He turned toward me, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. “There’s so much I want to tell you, so much I need to say, but not here. Not like this.” He gestured around us, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Yeah, this probably isn’t a conversation you want to have out in the open,” I agreed.
“But I want to have it, bluebird. Please don’t think I don’t.”
I nodded. If his words hadn’t convinced me, there was something in his voice that would’ve done the trick. It was teetering on the edge of desperation—a feeling I had more experience with than I cared to admit.
“I believe you,” I said, ducking my head. And then, before I lost my nerve, I asked, “Is the option for dinner tomorrow still on the table? Literally and metaphorically, I mean.”
Grady bit down on his lip. The move was so damn distracting it should’ve been illegal. “The table, the floor, the fucking bed. Anywhere you want.”
“Let’s start with the table,” I said slowly. Oh god, what was I doing? Was thisflirting? When was the last time I’d done that? It was strange and foreign, but I couldn’t help myself on somelevel. It was like he drew out the side of me that wanted to be cute and playful.
“Table it is,” he agreed. “Mind if Charlie and I stay for dinner, though? Those burgers smell heavenly, and I have a feeling you’ll fall in love with me again once you try my mac-n-cheese. I’ve come a long way from spicy ramen and microwaved nachos.”
I waved toward the chuckwagon. “I’d hate to deprive you of sustenance, and will admit to being the slightest bit curious to see how your cooking skills have evolved.”
“You won’t be disappointed. I promise. Wanna get us two burgers while I go grab the casserole dish?”
“Sure. You still like everything on it?”
He nodded, grinning. “Heavy on the?—”
“Mustard,” I finished for him. “I remember.”
“I guess you do,” he said, staring at me for a beat longer before he turned and headed toward the truck.
As I ambled over to Cook to put my order in, I couldn’t stop thinking about what he said. “I have a feeling you’ll fall in love with me again once you try my mac-n-cheese.” Sure, it was corny and silly, but it left me feeling all twisted up inside because all I’d wanted to say in the moment was, “Maybe I never stopped.”
grady
. . .
23 Years Old
Growing up,I always heard people talking about how fast life could change. How, in the blink of an eye, you could go from living on top of the world to feeling like the dirt beneath someone’s boot. I never believed them until I was standing out in the pouring rain, watching the woman I loved walk away from me.
I thought I had learned my lesson, but life had other plans.
“You would think they’d have more comfortable seating arrangements in there since, ya know, they’re telling people they have cancer,” I muttered, settling into the driver’s seat of Mom’s tiny car. “For fuck’s sake, it’s the least they could do.”
Mom giggled but smacked my arm with the stack of pamphlets the doctor had given her when we walked out. “Young man, you may be an adult now, but that does not mean I want you saying the word fuck so freely,” she scolded half-heartedly.
“You swear like a sailor,” I said, pulling out of the parking lot and hitting the road back to Ashwood.
“Yeah, but I have fucking cancer now. What’s your excuse?” she joked, although it fell flat. The car was filled with uncomfortable silence as I came to a stop at a red light. We hadn’t put on music, but my fingers tapped along the steering wheel to a tense beat only I could hear.
When Dad called a few weeks ago to tell me Mom was having health problems, I thought it was some kind of joke. I hadn’t taken it seriously, thinking it was just their way of telling me she was having a root canal or some shit, but then he hadn’t laughed.
There wasn’t a trace of humor in his voice as he told me about the lump they’d found in her right breast, or the way the biopsy had come back with detection of cancerous cells. She now had a meeting with oncologists and surgeons to develop a plan for her future.
He told me I needed to come home, and so I did.
I didn’t stay in Austin long after Cleo and I broke up. It was too hard, and without her, I had no reason to stay. I’d only come to the city because it was supposed to be the best of both worlds for us. While the music scene in Austin was growing rapidly, the one in Nashville was even more impressive.
Meeting Liv that night had changed my life in more ways than one. When my life felt like it was coming to an end without Cleo, Liv had given me a purpose. Hope. She wasted no time setting up a meeting between her uncle, John, and I in the weeks after our run-in. Before I knew it, I was flying up to Nashville, standing in a flashy skyscraper, and shaking hands with one of the men who helped shape the music industry as we knew it.
Now, I had a band, and we were travelling around the country, opening for artists I’d only dreamed of. John signed me with one of their sister labels and told me I needed to give him a reason to sign me to Hartstrings within five years. The guys and I were well on the way to doing that. Our recent album wasselling significant numbers, and we had a meeting next month, hopefully to bring us up to the big leagues.
