Songfacts®:

• Luke Combs sings on this moody country ballad about not being able to shake the memory of an ex
  
  And I'm one number away from calling to you
  I said I was through, but I'm dying inside
  Got my head in a mess, girl, I confess
  I lied when I said, "I'm leaving and not coming back"
  
  Combs is trying his best not to call the girl, but his curiosity and desire to patch things up almost gets the best of him.
• Luke Combs wrote the track with Sammy Mitchell, Steven Andre Battey, Carlos Battey and Robert Williford. He recalled the story of the song during an interview with The Boot:
  
  "Steven is an LA guy. I had just moved to town, and Rob introduced me to the other writers and suggested I come in and sing some demos for them. So I did, and we decided to sit down and try writing something. The second time we wrote, we got 'One Number Away.' Rob had the idea written down in his phone - I can't tell you where he got the idea.
  
  Steven is an incredible melody guy, so he said that he had this melody in his head that he really liked, and started humming the chorus of it. We just sat with it for a while. So Steven had the chorus, and then Sandy wrote the track. I had never written with a track guy before; I didn't know that was a thing."
• Luke Combs created and penned the poignant video treatment which at first tracks with the song's narrative before taking a different turn. "I wanted to make sure we had a video that was as powerful as the song," shared the singer. "One day at a creative session, the idea hit me: it wasn't as much about a break up as it was losing someone that you can't get back, and that's why I had the idea of the crash. That feeling when you want to pick up the phone to call that person, and they aren't there, that is something that all of us can relate to in one way or another."