Rust & Starlight
Chapter 28 : “The Contract”
Julian Voss returned to the farm on a Friday, ten days after the Rolling Stone article appeared. This time he came bearing paperwork — a thick binder of contracts, schedules, and non-disclosure agreements that smelled like expensive printer ink and ambition.
Mason met him on the porch, the same porch where he’d first played “Kansas Rain.” Wren stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching. Clarabelle lowed from the barn, as if offering her own commentary.
“You look better,” Julian said, eyeing Mason. “Healthier. Less like a man who’s been sleeping in a ditch.”
“I’ve been sleeping in a bed. With a woman who feeds me.”
Julian glanced at Wren. “I heard. The whole world heard.” He held up the binder. “Can we talk inside? This is going to take a while.”
They sat at the kitchen table, the binder open between them. Julian had brought two copies — one for Mason, one for Wren — and he walked them through it page by page.
“The advance is $500,000,” Julian said. “That’s not a loan. It’s yours, regardless of sales. The label recoups from royalties, but you keep the advance either way.”
Mason whistled. “That’s more than I made on my last album.”
“Your last album was made while you were drinking a handle a day. This one will be made sober. There’s a difference.” Julian flipped to the next page. “Tour support: $250,000 for a six-week run. Small venues. Intimate shows. Nothing like the arenas you used to play.”
“I don’t want arenas.”
“I know. That’s why I booked theaters. Eight hundred seats, max. You’ll play the new songs, tell stories, connect with the audience. No pyro, no backing tracks, no dancers. Just you and a guitar.”
Mason looked at Wren. She was reading her copy, her brow furrowed.
“What’s the catch?” she asked.
Julian hesitated. “There’s no catch. But there is a condition.”
“I knew it.”
“The label wants you to go to Nashville for the recording. Two weeks. They’ll put you up in a hotel, provide a studio, give you the best session musicians in the business. You can bring the mobile unit here, but it’s not the same. The producers want to work with you in person.”
Mason’s jaw tightened. “Two weeks?”
“Fourteen days. Then you come back here, finish the album remotely, and prepare for the tour.” Julian leaned back. “It’s not a prison sentence. It’s a business trip.”
Mason turned to Wren. She was looking at the table, her face unreadable.
“When would I leave?” he asked.
“Next Friday.”
Eight days from now.
After Julian left, Mason and Wren sat in silence.
The binder sat on the table between them, thick with promises and demands. Mason stared at it like it was a snake.
“You should go,” Wren said finally.
“Should I?”
“It’s two weeks. That’s nothing. I’ve gone longer without seeing Mabel, and I like Mabel.”
“This isn’t about Mabel.”
“No. It’s about trust.” She turned to face him. “Do you trust yourself? To be in Nashville, surrounded by the music industry, without falling back into old habits?”
Mason thought about it. The bars on Broadway. The after-parties. The old friends who would want to “celebrate” his comeback. The ex-wife who would probably show up at the studio, just to cause trouble.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I want to say yes. I want to believe I’m strong enough. But I’ve said that before, and I was wrong.”
Wren reached across the table and took his hand.
“Then don’t go alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ll come with you. To Nashville. Not for the whole two weeks — I can’t leave the farm that long. But for a few days. To help you settle in. To remind you why you’re doing this.”
Mason’s heart swelled. “You’d do that? You hate cities.”
“I hate a lot of things. I hate reporters and frost and judgmental cows. But I love you more than I hate any of those things.” She squeezed his hand. “We’re a team. That means we face things together.”
He pulled her into his arms, burying his face in her hair.
“I don’t deserve you.”
“You keep saying that. I keep not caring.”
The next eight days were a blur of preparation.
Mabel agreed to watch the farm — feeding the animals, checking on the orchard, keeping the reporters at bay. Wren packed a small suitcase: jeans, flannels, a dress she hadn’t worn since Luke’s funeral. Mason packed his guitar and a notebook full of lyrics.
They left at dawn on Friday, driving Mason’s truck — the one he’d crashed, now repaired — toward Nashville. The drive was nine hours, across the prairie, through the Ozarks, into the rolling hills of Tennessee. Wren had never been farther east than Kansas City. The world opened up in front of her, strange and beautiful and terrifying.
“You okay?” Mason asked, somewhere near the Arkansas border.
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been quiet for an hour.”
“I’m watching.” She gestured at the landscape. “I’ve never seen trees like this. They’re everywhere. In Kansas, you can see for miles. Here, the trees block everything.”
“That’s why I left. The openness. It was too much. Too honest.” He glanced at her. “But then I came back. And now I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
“You’re not living anywhere else. You’re just visiting.”
He smiled. “Right. Visiting.”
Nashville hit Wren like a wave.
The lights, the noise, the crowds — it was overwhelming. People walked fast, talked fast, moved like they had somewhere important to be. The buildings were tall, the signs were bright, and everywhere she looked, there was music. Pouring out of bars, drifting from open windows, blasting from car radios.
Mason drove to a hotel in the Gulch — a sleek, modern building with a valet and a lobby that smelled like flowers. Wren felt underdressed in her jeans and boots. The bellhop looked at her like she was a ghost.
“We have a reservation,” Mason said, handing over his credit card. “Under Cross.”
The receptionist typed, then smiled. “Welcome back, Mr. Cross. Your usual suite is ready.”
Usual suite. The words hit Wren like a slap. This was his world. A world where he had a “usual suite” and people knew his name and she was just the farm girl from Kansas.
She followed him to the elevator, silent.
The suite was enormous.
Living room, bedroom, bathroom with a tub the size of a small pond. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. A grand piano in the corner, polished to a mirror shine.
Wren stood in the middle of the room, turning in a slow circle.
“You used to live like this?” she asked.
“On tour, yes. At home, I had a house. Bigger than this. Emptier.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s lonely.” He walked to the piano and ran his fingers over the keys, not playing, just touching. “I wrote my best songs in places like this. Not because they were inspiring — because I had nowhere else to go.”
Wren came up beside him. “You have somewhere else to go now.”
“I know.” He looked at her. “That’s what scares me.”
“Why?”
“Because if I fail — if I fall back into the drinking, the fame, the emptiness — I don’t just lose myself. I lose you.”
She took his face in her hands. “Then don’t fail.”
“Simple as that?”
“Simple as that.”
The studio was in an old church, converted into a recording space. Stained glass windows, vaulted ceilings, a soundboard where Jesus used to stand. Mason had recorded here before, years ago, when he was young and hungry and still believed in the music.
The producers — a duo named Sam and Ellie — greeted him with handshakes and hugs. They’d worked with everyone from Adele to Sturgill Simpson, and they were genuinely excited about “Kansas Rain.”
“The song is magic,” Sam said. “Raw. Honest. We don’t want to overproduce it. Just you, the guitar, maybe a little pedal steel.”
Mason nodded. “I want to record it live. No edits. No autotune. What you hear is what you get.”
Ellie raised an eyebrow. “That’s risky.”
“That’s real.”
Wren sat in the control room, watching through the glass. Mason stood in the live room, a single microphone in front of him, his guitar in his hands. The lights were low, the room was quiet, and when he started to play, she forgot where she was.
The song was different now. Fuller. The words had settled into something deeper, richer. When he sang about the woman who saved his life, he looked directly at the glass — at her — and she felt her heart crack open.
So here’s to the woman who saved a wretch,
Who gave him a blanket and a place to rest,
Who taught him that fences can be mended,
And that love isn’t a prize — it’s a test.
The last chord faded. The room was silent. Then Sam’s voice came through the intercom:
“That’s a take.”
They recorded three songs that day, and four more the next. Mason worked like a man possessed, pouring everything he had into every note, every word. Wren watched from the control room, bringing him coffee, holding his hand during breaks, anchoring him to the earth.
On the third day, she had to leave.
The farm needed her. The animals needed her. And she needed to prove to herself that she could let him go.
They stood in the hotel lobby, Mason’s arms around her, her face pressed into his chest.
“Two weeks,” she said.
“Twelve days now.”
“Call me every night.”
“I will.”
“Even if it’s late.”
“Especially if it’s late.”
She pulled back and looked at him. His eyes were red, but he was smiling.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too.”
She kissed him — hard, quick, a promise — and walked out the door.
The drive back to Kansas was nine hours of silence. Wren didn’t turn on the radio. She didn’t listen to podcasts. She just drove, watching the trees thin out, the sky open up, the familiar flatness of the prairie welcome her home.
The farm was waiting. Mabel had done a good job — the animals were fed, the eggs were collected, the mail was stacked on the kitchen table. But the house felt empty. Too quiet. Too still.
Wren walked through the rooms, touching things: the couch where they’d weathered the storm, the kitchen table where they’d shared a hundred meals, the bedroom where they’d finally stopped being afraid.
She missed him. Already. Terribly.
But she wasn’t afraid.
Because he was coming back.