—
Max stood in the center of Sadie’s dressing room, running his hands through his perfectly coiffed hair so many times that Sadie began to get even more nervous than shealready was. Finally, he stopped and turned to her. “You look perfect,” he began, taking in her lavender peasant-style crop blouse and flowy matching skirt, which Hugo had paired with white cowboy boots.
“So do you.” He was wearing soft grey dress pants and a matching jacket, no tie, his white shirt unbuttoned a little extra to reveal the top of his chest. “Max, I—”
He shook his head. “Wait. I need to tell you something. About that night we first met. Idoremember, okay?”
“Max, just forget it. I made way too big a deal over that. It’s fine. Water under the bridge. Now is not the time—”
“No. Please, listen. Talking about this doesn’t come easily to me. But you need to know. It was one of the hardest nights of my life, okay? Butof courseI remember meeting you, and I remember your voice.” He stepped closer to her. “I remember you coming outside and huddling against that wall, looking beautiful and hopeful. I remember how much I wanted to help you.”
Her body was starting to tingle all over, the way it had when they kissed. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I have to. You need to know this. The blond woman you saw me leaving with, that was my sister, Becca.” He closed his eyes, and she could tell he was in pain.
She put her hand on his arm. “Max. It’s okay.”
He opened his eyes. “The reason Becca came to the Sparrow to find me is because she knew I liked to go there on New Talent Night.” He looked sheepish for a moment. “Well, because sometimes Monday nights at the Sparrow are the only thing that feels real in Nashville. All these people with their dreams not broken yet, with their passion for music just so raw, youknow? It always helped me remember why I wanted to make music, too.”
The clock on the wall was showing that the time they were expected onstage was drawing perilously near. “Max, we don’t need to do this now,” Sadie said gently.
Max shook his head again, refocused himself. “I don’t think I can go on unless I get this out. Unless you know the truth.” He took a deep breath. “My sister came to get me because I wasn’t answering my phone, and it was urgent. My mother had—” His voice broke. “She’d collapsed, and was in the hospital about to have emergency surgery. It was the night everything changed. One minute my mother was perfectly healthy and the next she was fighting a losing battle for her life. And that moment we met outside? It was the last cigarette I ever had, for one thing. I was such a dumbass back then. But sometimes I think it was the last moment I was ever really happy. So, I didn’t forget it, Sadie. I just blocked it out. And tried to shutyouout.”
“Oh, Max.” She looked up into his mournful eyes, wishing desperately she could ease his pain. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t fair to you. I always seem to think the worst of you.”
“I’m sorry, too, Sadie. I don’t blame you for thinking I’m a huge asshole, that I fed you some line about looking for a friendly face, made you promises I had no intention of keeping, and then took off on you. I just needed you to know, tonight especially, that that’s not what happened. Not at all. Everything changed for me that night. And—” He looked away. “I can’t believe you were there. It feels like—”
He didn’t finish that sentence. Didn’t seem to be able to. But she knew the word he was looking for.Fate. She touched hisarm and waited until he could look at her again. “It’s okay. Really, it is. You can let this go now. And we can go out there and just sing together. Okay?”
He was still staring down at her, his expression intense. “All this, what we’re in, it’s supposed to be all fake. But it is real, isn’t it? All this is really happening. We’re real people. With real feelings.” He let that last sentence hang in the air. Sadie didn’t know what to do with it. Her sudden impulse was to pull him closer—and then what, exactly?All this is really happening, he had just said. But what exactlywashappening here?
There was a tap at the dressing room door. “Sadie?” It was Joni, one of the production assistants, and she sounded panicked. “You’re due on soon, and no one can find Max.”
Sadie stepped away from Max and opened the door. “Max is in here with me,” she said. “We’re all good.”
“Ah. I see.” Joni smiled knowingly, as if what had been happening in Sadie’s dressing room was something that could be understood by anyone at all. “You two are such a perfect couple. I’m pulling for you. But you really should get out there. It’s time.”
The moment was over. As Joni headed back down the hall, Sadie turned to Max. “We’ll talk about this again, okay? But I’m glad you told me.”
“I just don’t want there to be any bad feelings between us when we sing tonight. I want it to be real.”
There was that word again. “Real.”
“It does feel real, doesn’t it?” Sadie’s heartbeat was fast, like moth wings inside her chest.
Max nodded his head. “Yes.”
And she knew it was true. Come hell or high water, comewin or come lose, what was going on between them was real—and she knew it now.
“Let’s go out there and win this together,” she whispered.
He reached for her and they walked out the dressing room door hand in hand.
As they passed under the doorframe, Max looked up. A slow smile spread across his face.
She looked up, too. The halls of the studio were still decked out with holiday decorations. Someone had affixed a sprig of mistletoe to the top of her dressing room door.
It happened so fast she was barely sure it happened at all. He ducked his head and brushed his lips across hers, then pulled back and whispered, “I’m not going to break a promise—not this time. Let’s go win this thing. And then...”
