Once we’ve packed up all our things, Beck says he’ll take me home.
“We’re headed back to the apartment, CeCe, if you want to ride with us,” Thomas offers.
I don’t want to but it would be a little silly for Beck to drive all the way into town just to drop me off. And since I’m too tired to do anything other than go to bed, going out isn’t an option. “Okay,” I say. “That will save you a trip, Beck.”
“I’m happy to take you.”
I hear the edge in his voice and know we will end up talking about things I don’t want to talk about right now. I take the coward’s way out. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Call me in the morning?”
“Sure.” He walks over to kiss me full on the mouth. He takes his time in a statement to Holden. I start to pull away, but force myself not to. Can I blame him for feeling insecure? Wouldn’t I, if the circumstances were reversed?
I wait for him to end the kiss and press my palm to his cheek. “Please tell your dad thank you for letting us rehearse here.”
“I will,” he says. “Goodnight.”
“’Night,” I say and follow Thomas and Holden from the room.
In the truck, I sit to the left of the middle so that my shoulder is touching Thomas’s, putting two inches of space between Holden and me.
“I thought it went great,” Thomas says as he pulls out of the long driveway onto the main road headed back to the city. “What did you two think?”
Neither of us answers for a few moments, both obviously waiting the other out. I give first.
“We’ve got some polishing to do, but I like where we’re going.”
“I agree,” Holden says, his gaze set outside the window.
“CeCe, I really like what you did with the bridge on that last song. That’s gonna get you a lot of fans, girl.”
“Thanks, Thomas,” I say, feeling a familiar tenderness toward him. If anyone in this world has my back now, it’s Thomas.
We talk about different issues we need to address with certain parts of the songs. It makes the drive go quickly and keeps me from focusing on how close I am to touching Holden.
At the apartment, I take Hank Junior for a walk and deliberately stay out long enough that I hope to avoid seeing Holden again tonight. Hank sniffs every tree we pass and protests my turning back toward home by locking his legs and giving me a visual declaration of his displeasure.
“Come on,” I say. “You’d stay out here all night if I let you.”
To make up for not letting him have his way, I give him a cookie when we get back inside. He wags his tail in forgiveness and licks my hand.
“I see he still knows how to work the system.”
I jump at the sound of Holden’s voice and turn to look at him with what I hope comes across as mild interest. “I try not to let him get too big a head.”
“Kind of a benevolent dictator, isn’t he?”
It pretty much nails Hank’s role in life, and I can’t stop myself from smiling. “Sadly, I don’t mind.”
“He has that effect, doesn’t he?”
I nod, making a pretense of wiping crumbs off the kitchen counter and putting the treat jar back in place. “Thomas already in bed?”
“Yeah. I think we wore him out.”
“Well,” I say, “I’m tired too. Goodnight, Holden.”
I start past him, Hank Junior at my heels. Holden reaches out and stops me with a hand on my arm. “CeCe?”
I stop, as if instantly frozen in place. I try to say something but my voice is locked in my throat.
“Can we talk for a minute?” he asks.
“About what?” I finally manage. “There isn’t anything-”
“Actually, there is.”
“Holden-”
“Please.”
I force myself to turn and face him then, saying nothing, waiting for him to go on.
“I want to say I’m sorry for everything that happened.”
His eyes are fully sincere and something in me gives a little. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” I say.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know.” And I really do. “We never should have. . .we were wrong to-”
“I was wrong to,” he finishes for me. “I wasn’t free to let myself have feelings for you.”
With those words, the urge to cry hits me so hard and so insistently that the tears are spilling from my eyes before I even try to hold them back. “Holden, don’t,” I say. “This is not a place either of us can afford to go.”
“I still need to say it.”
“Is that what’s most important then?” I ask on a flurry of anger. “What you need?”
He blinks once but not fast enough to hide the flash of hurt. “That’s not what I meant,” he says.
“Maybe not,” I say quickly. “What I need is to forget that we ever felt anything more than friendship for each other. That is the only way I can be on a stage with you every night for six weeks.”
I turn abruptly then and start out of the kitchen for my room. Holden reaches out and reels me back to him. I stop only after hitting the wall of his chest.
I look up at him just as outrage surges through me. “Don’t. Touch. Me. Holden.”
But he doesn’t remove his hand from my arm. With his gaze locked on mine, he gently pulls me forward until I am fully encircled in his embrace. I hold myself as if I have been cast in ice.
We stand that way for countless seconds. The refrigerator hums. The air conditioning kicks on. A cat meows somewhere outside and Hank Junior pads over to the window to investigate.
And then, slowly, slowly, Holden eases me in, folding me into the circle of his arms until I just melt against him.
Everything inside of me goes liquid and warm. I close my eyes and yield to the irresistible need to breathe him in, to let myself remember how I feel magnetized next to him. Completely unable to resist the pull between us.
I want to protest. My brain is telling me to protest. But my body isn’t listening.
Instead, I let my arms wrap him up and I press my face to his chest. His warm, hard chest. Time falls away. I don’t let myself think of anything except what is here, what is now.
He puts his cheek against my hair, and I feel him sigh, a release of breath, as if he, too, has been holding it since the last time we were in each other’s arms like this.
We stay this way for a very long while. I can feel the pain and hurt of these past eighteen months absorb into the air around us and fade to acceptance.
“What was it like?” I ask, my voice little more than a whisper.
“What?” he answers, the question rough at the edges.
“Seeing her go through all of that.”
“Terrifying.” He’s quiet for several moments and then, “I never imagined so many people having their lives destroyed by that awful disease. Going with her to the treatments, seeing others who were even sicker than she was . . . some days, I didn’t think I could go back.”
“It must have been hard,” I say softly.
“Seeing the hope and courage of those people, and how fragile it all is, I swear, sometimes I wanted to change places with them just so their hopes weren’t for nothing.”
Tears fill my eyes. I bite my lower lip before saying, “I’m sorry.”
“I saw things that made me realize what I take for granted in my life. Little kids who’d lost all their hair, who couldn’t eat. And their parents, trying to act if everything would be all right.”
He stops there, and I can feel his grief like a wall that is crumbling inside him. I tighten my arms around his waist and hold onto him as if I am the only thing that will keep him from collapsing under its weight.
I’m not sure how much time passes with the two of us standing here, holding each other. I wish that we never had to move, that we could stay like this forever.
But I know we can’t; there are people in our lives who have not asked to be hurt by us. I ease away from him, looking up into hi
s eyes. “Sarah. She’s going to be okay?”
“I think so,” Holden says. “The doctors have said she’s clear, and she works at the nutrition end of it. Really at doing anything she can to stay healthy.”
“I’m glad,” I say, and with this picture of her, I step back, loosen my hold on him. “Will she . . . is she planning to move here?”
He doesn’t say anything for a few moments and I start to wonder if I’ve asked more than I should have.
“No,” he says then. “Sarah and I, we’re not going to be together.”
The admission takes me by such surprise that I am sure I must have misheard him. “Oh. I thought. . .what?”
“We’re not.”
“But why?”
He looks away and then back at me. “Maybe she saw us through new eyes and didn’t like what was there.”
I don’t know what to say so I don’t say anything.
“There was something else,” he adds. “She met someone who might have made her realize what she did want.”
“Holden. I. . .I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m pretty sure she’s going to be happy. That’s what matters.”
I take in the words with a feeling of disbelief. And all of a sudden, I feel the dissolving of a barrier between us. With it comes an awkwardness I have no idea what to do with. “I don’t know what to say, Holden.”
“You don’t have to say anything, CeCe. You’ve moved on. I get it. I understand. And I’m not here to mess up things with you and Beck.”
I know I should feel relieved. Because he’s right. I have moved on. It took a long time but I’ve moved on. And now someone else’s heart is involved. Beck’s heart is involved. My heart is involved.
There’s no unraveling all of that. Even if I wanted to.
“I’m sorry, Holden. For everything you’ve been through. For-”
He places a fingertip against my lips and says, “Shh. It’s okay. We’ll be okay. All of us.”
And I want to believe him. I really do. I’m just not sure how to start.
♪
FOR THE NEXT three weeks, we practice as hard as I’ve ever imagined working. Thomas and I give notice at our jobs and, thankfully, neither place insists that we work it out. When Thomas asks me if I’m okay with Holden moving back in, I have no good reason to say no. He drives to Atlanta two days after our talk in the kitchen and arrives back in a rental car twenty-four hours later with Patsy in the front seat next to him.
Hank Junior is so happy to see her I don’t think he quits wagging his tail for a week. He follows her everywhere, as if he’s afraid if he lets her out of his sight, she’ll disappear again.
We rehearse twelve to fourteen hours a day, polishing our performance until we’re nailing every song, word for word, note for note.
And for those three weeks, Holden is right about everything being okay. No one has time to think about anything other than eating, sleeping, and getting ready for the tour. When we get home every night, I fall in bed and sleep like Rip Van Winkle.
My biggest worry is what to do with Hank Junior when we’re gone. Since Holden has the same concern about Patsy, he, Thomas and I brainstorm options one morning while we’re waiting for Beck in his dad’s studio.
“We can’t leave them in a kennel for six weeks,” Holden says, taking a sip from the coffee the housekeeper, Nelda, made for us when we arrived.
Thomas makes a choking sound. “Yeah, right. CeCe would check herself into a kennel for six weeks before she’d leave Hank there.”
I raise an eyebrow at him but there’s no point in denying the accusation. We all know it’s true.
Beck walks in, his hair still wet from the shower. He kisses me on the cheek and says, “What’s up with the pow-wow?”
“Just trying to figure out what we’re going to do with Hank Junior and Patsy while we’re away.” I hear the worry in my own voice because with every passing day, I’m more stressed by my lack of a solution.
Beck sits down next to me and pours a cup of coffee. “They could stay here with Nelda.”
I lean back and look at him, not sure if he means it. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” he says. “She loves dogs.”
“But what about your dad?”
“He won’t mind. They’ll give Nelda someone to cook for. When dad’s gone anyone left here gets overfed and then some.”
“That would be amazing,” I say, leaning forward to give him a hug.
Holden gets up from the table to pour another cup of coffee, his back to us. “That’s incredibly nice. Thanks, man. Really.”
“No skin,” Beck says.
“All right then,” Thomas says. “Let’s get to work.”
♪
33
Holden
The tour begins in San Francisco. Three days on the bus across country, and we’re all ready to be there. I’ve spent most of those miles trying to focus on anything but the fact that Beck can’t keep his hands off CeCe.
I get a lot of reading done.
Keeping my eyes on the page and my head in someone else’s story is about the only distraction that works.
We arrive in the city on the morning of the first show. After grabbing a few hours of sleep in an actual bed, we leave for the venue where we can practice on stage and get a feel for the acoustics.
The place feels absolutely enormous. We’ve never played anywhere that would hold half this many people, and looking out at the thousands of empty chairs, I start to wonder if we’re really up for this.
“I see what you’re thinking.” Thomas walks up behind me and claps a hand on my shoulder. “No reason to go there now.”
“This could be a major fail,” I say.
“Glass half-full, please.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not wondering what we were thinking.”
“Okay, so the thought crossed my mind,” he concedes. “But we’re here. We’ve done our homework.”
“Could I get an infusion of some of your confidence, please?”
Thomas snorts. “Since when do you need confidence?”
“Since we decided we could pull off opening a show for a country music legend.”
“We can. Have you heard us?” He pulls his iPhone out of his shirt pocket, swipes the screen, taps it twice and one of our songs begins playing. Thomas waits a minute and then it turns it off. “That sound good or what?”
I have to admit we sound pretty good. “Let’s just hope we hit that tonight.”
“Faith, man. Where’s your faith?”
“Working on it.”
“Stay away from CeCe until you get it in place. She’s already a bundle of nerves.”
Just then, she and Beck walk onstage. She looks as serious as I’ve ever seen her. She bites her lower lip and glances out at the sea of seats in front of the stage. Her eyes widen.
“Okay,” Thomas says. “I think it’s time for a pep talk. Y’all get on over here.”
He waves us to the end of the stage. We all sit down in a line, facing out to where all those faces will be looking at CeCe and me, and Beck on her other side.
“Anyone here dreamed about this as long as I have?” Thomas asks.
No one says anything for a few moments, and then CeCe admits, “Yes.”
Her voice has a tremble in it. Thomas reaches over and covers her hand with his.
“Anyone else?”
“Yeah,” I say.
Thomas looks at Beck. “How about you?”
“I’ve pretty much wanted to be my dad for as long as I can remember,” he says in a low voice.
The admission surprises me. It’s not something I would expect a guy like Beck to say.
“So, okay,” Thomas says. “We all agree this is important to us. And we don’t want to screw it up. The only way that’s going to happen is if we forget we’re anywhere other than at home in Nashville, practicing the way we’ve been practicing for weeks. We’ve got this. Y’all know we do. Every song. Every w
ord. Every note. We’ve got it. Right?”
No one says anything for a long string of moments. Somewhere behind the stage, I hear equipment being unloaded from the tractor-trailer trucks. The whine of a forklift. The clank of metal cases. Conversation and laughter from the guys working hard and fast to get it all in.
CeCe draws in a deep breath and says, “We’ve got it.”
“Beck?” Thomas says.
“Yeah, man. We’ve got it.”
My best friend looks at me, one eyebrow raised.
“We’ve got it,” I say. “We’ve got it.”
♪
34
CeCe
I am so scared I actually feel my knees trembling.
Two minutes until we’re out there in front of thousands of Case Phillips fans, who will pretty much decide with the first song whether we’re worthy of being on this tour or not.
My heart is pounding so hard I feel its throb like a bass drum in my ears. I wish with everything inside me that my mama could be here tonight. It’s not that I don’t understand why she isn’t. She’s terrified of flying, and driving across country isn’t something I can imagine her doing. She’ll be at the show in Annapolis, Maryland, and that’s good enough. That doesn’t make me crave one of her reassuring hugs right now any less though.
The four of us are standing to the side of the stage and we’re all wearing varying expressions of “Is this really happening?”
The crowd tonight is two thousand or so, one of the smaller venues for the tour, but the largest by far I’ve ever sung in front of.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” I say. Only then do I realize I’ve said it out loud.
Holden steps up and dips his head in close to mine. “Where’s a place you’ve sung that made you the happiest?” he asks, his voice low and calming.
I don’t turn to look at him. I lace my hands together in front of me and think hard. The memory, when it comes, is sweet and poignant. “In church on the Sunday my granny was baptized. She was eighty-three. She asked the pastor if I could do a solo of “Just As I Am”.”
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