“I’m sure he was,” Max muttered.
“Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
He toyed with his still full beer bottle, ripping the label to tiny shreds—and Sadie couldn’t help but be reminded of something she had been avoiding thinking about, because she hadn’t wanted it to ruin the nice evening she and Max were having: the time they had met, years before, in this very place. Max looked up at her again. “Cruz has a reputation.”
“I know it. A reputation for being the best in the business, the kind of person who can help someone get ahead.”
“You could say that, I suppose.”
“I don’t think I like what you’re implying.”
“Oh yeah? What exactly am I implying?”
They sat facing each other, fire rather than warmth in their eyes now. “That Cruz could not possibly be interested in me for my talent.”
“Here we go again. The real Sadie Hunter is back. Insecure. Always ready to pitch a fit.”
“TherealSadie Hunter?” Sadie’s voice was so loud, even over the music, that the couple at the next table looked over. “How about you?Yourtrue colors? You’ve been so charming tonight, but that’s not the real you, is it? That’s just the Max Brody you like the world to see, so everyone will fall in love with you and treat you like royalty!”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he growled. Sadie swept her eyes around the room, then back to Max. Moments before, it had seemed like water under the bridge, a chance meeting years before when they were both a lot younger. But now, seeing this side of Max come out in full force so easily, she knew she had to get it off her chest.
“We met before, you know. Six years ago.”
Max’s expression darkened further. “Six years? That wasn’t exactly the best time in my life.”
“It was the first time I came to Nashville. I was just out of school and I had scraped together enough money—with Gran’s help—to stay for a month. I managed to get a slot to sing here for New Talent Night. I was incredibly nervous. You were there.”
“You must have looked different. I would have remembered you.”
When someone shows you who they are, believe them,was something Gran often said to Sadie. And hadn’t Max shown her who he was, six years before? Sadie needed to remember to protect her heart.
“I went outside, around the back of the tavern—andyou were leaning against a wall, having a cigarette, looking like James Dean.”
“Your voice,” he said, realization dawning. “I knew I’d heard it before. But I thought it was just because it was—”
“Common,” Sadie interrupted. “Right?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” he snapped. “You know your voice is anything but common!”
“It sure is easy to get you to drop your charming veneer!”
“Know what? I should go. And you should get home, too. Go see how your gran is feeling.” He took out his phone. “I’ll see if my driver is on her way back here yet. She’ll take you home.”
“I can get myself home. I don’t needyou.But don’t you want to hear the rest of the story of how we met? Or are you too afraid it’s going to make you look bad?”
Max rubbed a hand across the stubble on his chin. “Go ahead, then,” he said reluctantly.
“Well, you dragged on your cigarette and told me that you were no stranger to stage fright. I couldn’t believe my luck, getting to meetthe greatHolden Brody’s son on the night I also got to sing at the Song Sparrow. Then you gave me a tip: you said the best way to deal with fear was to look out at your audience, find a friendly face, and sing to that person and that person alone. You promised you’d be out there in the crowd. That when I looked for you I’d find you. That you’d be my friendly face. And you told me to wait for you after the show. You said you’d make a few introductions to some industry people who were here that night.” Sadie stopped talking and looked down at the table, embarrassed now to think about how starstruck she had been. She had thought meeting Max Brody was going to lead to her big break. She looked back up at him. “Is any of this ringing a bell?”
Max nodded, unaffected. “Yeah. That was advice my mom gave me, back in my school pageant days: look for a friendly face. So?”
“When I went out there to sing I looked for you—but you were ducking out the back door with a blonde. We never talked. You never did make those introductions. I guess I was pretty naïve back then, right, Max? You had no intention of sticking around at all.”
“Right,” Max said, his voice now as cold as the beer bottle in her hand. “Sounds like something I would have done back then.”
Sadie stared at him, waiting to feel relieved that she had told him this. But she didn’t feel better at all. She’d been hanging on to something for six years that he either had no memory of or didn’t care about. She felt foolish. Still, she couldn’t resistpressing on the bruise one more time. “Why did you even bother telling me that story about your mom’s advice then, or making me feel like you actually understood how I was feeling, if you were just going to leave?”
Something flickered across Max’s expression that looked a lot like guilt and remorse. For a moment Sadie thought he was actually going to answer her properly—and somehow make it better between them again. But by the time he opened his mouth his expression was defensive again. “You need to move on,” he said as he got up to leave. “This is a long time to be holding a grudge, even for someone as dramatic as you.”
