“Yeah.” Sarah grinned. “Want to hear it? I doubt it’ll ever be on an album.”
“Yes!” Kara’s response was enthusiastic.
“I’ll warn you, it’s still pretty rough.”
“Shut up and sing, woman.”
Chuckling, Sarah shifted in her seat and picked up the guitar. She put her phone on speaker and settled it by her notebook so she could look over and read the lyrics she’d jotted down.
It didn’t take her long to get through it because she hadn’t worked out if she wanted to add a bridge or how many times she wanted to repeat the chorus at the end. When the last note on her guitar faded, she was perplexed by the silence on the other end of the line.
Furrowing her brow, Sarah picked up her phone and brought it to her ear. “You still there, Kara?”
“Yeah.” Kara cleared her throat. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“Well, what’d you think?”
“You think that song is about a cow?”
Sarah’s shoulders tensed. She found her gaze going out the window. “Yeah. It’s about Buddy.”
Again, the pause was drawn out. “I don’t think that’s a song about a cow, Sarah.”
“It is. What else would it be about?”
“Have you even listened to your own song?” The accusation took her by surprise.
Sarah pushed the guitar off her legs and stood up, moving to the window to stare out at the fields surrounding the house. If she squinted, she could see the main road that came off the highway, but she loved how isolated it was out there.
“Sarah.”
“What?” she asked.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you, and yes, I listened to my own song. I wrote the damn thing.”
“Just making sure, but it’s not about a cow.”
“It is.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.” Frustration built in her chest, and for the first time ever, she regretted calling her best friend—if only because Kara said what she had been thinking in the first place but absolutely did not want to admit. Unfortunately, she didn’t really have an excuse to get off the call either, and she could only hope one of Kara’s clients popped up and needed something.
Kara sighed. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” Sarah’s comment was genuine. She did miss Kara, and she missed being home and with her friends and in the routine of life, but Kara had been right. The break before the tour had been a welcome respite. She hadn’t once thought of what needed to get done before she left, what loose ends she needed to wrap up. She’d practiced her music, of course, but that was about it. Everyone had seemed to take her request for what it was and leave her alone the past week. But she had her doubts that would last into the next week as time got shorter.
“Call me tonight, all right?”
“If I can, yeah. I didn’t sleep, so I’m going to try and crash for a few hours.”
“Why didn’t you sleep?”
Sarah knew why, the image unbidden in her mind, but she wasn’t about to share that with Kara, not after the comment about the song. “You know me.”
“Yeah.” Kara sighed. “Maybe tonight you’ll sleep.”