“Thank you, everyone!” he said as he took a seat on a wooden stool perched in the center of the stage. “I’m Stetson Walker, and I’m real excited to be here tonight.” The low rumble of his voice on the microphone confirmed it.
“No fucking way,” I mumbled. “It can’t be.”
“Quincey Falls, you have yourself some beautiful women down in these parts. Forgot how much I loved Tennessee. It’s good to be back,” he said. His oceanlike eyes swam to mine at the same time his mouth slid into a cocky smirk.
Heat infiltrated my cheeks, and again, I shifted my eyes, this time to where his bass player sat to his left.
I’d known what Stetson looked like; you’d have to be living under a rock not to. And although I might have been living under something that roughly resembled a rock for the last six months, I was still very familiar with who he was and what he looked like. But never in a million years would I have guessed that someone like him would be at a party in the middle of small-town Tennessee, let alone conversing in the dark with strangers about life and all its chaos.
I mean, sure, he dealt in chaos, but I was pretty sure it was the kind most people wished they had.
Maggie was oblivious to it all, leaning her mouth to my ear and whispering, “He sounds incredible live.”
“Yeah.” I paused. “He does.”
And he did. But it was way too hard to focus on his singing when I was still trying to process that the person I’d shared a somewhat under-the-surface conversation with was the same famous man standing on the stage in front of me.
“Maggie, you’re going to die,” I rushed out.
“Huh? The music is so loud, what did you say?”
I waved my hand in her direction. “Never mind. I’ll tell you later!”
My eyes kept drifting in his direction, which wasn’t hard to do when he was center stage, and I guess nowwasthe perfect time to get my fill, especially because everyone else was starting too.
In this light, I saw all the things I’d missed when we were outside, and it was proving difficult to look away. With one foot propped up on the stool and the other resting on the floor, his cognac-colored, ostrich-leather cowboy boots were the first thing I noticed. I wasn’t a boot expert by any means, but I could spot a nice pair from a mile away.
His worn, light-washed jeans hugged his legs, so much so that you could see the outline of his pockets on his upper thighs. His denim button-up was rolled, exposing his forearms and a gold watch that rested on his left wrist.
The black hat I’d noticed outside was stitched with a brown and tan logo I didn’t recognize, and the gold chain I’d spotted in the moonlight rested immaculately on his chest.
Thick, coffee-colored hair pushed out in all directions from underneath his hat and laid in perfect waves as though his hat was a permanent part of him. Two deep-set brows danced over his baby blues, making them practically shine. His upper lip was lined with a mustache and his jawline was littered with day-old scuff.
Enough, Scarlett.
I had to stop. I must’ve been staring at him for the majority of this song and that was already too much. Without a secondthought, I grabbed Maggie’s arm and pulled her to the back of the crowd. “Bathroom break?”
“Now?” she asked. “You want to go to the bathroom in the middle of him singing?”
“You’re gonna wanna come with me for this one, I promise.”
The blonde curls on either side of her face bounced as she titled her head. “Does this have to do with whatever you were trying to tell me earlier?”
I nodded and smiled sarcastically as I pulled her to the bathroom. “Mhm.” Thankfully, everyone else must’ve had the same idea as Maggie about missing the current performance because the bathroom was a ghost town.
“Maggie, you’re going to shit.”
“What? Tell me!”
“Okay, get this. When you were dancing with Booker, I went outside to catch my breath…”
“Uh huh…” She rolled her hands in a forward motion. “And?”
“And when I was out there, this random guy started talking to me. I couldn’t see him because it was too dark and he was behind me, tucked under a big tree.”
Her forehead scrunched. “I mean, I know it’s been a while since you’ve had to converse with the opposite sex who wasn’t your significant other, but it’s not completely abnormal for a man to come up to a woman at a party.”
“Yes, I know that, smart-ass,” I joked. “I’m not finished. We were talking, but it wasn’t a typical conversation you’d have with someone you randomly met at a party.”
