His For Keeps: (50 Loving States, Tennessee)

by Theodora Taylor

  “Why were you touching me?” I ask him, breathlessly.

  “I was curious about your scar, so I touched it,” he tells me, lowering his hands.

  “Why would you do that?” I ask, coming to my feet. “Seriously, what the hell?”

  “Sorry,” he mumbles. He comes to his feet, too, and for a moment his eyes cut away from mine… but then they come right back to my face. Right back to my scar.

  “How did you get it?” he asks, the old confidence creeping back into his voice.

  “That's none of your business,” I tell him. “You bought my time this weekend. You didn't buy my back story.”

  His eyes narrow and the silence stretches out real thick between us.

  But then he reaches into his back pocket, and takes out a thin leather wallet.

  “Beggin' your pardon, Red,” he says with a lazy Alabama drawl. “I didn't realize I hadn't paid you enough. How much do you want for your back story?”

  I stare at him for a long, hot angry moment. Then I say, “I don't know. How much do you think it will cost me in legal fees when you sue me for punching you right the hell out for asking me that? Cuz that's how much it's going to cost.” I pretend to ponder this idea some more. “Course then you'd have to wait until I take the stand to hear the whole story, so maybe it's not worth it for you to find out.”

  Colin puts his wallet away with a grin. “You're a funny one, Red. Let me tell you, I'm looking forward to hearing what you come up with for this demo.”

  The mention of the demo takes near all the pride right out of me. Makes me remember Colin holds my future in my hands.

  Now I'm the one cutting my eyes away. Looking out the window, where the sun is sitting pretty high in the sky. Josie will be here soon. Sweet, charitable, flawless Josie, who wears a pair of cat eyeglasses on her face as opposed to a beer bottle scar.

  “You're right,” I say, fully deflated. “I better start getting ready. Ginny will be here with my dress any minute now.”

  Then I rush away to the half bathroom where I left my toiletry bag before Colin can answer.

  8

  I’m right about Ginny getting there soon. I’m barely out of the shower, and putting concealer over the scar, when I hear her sharp knock on the door.

  “Hi again,” she says after she squeezes into the bathroom with me, a cup of coffee in one hand and a dress bag in the other.

  She sets the coffee down, hangs the bag on the door, reaches into her purse, and the next thing I know, she’s squirting me with what smells like a very expensive scent. Like a pile of sapphires and a field of orchids had decided to have a perfume baby. A perfect match for Colin’s cologne, I think to myself, sniffing at the air.

  “Sorry, just had to get it out of the way,” Ginny explains. “It’s the standard scent for Colin’s women.”

  I raise my eyebrows at that. “The women Colin dates all wear the same perfume?”

  Ginny unzips the dress bag. “Colin’s very discreet about who he chooses to spend his intimate time with. He doesn’t talk to anyone about who he’s dating. No press, no events—he doesn’t even tell me. The only instruction I’ve ever been given in regards to his personal life was to buy a certain person this perfume, which is his way of saying he’s spending time with her , and he’d prefer she’d smell a certain way.”

  “So Colin asked you to make sure I smell like his … other women?” I ask.

  “No,” Ginny says. “He hasn’t said anything about you, other than you’re a songwriter who has agreed to help him out seal this deal with his friend, Josie. In this case, I made what you might call an artistic choice. To better help sell the story he’s pitching.”

  I don’t love how she’s talking about the woman, who spent near all of Colin’s concert texting with her shelter, because she cares about her do-gooding that much, like she’s an open business deal that needs to be closed. And I really don’t like that I now smell just like every other side piece Colin’s kept discreetly.

  Why? a nasty voice asks inside of me. Because you’re special?

  I’m not, I remind myself after Ginny’s leaves me alone in the bathroom to get dressed in the dress she’s picked out for me. I’m a prop, in this case, a stand in for the girl Colin really wants. No matter how good I look in the little white dress, Ginny picked out, I think as I look at myself in the bathroom’s full length mirror. It’s one of those special effects dresses that lifts up your chest and butt while corseting in your waist and thighs. And even though Ginny tore off the price tag, I know the dress must have cost a bundle, because the curly cherry red image in the mirror when I’ve got it on looks like the Photoshop version of me. Sexy, curvy, and a little bit wild, even though I’m mostly covered up.

  “Not bad, Red. Not bad at all,” Colin says when I come out of the bathroom. He’s sitting on the couch, arms spread across the back, like a king waiting for his pet.

  His appreciative gaze lingers on me a little longer than I’d think it wouldI expect, considering this is all a ruse to get the girl he really wants.

  But then he turns back to Ginny, who’s standing nearby with a clipboard, and he’s all business. I’m left to stand awkwardly near the window, listening to him and Ginny go over his day. He’s got this brunch with Josie, then a couple of interviews for local TV, then an early dinner with Geoff Latham, the new head of Big Hill Records. He’s flown out for the concert, probably hoping to poach Colin from his current label, Stone River, but that’s not going to happen, because Colin doesn’t even have enough new material to present to Stone River, much less, let himself get poached by another head.

  “When you call to confirm with Geoff Latham, tell him I’ve got a new songwriter I’m working with,” he tells Ginny. He glances over to where I’m standing by the window, like he’s only now remembering I’m there. “You gotta get back to Tennessee tonight, Red?”

  “No,” I answer.

  “Then you should probably stick around after this brunch with Josie. Ginny will set up a backstage meet and greet for you with Geoff.”

  My eyes widen. Colin’s setting up a meeting for me with Geoff Latham, the thirty-four year old music exec who’d just been hand -picked by the retiring head to take over one of the most successful labels in country music history. The same label my mother was trying to get signed to that fateful night at The Rusty Roof. This is a connection I couldn’t have dreamed of making on my own without years and years of hard work, and Colin Fairgood is going to make it happen in just a matter of minutes.

  “Th-thank you,” is all I can think to say.

  Colin shrugs. “No problem, just make sure you send me a copy of your publishing contract before you sign with him. Geoff’s a good guy, but there’s nothing such as a labelno such thing as a label who won’t try to screw a new kid for rights. It’s just their nature.”

  “O-okay,” I easily agree. “Thank you. Thank you so much! You, too, Ginny! I can’t believe this!”

  “Like Colin said, it’s really no problem,” Ginny answers, like this life-changing opportunity isbusiness if something she does for aspiring artists every other day. “But I better get out of here. Josie’s due in ten minutes.”

  The reminder of Josie’s arrival takes some of the wind out of my sails as I remember exactly what I agreed to do in order to get an opportunity like this.

  “Leave the door propped open, will you?” Colin says as Ginny leaves.

  Then he waves me over, indicating I should sit down next to him on the couch. Someone’s set out an elaborate brunch on the coffee table, two trays full of pastry, bread, meat, and cheese selections. The plan, Colin tells me after I sit down, is to let Josie walk in on us, eating and talking. Let her get a mental picture in her head about what a relationship with him would look like.

  I busy myself with “playing my part.” Don’t think about what you’re about to do, I tell myself as I fill my plate with fresh fruit and a croissant. Think about meeting Geoff Newsom tonight instead. Think about anything bu
t the weird feeling this is giving you in the pit of your stomach.

  I keep myself together, and somehow even manage to joke, “You think Josie will bring any more of her fried chicken for you to eat tonight after your concert?”

  Colin laughs. “I didn’t feel right asking her for another pan, so I’m letting the venue take care of the chicken tonight.” He glances sideways at me. “That is, unless you want to step up to the challenge with your grandma’s recipe.”

  “Like I said, I can’t say for sure whether I know that recipe or not. And say I did, it’s not like I have a kitchen here.”

  “I’d find you a kitchen,” Colin promises. He sounds exactly like a knight swearing a solemn vow.

  “…and it’s not like I’d have this recipe memorized. My grandma’s still alive, you know—”

  I stop, remembering. Yeah, my grandma’s still alive, but his mother isn’t. “I’m sorry,” I say to Colin. “I wasn’t thinking. Sometimes we get to talking and I forget how short a time it’s been since you lost your mama —”

  “Let’s not talk about that,” Colin says quickly. “That’s not how I want Josie to see us when she comes in here.”

  I wonder about that. About all of this. Him acting like his mama’s death is just a sad line in his biography. Him putting more time into getting at Josie than he put into arranging his mother’s funeral, which I read online ended up just being a simple cremation and closed service.

  But it’s not my place to ask, so I just fake a smile, and say, “Okay, Spock versus Yoda in a fight. Who would win?”

  He shakes his head. “You know it would be Yoda, Red. C’mon let’s not even pretend to have this fight.”

  “Can you tell me something? Can you just answer me this one question? Why must you hate on Spock the way you do? Because you know that Vulcan would totally win in a fight with Yoda!”

  “The words coming out of your mouth don’t even make sense. Yoda is a Jedi. A Jedi. You think Spock ishe’s going to outgun Yoda? With what? Vulcan mind tricks and a phaser?”

  I squint at Colin. I thought that maybe the nerdy guy I’d met all those years ago, had been wiped out by this smooth talking country singer, but judging from the amount of outrage in his voice, he is definitely still in there.

  “Obviously you’re not taking into account that a phaser has longer range than a light saber. Spock could put your itty bitty Jedi down, soon as he came through the door—”

  My defense of Spock is cut short by a knock on the door.

  Colin points at me. “This ain’t over,” he says in a low voice, before calling over his shoulder, “Come on in. We’re back here.”

  Forcing more watts into my smile, I stop arguing and look up to see Josie’s reaction to the scene when she comes through the door.

  But it’s not Josie who comes through the door. It’s not Josie at all.

  My heart, my mind, my lungs—every single vital organ I have stops working when I see the person who’s entered the room. And I unconsciously come to my feet, unable to do anything but stare at him.

  It’s him. The reason I ’ve never came back to Alabama. The one boy I’ve been trying to forget all these years.

  He’s here. In Colin Fairgood’s penthouse suite.

  Colin surges off the couch. “Don’t say anything. Not one word,” I hear him whisper beside me.

  It’s a command he doesn’t have to give. I continue to stare at the man standing at the entrance of Colin’s penthouse suite, near paralyzed with shock.

  Then Colin says to Beau Prescott, “You have got some fucking nerve coming here.”

  9

  Mike and Beau, I know, used to be good friends. But Colin and Beau? Well let's just say if they were ever friends, it's obvious as soon as Beau gets into the room that they ain't anymore.

  Beau doesn't even acknowledge Colin's words. Just turns his handsome face toward me. “Josie, I know you don't want to see me. But I had to see you.”

  My eyes widen. He thinks I'm Josie? Why does he think I'm Josie? And what does she have to do with any of this?

  I answer the first two questions on my own. I've been stalking Beau online for years, and even have a Google alert set up on him. So I know he was officially let go as the quarterback from the Los Angeles Suns a month ago for “medical reasons.” That had been enough for the Bleacher News blog to run with the speculation that Beau had gone blind from a bad hit he'd taken during a game.

  I had hoped for Beau's sake that they weren't right, but apparently they were. I notice the pair of gold-plated aviators he's wearing, and see him for what he currently is, a very handsome, very rich, and now very blind former football player.

  Colin answers my third question about how Josie figures into this situation soon after Beau says his first please.

  “And that's who it's all about, isn't it? You! All these years and it's still about what you need from Josie.”

  My eyes have got to be wide as saucers by now. So I'd been right to suspect Josie was hung up on some other guy. And the other guy was Beau! My Beau!

  It all comes together then. The football player Colin claimed still held a grudge against him because Colin stole his high school girlfriend-that was Beau! Beau was the guy Josie had broken up with after he punched Colin.

  As if to confirm I got it exactly right, Beau's fists ball up, like he's thinking of punching Colin again. But then he sighs and says, “He's right, Josie. I've been bullheaded and selfish and just about everything else. The truth is, you were right, I don't deserve you. I've never been half the man Colin was when it comes to you, and that's the reason I went crazy when he came looking for you. Because if it was a battle of who deserved you more, then I knew it was him no contest.”

  “Finally something out of your mouth I can agree with,” Colin spits out beside me.

  Beau doesn't even seem to hear him, though. Just keeps his face turned toward me like I'm the only person in the room as he keeps going.

  “But when it comes to who loves you more, that's also no contest, darlin'. It's me. You two met when you were twelve, but I can't even remember a time when I didn't love you. First like a sister, then as something else. Everything good I've ever done has been because of you: Football, learning to get around blind… I just started a charity to teach blind kids sports here in Alabama, because you taught me how to stop feeling sorry for myself and use what happened to me to do good. Colin wants you. But I know for a fact he doesn't love you like I do. Not with his whole body, his whole…”

  Beau stops, the intensity of his emotions having obviously become too much. Then he takes a deep breath and says, “Josie, I should have told you this the night you left-I love you with my whole soul. You have no idea how much I love you, how much I've always loved you. But…”

  I just about faint when he takes a velvet box out of his pocket and gets down on one knee.

  “But if you agree to be my wife, I will spend the rest of my life treating you like you deserve to be treated,” he tells me, thinking I'm Josie. “I'll make it all up to you, darlin', just say yes.”

  I have never been witness to a silence as powerful as the one that comes after that proposal. Colin's eyes are blazing with hatred. My mouth's hanging open. The only person in the room who seems capable of saying anything in those moments is Beau, who tacks on a, “Please” after a few seconds of silence goes by.

  Like he needs to say “please.” Like that wasn't the most romantic proposal I'd ever heard in my whole wide life.

  I tell him that.

  “Oh, my God. That's the sweetest thing I ever heard!”

  Beau straightens when he hears my voice. He knows I'm not Josie now.

  “Who are you?” he demands, coming to his feet.

  Colin furiously shakes his head at me, silently commanding me not to say anything else. But I don't even give him a moment of consideration.

  “A damn fool for staying quiet as long as I did, that's who,” I answer. Beau Prescott. Who I still can't
believe is here in the same room as me. “I would've spoke up sooner, but Colin here motioned for me to stay quiet.”

  Now Beau turns toward Colin. And even though he's got those gold aviators on, I can tell he's scowling real hard behind them.

  “Where is she?”

  “None of your damn business,” Colin answers, mean as a snake.

  “Did you already marry her?” Beau shakes his head, looking anguished at the thought.

  “No. Not yet,” Colin says, like he's anywhere near getting Josie to go out with him, much less marry him.

  His answer makes Beau smile real big though. “See what I mean. If I'd been you, I would have sealed the deal by now.”

  “You know what? Fuck you, Prescott.”

  But Beau just keeps on grinning, like he's won something. “You tried. You tried your damnedest, coming back to Alabama with your big music career and your platinum albums, and she still said no.”

  “What she said was she wasn't ready to be in a relationship.”

  “With you,” Beau shoots back. And I can see Colin isn't the only one fighting dirty in this conversation.

  “Because of what you did to her!” Colin says. And now I begin to wonder if I'm going to have to get between him and Beau, because Colin's got his fist bunched up, too, like he's planning to brawl.

  But Beau isn't checking for Colin. His head's too busy, whipping from left to right, trying to catch scent or sound of Josie. “Let me talk to her. If you were any kind of man, you'd let me talk to her-”

  “She's not here,” I say quickly, before the situation can escalate into the rematch I can just smell Colin wanting to have with Beau real bad.

  “Shut up,” Colin says to me. “Shut up right now. This ain't none of your business.”

  And there he is. That pit viper of a teenager I'd met the first time Colin Fairgood took his mask off in front of me.

  However, I once again stand my ground. “No, but it's not necessarily any of yours either,” I tell him. “And I'm not going to let you torture him.”