by Layne, Sandi
“Stop! I can’t!” he begged, gasping as he leaned forward, hands on knees, to collect himself. “So, we’re dating because I remind you of a fictional character?”
“No, we’re dating because you’re amazing and have wicked texting skills,” she shot back. “Also, you put up with Micah, so there’s that.”
Inhaling deeply, he stood at his full height once more. “Well, any man who wants to be with you should learn to appreciate your actual other half, right?”
“Eww. Okay, but eww. Have you and Bethany been talking?”
“Not telling!”
The music swelled in the movie room and so did the young voices singing with the princess of the movie. “Do we have to?”
He grinned and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “They don’t bite. C’mon.”
No introduction rituals were required; Derek just maneuvered them along the perimeter until they met up with some of the paid staff. “Hey,” he said quietly, his voice barely reaching the ears of their small group. “This is my girlfriend, Mac Cunningham. Thought I’d bring her by to show her The Place.”
One of the staffers held up a hand. “Wait. Mac Cunningham with the Lipstick Outlaws?”
Mac met Derek’s eyes with a rueful tilt of her head before smiling and extending her hand. “Yep, that’d be me. Nice to meet you.”
Then the ritual greetings commenced, but Mac was prepared for them. She smiled, said nice things when one of the men said he’d heard the Lipstick Outlaws on the radio, and thanked the girl who said she had downloaded their newest track. “That’s one Taylor wrote,” Mac said with a smile. “She tells good stories in her lyrics, doesn’t she?”
“She does!” the young woman gushed, pale eyes alight in the shadowed-for-movie-viewing room. “Is she really marrying Eddie Williams?”
Policy was not to discuss the personal business of the members of the band, but Taylor and Eddie’s relationship had received a fair amount of press and the wedding was coming soon, so Mac allowed herself to say, “Yep she really is.”
There was a sigh among the females and the males—and Mac—just smiled tolerantly.
After a few more pleasantries, the movie reached its inevitable conclusion. “I’m still not going to watch it,” Mac informed Derek. He gave her a tour of the rest of the building’s public rooms: kitchen, game room, and the offices and classrooms.
“I like it,” she told him. “Are you able to get folks transitioned out of here quickly, or do some stay for months?”
“It’s usually a matter of a couple of weeks to a month. We have contacts, of course, with local housing communities and there are ways to make it work.”
A middle-aged man with graying blond hair stepped swiftly past them to what appeared to be a bathroom. Derek ignored the man, so Mac did, too. “Personal privacy is hard to come by,” Derek whispered after the bathroom door closed.
“True enough, I’d imagine.”
“All right, ready to head back to the kids?”
She eyed him carefully. “What are you planning on doing?”
“Making some not-quite-beautiful music.” He ducked into one of the offices, holding her hand and half-dragging her behind him as he retrieved a harmonica from a desk drawer. “See?”
“Oh, man. If you’d told me, I could have brought my violin!”
“My turn,” he insisted, tucking the harmonica in his back pocket and, hands still entwined, leading her back to the movie room. “Though, if you can sing Lean on Me, by Bill Withers? That’d be great.”
“You’re kidding me.”
He shook his head, brown eyes alight with mischief and hope. How could she resist that look? At her nod, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it before making a grand entrance into the music room. “Hello! So, did y’all enjoy the movie?”
“Yes!” the children chorused.
“I heard you singing and now . . .” He paused with a melodramatic flourish, letting go of her hand and whipping out his harmonica. “It’s my turn. Joined, of course, by my lovely assistant, Miss Cunningham.”
“Hello, Miss Cunningham!”
“Hey,” she said, waving and pulling her performance persona to the fore. “I heard y’all singing just now, and you were great.” She nodded when some of the kids thanked her. Good manners, they had. “And now, it’s our turn, apparently. Mr. Blakemore, here, wants to play and we’ll all sing, if you know the words, okay?”
“Okay!”
Derek played the opening bars of the Bill Withers classic, giving her the key she had to sing in, and Mac nodded that she was ready and began. In the end, they did indeed make beautiful music together. And sometimes, the audience joined them, and it was even better.
Gratitude and pride wreathed the small faces—and even the adult ones—after the song was over and Derek took time to talk with some of the individuals in the room. Mac kept herself back, holding the harmonica and, after wiping it off a bit, blowing some exploratory puffs of air into it.
“I don’t do wind instruments,” she told the shiny thing in her hands. “But you’re pretty.”
“Next time,” Derek told her as they left The Place, “I’ll make sure you have an instrument, too.”
“Good, because my four alto notes are not that flexible.”
“You were great, Mira-Mira on the Wall.”
“Will you ever get tired of that name?”
“I like your name.”
They stopped at his car and he opened her door for her. Before she folded herself into the seat, she met his gaze squarely. “All right. Fine. Just never, ever use my middle name with it, all right? A girl can only take so much. Mom used to do that to me, and I never did like it.”
With a solemn air, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I promise. No middle name.”
“What’s yours, anyway?”
“Would you believe Daniel? After Daniel Boone?”
“I’ll get you a coonskin hat for Christmas. Artificial, of course.”
“I have five!” he protested. She was still laughing as they left the parking lot.
INTERLUDE X
Mac & Derek
Mac: One week. I am so nervous.
Derek: I’ll have you know, I am prepared to camp out overnight on the benches to make sure I have a good seat to see you. Is your family coming?
Mac: I have no idea. Micah is probably coming, and he’ll have Beth. But Andy doesn’t go for our music. At. All.
Derek: Don’t suppose I can flirt my way into a backstage pass?
Mac: I thought you were camping on the steps! lol
Derek: Well, I’ll hire someone
Mac: I don’t think so, no, but I’ll see what I can do. Maybe if you sign on as a roadie for the weekend?
Derek: I can do that. But you’d have to give me that talking to you mentioned weeks ago. The one you said you give to anyone who touches your guitar.
Mac: I can do that. Maybe. How did you manage to get passes for the Misses-Sip?
Derek: Mike got ‘em. He and your manager are apparently tight or something.
Mac: LOL Fine
Derek: Can I call?
Mac: On a rehearsal break right now and then I’ll be on Broadway looking for new boots. Wanna come?
Derek: New boots? You bet.
Mac & C.C.
Mac: So I’m taking him shopping.
C.C.: Sounds serious. Are you Social Media Official?
Mac: We are! He follows all of us, you know. Even you. ;-)
C.C.: How’s your balance? You told me once you were worried about it.
Mac: Good. But I miss him
C.C.: You’ll see him in, what, an hour? Has he seen your boot closet yet?
Mac: I’m keeping it a secret 'til the wedding.
C.C.: ! ! ! ! ! WHAT???????????
Mac: Legit ROTFLOL here, Ceece. Just messin’ with you.
C.C.: But you even mentioned it. That’s not your usual.
Mac: Is that a dare?
11
“What is that smell?” Derek felt himself blush as soon as he blurted out the question, but he had been taken by surprise.
Mac was taking him on a dark side tour as she termed it. They were strolling the alleys behind the shiny lights and colorful signs on Broadway. The street itself was home to a slew of live performance venues, as well as bars, shops, and larger clubs, such as the one where Andrew had had his bachelor party only a couple months before. Not even two months, come to think of it.
It seemed like no time at all, sometimes. It seemed like months, too. Because he’d met Mira Cunningham that day and his world had changed forever.
“You know, I have no idea what the smell is, but it comes from that vent over there,” she said, pointing to an aging iron grate near the brick steps that led down to a nearly subterranean club. “Sometimes, you can find the local indie musicians here. Open mic nights, or coffee in the morning after a long night or before a long day. Good place to talk shop over a drink if you’re not working that night, too. Sometimes, songwriters get together to bounce ideas around. Place like that is where I first heard about the Outlaws actually. Before we were a band.”
“Wow.” He studied the shadowed doorway, but neither of them made a move to go inside. Instead, he asked, “Did you spend a lot of time not working?” He held her hand and was happy to step beyond the reach of the stink that filled that section of the alley just then. “I’ve heard about starving artists and so on . . .”
She swung their joined hands and looked soberly up at him, hazel eyes steady and honest. “It’s hard for a lot of folks. I had a couple of years picking up the odd gig here and there, sometimes stepping in when a bassist failed to show for a morning performance or working in a studio when someone needed a bass. It got to be pretty steady. I had a reputation as a solid musician without pulling attention from the main attraction.” She shrugged and they reached the end of the alley before turning and walking around to the front of the same buildings on Broadway. “I never had a starving artist problem, of course, but I’m unusually lucky, in that regard. Micah’s been handling my finances for years.”
Derek laughed, feeling uncomfortable that he’d asked. “Well, he told me we need to talk about my portfolio.”
Her smile was broad and wry. “He takes care of family.”
His heart gave a sudden stutter before it picked up speed for a few moments. “Family?”
Mac didn’t look at him as she moved to one side to avoid passing pedestrians with chocolate covered pretzels in their hands. “You were Andy’s roommate. That’s close enough for Micah.”
The disappointment was so sharp he almost stopped walking before he reminded himself that they had only been an item for a month. Maybe. And that had been interrupted by his own attack of nerves. He glanced down at their joined hands, trusting in her to lead their walk in this, her usual haunt. “He’s a good guy, Mike is. Both your brothers, really.”
“Thanks! Oh hey, there’s the boot store.”
Shaking himself from thoughts that were far too heavy for a shopping expedition, Derek looked up to see the broad, plate-glass face of the store with all the western boots on display for the public. “They’re having a sale. I’ve heard sales are good things?”
“They’re always having a sale!” Mac laughed a little. “It’s buy one pair, get two for free, see? It’s their, I dunno, selling point?”
“Fair enough,” he allowed, following her into the store. And then, he added, “Oh, yeah. Leather. Much better smell.”
She tossed him a smile. “Didn’t know you were a leather man, Derek.” He saw her eye his loafers. “Do you even own a pair of boots?”
“No?”
With a tolerant smile, she wrapped her arm around his and led him to the Men’s Boots section. “So, what we can do is this: I find a new pair of boots for the CMA Fest and then we can each pick out another pair. Fair enough?”
“Now hold on, you’re not buying me some boots.”
She stopped, eyes alight with playful anticipation as she tugged at the end of her braid in her free hand. “You’re right, I’m not. They’ll be free, Boot Newbie.” Adopting a serious expression, she asked, “When’s your birthday? Somehow, in between concerts and weddings and whatnot, I forgot to ask.”
He blinked; she was right. When was her birthday? Was it on her Facebook page? How did he not know? A light feeling of embarrassment swept under his skin but, resolving to find out the necessary information, he merely answered her. “Would you believe July 12th?”
“So, consider these boots—the free pair I am not buying you—an early birthday present, okay? From your girlfriend.”
Laughing, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Fine. You got me.”
“Well, I hope so. All right. Let’s start here and look for you, okay?”
He eyed the boots warily. “I’m not . . . not a boot-wearing kind of guy, Mira-Mira.” He indicated one pair with a nod of his head. “Metal on the toes is not my thing.”
“No, you’re right,” she said slowly. Then, hand still twined with his, she moved along. “How about those? They’re nice. The tooling is subtle and there’s no metal in the toe. Nothing fancy, nothing gaudy. All very dignified.” She added a strange emphasis to the last word that he didn’t get, but he let it go. With a quick flip of her braid, she turned and summoned someone to help.
And, before Derek knew it, he was in possession of a pair of Masterson boots, made from leather tanned to a color he was informed was Walnut Deertan. To him, it looked like honey brown, which was fine. “I’ll wear ‘em to the concert,” he told Mac.
“Oh, hey! That’d be so cool!”
“Anything else, sir?” the boot seller asked as he put everything where it belonged again.
“Her turn,” Derek said, jerking his thumb to Mac. “She wants a new pair for the CMA Fest.”
The man was clearly very accustomed to serving the musicians in town, because he didn’t bat an eye. “Right, then. Ms. Cunningham, isn’t it? Lipstick Outlaws? Bass guitar?”
“Yep.”
“Great. C’mon back.” They followed the young man with the spiky black hair to the Women’s Boots section. “The gentleman said they were for the Fest, right?”
“Yep.”
He smiled a little sheepishly. “All right, so, I’m not usually supposed to make it a big deal when our local artists come in to shop, but since wearing boots is your trademark, I wanted to say that I wish we had some in your usual style.” He eyed her feet and Derek did likewise. “You don’t wear the thigh-highs the rest of the time?”
“Nope. Short boots, usually, with jeans. Like today.” Mac wiggled her foot to show off the pointed toe of her red leather boots. “But I’d like something different for this, To, you know, celebrate?”
“Okay, I’m gonna recommend these, here. They’re not as tall as what you usually wear. There’s the red suede on the top, see? With the—” He indicated shiny decorations and shrugged, smiling up at Mac from where he was crouched on the floor near her feet. “Bling? I guess?”
“Bling works,” Mac murmured thoughtfully. “Let’s try ‘em on.”
The salesman used a bootjack to ease the boots on Mac’s feet. She kicked her toes with a small smile before rising and taking slow steps. “What do you think, hon?” she asked over her shoulder
“I like ‘em,” Derek opined diffidently. They weren’t going to be his boots.
Mac hefted one in her hands, turning it this way and that. “I think that heel is workable. I like ‘em, too.”
Eventually, Mac had her new concert boots as well as a pair of short boots in a shade near enough to his that he had to smile inwardly when he thought about it. Matching boots, Blakemore? Really? You are in so much trouble.
In trouble or not, he still managed to get possession of two-thirds of the boot purchase as they left the store. He had an idea. “I know it’s less than two miles back,” he said, referring to the distance to her place—where his car was at th
e moment, since the day was basically perfect and she had claimed to want the exercise after rehearsal—“But I checked, while you were tryin’ on that second pair of boots, and I found out that your birthday is March 16th.”
Arched brown brows shot high into her forehead. “Yeah . . . and?”
“And so, I want to get you a present.” It was an impulse, not his usual operating platform, but he had the feeling he knew where to find just the thing, after he’d done a swift search on his phone. “C’mon, it’s a mile away. Or we can go the two miles back to your place and drop these off and then drive.”
“Ugh. No. Fine, we’ll walk.” She made a show of flexing her left arm. “I’m tough.”
“I know it. All right, let’s go.”
The afternoon was progressing toward evening as they strolled down Broadway. “Where are we going?” she demanded to know after she’d shifted her bag twice in about fifteen minutes.
“Almost there,” he said. “12th Avenue.”
“Oh, hey! There’s some fun stuff, here.” She smiled and he felt a bit of relief that she had. “So, where to?”
“There,” he said, using one shopping bag to indicate the store he wanted.
“There? You know, I’ve never been.”
“Well, neither have I,” he confessed, flashing her a smile. “But I’ve never wanted to shop for a musician’s birthday, either.”
He thought she blushed, but he didn’t stare. Instead, he led the way into the wide store with the eclectic name and went right to the first employee he could see. “Looking for the BU collection,” he told the woman with the gray-streaked hair.
She smiled at him over a pair of half-moon eyeglasses. “I do like a man who knows what he wants, don’t you?” she asked Mac with a wink. “This way, you two.”
“Oh wait. No, nuh-uh,” Mac protested immediately upon seeing the selection of necklaces.
“Belated birthday present from the boyfriend,” he reminded her in a teasing tone, as she had done with him at the boot store.