Bo & Ember

by Andrea Randall

  Copyright 2014 Andrea Randall. All Rights Reserved.

  To Pamela, who never stopped believing in this series, or in me.

  Ember

  Bo Cavanaugh.

  6’2”, broad-shouldered, thick black hair that was long enough to run your hands through—but short enough for the board room—and a charming smile that led you all the way up to his 20,000 leagues-blue eyes. Guitar. Voice. All of it.

  He was absolutely everything all of the female—and some of the male—fans of The Six had grown to love over the last two years. Indie rock star. That last bit had him smiling humbly, and me beaming with pride.

  The Six hadn’t planned on having a “front man.” As our first summer tour neared its end, however, it became clear that Bo was what the fans wanted the most. He seemed to be able to capture the essence my parents and their friends had worked for decades to create, while bringing in a new batch of fans that melted at his smile and admired the risks he took with the guitar.

  “They love you just as much,” Regan whispered into my ear as I spied on Bo doing his sound check for the night’s show.

  “Get out of my head already!” I hissed back playfully.

  Regan muffled a laugh as he dodged the weak smack I threw his way. “I’m serious. It’s like Johnny and June, co-op style.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” I leaned my head on Regan as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

  No matter how many times I’d seen it, watching Bo alone with his guitar still took my breath away. Each time I happened upon that private moment, it was the same as that May night two years ago when I first saw him play. When everything stopped in the most cliché way possible, and all I could see, hear, and feel was him.

  Regan kept his voice quiet as he spoke. “You have no idea. No. You must. They go just as crazy when you join him on stage as they do when he walks out there by himself. It’s not just because he’s Hottie McGuitar. You two are blindingly in love and people are, like, watching music porn when you’re on stage together.”

  “Lovely,” I mused sarcastically.

  “It’s true. Not only have you kicked the shit out of your guitar skills, your vocals are above anyone I’ve heard in a long time. Including anyone in this band.” Regan moved so he was holding both of my shoulders.

  I smiled as his messy hazel eyes twinkled with sincerity. “Jesus, Regan. Did you ever think we’d end up here?”

  Regan dropped his hands, shaking his head as he took in the wide green space in front of the stage. “Not in a million.”

  Here wasn’t just the grape-scented air of Napa. It was here. Touring together. Me, Bo, Regan, and The Six. Here was spending the last year after our first successful summer tour doing tour weekends across the Pacific Northwest and the warm and dry South West. Here was having not been back to the East Coast except for once in two whole years. Here was me as Mrs. Cavanaugh. Bo’s wife. November Cavanaugh.

  We were in Napa for the biggest opportunity any of us had ever dreamed of, which is what had Regan biting his nails with a sour look on his face. No doubt from the rosin that always stuck on his skin. Still, he couldn’t keep his fingers out of his mouth.

  But, the object of Regan’s awe was Live in the Vineyard, a three-day event in Napa Valley. The opposite of everything you’d consider a “music festival,” Live in the Vineyard was an intimate experience of acoustic-only performers, playing for an audience of contest-winners. There was no buying your way in. The music was made up of Top 40 artists, as well as “emerging artists,” and hosted top chefs and wine makers for private tastings. Perfect pairings, if you asked me.

  There were several things special about this event. First and foremost, a band that’s not in the Top 40 has to be high on someone’s radar in order to obtain a coveted invite. There wouldn’t be a hoard of screaming fans here. Again, it was an intimate opportunity to connect with fans. However, there were very real opportunities for bigger record deals here. I say bigger because my parents own their own label, but it’s private. And small. With a much, much smaller bank account. An invite not only meant there was strong fan interest, but someone had to be paying attention.

  While The Six as a whole was slated to play a few numbers, Bo, Regan, and I had been given a second billing, which was nearly unheard of. Someone was really listening and, honestly, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I knew my parents and the rest of their original band had no interest in a record deal. They stated several times they wouldn’t do national tours again. Maybe one, but that was it. While I wasn’t sure where I stood on the matter, I knew what I wanted for Bo and Regan.

  Everything.

  While Regan would be a hard sell, since he was generally uncomfortable with loads of attention, Bo wanted it. It was in the smile that grew wider over the course of the last two years. A different smile than the one he gave me first thing every single morning. This was a smile I saw on the face of every artist that got to do exactly what they’d always wanted. It came from deep inside their bones. That’s why he had his head down going over chord after chord. He wasn’t just practicing for the small crowd tonight. He was preparing for an unspoken audition into something greater.

  “Are you going to stare at me all day, or were you planning on joining us for practice?”

  I jumped and looked to my left, realizing that somewhere in my swirling thoughts, Regan had left my side and headed out next to Bo, where he stood tuning his violin.

  Fiddle, though, was how we were to refer to it tonight, and, probably forever. They were the same damn thing, but fiddle was hip and violin was stiff, according to current trends.

  “I’d prefer to stare all day, if that’s all right with the both of you. You two make music worth dropping everything for.” I picked up my mom’s old guitar from its place against the wall and walked to meet the guys. I had my own guitar, but always played hers given the opportunity. It had history in its wood that made me feel at home.

  Before taking my place on the stool set for me, I turned to Bo, setting my guitar down before wrapping my arms around his neck.

  “I’m madly in love with you,” I whispered just before my lips connected with his.

  He gave a satisfied sigh as his mouth opened slightly, and his free arm encircled my waist. His lips were home. We’d spent more than two hundred days on the road in the last year, but here inside the warmth of his kiss, I always found where I was supposed to be.

  “Ahem …” Regan cleared his throat in the bored and irritated tone that reminded us to get to work.

  “I love you more,” Bo whispered back to me before releasing his hold.

  I pulled my head back and studied those ocean blues of his. Definitely Atlantic. Cool and stormy set in his now-bronzed skin. A few months on the road on the West Coast will do that to most people.

  Regan groaned. “Guys, please. Georgia doesn’t get here for a few hours, and normally I put up with this love show, but…”

  “Sorry, Reeg.” I scooted to his side, planting a chaste kiss on his cheek. “How long is Georgia staying?”

  Georgia had become one of my best friends. I knew it was hard for Regan to leave her for long periods of time, but the good news was her bakery was too busy for her to come along.

  The tension around his eyes dissolved as he grinned. “She’ll be here the whole time we’re in Napa, and for a few days after. Her mom and the new employee she hired this summer are going to run the bakery so she can have a ten-day vacation.”

  “How’s her mom?” Bo piped up, waiting for us to tune.

  “She’s been great. Georgia said the last several months have been better for her than she can remember.” Regan drew his bow across the strings and closed his eyes.

  Georgia’s mother, Amanda, had cata
tonic schizophrenia. After a lengthy round of ECT a year and a half ago, paired with new medication and therapy, she’d been doing really well. While I always had my mom with me, whether on tour or at home, Amanda Hall still acted like a mother for the youngsters in the band. She and Georgia sent us care packages filled with baked goods on a weekly basis. Georgia joked she wanted to fatten our men up enough to keep people listening to their music, and stop looking at their bodies. I told her not to worry, but I could tell it was difficult for her.

  After tuning for a few moments, I looked to the guys. “Okay, so we’ve got to nail down our set list for tonight. I’m freaking out a little that we have to go on ourselves before the rest of the band does, but…”

  I trailed off as Bo started strumming his fingers over his guitar in the middle of a song—as though he’d been playing it in his head for the past few minutes. Regan joined in at the exact moment the fiddle was supposed to. Tears came unexpectedly, clouding my vision as they played an instrumental interlude of "Heaven When We’re Home," the song by The Wailin’ Jennys that Bo and I sang together with Monica minutes after I met him for the first time.

  I entered the song without discussion, letting the notes swirl around us.

  …There’s no such thing as perfect, and if there is we’ll find it when we’re good and dead. Trust me I’ve been lookin’, but tonight I think I’ll go and take a bath instead…”

  I was secretly hoping Bo would join me for the chorus, as he’d done when he first blew me away over two years ago. I knew then. I really did.

  And it’s a long and rugged road…

  I closed my eyes as Bo met my hidden expectations, harmonizing with my voice and leading us through the rest of the song. We hadn’t sung that song together since our first night back in Barnstable, and I’d be lying if I said it felt exactly the same. No. It felt a million times better.

  More than two years ago, the dark, stormy, and sexy stranger who took over my favorite song with me made me want to kiss him. Rendered me confused and lit me up with unexpected feelings. All of that still held true, but this time, as we finished out my favorite song ever, I was singing it with my husband. With the man to whom I’d promised my eternity, and with the man who promised me his right back.

  “You like?” Regan nudged my side playfully with his elbow, lifting his eyebrows as he smiled.

  I nodded, smiling until my cheeks hurt. “I’m with you jerks twenty-seven hours a day. How’d you …” I turned to Bo, who looked up hopefully through his unfairly long eyelashes.

  “You sleep sometimes. As soon as we got the invite to this gig, I told Regan we had to play it. It’s the perfect audience.” Bo adjusted his mic and quietly strummed his guitar as we spoke.

  “But they’re here for you.” I turned and pointed to Regan. “And for you.”

  The guys shook their head in unison. Regan spoke first. “You know damn well that executives don’t waste their time with superfluous voices if they’re looking for just one. I don’t know who’s looking for what here,” he said, gesturing between the three of us. “But if it wasn’t one of us, they wouldn’t have singled out the three of us.”

  My eyes moved to Bo, who nodded in agreement.

  My long-buried performance anxiety started pushing its way through my gut. “Well,” I took a long, deep breath, “guess we better get that setlist straight then, huh?”

  “That’s why Regan and I brushed up on that Wailin’ Jennys song. We want to do that tonight. It highlights everything you do best. We can take it from the top, then hammer out the rest of the list.”

  I slung the strap of my mother’s guitar over my shoulder and settled on the stool, taking another deep breath as I tested my mic.

  I bit my lip, wondering how I felt about all of the things I thought might be possible for the three of us. Regan was right, and I don’t know why I didn’t pay attention to it. They wouldn’t have asked me to sing with Regan and Bo if someone didn’t want to hear me sing. Bo didn’t need me for an act. He could play and sing just fine.

  “Ready?” Regan asked as he prepared to count us off.

  “Ready.” Bo cleared his throat. “Ember?”

  I cleared my throat and swallowed hard before meeting Bo’s eyes. He set his hand on my knee and kissed me once on the lips. He didn’t need words. All the butterflies fluttering through my veins grounded their flight and allowed me to take one more deep breath before we got down to business.

  Regan, Bo, and I were afforded a gorgeous evening under the stars for our performance. We’d join The Six for their performance the next day, but for the next half hour, it was just the three of us. We waited inside something that looked like a small pool house before we were called.

  “You guys will do great. What do you have lined up for your set?” Georgia asked as she wrapped her arms around Regan, having arrived in Napa only an hour earlier.

  Regan chose to kiss her instead of answer, so, with a smile I picked up the slack. “Some Wailin’ Jennys, Civil Wars, you know…” I trailed off, huffing out my nerves in a ragged breath. I’d been thinking all day about the implications of tonight.

  Frankly, if it didn’t go well, that wouldn’t matter as far as The Six was concerned, but it was beginning to matter to me. Bo, Regan, and I had been gelling so well over the last few weeks, I was really starting to view us as a trio, a legitimate group with legs of our own if we chose to walk on them.

  My mind was spinning. If someone had told me three years ago that I was going to want a career in music after spending a whole year working with my parents and their band, I’d have checked them for signs of hysteria. This wasn’t in the plan.

  My old plan, anyway. Bo Cavanaugh was a bit of a game changer in more ways than one. More ways than either of us had envisioned, I think.

  “Hey.” Bo lifted my chin with his index finger. “You don’t get nervous, so don’t start now. You’re aces, love.” He winked and slid his hand around the back of my neck as he pulled me into a kiss.

  “Jesus,” Georgia whispered loudly, “is he the most romantic person in the universe?”

  Regan twisted his lips and nodded. “‘Fraid so.”

  Between Bo’s soft assurance and Georgia and Regan’s ever-present banter, I was once again calmed and ready for the show.

  Just as Jan Lieberman, an organizer for the event, called us out to the garden, I tugged Bo’s wrist. His palms were warm, but not yet sweaty.

  “What’s up?” he whispered as soft applause sprang from the direction of the soft green grass.

  I bit my lip, looking up at him as my cheeks flushed. “Whatever this is … I want it.”

  Bo squeezed my hand, shooting a sideways glance at Regan, who just smiled. “So let’s go get it.”

  We’d had almost all of our contact for this event with Jan, who smiled as we took our places.

  “Good luck, guys.” She gave us a thumbs-up as she ducked into the shadows with a glass of wine.

  As I looked out into the crowd, I realized my previous description of the venue as a “garden” was a gross understatement. We were outdoors, but that was about the extent to which the comparisons to a poolside garden ended. It was more intimate than the thousands we’d played for at the SoCal Music and Arts Festival over the summer, but the intimate set up made me feel more on display, somehow. Still, I wanted this. I wanted to do well, no matter what it meant. If it even meant anything.

  “Thank you, everyone, for being here this evening.” Bo’s voice was a low hum as his stage persona took over. Smooth and just the right amount of seductive.

  “We love you, Bo! Woo!” Squeals from the back of the crowd started a cascade of applause and dreamy sighs.

  “Regan!” Another section of fans waved, and Regan brought his hand to his brow and saluted them. My guys were right in their element.

  I adjusted my mic to the right height and leaned in. “Thank you for having us. This is such an honor.” I jumped, startled as a stampede of applause shot through my ears. S
ome people rose to their feet before we’d even sung a note, calling my name.

  November Blue.

  Looking to my left, I found Bo with his head down, taking a deep breath as he always did before we played. Looking to my right, Regan met my gaze and smiled, mouthing, told you so, as fans continued to call to me.

  “All right, let’s get started…” I nodded our count to Bo and we began our set as cheers continued through the crowd.

  We started with “Heaven When We’re Home” at my request. I needed something familiar to settle me into the set. I always started singing with my eyes closed; something I’d come to realize my mother did, as well. Regan teased me incessantly about it, promising me that I was missing out on half of the experience of performing for a crowd. So, after I sang the intro solo, I opened my eyes and looked to Regan. He winked and nodded in approval as I turned my eyes to the crowd.

  I had to focus twice as hard when Bo entered the song. We met each other’s eyes three beats before he joined me, and when he did, the whistles and claps from the crowd almost knocked me off balance. We’d received this kind of reaction many times before, through the past several months of touring with The Six, but in this setting it felt almost oppressively intimate.

  My emotional connection with my husband always deepened when we sang or played together. He’d spent two years helping me fine-tune my guitar skills, and I coached him on vocals. Together this was what we were meant to do. As the song reach its end, I knew I didn’t want to stop. Not tonight, and not for as long as I had a song in my heart.

  Before we knew it, our set was up and we had to leave the stage. The standing ovation we received was overwhelming and had me floating all the way backstage.

  “Nailed it!” Georgia raised her arms into the air, and Regan swung his pin-up girlfriend around as he kissed her. She’d finally let her hair grow back to its natural chocolate brown color, and it suited her. She looked even more badass than she had the first night I met her a year ago.

  “Was it as good as it felt?” I asked, breathless from adrenaline.