The corners of my eyes burned. “I hadn’t been answering my phone. In fact, I’d let the thing die. Then one night at the end of September, out of nowhere, it powered on. I still don’t know how or why, but it did. And when it did, I found a bunch of voicemails from my friends, and I started listening to them. That was when I realized they missed me. I’d assumed they’d forgotten about me becauseIwanted to forget about me, but they hadn’t. They wanted me around.”
“What did you do then?” he questioned.
“I started leaving messages for therapists, and I went to see the first one who called me back. She’s still my therapist today,” I said. “She’s the one who encouraged me to come back to Nashville to be close to my friends. She referred me to a psychiatrist who prescribed medication for my depression. I started channeling my feelings into writing songs, and” —I took in a breath— “I fell in love.”
“Wow,” he said. “That’s big. Had you ever been in love before?”
“No. Not till her.”
“Who is she?” he asked.
“I won’t answer that,” I said. “She’s not in the public eye, and I’m not going to subject her to that kind of scrutiny.”
Warren chuckled. “Fair enough. What can you tell me about her?”
A series of mental snapshots I’d taken of McKenzie during our time together flashed through my mind. Dancing with her at Basement East. When she’d given me Randy McNutt. The way she’d looked walking down the aisle at Dallas and Katie’s wedding.
“She’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” I replied with a faint smile.
Warren nodded, then turned to the camera. “We’ll have more with Luca Sterling when we come back.”
THIRTY-FIVE
McKenzie
“Come on in.The break’s almost over,” Grace whispered, leading us into the foyer of the hobbit house. Even though I still had my key, I’d texted, letting her know we’d arrived so we could come in without disturbing the show.
“What did I miss?” I asked once we were inside.
She looked weary. “Let’s just say nobody will be accusing Warren Wright of going easy on him.”
My chest squeezed. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s been handling it well,” Grace answered as we made our way closer to the living room. “But I can tell he’s rattled.”
“They still won’t tell you who this surprise person is?” my mom asked.
Grace shook her head. “Production won’t crack, so it must be someone big.”
“Thirty seconds,” someone called.
“You go,” Kia said. “We’ll hang out here so we’re not in the way.”
Jen squeezed my arm. “You know where we are if you need backup.”
Grace grabbed my hand, guiding me past Katie, Dallas, and the rest of Luca’s friends, standing me right in Luca’s line of sight just as the booming voice began counting down from ten.
His eyes found mine, and a million unsaid words passed silently between us. His face relaxed slightly as I gave him an encouraging nod, letting him know he had this and I was right there in his corner.
“I love you,” I mouthed as Warren Wright began to speak.
“And we’re back, live and uncut with Luca Sterling,” he said. “I want to shift gears to this incident with Nashville singer/songwriter Tate McCreedy. There’s been a video circulating that was taken by a witness to an altercation the two of you had a few months ago. We’re going to show the viewers at home this clip, and then I want to get your take on what happened.”
There was a beat of silence, and even though there was no video playing for me, I remembered the night vividly. I’d seen the clip and knew how much that loser had altered the story, leaving out the part where I’d punched him for harassing Luca and he’d nearly hit me.
“Watching this, it seems like you and Mr. McCreedy had words before you pushed him into a wall,” Warren said. “Is that how it happened?”
“No,” Luca answered. “There’s a lot you don’t get to see on that video.”
