“Why don’t you give him a call right now,” Big Mac suggested. “Get this off your chest so you can get on with your life.”

“Right now as in right now?”

Big Mac leaned across the table. “Right. Now.”

Evan wasn’t sure what was more intimidating—the thought of calling Buddy, or his father when he had his mind set on something. Evan pulled his cell phone from his pocket, found the Nashville number from when Buddy had called him the other day and put through the call. Since he fully expected to leave a message with an assistant or one of the many people who worked for the superstar, Evan’s heart nearly stopped beating when he heard Buddy’s distinctive drawl.

“Longstreet.”

“Um, hi,” Evan said haltingly. “This is Evan McCarthy.”

“Oh hey, how’s it going?”

“Um, pretty well. Do you have a minute?”

“Sure thing. What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you about the album and the tour and…everything.”

“What about it?”

Evan looked up to find his father and Ned hanging on his every word. His father nodded in encouragement. Evan took a deep breath and dove in. “When the whole thing happened with Starlight, it forced me to make some changes to my plans.”

“I imagine it did.”

“A close friend of my family’s put up the cash for me to start my own recording studio. We’ve recently opened our doors, and we’ve got artists booked through October. I’m also engaged to a woman who owns a business here on the island where I live, so she’s unable to move right now. I guess what I’m saying is…”

“You’re saying you don’t want the same things you wanted a year ago.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Well, this puts me in a bit of a bind. I shelled out a hefty sum to free your album from the bankruptcy proceedings.”

Evan winced. “I know. That’s been keeping me awake at night.”

Buddy was silent for a long time, and Evan could almost hear him thinking.

“Could you give me six weeks spread out over the next year?”

Six weeks… Evan’s mind spun with the implications of six full weeks away from Grace. At least they wouldn’t be all at the same time… “I think I could make that work.” As miserable as it would be, they could do it. Couldn’t they?

“Excellent.”

“I’m sorry about this, Buddy.”

“Don’t be sorry. I think you have an incredible talent, which is why I pursued the project. But if you don’t have the drive to go along with the talent, then there’s no point in putting us all through the paces.”

“It’s not that I don’t have the drive. It’s more that my drive was forced to go in a different direction, and I’m too far along with the studio to abandon it now.”