Everett shakes his hand. “Thanks for coming, Wade. I’ll be in touch.”
A black Toyota 4Runner pulls to the curb, Wade climbs in, and they speed off.
Everett feels as though he just got run over by the 4Runner. He doesn’t need a few days to think it over. He doesn’t need a few minutes. He’ll be taking Wade up on his offer. After he figures a way to tell the other guys in the band.
As he turns to go back inside, Waylon, the owner of the bar, bursts through the door. “Dude, where’s Louie? I’ve been looking all over for him.”
Everett shrugs. “Last I saw him, he was inside.”
“Here.” Waylon shoves a thick envelope at Everett. “Give him this. Tell him I had to split. My wife’s keeping my kid awake until I get home.”
Everett takes the envelope from him. “What is it?”
“Money I owe him. He’ll know what it’s for. See ya, man.” Waylon tosses a wave over his shoulder as he disappears around the corner of the building to the parking lot.
Everett pinches the envelope between two fingers. Feels like cash. A lot of cash. He’d expressed his concern to Louie many times. Why, when they’re playing gigs five nights a week, are they always broke? Is Waylon paying him a portion of their fee on the side?
Stuffing the envelope in his pocket, he reenters the building. When Carla sees him, she’s all over him. “Rhett! You were fabulous tonight. Let’s go celebrate in private.” She walks her hands up his chest and nibbles at his chin.
Carla is only average-looking with shoulder-length brown hair and hazel eyes. But she has a body that won’t quit. Older than him by two years, she works as a pediatric nurse at one of Atlanta’s best hospitals. She’ll make someone a wonderful wife. But that someone won’t be him. He likes her fine. He just doesn’t have the forever feelings for her. But he’s a man, and she’s smoking hot in bed, so he says, “Sure! Your place or mine?”
She smacks his chest. “Aren’t you the funny one!”
It’s a joke between them, since he lives with his parents. Everett moved back in with them two years ago when his dad’s diabetes forced him to retire early from his plumbing job and when . . . Everett can’t bring himself to think about the when. Living at home isn’t all bad. Being able to help out with the bills gives Everett satisfaction and his mom peace of mind. While he’d rather not have to see his father’s angry mug every day, his mom’s cool. But she would freak out if he brought someone home. Even Carla. His mom adores Carla.
Jumping into his truck, he tosses Louie’s envelope in his glove box and follows Carla to her apartment. During the twenty-minute drive, he listens to outlaw country radio on Pandora as he reflects on his conversation with Wade. You’re the next Johnny Cash . . . All the more reason to make the break now . . . If you’re willing to work hard, you can go all the way to the top.
Johnny Cash, wow! Everett wants success so bad he can taste it. Is he ready to leave Louie and the band behind? Heck yes! What about Carla? How will she take the news? She knows their relationship isn’t permanent. He can’t break the news to her tonight, not until he tells Louie first.
Inside the door of her apartment, Carla tears off her clothes first and then his. Everett picks her up, and she wraps her legs around his waist. Her fingernails dig into his back as she smothers him with kisses. Walking her to the sofa, he trips over a small table and knocks it over. When Carla bursts out laughing, he silences her with his mouth.
Two hours later, having moved from sofa to floor to her bed, they lay spent in each other’s arms. He’s drifting off to sleep when Carla, says, “We’re good together, aren’t we, Rhett?”
Uh-oh. That dreamy quality in her voice has nothing to do with the stream of orgasms she just experienced. “Sure.” His eyes remain closed, and she pinches his nipple to get his attention. “Ouch! Jeez, Carla. That hurt.”
She sits up in bed, not bothering to cover her milky plump breasts. “I’m trying to tell you something, Rhett. Neither of us is getting any younger, and . . . well, I’m pregnant. And don’t insult me by asking if the baby is yours, because I haven’t slept with anyone else in over a year.”
Everett takes the sheet with him when he scrambles out of bed. “Pregnant? How did this happen, Carla? You told me you were on the pill.”
She gnaws on her lower lip. “I was on the pill. But then I stopped taking it.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because I’m ready to have a baby. If you won’t marry me, I’ll raise it on my own. You’re a good guy. You’ll be a part of his or her life, won’t you, Rhett? You’ll make such a wonderful daddy.”
Daddy. Seriously? “I don’t even know what to say to you Carla. You’re trying to trap me into something I’m not ready for.”
Finding it difficult to breathe, he hurries from her bedroom. He gathers his clothes and is tugging on his jeans at the front door when she comes at him, pressing her naked body against his. He pushes her away, and she snatches his shirt off the floor, hiding it behind her back.
“Please, Rhett! Don’t leave angry. We can work this out.”
Grabbing his boots, he flees her apartment barefoot and bare-chested, slamming the door behind him. He makes a pit stop at home, the one-story brick rancher in a neighborhood of cookie-cutter houses out near the Atlanta airport. He stuffs as many clothes as will fit in a duffel bag, powers off his phone, and slides it under the mattress.
His father is passed out in his lounger while his mother sleeps with her head resting on the back of the sofa and her latest sewing project abandoned in her lap. Placing the sewing on the coffee table, Everett lifts her legs onto the sofa and covers her with a blanket. He’s kissing her forehead when he notices his father watching him.
“Where you going?” his father grumbles, eyeing the duffel slung over his shoulder.
“Away,” Everett says. “Can I count on you to be good to Mom?”
His father grunts and closes his eyes again.
Everett bolts out of the house, despite the feeling of dread gnawing at his stomach. He gets on the interstate intending to land in DC or New York. But as he’s driving through Charlotte, on a whim, he veers off toward the mountains. Hours later, he stops at a roadside motel on the outskirts of Hope Springs. The following morning at Caffeine on the Corner, when he overhears a customer say the Inn at Hope Springs Farm was hiring, he applies for the job as bartender and begins his self-imposed exile.
In hindsight, Everett doesn’t know what prompted him to run away that night. He just freaked out. Two monumental events happened to him in a few brief hours. Wade offered the fame he coveted, and Carla broke the news that she was pregnant with his baby. But once he started running, he kept on going.
He forgot all about Louie’s envelope until a week later when he lost his sunglasses and was searching his glove compartment for his extra pair. Everett is not a thief. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that he was owed money. Louie is the sketchy sort. He could see Louie working deals on the side that would enable him to keep some of the proceeds from their gigs. Regardless, Everett hasn’t touched the money. The envelope is hidden in a zippered pocket in his backpack in his closet. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Reluctantly, he puts his guitar away and stretches out on the air mattress, pulling his fleece blanket over him. His journey into the past, reliving the night that forever changed his life, has served as a reminder of how important music is to him. As he watches shadows from headlights on Main Street dance across his ceiling, he makes two monumental decisions that he prays will set his life back on track.
For the first time in a week, he doesn’t dream about Carla and Louie and Naomi, and he wakes feeling rested. On Tuesday morning, when the local branch of his nationwide bank opens at nine, he deposits Louie’s cash into his account. Tomorrow or the next day, once the deposit posts, he’ll transfer the entire amount to his mom. When he leaves the bank, he continues to the library where he sends an email to Wad
e Newman. Blaming his father’s illness, he apologizes for the delay in getting back to him. When he clicks send, his flesh crawls with chill bumps. No matter what happens with Carla and Louie and Presley, if Wade will still have him, he’s going to Nashville.
16
Presley
Homecoming has come to mean more to Presley than a theme for the party. Now that she’s settled into her new job and apartment, she never wants to leave Hope Springs. Work feels like play. Her coworkers are her family. The picturesque town is her home.
She’s so wrapped up in finalizing plans for the party, she doesn’t leave work until nearly eleven o’clock on Tuesday night. Despite the late hour, she moseys home in the unseasonably warm night, stopping to admire a fake fur coat on the mannequin in the window of her new favorite boutique. A block away from her building, she hears cheering and applause coming from outside Town Tavern. She draws closer to get a better look at the crowd. Some of the patrons are seated while others are standing. The majority are women, their gazes lifted upward. The subject of their attraction is a man playing a guitar from the second-floor window of the apartment building across the street. Her building. The apartment next to hers. The man with the guitar is Everett.
To avoid being seen, she darts into the side door and dashes up the stairs. Inside her apartment, without turning on any lights, she drops her work tote on the sofa and listens at her window for a brief moment before easing it open. Straddling the sill, she cranes her neck, so she can see down the side of the building. Everett is also seated astride his window with one bare foot planted on the balcony. With head bowed, he’s hunched over his guitar, seemingly oblivious to his audience.
Presley rests her head against the wooden window frame. His music stirs something deep inside of her, particularly a song with lyrics that sound vaguely familiar about a young man who’s lost his way. She’s been around musicians all her life, but she’s never had one move her so profoundly. Her mother would describe his music as soulful. His tone is unique, deep and smooth as honey, and his lyrics tell heartfelt stories of love, tragedy, and loss.
He plays until well past midnight. If he’s aware of her presence, he doesn’t acknowledge her. His gaze never strays from his guitar. After the last of his audience has left the restaurant, he remains at his window, the silence hanging in the air between them.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your talent?” she says finally.
Standing, he makes his way down the narrow balcony to her. “Can I come inside? I’m afraid of heights.”
She bites down on her lower lip to keep from laughing. “Only if you play me a song.”
“Haven’t you been listening? I just played at least twenty.”
“I want my own song.”
“Fine. Move over.” Nudging her with his knee, he sits down beside her.
He sings a beautiful ballad about a woman desperate to escape her loveless marriage. The woman, Mary, pines for the days of her youth with her parents on their homestead out in Texas. When the song ends, Everett swipes at his wet eyes with the back of his hand.
Presley leans into him. “You sound like Johnny Cash. Has anyone ever told you that?”
He smiles. “I’ve heard it before.”
“Is Mary your mama?”
“Yes,” he says in a soft voice, but he doesn’t elaborate. “Can we go inside now?”
She barks out a laugh. “We can go inside now.”
They climb in the window and race each other to the sofa. She beats him, and he falls on top of her. With his face close to hers, he stares into her eyes and she thinks he’s going to kiss her. She wants him to kiss her, and she’s disappointed when he rolls off of her.
With heads back against the cushions, they stare into the dimly lit room. “You never answered my question. Why did you hide your music from me?” Presley runs a hand over the soft fabric of her sofa. “You sang “Blue Velvet” the night my furniture came. When I commented on your talent, you intentionally sang off key. Why did you do that?”
He rakes his hands through his brown hair, leaving several strands sticking up. She reaches over, as though to smooth the wayward hair back into place, and then snatches her hand back.
Everett doesn’t appear to notice. He’s deep in thought, the lines in his brow pinched. “I’m at a crossroads with my music, which is one of the reasons I’m hiding out in Hope Springs. I came here to clear my head.”
“And have you? Has the clean mountain air helped clear your head?”
“I’m getting there.” He shifts on the sofa to face her. “I’m still trying to figure out how you fit in.”
“How I fit in where?” She knows what he means. She just wants to hear him say it.
“How you fit in my life.”
Her stomach does a one-and-a-half somersault dive. She has no clue how they fit together. She doesn’t care about forever. She only cares about the here and the now. The man sings like an angel. The sound of his voice sends jolts of electricity to parts of her body that haven’t been loved in way too long.
He fingers a strand of hair out of her face. “I realize we agreed to be just friends, but I can’t ignore the attraction anymore. Give me a reason to stay in Hope Springs, Presley.”
Leaning toward him, she cups the back of his neck and brings his lips to hers, kissing him ever so tenderly. He crushes his mouth to hers, prying open her lips with his tongue, in a kiss that lasts forever and sets her on fire with a passion she’s never known. He stretches out on the sofa, pulling her on top of him. Straddling his waist, she presses her hands to his chest and slides them down his tight abs. When she goes for his belt buckle, it becomes a free-for-all of tugging and unzipping until they’re both naked with her now lying beneath him.
Presley loses count of the number of times they make love. At some point, he carries her from the living room to her bed. It’s almost three o’clock in the morning by the time they’re satiated, their bodies aching all over. They’ve taken a shower together and are lying side by side, limbs intertwined, on the bathroom floor.
“I’ve gotta be at work earlier than you,” she says.
He belts out a slower, more somber version of “Should I Stay or Should I Go.”
Pressing her ear against his chest, she listens to his voice reverberate through his body until the song is over. “I’ll tell you what you should do. You should promise never to deprive me of your talent again.”
“I promise.” He kisses her hair. “Now, answer the question. Do you want me to leave or can I stay?”
“Hmm.” She doesn’t want to be without him ever again, not even for a minute. “I would love to wake up in your arms. Is your front door locked?”
“Yes.” He pushes himself off the floor, so he can see her. “What does my doorknob have to do with anything?”
“Do you have your keys with you?”
“No. They’re in my coat pocket in my apartment. Why?”
With a smirk on her lips, she says, “Because the only way for you to get into your apartment is through the window. Do you really want to make the crawl of shame across the balcony in the morning? All the God-fearing citizens of Hope Springs driving to work on Main Street will see you.”
He palms his forehead. “You’re right. I guess that answers my question. As much as I hate it, I must leave your beautiful body.” He reaches over and yanks a towel off the rack.
She grabs the towel from him, covering her body. “There is one other option.”
He sinks back to the floor beside her. “Talk to me.”
“You can set your alarm for sunrise.”
He touches her nose. “We can set your alarm since I don’t own a phone.”
“Tell me again why you don’t have a phone.”
“Another time. I’m too tired to talk anymore.” Getting to his feet, he picks her up, tosses her over his shoulder, and carries her to bed.
Having Everett in her bed feels right. Everything about her new life feels right. She came to Hope
Springs for one reason, but she’s staying for so many others.
When her alarm wakes her at six thirty, Everett has already gone. How did he sneak out without her hearing him? She resets her alarm for forty-five minutes later, but despite being exhausted, she can’t fall back asleep. She stares at the ceiling as she replays their night together over in her mind. Even though she’s alone in her bed, she blushes at the thought of the things they did together. With Everett, none of it felt kinky. He’s her person. Her guy. They are meant to be together. She feels it in her soul.
She lounges in bed until seven fifteen. Skipping her yoga workout, she dresses in exercise pants and a fleece and heads out for a walk.
The sidewalks in the neighborhoods of Hope Springs are in a state of disrepair from tree roots buckling bricks. By now, she knows the worst areas, one being in front of 237 Hillside Drive. She’s stepped over and around the buckled bricks many times, but today, in her state of post-lovemaking bliss, she trips and falls hard to her hands and knees. As luck would have it, Rita and the girls are in the yard in front of their house, and they rush to her aid.
She’s discerned much about the girls over the past weeks. Emma, the eldest and prissy one, takes time to put on makeup and style her hair every morning. Abigail is a tomboy, dressed most days in jeans and T-shirts with her face free of makeup and hair in a ponytail. She’s the one who helps Presley to her feet.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Presley is more embarrassed than anything. She’s imagined this moment happening dozens of different ways, but never like this.
Mother and daughters are even prettier up close. Presley studies their faces, looking for something of herself but finding nothing. They are blue-eyed blondes with remnants of golden summer tans. She’s a redhead with gray eyes and skin that burns on cloudy days.
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