A Loving Light
Copyright© 2026 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 28: The Morning After
We left West Pier Café with a sense of having achieved something. We were on the same page. As we walked back along the pier, we held hands, but once we got to the promenade, I let go of her hand and put my arm around her instead. She smiled at me and then put her arm around my waist, leaned into me and literally purred like a kitten.
“I don’t want the night to end,” she said.
“Me either. But we both know it has to.”
She sighed. “I know.” She paused. “Reality sucks.”
I looked at her, and she looked up at me. “Oh, I don’t know. I think I’m going to really like this new reality.”
She smiled and hugged me tighter. “Yeah, me too.”
We took twice as long walking back to the Winter Gardens as we needed to, and then I drove us up the hill, parked outside Campus Heights and went with her all the way up to her fourth-floor flat.
We stood by the door, and she took her keys out of her bag. She smiled. “I’d invite you in, but...” She shrugged.
“But what?”
“Well, for one, I suspect that Lily and Marie are inside waiting to give me a grilling, and it’ll be even worse if you’re there.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.”
“And two...” She blushed.
I raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t trust myself.” Her blush deepened. “I mean ... Paul, you know that I’m ... I mean, I’ve never—”
“I know.”
“Yeah, well ... Thing is ... I really want my first time to be special, you know? And I know tonight was really special, but...” She looked down.
“It’s too early,” I said. “Yeah, I get that.”
She looked up and smiled. “I really want it to be special, but if I invite you in, I’m scared I’ll get carried away.” She paused. “I love you, Paul. I’ve loved you for a long time, and I want you, you know? So, I don’t trust myself not to...” She sighed. “I’m so confused. I want you, but I want it to be special and not some rushed, crazed fumble that I won’t remember because...” She sighed again. “You have to promise me something, Paul.”
“Anything.”
“You won’t let me get carried away. I want you to promise me that you’ll make my first time really special, even if that means stopping me when I get carried away.”
I gave her a half-smile.
“I’ll make you the same promise I made Clarissa three years ago.”
Her eyes widened. “What’s that?”
“She was scared. Scared I’d leave her if we didn’t do it. So, I promised her we’d only move at her pace and that I’d make sure her first time was as special as I could make it.”
“So ... Are you promising you won’t leave me if we don’t, or promising you’ll make my first time special?”
I smiled. “Both.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then she said, “What was it like? Her first time. What did you do to make it special?”
I shrugged. “What she wanted. In the end, she planned it all. Right down to the last detail. She knew what she wanted.”
“I don’t want to plan it,” Lana said.
“Then don’t.”
“But I don’t want to get carried away either. I just want...” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I took her hands in mine. “And that’s fine. You don’t need to know. You don’t need to plan. We’ll figure it out as we go along.” I nodded. “You’ll know when the time’s right. We’ll know. And then ... I’ll make it special. We’ll make it special. Together. Whatever ‘special’ means to you.”
She nodded. Then stared at me.
She blinked.
“Paul?”
“Yes?”
“Will you kiss me?” She paused. “Properly, I mean.”
I didn’t answer. I just moved my hand to her face, then pulled her lips towards mine.
Imogen and Vanessa were waiting for me when I got home. I suppose, technically, Mark was waiting for me too, but he was watching the football highlights on the TV, so I’m not sure that counts.
“Well?” Imogen said.
I looked at Vanessa. “Not staying with Mickey tonight?”
She gave me one of Imogen’s ‘stupid question’ looks. I just grinned.
“I’m going to bed,” I said. “Goodnight.”
The girls protested from the hallway as I climbed the stairs, whistling the Swan Theme.
“Told you, didn’t I?” Mark said from the living room.
I chuckled to myself, went into my room and shut the door behind me.
I took my shoes off, placing them in my shoe rack, then took off my jacket and put it on the hanger, which I left on the door handle of my wardrobe. Then I took off my tie, leaving it on top of my chest of drawers, lay down on the bed and took out my phone. I opened the messaging app, clicked on my conversation with Carly and sent her a short message.
PAUL: I’ve been so blind, but now I see. And Love’s Light shines brightly from Lana’s eyes.
She replied almost immediately with one of those smiling emojis with hearts for eyes. Then she sent a proper message.
CARLY: She already told me! I’m so happy for you! For both of you! I love you both!
I sent her a heart emoji reply.
CARLY: BTW that’s a really good line for a song. Can I steal it?
I sent her a thumbs up, followed by another short message.
PAUL: I look forward to hearing the new song with it in.
I slept really well that night—a deep, dreamless sleep that left me feeling refreshed when I woke early on Sunday morning. It was about quarter to eight, which was probably too early for a Sunday, so I grabbed my phone from the charging cradle on my bedside table and decided to scroll through Twitter. After a very quick scroll through my normal feed, I checked the trending topics.
And what I saw surprised me.
One of the worldwide trending topics was #WeHearYou.
I clicked on it.
The tweet that started the trend was from Kayla’s tour account.
@AlabamaSweetheart: We are proud to introduce you to Sadie Cole and Cody Vance, who will be joining Kayla on tour. Two unique, True Voices we know you’ll love. #WeHearYou
It was accompanied by an announcement video, which began with a black screen displaying Kayla’s newly designed logo. It was simply her first name in a custom script font based on her autograph. The ‘K’, ‘Y’ and ‘L’ were all particularly elaborate, and the second ‘A’ was actually a star. The ‘K’ and the star shrank and moved to the top left-hand corner of the screen to become a watermark for the rest of the video, while the other letters faded away. The intention was to brand the tour merchandise with either the full wordmark or the letter and star logo.
Then the screen faded up to show Kayla standing in front of what looked like a church, wearing our first piece of ‘concert merch’—a simple pink T-shirt with the words ‘We Hear You’ across three lines in white lettering—the message was big and bold, just like she wanted. She also wore her trademark short denim skirt and cowboy boots. Finally, she wore a pink cowboy hat with her logo on.
She waved to the camera, tilted her head and smiled a sweet smile that I knew was destined to break hearts all around the world.
“Hey, y’all! I’m here at the Mother Church of Country Music, the world-famous Ryman Auditorium, where in just over two months we kick off the Alabama Sweetheart tour with an exclusive, invitation-only, special preview event.
“Now, over the next few weeks, I’m going to give y’all lots of chances to win tickets to the preview show, and to the big after-show party at the Country Music Hall of Fame! But today, I want to introduce you to two amazing True Voices who are going to be joining me on the tour.”
The screen faded down, then up, to the video Marcus had shot of me and Carly giving Sadie and Cody the good news. Carly was leaning forward and taking both their hands.
“I can’t describe how I felt when you both sang. And then getting to perform such beautiful songs with both of you, too ... It was an honour. It really was. And I’m really looking forward to doing it again.”
The video switched to images of Kayla performing at the audition, first with Sadie, then with Cody, but the voice-over from the meeting remained. Only, Marcus had edited it, because the next two lines were not in the order she’d said them on the day. He’d also removed her wonderful, off-the-cuff ‘Fuck the Rules’ line. I understood why, but I kind of wish he’d left it in—it was authentically ‘Carly.’
But this was Kayla’s video, not Carly’s. The world needed to hear from Kayla.
“Rules suck. We have a mission. We want to amplify beautiful, unheard voices. Voices that the rules say shouldn’t be heard. I want to stand on stage and sing with both of you every night. Sadie. Cody. Would you come on tour with me?”
There were then a few seconds of Sadie singing ‘Red Clay Blues’ before she appeared on the screen, also outside the Ryman, wearing a white version of the ‘We Hear You’ T-shirt, with black lettering.
“Hey there. I’m Sadie Cole, and I’ve been singing the blues in Memphis for the last ten years. Going on tour with Kayla is a dream come true—a dream my Eduda had for me when he first put the guitar in my hand as a little girl. I can’t wait to share my version of the blues with you, which blends pure Americana with my Cherokee heritage.”
The video then showed Cody’s audition, singing ‘A Whisky Glass and A Photograph’ for a few seconds before he too appeared in front of the Mother Church, wearing the black version of the tour T-shirt and a black cowboy hat. You couldn’t see it on the video, but I knew the hat was subtly branded with ‘We Hear You’ too, because I’d seen close-up pictures of it that Carly had sent me. Embossed black lettering on a black hat—subtle but effective. I had a feeling we’d sell boatloads of them to a certain type of fan.
“Hi, I’m Cody Vance, from the Great State of Texas. Growing up knowing I was different from the other guys on the football team, but not understanding why, was tough. Music was my sanctuary. I write songs that tell my truth. And I can’t wait to share them with you.”
The screen faded down, then back up on all three of the artists standing together, arms around each other’s waists—with Kayla in the middle, obviously.
“Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama,” Carly said. “We’ll see y’all in June and July, sharing our stories of Trust, Vulnerability and Love.”
“We hear you,” Sadie said, with a smile.
“We see you,” Cody said.
“We get it,” Carly said. “And we know you will, too. We’ll see y’all real soon.”
The screen faded to black, and then the list of dates and locations for the shows appeared, but on my phone, it was too small to read. That faded and was replaced with the words, ‘Tickets Available April 5th.’
I reached up to wipe a tear from my eye. Damn, Carly was good. She was going to be a real superstar. No doubt it.
The tweet had been picked up by the usual media outlets, many of which praised Kayla’s choice of support acts and spoke positively about the ‘We Hear You’ message. But it was also jumped on by various conservative commentators, who called it ‘politically correct’ and claimed that the choice of Sadie and Cody was nothing more than ‘identity politics.’
We’d known that would be coming, and Marcus proved it was the right decision to hire him as Social Media Manager, or whatever that title he’d come up with was, because he’d developed a strategy to deal with it well before it became a problem.
He called it ‘flooding the zone.’
And it had only cost me a handful of tickets and backstage passes per show, and a hundred tickets for the preview show.
In the week leading up to the video, he’d recruited YouTubers and bloggers from all over the United States to use our hashtag. We’d sent them all a ‘We Hear You’ t-shirt, too, and a few of the YouTubers did an ‘unboxing’ video. Right after Kayla’s video came out, they all started sharing their own stories of being accused of political correctness. They made fun of the conservative commentators who’d attacked them, and their followers had picked up the trend and run with it, too. From what I saw, it looked like it was driving the right-wing commentators mad.
It was risky, we knew that. These commentators had ‘mainstream’ platforms as well as their large online following. But their following wasn’t our target audience, and it looked to me like our target audience was the ones sharing their own #WeHearYou stories. Some of the stories were very touching, but others were downright heartbreaking.
It was risky. But Carly, or rather Kayla, might just pull it off. She, along with Sadie, Cody and the tour, were trending worldwide.
And so was our hashtag.
The #WeHearYou movement had officially begun. And Kayla was, without doubt, its leader.
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