Nashville 3 - What We Feel (5 page)

“I want this, Beck,” I say, linking my fingers through his. “I want you.”

He’s looking at me as if he’s sure I didn’t say what I just said. “What?”

“Don’t act so surprised. You know you’re hot.” This brings a smile to his lips, and I think I may have redeemed myself, at least a little bit anyway. He leans across and kisses me again, and there’s sweetness at the edges. Beck is a cool guy, and it’s not in his playbook to show insecurity. I feel that now and the responsibility of it. An immediate desire not to take advantage of it.

“You won’t regret it,” he says softly. “Any of it. I promise, okay?”

“I know I won’t,” I say. “I’ll talk to Thomas and call you.” I glance at the clock. “It’s already after three. In a few hours.”

“Okay. Goodnight, CeCe.”

“Night, Beck.”

And with the closing of the car door, I feel something close inside me as well. If it’s not gladness that follows the click, maybe acceptance is enough.

HANK JUNIOR IS asleep on the couch when I unlock the door and step inside the apartment. He raises his head and blinks sleepy hound eyes at me then thumps his tail in greeting against the sofa cushion.

“Hey, sweet boy,” I say, going over to sit down beside him. I rub his soft head and velvety ears. “Need to go out?”

He rests his chin on my leg and closes his eyes in answer. I try to talk myself into leaving the conversation with Thomas until morning, but the thought of sleeping with all of this on my mind is an absolute impossibility. I knock on his door and call out, “Thomas?”

A couple of seconds pass before he answers with a groggy, “That you, CeCe?”

“Yeah. Are you alone?”

“Actually, no, I’m not.”

“Oh,” I say, not doing a very good job of hiding my disappointment.

“Everything all right?” he calls out.

“I was hoping we could talk for a minute.”

A pause and then, “You are aware that it’s three o’clock in the morning?”

“Ah, yeah.”

“And this is important?” he asks, as close to grouchy as he gets.

“It is,” I say.

“I’ll be out in a sec.”

I wait for him in the hallway, and when he steps through the door, I try to peer over his shoulder. “Who is it?” I ask.

“None of your business,” he says, turning me around and pushing me toward the living room with his hands on my shoulders.

“If it’s a secret, she must not be very-”

He stops me with, “CeCe, what the devil are you getting me up at this hour for? Just to give me a hard time about who’s in my bed?”

“I’m not,” I say. “I mean, that’s not why I got you up.”

Thomas plops down on the couch beside Hank Junior. I take the chair across from them. He’s wearing light blue boxers with banjos on them. I squint at them and say, “Nice.”

“Do you really need me to go back and put on some britches?”

“No. I’ll keep my eyes chest level or above.”

“Thank you. Much appreciated,” he says. “Are you planning on telling me why you got me up in the middle of the night?”

“Footfalls got fired as the opening act for Case’s tour. He wants us to go in their place.”

If I had just dropped, “Elvis is alive and coming over for dinner,” I don’t think Thomas could’ve looked any more surprised.

“Did you say-” he starts.

“I did,” I interrupt.

A grin breaks his formerly sleepy expression wide open. “For real?”

“For real.”

Several moments pass, during which he looks as if he has no idea where to go from here. And then, “What’s the catch?”

“We have to be ready to perform as an opening act within three weeks.”

He tips his head, considers this. “We’re missing electric guitar, but we ought to be able to get that filled as soon as we put it out there as part of a tour opportunity.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“What else?”

“What do you mean?”

“What other catch? There must be one.”

I hesitate before saying, “He wants Beck to join us.” This one, I can see, he did not expect.

“Ah,” he says. “So what’s behind that?”

“Honestly?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Beck has pretty much let his grades slide this semester. His dad has always discouraged him from getting into the music business but I guess he’s realizing it’s kind of inevitable.”

“Dude can play guitar. No doubt about it.”

“Think it could work?” I ask cautiously.

Thomas rubs Hank Junior’s ears, quiet for a full minute or more. “I expect it’s like this. If you and I have a brain in our heads, we’ll find a way to make it work.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Holden

My flight lands in Nashville at five-thirty-eight p.m. As the wheels touch the runway, my heartbeat kicks up a notch, and doubt pummels through me.

Yesterday at this time I hadn’t even left work. I sure didn’t know that in twenty-four hours, I would have turned my life upside down again, reaching out for a rope to grab onto that might or might not be there.

As I’d done a dozen times in the past several hours, I ask myself if I’m wrong to try to pick up the edges of a dream and roll it back into something recognizable. When I woke up this morning, my first thought was that Sarah would have changed her mind. That our conversation last night would reveal itself to be nothing more than a mistake in judgment.

I think that’s what I was hoping because letting go of something I wanted so badly and coming to terms with that loss hadn’t happened over night. And even if our lives hadn’t turned out to be everything we had once imagined they could be, I did feel extreme gratitude for Sarah’s recovery and the part she had told me I played in it.

She had not decided that it was a mistake in judgment. I’m not even sure the Sarah who helped me pack my things was the same Sarah I’ve known since college. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I could see in her face that she’d already moved on. Wanted something other than me now.

Maybe the only reason it doesn’t hurt more is that I know she’s right to want something else, some
one
else who will love her with every speck of space in his heart.

The way I wanted to. The way I tried to. It’s pretty clear now that if I hadn’t realized CeCe still occupied a corner of my heart, Sarah had.

A bell chimes, and the stewardess welcomes us to Nashville. Seat belts click their release in unison, and everyone around me stands up, reaching for bags and laptops. I start to stand, but something inside me locks my legs beneath a sudden rush of uncertainty.

It feels a lot like the time Thomas and I went skydiving our freshman year in college. He went first, and I remember standing at the edge of the plane door, watching him torpedo toward the ground. I could not make myself move. It was as if my brain and my legs were no longer synchronized. And as much as I hated the thought of disappointing him, I couldn’t jump.

But then he looked up, waved a hand at me, and his parachute burst open, turning his descent into a graceful sashay through wide-open space.

That was the moment I stepped over the threshold of the plane and began the free fall. As soon as I was out there, dropping through the sky, I knew I wanted to do this a thousand more times. The only thing I’ve ever found to compare it to is music, every phase of it, from the creation of a first note in a new song to playing it on stage in front of an audience for the first time.

If starting out after this dream again is anything like skydiving, I know I’m going to have to take a leap of faith and jump. And so I stand up and join the exodus.

THERE’S A DRIVER waiting at baggage claim with a sign that has my name on it. I walk over and tell him who I am.

“Well, all right,” he says with the friendliness I remember as such a part of Nashville. “I’m Mitchell. Mr. Hart is expecting you, Mr. Ashford. Can I get your bag for you?”

“It’s Holden, and thanks but I’m good.” I follow him out the main doors and to a waiting Hummer limo. This, I hadn’t expected.

He opens the back, takes my guitar and suitcase and puts them inside, then walks around to open the door for me.

“I can ride up front,” I say, feeling about a dozen different kinds of awkward.

Mitchell smiles and shakes his head. “Hey, enjoy it, young man. Clearly, you’ve done something Mr. Hart appreciates. No need to feel guilty. Hop on in.”

I slide inside and he closes the door behind me. The interior of the Hummer is a virtual entertainment playground; big screen TV and a music system that makes what’s coming through the Bose speakers hanging in four corners sound like I’m at the Ryman Auditorium.

The limo glides away from the airport and onto the interstate. Through the tinted glass, I recognize the landscape and for the first time since this morning, I let myself feel happy about the thought of being here. I do, however, feel alone. That part doesn’t seem right. I started this whole journey with my best friend in the world. And I realize I don’t want to have this meeting with Hart Holcomb without him.

I reach forward and press an intercom button. “Mitchell?”

“Yes, Mr. Ashford?”

“Would it be possible for you to pick up a friend of mine on the way? I’d really like for him to come with me if you don’t mind stopping.”

“Of course. Do you have the address?”

I give it to him and sit back in my seat, texting Thomas:
Hey. Where are you?

A few seconds pass before my phone beeps.

Home. Where are you?

Nashville.

Are you kidding me?

Would I?

Yes.

Get your boots on. I’m picking you up in less than ten.

In what?

A stretch Hummer.

Dang.

Yeah.

He’s waiting outside the building when we pull into the parking lot. It feels like we haven’t seen each other in years, and I realize how much I’ve missed him. I open the door and slide out.

“You really are here,” Thomas says, his grin full wattage, throwing me a high-five. “Aw, hell, brother. This deserves a hug.”

He gives me exactly that, squeezing me so hard, I laugh and say, “Your neighbors are gonna get the wrong idea.”

He lets me go, shaking his head, uncharacteristically at a loss for a response. “I can’t believe you’re really here. And in this ride?”

“Crazy, huh? Hart Holcomb sent it to pick me up at the airport.”

“So you’re meeting with him?”

I nod.

“Whoop!” Thomas yells. “Let’s get on over there.”

We climb in the back of the Hummer and Mitchell eases out of the parking lot.

Thomas can’t quit grinning. “So this is what it’s like when you make the big league,” he says.

“I guess.”

“He wants your song bad.”

“I’m not assuming anything,” I say.