Nashville Boxed Set #1-3

by Bethany Michaels

  But I didn’t.

  I walked Dillon to the door, smiled, and lied, saying I hoped we could still be friends, too.

  Then I went to my room, lay on the my bed and stared at the Jailhouse Rock poster above my dresser until my vision blurred and pink morning light filtered through the blinds bringing the sounds of a living city into my empty apartment.

  I couldn’t go on like this. I knew that. I had to do something.

  I got out of bed, made a couple of phone calls, grabbed a shower, packed my duffel bag, and headed for the bus terminal.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Collin, Dillon’s four-thirty guitar lesson, was late. Dillon sat in the lesson room in the back of Dutton Music and idly plucked out “Blue Moon” on his guitar, not really minding. He wasn’t exactly good company these days.

  He glanced at the clock. Rehearsal with Road Kill was starting in half an hour. Then they had a gig at a bar where the same dozen people would show up to hear them. He’d meet Hailey somewhere afterwards or go by her apartment, and listen to her gush about the baby and the nursery and all the stuff she and her mother were going to buy for it.

  Dillon would give his opinion as to whether she should go with yellow or green, bunnies or Noah’s Ark. He’d nod and smile and really try to concentrate on the good things, like being satisfied that he was doing the right thing about the baby. Then he’d go back to Ted’s basement and sleep on the couch with the cat piss, and dream of Becca all night.

  If Dillon was doing the right thing, why did it feel so wrong?

  Going to Becca’s apartment had been masochistic. Even though he knew it was a mistake, he had wanted to see her. It and had been selfish and had hurt to be so close to her, yet not be able to reach out and take her. Even though she’d never admit it, Dillon knew he’d hurt Becca again, too, with his thoughtless act. He’d seen her with that other guy and it had sent him around the bend. He fully admitted to himself that he was in love with her. Probably had been for a while, ever since he saw her standing on the balcony outside that fairy princess ballroom. She’d turned and before she’d tried to hide it, Dillon had seen the look of pleasure and affection on her face when she looked at him, too.

  Dillon smiled, though pain lanced through his chest at the memory. Yeah, that was the moment he’d fallen totally head over heels for Becca.

  Ten minutes before the end of his scheduled lesson, Collin rushed into the room, lugging his guitar case behind him. His face was flushed and he nearly tripped over the case in his rush.

  “Hey there,” Dillon said, leaning his guitar against an amp. “Slow down, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Dillon. But I got something to show you!”

  Dillon couldn’t stifle a smile. Collin was not one of his best students, but he was the most enthusiastic. He’d been taking lessons for several months on a beat-up old acoustic his mother had found in a pawn shop. It was his greatest treasure.

  “What is it, buddy?”

  Collin laid his guitar case on the floor with reverence and flipped the latches. He settled the huge guitar around his scrawny shoulders, just like Dillon had showed him, and played the song they’d been working on for weeks without a single mistake.

  The look on his face when he was done made Dillon forgot all his own Becca-Hailey-baby-Road Kill troubles. It was pure, unadulterated joy. For just a second, he remembered what that was like. Kids could have such a pure passion for something that nothing else mattered. Not skill, not the time it took, not the risk of failure. Nobody else’s expectations mattered. Dillon wished he could be that kid again. He patted Collin on the shoulder, his throat tight.

  “That’s great, Collin. You’ve been practicing.”

  He held up his Band-Aided fingers happily. “Three hours a day.”

  Dillon returned to his stool and slipped the guitar strap over his head. “Now let’s try a harder one.”

  They worked for more than an hour until Dillon looked up to see Collin’s mom standing in the doorway, watching them with a proud, thoughtful smile on her face.

  “Time to go, Collin,” she said. “I’m sure Mr. Dillon has other students.”

  “Aw, Mom,” Collin groaned, but got up and put away his guitar anyway.

  “What do I owe you for the extra time?” Collin’s mom asked, getting out her wallet.

  “Nothing,” Dillon said. “It was my pleasure.”

  She put away her wallet. “It’s good to see you smile again. You seem like you’ve been kind of down lately.”

  Dillon realized that he was happier than he’d been since before he’d made the decisions to leave Becca.

  “Yeah.”

  She shook her head. “My hours got cut back at work last month,” she said. “Money’s been tight. I know I should put the money towards bills or Collin’s college fund instead of guitar lessons, but he looks forward to this hour all week. His little heart would be broken if he couldn’t come anymore.” She watched her son pack up his instrument with care. Love and pride shone on her face. “It’s my favorite hour of the week, too.”

  “Mine, too,” Dillon said smiling down at his student.

  After Collin and his mother left, Dillon didn’t know how long he sat there, just playing. He played for himself. Not because his band mates expected it, not because he’d made a promise to himself to make a career in music and not because it was the right thing to do.

  Dillon thought of his dad and how he’d tried to instill a sense of old-fashioned honor in his boys. He thought of his brother, who had married his pregnant girlfriend at nineteen and seemed happy enough with his life. He thought of Hailey, holding their child, coming home with him at holidays, of the look of pride on his father’s face as he held his grandbaby. Dillon thought of Hailey sitting with his mom and Heather, chatting happily about baby things and birthday parties and pumpkin pie recipes.

  Dillon tried to envision my life with Hailey. But every time he did, Becca’s face popped into his head. Becca, with her smart mouth, her tough exterior. Her fear. The vulnerability she tried so hard to hide from the world. Becca screaming in ecstasy at the lake. Becca with another guy in a dim, smoky bar somewhere, some other guy’s hands on her. And what could he do about it? Nothing, because she wasn’t Dillon’s. She never would be again.

  Dillon’s gut clenched. His fingers slipped off the guitar strings. Everything came into crystal-clear focus.

  He’d screwed up. Royally. Becca had opened up to him and he’d taken her trust and her love and shredded it, just like every other guy she’d ever known had done.

  And what he was doing to Hailey and the baby wasn’t much better. They deserved better, too. Hailey deserved to find happiness with a man who loved her as much as Dillon loved Becca.

  Dillon didn’t know if he had a chance at getting Becca back. If Dillon was her, he’d tell himself to go to hell. But he couldn’t think about that. Even if Becca never spoke to him again, he could not marry Hailey and take the easy, expected path through this.

  His gut unclenched and as he flipped open his phone and dialed, he knew for certain that he was about to make a lot of people really upset with him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As far as mansions go, Graceland is pretty tiny. It’s nestled in what once might have been an upscale part of Memphis, but now it’s the kind of place where you roll up the car windows once you’re off the interstate and make sure you’re out of there before dark.

  The mansion itself is alike a time capsule of the disco age. Fur was in. Shag covered the floor, the ceiling, and even the lampshades. But even for all the kitsch, you feel a sense of reverence when you tour the mansion. The man lived and died in the house, sort of a prisoner to his own fame. It’s an odd combination of comedy and tragedy, entertainment, and grief, just like I imagine the man who lived there was.

  Sometimes if you look closely at candid photos of Elvis, you see a hint of the sadness there. The love and acceptance he never really felt, the lack of self-confi
dence that I imagine him spending most of his life hiding. He hid behind those big gold glasses for a reason and it wasn’t drugs.

  But it’s not all doom and gloom. The half-million interesting people who make the pilgrimage there every year are worth the trip alone. And the shops and cafes and Elvis junk is simply breathtaking. You can get any household object imaginable with Elvis’s face on it.

  “What do you think of these, Rebecca?”

  I glanced at my sister, Sherri, across the cramped gift shop just off of Elvis Presley Boulevard. She held up an enormous rhinestone belt and wore the biggest smile I’d seen on her in years. Just for an instant, all the lines and worry marks faded to reveal a glimpse of the girl she’d been back when we both wore pigtails and Saturday morning cartoons were the shit.

  “Perfect. You can wear it to the next PTO meeting.”

  She actually giggled.

  “Oh, does that come in gold?” my mom asked, perfectly serious. “That would go perfect with my new go-go boots.”

  Then she looked at me and winked. “Gotcha.”

  Mom looked years younger, too. The bruises had faded from her run-in with her ex-boyfriend and the stitches had been removed. Sherri had helped her move in with them and so far, it was touch-and-go, but no one had really expected it to be like The Brady Bunch. I was pretty sure Mom wasn’t done with assholes for good and equally sure I hadn’t seen the last of hospital waiting rooms and that sucked. But right now, things were good.

  Forty bucks in gas, another ten dollars to park, fifty dollars a night for a hotel, thirty bucks apiece to tour the mansion and grounds Elvis called home, and at least another hundred dollars in souvenirs had drained what was left of my savings account.

  It had been worth every cent just to bring a smile to my mom’s face.

  What good was money in the bank, anyway? It didn’t buy anything but stuff. I couldn’t buy memories. Or smiles. Or getting to know my niece and nephew. Or four hours in a rental car singing the entire Viva Las Vegas soundtrack with family that no matter how fucked up, was still family.

  It also took my mind off Dillon. He was playing his big gig at Tootsie’s that night and I couldn’t help but be nervous for him. I’d wanted to be there, but the thought of walking in and seeing Hailey there at the foot of the stage was just too much.

  Delilah peeked out from beneath a rack of pink “I ♥ Elvis” T-shirts.

  “Can’t find me, Aunt Becca,” she sing-songed.

  I slid on a pair of gold Elvis-style sunglasses and crawled right under the rack with her. “Oh yeah?”

  “Delilah, you’d better not be in the racks again,” my sister said from the display of decorative plates.

  “Shh,” I said “Don’t tell your mom we’re under here.” I tickled my niece until her giggle gave us away for sure.

  It had been a long road trip from Paducah down to Memphis, but it was worth it. I cherished getting to know my niece and nephew and I totally got it now, why Dillon was so fond of his nieces. It was something I should have done a long time ago.

  Brown loafers stopped right in front of the rack. “Uh-oh. Busted,” I said, expecting a surly salesperson asking in a condescending voice if he could help us, when what he really meant was get the hell out of my T-shirts, you crazy lady. Although given the ardor of Elvis groupies, I was sure he’d seen stranger.

  “Let’s go,” I whispered to Delilah, motioning her to exit at the opposite side from the angry loafers. “Quick.”

  I crawled out and got to my feet like nothing was out of the ordinary. I smoothed my hair that was full of static electricity and turned to face the surly salesperson.

  Only it wasn’t a salesperson. And he wasn’t surly.

  “What—?” was all I could get out, my breath sucked away by shock and a sudden lurch in my stomach.

  “Hello, Becca.”

  My mom and sister almost got whiplash turning to see who I was talking to.

  Dillon looked rumpled, like he’d slept in his car. His shirt was wrinkled and mis-buttoned, his hair sticking up on one side. His smile was tentative and tired, his bright eyes focused solely on me as if I were an oasis in the middle of the Sahara. He’d never looked hotter.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I followed you,” Dillon said, over the rack of T-shirts.

  I pulled off the sunglasses and set them on top of my head, still not sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

  “Why?” I managed to get out. I crossed my arms. Didn’t he know it killed me to see him?

  “Missed you?” Dillon shook his head. “No, that’s not exactly right.” He circled the rack to stand right in front of me. “Ask me again.”

  “Dillon, I can’t play these games anymore.”

  “Ask me again,” he insisted.

  I wasn’t sure Dillon wasn’t having some sort of episode, but just looking at him hurt. If I had to play the game to get rid of him, I would. What I would tell my Mom and Sherri about the whole thing, I had no idea.

  “Fine. What are you doing here?” I glared at him as hard as I could manage.

  “I need you.”

  “What?”

  He looked deep into my eyes, just like we were in the final scene of a sappy romantic comedy. “I love you. Head over heels. I’m totally useless, a shell of a man without you. You’re the wind beneath my wings, Becca. You complete me.” He grinned. “Is that clear enough?”

  I glanced over at my Mom and Sherri, who were staring, looking from Dillon to me and back again. “I think you missed a few tacky clichés,” I said, feeling my face burn. “And you’re saying them to the wrong woman.”

  I turned to head out of the store, but Dillon caught my elbow.

  “I’ll be happy to think up some more, if you’ll let me.”

  My niece giggled. “Is he your boyfriend, Aunt Becca?”

  Dillon looked at her and winked.

  I shook my head. “You’re with Hailey. I get that. Respect it in some weird, masochistic way, even.”

  “I want you, Becca. I was using some pretentious sense of chivalry to make a decision, because I knew what was right all along and was too afraid to fight the easy path and what I felt was expected of me.” He grinned a little. “Not that anything with you is ever easy.”

  I simply stared at Dillon, my gaze roaming his features. Fear fluttered in my belly because I liked what he was saying more than cookie dough ice cream and Elvis and it scared the hell of me.

  “We’ll just wait for you outside, Becca,” my mom said, grabbing hold of the kids’ hands. She nodded at Dillon. “Any man who can make my Rebecca blush, well, good luck.” She led the kids out of the store, my sister following behind, grinning.

  “But what about Hailey and the baby?”

  “How can I be with her when I’m in love with another woman?”

  I pulled my hands out of his grasp. “For now.” I turned away and pretended to be engrossed in checking the price tags on shirts on a clearance rack. “What happens when the baby is born? What if you’re just having second thoughts about the whole fatherhood thing and you change your mind?”

  “I won’t.”

  I turned to him and cocked an eyebrow, then continued on, sifting through T-shirts. He followed.

  “Hailey knows this?”

  “Yes. She was relieved, actually. She was scared and didn’t know where to go when she found out she was pregnant. She’s left Nashville and headed home to her folks’ place in Knoxville.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t want to give in. I didn’t want to be that girl who welcomed back with open arms the man who’d hurt her as soon as he chanced to come around again, spouting pretty words and making false promises.

  But then I realized this was Dillon.

  He didn’t make false promises. Mistakes, yes. Lies, no.

  “You’re the one I want, Becca. I know I hurt you. You should tell me go to hell right now.”

  “Yeah. I should.” I swallowed hard and then let it fly. The truth. “You hurt me.
You changed me. It sucks.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, frowning. “I understand and I don’t blame you a bit for hating me. I fucked up and I just couldn’t leave it this way between us without at least trying.”

  He turned to go, looking like the weight of the world was on his sexy shoulders.

  “Did you just say the f-word?”

  He paused and turned back to me. “Yeah. Your influence, no doubt.”

  I liked the idea of that. But I didn’t know how I could trust him again. I knew if I let him in this time and he left, I would never get over it.

  You’ve influenced me, too,” I said walking over to him. “In ways I didn’t realize. You wormed your way into my life and my…heart.” I rolled my eyes. “See what I mean? I’m turning into a total sap because of you.”

  A look of pure joy lit up his features.

  “Are you saying you’ll give me another chance?”

  “I guess I am.” It felt good. Right. Terrifying.

  “There’s one thing, though,” he said, catching my arm. He had a serious, determined look returning to his face.

  “If you give me another chance, Hailey and the baby will never be out of the picture.” He took both my hands in his. “I love you to pieces, Becca, but I want to be a father to my child and not just a sperm donor. Just because I’m not with her mama, I don’t want the baby to ever think he or she was a mistake or that I don’t love him. Or her.” He stood straighter, his face a mask of seriousness. “If you take me, you take my child, too.”

  Something in my world shifted at that moment as I looked up at the man who’d just laid it all on the line. An honorable man. Sincere. Wicked hot. A man who cared about me enough to be honest with me.

  “’Kay,” I said, my voice no more than a whisper.

  He pulled me into his arms and kissed me until I was gasping for air, then he kissed me some more.