“What do I mean? You’re kidding, right?” She stopped dead in her tracks and grabbed my arm, forcing me to look at her. “I’m pretty sure I just walked in on you and Stetson Walker looking awfully cozy.”
“It was one dance,” I emphasized, holding my finger in the air. “And actually, it was barely even that because it was interrupted right after it started,” I said, grinning at her. “And also, did you forget who Stetson is? Despite him trying to tell me that maybe there’s more to what the media portrays him to be, he is still in fact a country music star.” A good-looking one, I might add, but I kept that one to myself. “He could quite literally get any woman he wanted, Mags. I don’t think sharing a dance with a stranger at a party qualifies as anything significant in his world.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” she said, strutting toward the red pickup truck that was now parked and waiting for us. “But said country music star is supposedly hanging around Quincey Falls for a bit, so you might just get another chance at that dance.”
“What? Why?”
Stetson Walker staying in Quincey Falls made no sense. It was already weird that he’d randomly showed up at Booker’s party, let alone planned to have an extended stay here.
“I don’t know. Booker didn’t know either. He just said he’d heard he wanted to slow down his life a bit after a whirlwind couple of years. Guess he wanted to pick some place quiet to do so.”
“I guess that tracks with what he said to me. I just don’t understand how he ended up choosing Quincey Falls. Like why here? Or how? It’s not like when people think of Tennessee, they immediately think of us.”
“For Magnolia?” a sweet older woman asked as we slid into the back of her old pickup.
“Yes, please. We have two stops; I think I put both of the addresses in?”
“You sure did, sweetie. Thank you,” she said. Her voice was soft and gentle as her little body sat nearly touching the steering wheel.
“Two stops?” I asked quietly. “I thought you were gonna come stay with me,” I whined.
Ever since the whole wedding debacle, our girls’ nights had increased tenfold. More times than not, they were filled with stomachache-inducing giggles, an outrageous number of hours binging our guilty pleasure shows, and endless amounts of sour gummies.
I probably didn’t tell her enough, but those nights had brought my spark back, little by little.
“Well, that was my plan.”
“But…?”
“But…” The goofy-ass look on her face told me everything I needed to know. “Booker wants to hang out after the party’s over and everyone goes home, so I told him to meet me at my house later. But I can totally text him and—”
“No. You are absolutely not changing your plans on behalf of your lonely best friend who needs to figure her shit out,” I insisted.
“You sure?”
That was the thing about Maggie. If I asked her to cancel on Booker, she wouldn’t hesitate even for a second. And that was why I would never ask her to do something like that.
“I’m sure.” I nodded.
“All right, girls, here’s the first stop,” said the older woman, her voice shaky.
Looking through the back window, I spotted the familiar three story, redbrick building decorated with a neon sign—only fitting for our little town—lighting up the wordsThe Willows. Thehistoric building that now held around fifteen apartments was once Quincey Fall’s Town Hall. Whoever designed The Willows did a great job of preserving some of the building’s history, leaving much of the original architecture untouched. That was what I loved most about my quaint third-story apartment: each time I stepped inside, a warm familiarity wrapped me in a hug.
I pushed opened the door with my boot and a gust of warm air filled the truck. “But just because you’re not staying with me tonight doesn’t mean I don’t expect a play by play tomorrow, equipped with every single detail. Even the dirty ones.”
“All of them?”
“All of them.” I blew her a kiss. “Good night, I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Chapter Six
One Month Later
After Booker’s party, I’d spent the rest of the night shamelessly scrolling through social media in attempts to learn more about a certain shaggy-haired cowboy. The search didn’t take long considering he was everywhere, but regardless of my best efforts, everything was at least a few months old. Not a single article, photo, or even a sighting was recent, except for a few articles wondering the same thing I was:What is going on with Stetson Walker? Where has he been? What has he been doing?
Color me intrigued.
