Page 55 of Echoes of a Southern Song

“Jinnie—”

“I’m not done.” She stops pacing and stares at me, eyes watery but fierce. “I know I’m not like those other girls. I don’t wear glitter. I don’t giggle on cue. I run a bakery. I go home and watch trash TV with my cat. I’ve got baggage and mistakes and a freaking trial coming up that makes me feel like a total idiot. So maybe I’m not enough. I get it. I do.”

The silence that follows is brutal.

I take a step closer with my heart in my throat. “You think I don’t want you?”

She laughs bitterly. “I think you want attention. And you’re getting it, and you’re good at it. I think you’ve got something shiny going here, and I’m not shiny.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, you’re not. You’re real. You’re smart and strong and sarcastic and gorgeous, and yeah, you’ve got stuff going on—but so do I.”

She looks away.

“I didn’t tell that blonde anything because I didn’t care what she was selling. I wasn’t thinking about her. I was thinking about the song. About how good it felt to play it. About how you helped me make it better and I forgot to say that from the stage and now I feel like an idiot.”

Jinnie’s quiet for a second. “You forgot?”

“Yeah. I got caught up in the crowd. But I meant to. I swear.”

She doesn’t answer right away. She just studies me, like she’s trying to figure out if I’m telling the truth or spinning some sweet-talking musician line.

“I miss you,” I say, softer now. “I miss just sitting with you. Talking. Laughing. Falling asleep next to you. I haven’t been around as much because I’ve been trying to prove something—to myself, to my dad, I don’t even know. But I want you. Just you.”

Her lip trembles, just slightly. “Then why didn’t you come inside the other night?”

“Because you’d been working since dawn, and you looked so tired. I knew you had to get up early the next morning. I didn’t want to keep you up.”

She blinks. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

We stand there in that quiet alleyway, both of us breathing hard, both of us worn out by the mess we just exploded. And then she steps forward and presses her face to my chest.

I wrap my arms around her immediately, pulling her in, resting my chin on her head.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispers.

“You won’t,” I murmur. “Not unless you walk away.”

“I tried.”

“I know.” I smile, just barely. “I’m glad you didn’t get far.”

After a long moment, she looks up at me and I kiss her. Not a showy, public kiss. Just a quiet, steady, grounding one. The kind that says hey, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.

“You have to finish your set,” she says.

“I do, but I’m not going to do it if you don’t want me to,” I say.

“Go finish your set.”

“Not without you. I’m not going back in there if you don’t come with me.”

“I can’t.” She sighs. “I just made an ass out of myself.”

“No, you didn’t. Who cares? They’re all drunk anyway. Come on. I need you there.”