Nashville - Combined Edition - Part One and Part Two Page 14

  We all smile, and Beck drops us a nod of greeting. He looks so much like his dad. No one would need to be told they were father and son. He meets my gaze and smiles, and I smile back.

  “What’d y’all bring to sing tonight?” Case asks.

  “Two covers and another song that I wrote,” Holden says, his tone respectful and a little uncertain.

  “How about we hear the original?” Case asks. “I’m lookin’ to see who y’all are without the instant comparison to someone who might have sung a song before. Y’all come on in and get set up. You got a chord chart for these guys?”

  “I do,” Holden says, reaching inside his guitar case and pulling out the sheets.

  “Good man,” Case says.

  The players glance at the sheets and almost immediately start to strum at the chords. Under their expertise, the song is instantly recognizable, and I notice the pleased look on Holden’s face. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to him, hearing people of this caliber playing a song he wrote.

  “You’ll be playing with them?” Rhys directs to Holden.

  “Yeah, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure, it is.”

  In less than fifteen minutes, Cases’s guys have the song nailed and Rhys directs Sarah, Thomas, and me into the sound booth that runs along the outer wall of the room.

  Sarah whispers something in Holden’s ear, clinging to his arm like he’s a buoy in the middle of a raging ocean. I almost feel sorry for her. It’s clear that she’s out of her element. Not that I’m brimming over with confidence. But maybe the difference is that I want this to be a success. And maybe she just wants to get through it.

  Holden leans down and says something to her. She walks to the microphone, her expression set and uneasy.

  The band runs through the song once without stopping, and I’m amazed at how it sounds like they’ve played it a hundred times before. Thomas, Sarah, and I wade into the melody with tentative effort. I feel their unease as part of my own. I will myself to block out everything except my role in this.

  The band starts the song up again, and the three of us are a little more confident, but not much.

  Case stands and holds up a hand, motioning for us to stop.

  The music drops to silence, and we stop singing.

  “Hey, look y’all,” Case says, running a hand around the back of his neck. “The only way this is going to turn out worth a hoot is if you forget where you are. You’re just singing in church back home with all your aunts and uncles. That’s the you I want to hear. Okay?”

  The three of us nod, mute, and I force the knot of pressure in between my shoulder blades to relent. I can’t think about Thomas or Sarah and their own batch of nerves. I can only control my own. I close my eyes and picture what Case just described. The little Southern Baptist church where I grew up. The tiny pulpit from which our choir belted out old-fashioned gospel hymns every Sunday morning.

  And I see myself performing solos when I was nine, the familiar faces of the congregation smiling up at me, the smell of the coffee brewing in the church kitchen wafting up into the sanctuary. The way rain pinged off the tin roof of the old building and how that sound became part of whatever music we were singing.

  By going there, I forget all about the here and now. I’m just me. Singing like I always have. For the pure love of it. For the joy it makes me feel.

  That’s how the next several hours pass. I can hear that Thomas, and even Sarah, have found their own ways to shake off the stage fright and just sing.

  It’s nearly eleven p.m. when Rhys raises a hand and says, “I think we got it.”

  He sounds pleased, and relief washes through me.

  Only then do I let myself come back to the present, the laughter and good-natured ribbing of the band members seeping into my awareness. I step out of the booth, and Cases’s son, Beck, walks over and says, “Y’all rocked that.”

  I smile and shake my head. “Y’all made us look good.”

  “It seems like you’ve really got something,” he says, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, the smile on his face less confident than I would have expected from someone who’d grown up with a country music star as his father.

  “Thanks,” I say. “It’s really an incredible opportunity.”

  “Yeah, well, my dad doesn’t waste his time. So if he brought you here, he thought he had good reason.”

  I start to bring up the thing about Lauren, but decide against it since she isn’t here tonight, and I’m not sure how public their relationship is.

  Case walks over to the stainless steel refrigerator in one corner of the room, opens the door and starts passing out bottled beer. “If you’re not old enough to legally drink this,” he says, “then don’t. Honor system here.”

  “That leaves me out,” Beck says.

  “Me, too,” I say, shrugging.

  “Can I get you something else?”

  “Water would be great,” I say.

  “Coming right up.” He turns and crosses the room, grabs a couple bottles from the refrigerator and walks back over to hand one to me.

  Holden, Sarah, and Thomas are talking together several yards away. I can feel Holden’s gaze on me, but I refuse to look at him.

  “So what’s your story?” Beck asks.

  “Story?”

  “Yeah. How’d you get to Nashville?”

  “Wing and a prayer?”

  He smiles. “How long have you been singing?”

  “Longer than I can remember.”

  “Sounds like it,” he says.

  Warmth colors my cheeks. I glance down and say, “Thanks. That’s nice.”

  “And true.”

  “When did you learn to play guitar?”

  “When I was still sitting on my daddy’s knee. He would hold me on his lap and put my fingers in position. It’s kind of like breathing. Probably like singing for you.”

  “You’re amazing with that guitar,” I say and mean it.

  “Thanks,” he says, and he sounds almost shy. Again, not what I would have expected. “Hey, there’s a party down the road some friends of mine are having tonight. You wanna go?”

  My immediate inclination is to refuse, but then out of the corner of my eye, I see Sarah lean in and whisper something in Holden’s ear and realize what a fool I would be to say no. “Ah, yeah,” I say. “That sounds great.”

  “Cool. Let me see if we’re about done here.” He walks over to his dad and Rhys, leans down, and they talk for a minute or two.

  Case slides his chair back, his long, denim-clad legs stretched out in front of him, his arms folded across his chest. “I think we got some good stuff here tonight, y’all. Rhys, you think you’ll have something to listen to maybe tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” Rhys says. “Late afternoon?”

  “All right then, I guess we can call it a night,” Case says.

  “We really can’t thank you enough, man,” Holden says. “This has been incredible to say the least.”

  “Paying it forward and all that.” Case says, nodding at Holden. “Have y’all come up with a name yet?”

  “Barefoot Outlook,” Holden says without hesitating.

  That was quick, I think to myself. But I actually really like it.

  “Cool,” Case says. “I’ll touch base with you tomorrow, okay?”

  Holden, Thomas, and Sarah gather up their things and walk over to where I’m still standing with Beck.

  “Ready?” Thomas asks, looking at me.

  “Ah, actually, I’m going to this thing with Beck.” I purposely don’t look at Holden, but keep my eyes focused on Thomas.

  “What thing?” Holden says.

  “Party down the road,” Beck says. “Y’all oughta come.”

  “I’ve got a budding migraine,” Sarah says.

  “I’m working in the morning,” Thomas adds, “but thanks, man.”

  Holden doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me with a question in his eyes that I wonder if anyone el
se can read.

  I glance away and Beck says, “I’ll get her home safely.”

  “All right. Y’all have fun, man,” Thomas says, and they leave the room.

  “We’re going to that party I told you about earlier, Dad,” Beck says, taking my arm and leading me to the door.

  “Y’all be careful, son,” Case says, his deep, rich voice following us from the room.

  “We will, Dad,” Beck says. He ducks his head back around the corner and adds, “Can I take your car?”

  “As long as you and it both come back in one piece.”

  “Will do.”

  We walk through the house, down a long hall lined with framed music awards and a glass cabinet full of gold statues.

  “Are you amazed by this like every day?” I ask.

  Beck laughs. “I probably should be. But you know, he’s my dad.”

  I laugh then, thinking how unbelievable it is that I am actually here in this house, getting ready to go to a party with Beck Phillips, the only son of a country music legend I’ve had a crush on most of my life. “This is nuts,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Just this. Me being here. You. Nuts.”

  He takes my hand and lets me precede him through the door that leads from the kitchen to the garage.

  “We’re not seriously taking this, are we?” I ask, spotting the Ferrari.

  “You heard him.”

  “Oh. My. Gosh.”

  He laughs then, opens the door, and I slide inside, pinching myself just for good measure. Yep, I’m really here.

  He goes around to the driver’s side, hits the remote to the garage door and backs out. The engine sounds like pure, spun money. That Italian roar that is unique to wealth in its Nth degree.

  He guns the car down the driveway, the board fences on either side rolling by in a blur of white. A beep signals the gate and the wrought iron opens at the end of the driveway like Alladin’s cave.

  Beck swings the car onto the road, and although I glance over to see that we’re staying with the speed limit, it feels like we’re flying. He lets back the sunroof, and the night air tousles our hair and cools the heat in my cheeks.

  “So whose party?” I ask above the wind.

  “Macey Canterwood,” he answers. “She’s kind of getting to be a big deal with Sony.”

  “Ah,” I say. “I heard her new song on the radio yesterday.”

  “It’s pretty cool.”

  I stop myself from countering with, “It’s frigging awesome.” Figuring that might come across as gushing, I say nothing.

  “Most everyone here tonight will be pretty cool. I won’t lie though. Some of the girls can have claws.”

  “Hm. Anyone in particular I should look out for?”

  “I’ll let them dig their own hole. Who knows? Maybe everyone will be on good behavior.”

  If I’m supposed to feel reassured by this, I don’t. Butterflies waft up in my stomach and perch in my throat.

  My phone vibrates. I pull it from my pocket. It’s a text from Holden.

  You okay?

  Yeah. How’s Sarah?

  I took Hank Junior out with Patsy.

  Thanks. Sorry about the Sarah question.

  Is that why you went with him?

  What?

  To get back at me?

  There’s nothing to get back at you for. You have a girlfriend. Case closed.

  “Everything all right?” Beck asks.

  I click off my phone, realizing how rude I’m being. “Yeah,” I say. “Sorry. The guys were just letting me know they’d walked my dog for me.”

  “What kind of dog?”

  “Walker Hound.”

  Beck gives me a long, considering look. “You’re not exactly what you first appear to be, are you?”

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “Like you oughta be on a walkway somewhere. In five inch heels and a mini skirt.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “Actually, yeah. But it’s kinda killer that you look so girly and yet you’ve got a hound.”

  “He’s my best buddy.”

  “Lucky guy.”

  “The truth is I doubt I’ll ever find a guy who gets me the way he does.”

  Beck downshifts and swings the car onto an asphalt drive. We roar up the hill, the headlights glinting off horses night-grazing a lush pasture.

  The house at the top of the driveway is every bit as enormous as the one we just left. The style is different, kind of California contemporary. I would have imagined it looking out of place in this setting. But it doesn’t somehow.

  Beck pulls the car into a parking spot and cuts the engine. “Let’s go have some fun,” he says.

  We walk into the house with his arm draped loosely around my shoulder. It seems a little weird to me at first because we just met. And, yeah, because he’s not Holden.

  But once I catch a glimpse of all the hip, young people milling about, relaxing on cushy leather sofas, talking intently by a bar, laughing at someone who’s just jumped in the pool, I’m actually glad to have his arm there. It makes me feel like less of an outsider.

  He introduces me around. I recognize faces, managing to contain an oh-my-gosh moment when I find myself shaking hands with one of the band members for Keith Urban. Beck throws me a grin as if he’s aware of how hard it is for me not to gush.

  A very tall, very gorgeous girl walks up to us, leans in and kisses Beck on the cheek. “Hey, gorgeous,” she says.

  “Hey, Macey,” he says.

  “I thought you’d decided not to come,” she says, her full lips pouting.

  “I sat in on a session with my dad tonight. We just finished up a little while ago.”

  “Cool,” she says. “Who for?”

  “CeCe here and a band she’s singing with. CeCe, this is Macey Canterwood. Macey, CeCe MacKenzie.”

  “Hey,” she says, offering a hand set off with perfectly manicured nails.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” I say, shaking her hand and noticing her smile feels a little less than genuine. “I really like your music.”

  “Thanks,” she says, her smile now mega bright. “What kind of band are you in?”

  “Little country. Little pop,” I answer.

  “They’ve got a cool sound,” Beck says. I hear an undercurrent between the two and suspect there is more going on here than I first realized.

  Macey’s smile now appears to have a razor’s edge. “Super,” she says, and I wonder who the heck says super these days.

  Thinking maybe they need a few moments, I excuse myself for the ladies room, winding my way through group after group of ultra-hip looking twenty-something’s.

  In the bathroom, I check my phone and find the rest of Holden’s text message from earlier.

  Be careful, okay?

  All is well, I type in even as I picture him in bed with Sarah, her arms wrapped around his waist, her legs entwined with his. I touch up my lipstick and do my best to blank my thoughts of the image.

  Beck is waiting for me outside the bathroom door. “Wanna dance?” he asks.

  The music has changed from laid back and conversational to upbeat and thumping. I take his hand and follow him outside where people are dancing alongside the pool. He loops an arm around my waist and hooks me up close.

  “Those aren’t Nashville moves,” I say. “More like South Beach.”

  He grins and says, “I like all kinds of music.”

  “Me, too, actually.”

  “I like your moves,” he says, ducking his head near my ear.

  I smile up at him, wondering if I’m ready to open this door. Is it even fair to him? My heart is tied up in knots over Holden, and yet I know that’s a dead end road. Here I am at a hot party in Nashville, dancing with a hot guy. What is there to think about?

  The music goes slow, and he swoops me in even closer. His body is fit and hard, but the first thing I register is the differences between him and Holden. Holden is broader, and I can�
�t shake the memory of how we felt together.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, wanting so very much to be here, in this moment.

  “What are you thinking?” Beck says, tipping my chin up so that I am forced to look into his eyes.

  “Nothing,” I say, forcing a smile.

  “It’s that guy, isn’t it?”

  “Who?”

  “Holden.”

  “Has a girlfriend.”

  “Does your heart know that?”

  “Yes. It does,” I say, my tone conceding even as I try to sound indifferent.

  “I’ve kinda been there,” Beck says, trailing his thumb across my jawline. “I know what it feels like.”

  I tip my head back a little farther and let a little of my pain show on my face.

  “When something doesn’t work, you have to move on. I’d be more than happy to help you with that.” He leans in and butterfly kisses me. “I’d really like to help you with that.”

  “Mind if I have a turn?”

  Macey Canterwood has her hand on my shoulder, the smile on her face suggesting she has no intention of taking no for an answer.

  “We’re kind of in the middle of something, Mace,” Beck says.

  “I can see that,” she says, “but I have something to share with you. Just one song.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, backing away. “I’ll go catch my breath.”

  “He’s quite the dancer, isn’t he?” Macey says, her smile now nowhere near reaching her eyes.

  “Don’t go far,” Beck tells me. “This won’t take long.”

  I make my way back inside the party, stand in line for the restroom and then use the ninety seconds before someone starts knocking to run a brush through my hair and touch up my long-gone lipstick.

  Back at the bar, I ask for a bottle of water, but just as the nose-ringed bartender starts to hand it to me, a voice behind me says, “Hold off on that! Girl, if you’re planning to hang with the likes of Beck Phillips, you gotta learn how to party at least a little.”

  I turn to find Macey smiling at me. She shakes a finger at the bartender and says, “We’ll have two of what you made me earlier.”

  The bartender looks at Macey and raises an eyebrow, which also happens to have a ring in it. “New friend?” he asks.