by Sarra Cannon
“I miss it,” Greg says. “These days our manager is up our ass about keeping to our schedule and getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. He never lets us be free like we used to.”
“Come to think of it, though, it was always our boy Colton here who was instigating such shenanigans,” Charlie says. “I’m sure the cow tipping was his idea.”
“No doubt about it,” Willow says. She looks into my eyes and smiles. “You should really think about coming back out on the road with us again. It would be a lot of fun to have you riding with us.”
The idea kind of throws me off for a second. “Nah. You guys are big time now. What could I possibly bring to the table now?” I ask. “I’d just get in the way.”
“Of course not, you’d be our lucky charm for one thing,” she says. “Most importantly, though, we could start writing music together again like we used to. I’ve been in some kind of slump these days. I think it’s all the pressure of the third record and trying to make it just as good as the first two. I feel like I don’t have any good ideas left.”
“Sure you do, you just need to relax and jar them loose,” Greg says. He pats her shoulder and kisses the top of her head. “It’s going to be fine. Besides, we’ve already got at least five or six really great songs for the next album.”
“Five or six isn’t enough,” she says. She rubs her forehead, and I notice for the first time that she’s got dark circles under her eyes that didn’t use to be there.
“Stop stressing it so much,” Charlie says. “Where’s Aidan? He knows how to cheer you up.”
“He’s outside smoking and chatting up the hotties,” Willow says. “I’ll be fine. I just need a few good weeks of relaxation, and I’ll be right as rain.”
“You guys want another round?” I ask. “We’re getting close to last call.”
“Already?” Willow asks. “Damn, this night has just flown by. We can’t let the party end here, gentlemen. What are we going to do after this? Should we head out to another bar? Or head to the beach house?”
“Every other bar in town is going to be closing,” I say. “City ordinance.”
“The beach house it is, then.”
“Sounds good to me,” Greg says. “I sent our assistant over there this afternoon to make sure it was stocked with whiskey and snacks. We should be good to go for the night.”
“You’re going to join us, right Colton?” Willow asks.
“I wish I could, but I’ve got to help close this place down tonight,” I say. I wonder what Jo has planned for after we close up. I haven’t had nearly enough time with her lately. “Maybe another time?”
“You’re not getting out of this that easily,” Willow says. “Why don’t you come over after you close up? We’ll be partying all night, I’m sure. Just like old times.”
The way she keeps looking at me and catching my eye, I have a feeling she wants me to come over for more than just the music and the partying. Is she really inviting me back into her bed after all this time?
A few months ago, I would have jumped at the chance to have a good time with my old friends. Spending a little extra time with a beautiful woman like Willow wouldn’t have made me think twice. But now?
Not a chance.
I glance back at Jo and she looks over and smiles. She’s the only one I want to be with tonight.
“It’s tempting, but I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on tonight,” I say. “We’ll get together later this week, though, I promise.”
Willow sticks out her bottom lip in a pout. “Your loss,” she says. “We’re having a bunch of people out there tonight, and I can promise you it’s going to be a night to remember.”
“Yes, I’m sure it will,” I say with a secret smile.
This is the night I realized I was in love for the very first time, and that’s just not the kind of thing a guy ever forgets.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Are they gone, already?” I ask. I was trying to get over to officially meet the band, but there were too many people still wanting drinks. Plus, I had to run home real quick and make sure Daddy was doing okay. Thankfully, he was sound asleep in bed already.
“Yeah. Greg has a beach house not far from here,” Colton says. “Apparently they had it stocked with drinks and food and are heading out there to party.”
“Darn,” I say, pouting. “I’ve been so busy all night I didn’t even get a chance to meet them.”
He puts his arms around my waist and kisses the top of my head. “We have an invitation to go out there if you want,” he says. “Just say the word.”
I shake my head. “I’d love to, but I don’t want to leave Daddy alone right now,” I say. “But you can go if you want.”
“I was hoping we could spend some time together,” he says.
“Are you really willing to turn down a once-in-a-lifetime party with a famous band just to hang out at my house and do nothing?” I ask. “I would never ask you to do that. I really don’t mind if you want to go.”
“Trust me, it’s not once-in-a-lifetime,” he says. “I used to tour with them back in the day. I’ve had enough party nights with them to last forever, but what I haven’t had is enough time with my beautiful girlfriend lately.”
I blush and tuck my head against his chest. He really is too good to be true.
“Let’s get this place cleaned up, then, so we can do something terribly exciting, like watch yet another movie,” I say, laughing. “I’ll even let you choose tonight.”
“I knew there was something special about tonight,” he jokes. “My very own choice of DVD. I’m in heaven.”
I smack his arm and turn to start working on getting the bar closed down. He grabs the belt loop on the back of my jeans and pulls me back toward him.
“Now, wait just a second,” he says. “I need one more minute of snuggling before we get back to work.”
I laugh as he wraps his strong arms around me and kisses my neck.
“Maybe you don’t deserve any snuggling,” I say. “You’ve been keeping secrets from me.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he says as he keeps kissing his way up and down my neck.
“I’m serious,” I say, spinning around. “You really used to tour with them?”
He shrugs. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It is, too,” I say. “When was this?”
“About two and a half years ago,” he says. “Greg and I used to play guitar together a lot in high school, but we didn’t see each other for a while when he moved off to go to college at UGA. He invited me to come up and spend a weekend with him to meet some new friends he’d made. That’s where he met the other guys from the band and they’d been playing around a lot in their spare time. I was the one who suggested they start an actual band, and I guess the rest is history.”
“You’re kidding me?” I say. “You’re the one who convinced them to start a band? I had no idea. And you’re the one who wrote Picking Up The Pieces? Wasn’t that their first hit single?”
It makes me wonder just how much I don’t know about him. I can’t believe he’s acting like it’s nothing to get excited about.
“Willow and I wrote it together, really,” he says. “I wrote the lyrics, but she’s the one who figured up most of the actual music.”
I shake my head. I’m dating a songwriter and never even knew it.
I start gathering dirty glasses and empty bottles from around the bar. “So does that mean you get royalties from the song? How does that work?”
He frowns. “No, to be honest, my name isn’t officially listed as a co-writer,” he says with a shrug. “It’s not a big deal, though.”
My eyes go wide. “Not a big deal. Colton—”
“Let it go, okay?” he asks, and I can tell from his tone that he means it.
“How long did you tour with them?” I ask, even though I really want to give him hell about the royalty thing. He’s been cheated out of a hell of a lot of money. Doesn’t he realize that?
“About t
hree months,” he says. “I ended up moving up to Athens for a few months first. We rented a house together so the band could practice whenever they wanted, and I acted as a part-time manager, talking to local bars and getting gigs for them before they started travelling.”
“Unbelievable,” I say. “How come you never told me this before?”
He shrugs and turns on the water to start washing glasses. “I guess it didn’t seem important.”
“Bullshit,” I say. “There has to be more to it than that.”
He laughs. “You never let up, do you?” he says, shaking his head. “How do you always know when there’s more to tell?”
“I’ve been working at a bar half my life,” I say. “I’ve dealt with more bullshit than most people deal with in a lifetime, trust me. Now, spill it.”
I grab two glasses from the stack of clean ones and pour a couple of shots.
Colton takes his glass and throws it back. “Thanks,” he says. “I needed that.”
“I had a feeling,” I say, downing my own shot and pouring another round. “Tell me what happened.”
“I was out touring with them for a while. Mostly dive bars and small-town fairs, stuff like that,” he says. He closes his eyes for a second and takes a deep breath. “I hadn’t been home for a while, but I knew my grandpa wasn’t feeling so well. He’d been in and out of the hospital for chest pains and some problems with circulation.”
I lean against the bar, listening. I’m pretty sure I know where this story is heading, and it makes my heart hurt for him.
“He told me the doctors wanted him to go in for this procedure,” he says. “All standard stuff. The kind of thing they’ve done a thousand times, you know? He was real nervous, though. He said he had a feeling things weren’t right. I told him he was being silly and that he’d be around for a long time yet.”
I reach over and place my hand on his.
“The thing is, I knew exactly when the procedure was scheduled, and I had a chance to come home,” he says. “The band was playing in a town not that far from here, and I could have come back to be with him. He wanted me to be here, but I was young and stupid and having a good time. Hell, even though I was still underage, I was drunk nearly every night, going wild.”
He pauses and wipes away a tear.
“He called me the night before he went in for the surgery,” he says. “He told me he loved me and that he was scared he wasn’t going to pull through.”
He shakes his head and turns away, his shoulders shaking. I wrap my arms around him and place my head against his back.
“Colton, I’m so sorry,” I say.
“I told him he’d be fine and that there was nothing to worry about,” he says, his voice choking on sobs. “I said I’d come see him when he got home and that we’d be playing guitar on his back porch before he knew it. But he was right. The doctors said his heart just wasn’t strong enough to handle the surgery, and he died on the table. I never got to tell him I was sorry. I never told him how much he meant to me. I could have been there, but instead I decided to hang out with my friends, playing guitar and drinking. I passed out until late the next day. I woke up to six missed calls from my mom telling me he’d passed away. I’ll never be able to forgive myself for that.”
He turns and wraps his arms around my shoulders, and I hold him as tight as I can as he cries. My tears soak into his shirt, and my heart aches for him and this regret he’s been carrying inside for years.
“It’s not your fault,” I say. “From everything you’ve told me about your relationship with your grandpa, I have no doubt that he knew exactly how much you loved him.”
He wipes a hand across his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get so upset,” he says. He turns away from me, but I pull him back to me.
“I’m glad you told me,” I say. “You shouldn’t carry that burden alone, Colton. It’s hard to live with regrets that pull our hearts apart. I understand that more than you know.”
“I came home for the funeral and never went back to the band,” he says. “I turned twenty-one a few months later and got that job at Brantley’s. I haven’t left home since.”
“That’s why it was so hard for you to see that guitar the other day at the cabin, isn’t it?” I ask.
He nods. “I haven’t picked up a guitar since the day he died,” he says. “I can’t bear to think of what he was going through while I was out there playing around and spending time with people that didn’t matter nearly as much to me as he did.”
“You’re punishing yourself,” I say. Which is another thing I understand with all my heart. “He wouldn’t want you to give up music, though, Colton. Not if he’s the one who taught you to play.”
He holds his hand against his forehead. “I’m not sure I have music inside of me, anymore,” he says. “It was something we shared that was so special to me, and I feel like I didn’t honor him. I wasn’t there for him when he needed me, and I don’t know how to live with that.”
“You can’t blame yourself forever, either,” I say. “How does that honor him? For you to give up something you both loved so much?”
He smiles, but it quickly turns to more tears. “The crazy thing is that I know you’re right,” he says. “I guess I’ve just spent a long time trying to avoid it. That’s why I haven’t gone back to his cabin in so long. Sometimes it’s easier not to face it. But maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s time to start playing again.”
I hold him close and hope that he can feel just how much I care for him. I never knew my own grandparents, but I remember how hard it was when my mother left. I blamed myself for her departure for a long time, thinking that if I had been a better girl and hadn’t caused her so much trouble when I was young that she might have stayed.
Loss is one of the hardest things we have to deal with as human beings, and some losses are the kind you never recover from. But hopefully time can start to heal what hurts us most.
“Thank you for sharing this with me,” I say. “I know it’s not an easy thing to talk about, but it means a lot to me that you trusted me with it.”
The moment the words leave my lips, I realize how much this echoes what happened between us the other night when Bryan was here. He’s shared something extremely personal with me when I couldn’t do the same for him.
“It actually helps to say it out loud,” he says. “I haven’t told anyone about that last conversation with him, not even my mom or my sisters. I’ve been holding it in for so long, I didn’t realize how much it would help to finally face it. To just tell someone.”
I smile up at him and he leans down to kiss me.
His touch is so tender and loving that I feel it all the way through my body.
“I love you, Jo,” he says when he pulls away, and the words rock me backwards. “I wasn’t going to tell you, because I was afraid that you’d feel like you had to say it back to me, but I can’t hold it in. I love you, and I’ve never loved any woman before in my life. Not like this.”
“I love you, too,” I say, tears spilling onto my cheeks.
I do love him. I’ve loved him for a while now, and I’m amazed at how much he’s opened my heart and changed my life in the past few months.
I’ve avoided having a relationship or opening myself up to love for so long that I had forgotten how amazing it could feel to give yourself to someone. And how terrifying it could be when you weren’t sure how they truly felt about you.
But Colton Tucker is in love with me, and I know I am the luckiest woman in the world.
He places his hands on my face and kisses me again, this time hungrier and more passionately.
I have never felt so connected and so free.
“Let’s leave this for tomorrow,” I say. “Take me to your place.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he says.
He picks me up and carries me to the back door of the bar. He turns off the lights and locks the door behind us as he carries me across the yard and up the s
teps to his small apartment.
I laugh as he fumbles with his keys and finally pushes the door open.
He takes me to the bed and I watch as he pulls his shirt off. I raise onto my knees and start working on the buckle of his jeans. I’ve never wanted someone so much in my life.
We undress each other in the dark and finally, when there’s nothing between us but the love in our hearts, we confirm with our bodies what our mouths have already declared.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I’m still awake when the sun comes up. Jo is asleep at my side, and I love watching her when she’s so peaceful and unguarded. We spent all day together on Sunday, cooking and watching TV with her dad, and she came over last night to be with me again.
I never dreamed that love could be this powerful, but now that I’ve told her exactly how I feel, there’s a strange knot of worry growing inside.
I’ve never had a good thing in my life that I didn’t screw up or destroy in some way. Even my most precious relationship with my grandpa was something I messed up when it really mattered. Jo is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but what if I make a mistake? What if I let her down?
She’s known the best of me, but she’s never been on the receiving end of one of my massive screw-ups.
It will break me if I hurt her in any way.
She rolls over and sleepily opens her eyes. “Good morning,” she says, kissing my arm.
“Good morning.”
“Did you sleep?” she asks.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” I say, and she laughs.
“What time is it, do you know?”
I glance over at the clock by the bed. “Six-thirty.”
She groans. “I need to go home and check on Daddy,” she says. “He’s got an appointment with the neurologist this morning.”
“Another appointment?” I ask. “Man, when are they going to have some answers for you guys?”
She shakes her head and rubs the sleep from her eyes. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she says. “I’m trying to be patient, but it’s getting pretty frustrating. I think he’s getting worse, too, but he’s trying to hide it from me.”