by Robyn Nyx
Louie took a drink of her beer and set it on the table. “I had to leave because you wouldn’t.”
That struck Heather like a high heel to her chest. If anything had happened to Louie last night, it would have been her fault because she’d run her out of her own house. “I’m sorry about that. I should never have barged in or expected you to listen to what I wanted to say.”
Louie shook her head. “No. You shouldn’t.”
Heather rubbed imaginary dirt from her glass. Louie was making this tough, but what had she expected? For Louie to forgive everything and pull her into a deep kiss? Heather drifted to the kisses they’d shared in Louie’s truck just a few days ago. She wanted to taste Louie’s lips again. She had to make this right. “I’m sorry for what I did, Louie. I gambled with your career and I had no idea how it would turn out.” Heather glanced at Louie to see if her words were making any difference, but she couldn’t read her at all. “It was selfish, and I don’t expect you to understand or accept why I did it.”
Louie’s expression appeared to soften, but it might’ve been wishful thinking. Heather took the small silence as an opportunity to have a drink of much-needed wine. If Louie didn’t give her some indication of forgiveness, she’d be wanting a damn sight more than a glass to comfort her.
“I understand why you did it, Heather,” said Louie softly. “It’s not the way I would’ve done it, but we’re very different people…” She took another long draw on her beer. “You’re an amazing woman, and you’ve got a lot of ambition.” Louie held up her hand to stop Heather from interrupting. “And that’s great. I’ve got dreams too. We’re just going about them in two very different ways.”
Heather waited in case there was more. She wanted there to be more. She wanted to hear Louie say that she didn’t care about those differences and that they could give their relationship a try anyway. Hell, maybe it’d work because they were so different.
But Louie said nothing else and just kept sipping on her beer.
“Did you have a good time last night?” asked Heather, barely able to keep her voice from trembling. For some reason she felt confident that Louie hadn’t done anything with the women at the bar, but she wanted to hear it from Louie.
Louie raised her eyebrows. “I had a few too many drinks, played some pool, and made some new friends. Nothing more. I was hurt, not horny. Somebody tell you something different?”
“Mia sent pictures, Louie. It’s impossible to do anything in this town without someone seeing and misinterpreting it. That’s what I’m frightened of.” Heather’s moat bridge was beginning to rise in reaction to Louie’s apparent indifference. Withdrawing had always been her go-to defense. Louie emptied her beer and motioned to the server for another one. She was staying a little longer, at least. Hope fired a spark in the dying embers of Heather’s dreams of their relationship. “She was trying to convince me you’d had a threesome.”
Louie’s laughter seemed out of place, but Heather took it happily. It was a sound she was sure she’d never tire of.
“With a big butch and a sexy little femme?” asked Louie and a playful smirk emerged.
“Yep.”
“That’s not me, Heather, and it looks like you know that. Mia can’t help herself.”
Louie sounded hurt, and Heather wished she could just hold her and make all of this go away. “I do know that. You were angry and you had every right to be.”
Louie rubbed the back of her head, then rolled her shoulders. “I was hurt.”
Knowing she caused the look in Louie’s eyes drove a spike through Heather’s heart. The neon window sign glistened in them, and she looked on the verge of tears. Heather just wanted to start afresh.
Heather reached over and placed her hand over Louie’s. “I’m sorry, Louie…again. Tell me what I need to do to make this right.” She’d beg if she had to.
Louie let go of her beer and put her other hand on top of Heather’s. “And what about this? Are you going to be okay to do this out on the streets? Or would I only get your affection when we’re safely away from spying eyes?”
Heather began to withdraw her hand but stayed put because it felt so good. “I thought you understood.”
Louie nodded. “I do. But it doesn’t mean I can live like that. I thought I might be able to, but when you pulled away from me at the Birdcat because you thought you might be seen, you may as well have pushed the sharp end of a shovel through my chest.” Louie traced light patterns on Heather’s hand. “I want to be with you, but I don’t think I can compromise myself that much anymore. And I’ve only just recovered from being betrayed by Mia for her career. I can’t keep walking the same path. I have to be who I am…and you have to be who you are.”
Heather pulled her hand away and closed her eyes to keep from crying. When she opened them to see Louie’s lip trembling slightly, her control slipped away, and she let her tears fall. This was letting go when no one actually wanted to. This was a sacrifice made for a career. Was it worth it?
Louie moved to get out of the booth, and Heather grabbed her arm.
“Please don’t go. Neither of us want to say good-bye,” said Heather, just managing the sentence before the ball of pain in her chest choked her words.
Louie took Heather’s hand and kissed her knuckles. “That may be, Heather, but we both know what we do want. Life is a jigsaw, and right now, our pieces don’t fit together.”
Louie let go and walked away, leaving Heather with unchecked tears ruining her mascara. Makeup was easy to fix. If only the same could be said of her life. Letting Louie go could be the greatest mistake of her life.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Over a week had passed since Louie had seen Heather. Gabe had collected the little bit of gear she had at Rocky Top. He said Heather had asked after Louie and looked “forlorn,” whatever the hell that looked like. She’d received a text not long after Gabe returned. Can we at least be friends? I miss you. Louie hadn’t responded. It still hurt too much to think about. “I Won’t Be a Whisper” had soared straight to number one on the Hot Country Billboard within a day of its Friday release and had hit over one hundred thousand downloads. No doubt Donny was happy his cash cow hadn’t been ruined by a scandal over her sexuality. It was the fastest selling song of the year, and whenever Louie turned on a radio, got into her truck, or went into any shop or bar, she heard Savana’s voice and her lyrics. As much as she loathed Savana, she had to admit it sounded amazing. And her distaste was offset by the mechanical and performance royalties already beyond twenty thousand. She hadn’t received a check yet, but she’d already flown her mom over early for the Fourth of July. Gabe’s dad was visiting too, and they’d both arrived that morning so it’d been a crazy few hours of airport runs.
Louie had spent the week helping Gabe with a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for studio time and a producer for his EP, and he was halfway to his target. His popularity on his Facebook page had rocketed, and he’d managed to get over half a million views on the music videos they’d made together. It was happening for him, and he was doing it his own way, without the backing of traditional Nashville avenues. Louie wished that Heather could’ve seen a path to her own journey that way. Maybe then Louie wouldn’t be so lonely. And she’d have someone to share her first success in Nashville.
“Are you ready?” asked Gabe, knocking on Louie’s open bedroom door as he walked through to the living room.
“Sure am.” Louie picked up her guitar and joined him. His dad, Daryn, and her mom were on the couch laughing over baby pictures of her and Gabe. “Come on, Daryn. Time to see your son in action.”
Daryn rose from his chair and helped Louie’s mom emerge from the deep sofa.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a decade.” Daryn smiled at Gabe and motioned toward the door. “After you.”
The trip to the Head Cayce studio was quick and painless. Louie parked her truck on the street and fed the meter before following Daryn, Gabe, and her mom inside. The
receptionist settled them into tracking room three and introduced Gabe’s producer for the EP.
“Thank you for flying me out to see this, Noodle. I’m so excited to hear your lyrics and listen to you play.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Louie lifted her Les Paul from its case by the neck. “None of this would ever have happened without your support.”
Her mom shook her head. “You did this by yourself, Noodle. I just helped along the way.”
Louie smiled at her mom’s humility. She’d probably never grasp just how important she’d been to keeping Louie going through all the hard times, and there’d been a lot of hard times. How her mom had kept going herself, let alone be such an awesome mom, amazed her every time Louie thought about it.
“Y’all ready to go?” asked Gabe’s producer.
“Sure thing.” Gabe clapped Louie on the shoulder. “Wait till you hear this, Dad. This is the first song Louie and I wrote together, and it’s for you. It’s called ‘Bronzed Baby Shoes.’”
Daryn surprised Louie when he pulled them both into a bear hug. “You’re like family, Louie. Gabe hasn’t shut up about you since you two met. You were there for him at a tough time, and I really appreciate that.”
Louie sank into the arms of Daryn and Gabe. So this was what having a real Dad felt like. Not that she felt like she’d missed out. Her mom had given her everything she could and more. Daryn released them, and Louie followed Gabe to the recording zone.
They knocked out three slightly different versions of the song before the producer suggested they take a quick break and listen to some playback. Louie went back into the mixing area and could see both Daryn and her mom were barely holding it together.
“That was beautiful.”
Gabe grinned at his dad. “Are you proud of me?”
Daryn pushed up from his seat and hugged Gabe again. “I’ve always been proud of you, son. I’m just glad everyone else on this planet is going to get to know what a wonderful man you’ve become.”
Louie swallowed past the gigantic lump in her throat and looked up to the ceiling to prevent her own tears from falling. It was such an intimate moment, she felt a little voyeuristic. A quick glance in her mom’s direction told her she felt the same.
“Shall we go grab some lunch for everyone?” Louie motioned to the door.
Gabe pulled out of his dad’s arms. “Poor Louie. Showing emotions is just too hard for you to cope with, isn’t it, buddy?”
Gabe’s words were closer to the truth than he realized, maybe more than Louie did too. She’d always been open to experiencing emotion, even when it hurt like it did with Mia. And Heather felt like history repeating itself. But she wondered if she’d actually pulled away when it really mattered, when things didn’t run smoothly, so she wasn’t completely destroyed. Was that a simple case of self-preservation or was it counterintuitive, resulting in an inability to truly let go?
“Gabe told me about your girl,” said Daryn as he sat back on the sofa beside her mom.
Louie clenched her jaw, not sure where the segue was that connected the two. “Unfortunately, she’s not my girl anymore.” Louie thought about the wonderful date they’d shared and the hot make-out session in her truck. So much promise and passion. And yet Louie had let it slip through her grasp like wind through silk. For what? Her high-and-mighty beliefs about being true to yourself? Who was she to impose them on anyone else? She stopped herself. She wasn’t imposing them on anyone, she just wasn’t prepared to stop living them herself. “I guess she never really was.”
Her mom poked her in the thigh from her seat on the couch. “I thought you were going to talk to her?”
Louie sighed, not sure she wanted to have this conversation with all of them but not wanting to be rude. “I did. But we want to live our lives different ways, Mom. I won’t hide, and Heather is convinced she has to, at least for now.” Louie had spent restless hours when she should have been sleeping, hoping that maybe Heather would start her record label sooner than she’d planned. Maybe then they could be together. It was more than a feeling; it was a deep-seated yearning to reclaim the connection she’d felt when she was with Heather. But a little hope was a very dangerous thing. How long would she allow herself to wait and dream and wish for something that might never happen?
“And you think there’s no compromise in between?” Daryn looked at her seriously.
“Does there always have to be compromise?” Louie crossed her arms and leaned against the mixing desk.
Daryn and her mom laughed, but Louie didn’t get the joke. Why did everyone assume that being older resulted in being wiser? Gabe looked at her and shrugged apologetically. She raised her eyebrow at him. Apology not accepted.
“There’s compromise in every relationship, whether you’re talking about lovers or brothers,” said Daryn. “The best relationships don’t even realize or care that they’re compromising because the end result is what’s important.”
What would compromise look like? Was Louie being shortsighted about a potential future with Heather? She’d said that she planned to have her label within the next two years. Was that too long? Wasn’t Heather worth the wait? Louie had happily waited a month before they could even have a date. And Louie would’ve waited six times that long for the kisses they’d shared in her truck that night. Two years wasn’t a lifetime. So what if they didn’t go out to the bars parading their relationship to everyone else? Would it be so bad to stay home making love, eating home-cooked meals, watching action movies, and getting a little chubby?
But what would Heather be compromising? Or would she get the best of both worlds—her ambitions and her home life fulfilled? Would that be so bad? Still, the fact that Heather had cast her aside in favor of her career was still on her mind. It was like a hole in her mouth after a wisdom tooth had been removed; she couldn’t stop tonguing it. The more attention she gave it, the less likely it would be to heal.
She looked up to see all three of them watching her intently. She guessed she’d been off in her head long enough to make it weird. Louie half-turned to the mixing desk and hit play, then looked back at them all. “Didn’t the producer want you to listen to your song?”
Gabe smiled and clapped silently behind his dad’s back. So it wasn’t a masterful change of subject and she’d just proven his point completely. But she didn’t want to make a decision this intense by committee. “We’ll talk later, Mom.” Right now she wanted to immerse herself in Gabe’s music and help make his EP a smash. He had everything riding on it, and he had to be her focus, not Heather.
Heather would have to wait…unless she’d accepted they were through and had already moved on to Savana. She was better for Heather’s ambitions; they could be closeted career girls together. She pushed that thought away like a catwalk model would discard a decent meal. She had to trust in her destiny, and that just might be the hardest thing she’d ever had to do in her life.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Heather waited in line for her pre-work wake-up drink. She didn’t try to stop her mind from drifting to Louie and how she’d remembered exactly how Heather liked her coffee. Her mind had been drifting to thoughts of Louie every spare moment and all the times in between when she really shouldn’t let it. “Right now, our pieces don’t fit.” Louie’s soft parting words had become an earworm she couldn’t shut down. She’d decided to focus on the “right now” part. It seemed like it was a hint that Louie hadn’t kicked Heather out of her heart completely. And as each Louie-less day had passed with her texts unanswered, Heather became more convinced that Louie’s heart was exactly where she wanted to be.
Problem was, her work situation hadn’t changed and there was little likelihood that it would. She had a plan for her label, and she was further along it than she could’ve imagined, partly thanks to Savana, but breaking out on her own was scary. Saying good-bye to the security of a monthly paycheck and hello to debts and uncertainty was going to take some preparation.
She came out of the e
levator to see Savana and a selection of groupies surrounding her, fawning about her new success. Savana motioned to Heather to wait, and she shooed away her entourage.
“Can we talk?” she asked, but she was already moving toward an empty office.
Heather followed anyway. There was no point denying her. Now that the dust had settled, her album was recorded, and she was number one on the charts and at Rocky Top, Heather had no choice but to play nice. Savana closed the door behind her so Heather pulled up the blinds. She tried not to make it obvious but figured she’d probably failed. At least she wouldn’t be giving Savana confusing signals this way. If Savana spotted it, she didn’t react.
“You should know that I was thinking about coming out, Heather. This whole album was about preparing the ground. That’s why Joe was walking around looking so pissed all the time. He was worried my career would go the same way as Caren White’s.”
Heather hadn’t seen that coming. Louie called it, but Heather had been oblivious. She wanted to call her and tell her she was right, but Louie probably wouldn’t pick up. She brought herself back to the present and considered Savana’s words. They sounded like she’d changed her mind. “And what about now? Your first single looks like it’s heading toward platinum, maybe even diamond at the rate it’s going. Would now be a good time?”
Savana tapped the desk with her nails. “I can’t do it, Heather. There’s never going to be a good time for me. I can’t let go of everything I’ve worked so hard to build.”
Heather swallowed hard. The similarities between her and Savana were unpleasant to realize. “So you’re going to continue living behind closed doors?” The question was as much to herself as it was to Savana.
Savana frowned and let out a small laugh. “That sounds awfully judgmental, particularly coming from someone in exactly the same position.”
Heather smiled tightly. She couldn’t argue against Savana’s logic. “You’re right. I get it.”