But enough about my fabulous college crash 'n' burn. Why'd she hire
you
?” she asks Dylan.

“Because she's a platinum-selling recording artist who needed someone up to her level to play guitar in her band,” Dylan answers.

“Oh, not because you're her brother?”

Dylan scoffs. These two have been volleying jabs back and forth like this ever since the first dress rehearsal. “No, Bird wisely plucked me from the many talented Nashville up-and-comers before another megastar caught wind of my potential.”

“Huh,” Stella says. “I thought maybe it was because of all the jailbait.”

“Jailbait?”

“Yeah, Anita has been going on and on about what a draw you are for Bird's young fans. You have that bewitching… boy-band look,” she says with a gleam in her eye.

Dylan sits up, clearly offended. “‘Boy band'?”

“Yeah, that look,” she goes on. “You, Harry Styles, Nick Jonas, the Biebs. If we put you in skinny jeans and got you a signature 'do, you'd all be the same person basically.”

Dylan is utterly and completely speechless as the back of his neck gets red. His mouth hangs open in shock, and Stella cracks up next to me. I just stare at the ceiling and grin, still flying on the high of tonight's show and so happy to be back on the road.

“H
OW MUCH LONGER
'til he gets here?” I ask Stella at a stop in Sacramento.

We've been on tour for a week, and Stella started a practical-joke war on the very first day. She mismatched every sock in my drawer, so I retaliated by short-sheeting her bunk. Then Dylan hid just one earring from every pair Stella had brought with her. Today I'm helping her get back at him, and she's going to record the whole thing for my YouTube channel. We were meticulous in the planning of this prank, but I've been squatting inside this huge—and thankfully very clean—garbage can for at least fifteen minutes, and I'm getting hot… and cramped… and bored.

“Any minute now,” Stella assures me, shoving me back down into the garbage can. “He's almost here.”

“You've said that a million times,” I groan, just barely peeking out.

“I know, I know. But I just texted him again, and he said two seconds so
shhh
!”

“Stella?” Dylan calls from down the hall. Hidden by the vending machines next to me, I close the lid all the way, and my pulse picks up as Stella leans against the can, pretending to text but secretly recording.

“I'm here with Dylan Barrett,” she says quietly in a fake broadcaster voice, “heartthrob older brother of your favorite country music star, Bird Barrett, and my personal knight in shining armor.”

She stops talking abruptly, and I hear Dylan's footsteps echo on the concrete floor. I can tell from the sound that he's finally getting close.

“SOS?” he asks skeptically. “What's the emergency?”

“I think I accidentally threw away a piece of wardrobe jewelry,” she says, affecting a very anxious voice. “Amanda will murder me if I lose something like that, and I don't want to tell Bird or she'll regret hiring me.”

“What is it?”

“A bracelet,” she says. “It's so pretty, and I just wanted to wear it for a few minutes, and now…” She sniffles. I have to cover my mouth not to laugh out loud. “It's only been a week, and I've already made a huge mistake!”

“Hey,” I hear Dylan say, softly and a little closer. “Don't cry. Seriously.”

“I tried looking for it, but this trash can's so deep, and I'm so—”

“Short,” he cuts in with a little laugh. “I know. Listen, calm down. I'll help you. It's in here?” he asks, his voice right above the trash can. My legs tingle. I'm ready to pounce.

“Uh-huh.”

When the slightest sliver of light slips into the garbage can, I flip the giant lid all the way back as I shoot up to my feet and roar, “Ahhhhhhhhh!”

Dylan screams. Literally, he screams like a little girl, totally spazzing out and slamming into a vending machine. Stella is trying to hold the camera steady, but she can hardly stand, she's cracking up so bad. And I lose it. I absolutely lose it. I am laughing so hard that I lean back to catch my breath, not realizing that the garbage can has wheels. Suddenly, I feel the whole thing start to slide, and I topple backward with a loud
thud
.

“Bird!” Stella calls. The camera is on me now, and I feel tears streaming down my face.

“I can't breathe,” I whisper.

“Me neither,” she manages.

“You guys are idiots,” Dylan grumbles.

Stella swings the phone his way again. “Dylan, you should've seen your face!”

Ungracefully, I crawl out of the empty garbage can and try to get ahold of myself. I can tell that my brother wants to kill us both, but with the camera rolling, he fakes a laugh and says, “Y'all need a life.”

Announcer Stella turns the camera back toward herself and says, “And that's what you don't see on the Shine Our Light Tour. Even from the good seats. Bye-bye, Birdies!”

The second she cuts the video, Dylan lunges for her, pinning her arms and swinging her around in a circle like she weighs nothing. “Bird did it!” she shrieks, selling me out. “I'm innocent! Get Bird!”

“What?” I call, feigning naïveté.

“Oh, I know this was your idea, Crossley,” Dylan says. “I just don't know how I'm going to get you back.”

“No matter what you plan,” she says, “I guarantee I won't scream as high as you did.”

“Agh!” Dylan growls, swinging her around again.

I wish I could watch the video and laugh at Dylan and myself, but I look at my phone and realize that I was supposed to be in my dressing room two minutes ago.

“Hey, guys, hate to prank and run,” I say, “but I'm late.”

“Shoot, you're right, Bird,” Stella says, looking at her own phone.

Dylan sets her back down on her feet, but he doesn't let go right away. She twists in his arms, smiling up at him, and he grins, definitely not mad anymore. Stella pushes against Dylan's chest to free herself and grabs my hand. “We have to go be serious professionals now,” she says as we walk past him. Then she calls over her shoulder, “Remind me never to go through a haunted house with you!” He lunges for her again, and we race down the passageway, laughing like hyenas.

“Paybacks are hell!” he calls.

When we burst through the doors to my dressing room, my styling team looks at us like we're crazy. Amanda especially makes a big show of examining the time on her watch, but we don't even attempt to explain.

“Had to be there,” I simply say as I sit in my chair and reach for a tissue to dab at my eyes. “You really just had to be there.”

“Bird, you were fantastic!” my manager exclaims backstage at
Conan
. The tour headed to Phoenix after Sacramento while Troy and I drove south to LA for a quick appearance.

“Thanks,” I say as I pull my earpieces out and let them dangle around my neck. “His audience was fantastic.”

“Oh, they ate it up,” he agrees.

Producers and guests mill around us, and we step out of the way as they prepare for the next segment. A production assistant is leading us down the back hallway toward my dressing room when a door opens up ahead and I hear a loud and very unhappy person shout, “What is
she
doing here?” I glance over and nearly choke, stopping dead in my tracks as I come face-to-face with none other than Kayelee Ford, another country music singer my age who has hated me since before we ever met.

“Kayelee!” I manage as I wither beneath her look of death. My legs stop working, my feet suddenly like concrete blocks. The PA leading me down the hall exchanges a look with the other PA, who was leading Kayelee out of her room, and I can tell that they had purposefully tried to avoid this very encounter.

Ever since I turned down Great American Music for a record deal and they signed Kayelee right after, we've been pitted against each other in the media. Everyone's constantly comparing our sound, our image, and our success. Last year we both got caught up in the drama, but I've tried to rise above it all since then. Clearly she has no intention of doing the same.

“God, this
would
happen,” she complains as she pulls down on the shortest miniskirt ever made. She focuses her angry eyes on the group of people filing out of the dressing room behind her and gripes, “I knew I heard that stupid ‘Shine' song. Who said it was just the radio?”

“That would be me.” A very handsome, very British guy steps around Kayelee and gives me a wide, warm smile. “Miss Barrett, I don't believe we've had the pleasure. Colton Holley.”

But of course Colton Holley doesn't need an introduction. The filthy rich (thanks to his family's hotel empire) twenty-three-year-old is the current “it” boy of the young Hollywood crowd. He looks like a Calvin Klein underwear model. In fact, he's on this month's cover of
GQ
. And I know this is totally lame, but I get butterflies when he takes my hand, kisses it, and says, “You're even more beautiful in person.”

I just gawk at him, speechless.

“God, Colton, keep it in your pants,” Kayelee fumes. She throws her long fake hair over her fake-bronzed shoulder and brushes past me, snapping at Colton like he's a pet. “The producers are waiting. Let's go.”

His amber eyes don't leave mine, his smile mesmerizing. “My new nightclub opens tomorrow, so…” he says with a shrug, “promotion.”

“Cool,” I manage.

“If you're ever in Vegas, you should come by.”

“Oh,” I say. “My tour goes through there in a couple of weeks actually. My birthday.”

“Then we have to celebrate!” he says, eyes gleaming.

“Colton!” Kayelee calls. “Stop wasting your time with ‘Wanna Be Me' and let's go.”

My jaw drops, and I gape at Troy, who just shakes his head.

“Mr. Holley, we really do need to get to the stage,” the visibly nervous production assistant says quietly.

“I'll be in touch,” he says softly before following Kayelee and the rest of the
Conan
production team down the hall. I make a beeline for my own dressing room, totally unnerved by the whole encounter.

“Ready to go eat?” my mom asks in a cheery voice as I walk in. She immediately sees the scowl on my face and jumps up off the couch. “What's wrong?”

“Colton Holley happens to be taping here today as well,” Troy explains. “And he brought along our friend Kayelee Ford.”

A look of understanding crosses my mother's face. “He's that British playboy all over the tabloids, right? Are they dating?”

“Who cares?” I cut in. “Let's just go.” I grab my purse and a piece of chocolate from a basket on the end table. “I can't even with her. She is the rudest, snobbiest, brattiest, most selfish, ignorant, ridiculous, phony—”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Mom interrupts. She throws her arm around my shoulders. “Let's not let her ruin our night.”

I sigh heavily and try to shake it off as we make our way out of the studio, but my heart is pumping fast and my whole body feels hot. That girl infuriates me more than any other person on the planet.

“Nobu, West Hollywood,” my mom reminds our driver as he holds the door open for us outside. “You know,” she says as we get settled, “I think Kayelee's just threatened, Bird.”

I crack my window and take a deep breath. I want to push the run-in out of my mind. This is my first night out since the tour started, and all I want to do is eat sushi and enjoy time with my mom. I do not want to think about poor little rich, successful Kayelee Ford.