Nashville - Boxed Set Series - Part One, Two, Three and Four (A New Adult Contemporary Romance)

by Inglath Cooper

  A grin breaks his formerly sleepy expression wide open. “For real?”

  “For real.”

  Several moments pass, during which he looks as if he has no idea where to go from here. And then, “What’s the catch?”

  “We have to be ready to perform as an opening act within three weeks.”

  He tips his head, considers this. “We’re missing electric guitar, but we ought to be able to get that filled as soon as we put it out there as part of a tour opportunity.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “What else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What other catch? There must be one.”

  I hesitate before saying, “He wants Beck to join us.” This one, I can see, he did not expect.

  “Ah,” he says. “So what’s behind that?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Beck has pretty much let his grades slide this semester. His dad has always discouraged him from getting into the music business but I guess he’s realizing it’s kind of inevitable.”

  “Dude can play guitar. No doubt about it.”

  “Think it could work?” I ask cautiously.

  Thomas rubs Hank Junior’s ears, quiet for a full minute or more. “I expect it’s like this. If you and I have a brain in our heads, we’ll find a way to make it work.”

  ♪

  29

  Holden

  My flight lands in Nashville at five-thirty-eight p.m. As the wheels touch the runway, my heartbeat kicks up a notch, and doubt pummels through me.

  Yesterday at this time I hadn’t even left work. I sure didn’t know that in twenty-four hours, I would have turned my life upside down again, reaching out for a rope to grab onto that might or might not be there.

  As I’d done a dozen times in the past several hours, I ask myself if I’m wrong to try to pick up the edges of a dream and roll it back into something recognizable. When I woke up this morning, my first thought was that Sarah would have changed her mind. That our conversation last night would reveal itself to be nothing more than a mistake in judgment.

  I think that’s what I was hoping because letting go of something I wanted so badly and coming to terms with that loss hadn’t happened over night. And even if our lives hadn’t turned out to be everything we had once imagined they could be, I did feel extreme gratitude for Sarah’s recovery and the part she had told me I played in it.

  She had not decided that it was a mistake in judgment. I’m not even sure the Sarah who helped me pack my things was the same Sarah I’ve known since college. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I could see in her face that she’d already moved on. Wanted something other than me now.

  Maybe the only reason it doesn’t hurt more is that I know she’s right to want something else, someone else who will love her with every speck of space in his heart.

  The way I wanted to. The way I tried to. It’s pretty clear now that if I hadn’t realized CeCe still occupied a corner of my heart, Sarah had.

  A bell chimes, and the stewardess welcomes us to Nashville. Seat belts click their release in unison, and everyone around me stands up, reaching for bags and laptops. I start to stand, but something inside me locks my legs beneath a sudden rush of uncertainty.

  It feels a lot like the time Thomas and I went skydiving our freshman year in college. He went first, and I remember standing at the edge of the plane door, watching him torpedo toward the ground. I could not make myself move. It was as if my brain and my legs were no longer synchronized. And as much as I hated the thought of disappointing him, I couldn’t jump.

  But then he looked up, waved a hand at me, and his parachute burst open, turning his descent into a graceful sashay through wide-open space.

  That was the moment I stepped over the threshold of the plane and began the free fall. As soon as I was out there, dropping through the sky, I knew I wanted to do this a thousand more times. The only thing I’ve ever found to compare it to is music, every phase of it, from the creation of a first note in a new song to playing it on stage in front of an audience for the first time.

  If starting out after this dream again is anything like skydiving, I know I’m going to have to take a leap of faith and jump. And so I stand up and join the exodus.

  ♪

  THERE’S A DRIVER waiting at baggage claim with a sign that has my name on it. I walk over and tell him who I am.

  “Well, all right,” he says with the friendliness I remember as such a part of Nashville. “I’m Mitchell. Mr. Hart is expecting you, Mr. Ashford. Can I get your bag for you?”

  “It’s Holden, and thanks but I’m good.” I follow him out the main doors and to a waiting Hummer limo. This, I hadn’t expected.

  He opens the back, takes my guitar and suitcase and puts them inside, then walks around to open the door for me.

  “I can ride up front,” I say, feeling about a dozen different kinds of awkward.

  Mitchell smiles and shakes his head. “Hey, enjoy it, young man. Clearly, you’ve done something Mr. Hart appreciates. No need to feel guilty. Hop on in.”

  I slide inside and he closes the door behind me. The interior of the Hummer is a virtual entertainment playground; big screen TV and a music system that makes what’s coming through the Bose speakers hanging in four corners sound like I’m at the Ryman Auditorium.

  The limo glides away from the airport and onto the interstate. Through the tinted glass, I recognize the landscape and for the first time since this morning, I let myself feel happy about the thought of being here. I do, however, feel alone. That part doesn’t seem right. I started this whole journey with my best friend in the world. And I realize I don’t want to have this meeting with Hart Holcomb without him.

  I reach forward and press an intercom button. “Mitchell?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ashford?”

  “Would it be possible for you to pick up a friend of mine on the way? I’d really like for him to come with me if you don’t mind stopping.”

  “Of course. Do you have the address?”

  I give it to him and sit back in my seat, texting Thomas: Hey. Where are you?

  A few seconds pass before my phone beeps.

  Home. Where are you?

  Nashville.

  Are you kidding me?

  Would I?

  Yes.

  Get your boots on. I’m picking you up in less than ten.

  In what?

  A stretch Hummer.

  Dang.

  Yeah.

  He’s waiting outside the building when we pull into the parking lot. It feels like we haven’t seen each other in years, and I realize how much I’ve missed him. I open the door and slide out.

  “You really are here,” Thomas says, his grin full wattage, throwing me a high-five. “Aw, hell, brother. This deserves a hug.”

  He gives me exactly that, squeezing me so hard, I laugh and say, “Your neighbors are gonna get the wrong idea.”

  He lets me go, shaking his head, uncharacteristically at a loss for a response. “I can’t believe you’re really here. And in this ride?”

  “Crazy, huh? Hart Holcomb sent it to pick me up at the airport.”

  “So you’re meeting with him?”

  I nod.

  “Whoop!” Thomas yells. “Let’s get on over there.”

  We climb in the back of the Hummer and Mitchell eases out of the parking lot.

  Thomas can’t quit grinning. “So this is what it’s like when you make the big league,” he says.

  “I guess.”

  “He wants your song bad.”

  “I’m not assuming anything,” I say.

  “Would he go to all this trouble if he didn’t?”

  I shrug and say, “You haven’t gotten any better-looking.”

  “And you’re not any less of a smartass.”

  “True.”

  “Man, it’s good to have you back. How long can you stay?”

  I don’t know how to begi
n explaining what’s happened in the past day so I just start in the middle. “I guess until nobody wants to hear my music anymore.”

  Thomas tips his head, looking confused. “You mean you’re here to stay? Like for good?”

  I tell him then about Sarah and everything she’d said last night. And how I hadn’t expected any of it. My voice is flat and without emotion, as if I am telling someone else’s story instead of my own. When I finish, we both sit quiet for a minute or more.

  “Is she okay?” Thomas asks, sounding a little shocked.

  “She’s better than okay. I don’t know. I think it was a relief to her. To get it all said.”

  “Is it to you?” he asks, and I can tell he’s not sure where to go with any of it either.

  “It’s the right thing for her,” I say.

  “And what about you?”

  “I would have stayed.”

  “I know. Is your heart in one piece?”

  “I think so. It’s weird. I pretty much accepted that this life here was something I’d put behind me. I don’t even really know how to start making music a focal point again.”

  “You don’t think about it. You just do it. Start living it. You deserve it.” He looks out the window and then back at me with a serious expression. “What you did for Sarah. I know what it cost you. In my book, they don’t come any better than you, friend.”

  “Are you counting the part where I let myself fall in love with someone else while I was still officially with Sarah?”

  “Yeah,” he says, his voice firm. “I’m counting that part.”

  I tap a thumb against my jeans and try not to ask the question, but lose the battle. “How is she?”

  “Good,” Thomas says. “We’ve been playing somewhere about every night of the week. She’s been working the lunch shift over at Lauren’s.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I take it you two haven’t talked.”

  I shake my head.

  “She’s seeing Beck.”

  I’m not surprised. I expected it, really. Why wouldn’t she, after all? “You like him?” I ask.

  “Not much to dislike about him. But I’m pretty sure as far as she’s concerned, he’s not you.”

  “Hey, don’t.” I hold up a hand. “I’m not coming back here expecting anything between CeCe and me to change. If he’s a good guy, good to her, that’s all that matters.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah,” I say, wondering if I could sound any less convincing.

  “If you say so.”

  The Hummer has left the interstate and is heading down a series of country roads that feature huge estate after huge estate. I remember that Case Phillips lives down one of the white-fenced lanes and wonder how much time CeCe has spent there with Beck, but then I cut the thought off as a dead end. There is nothing to be gained from going there.

  Thomas and I make small talk the rest of the way. He tells me about the gigs they’ve been playing recently, and when I ask him if he’s seeing anyone, he says no one special.

  “Mr. Ashford?”

  It’s Mitchell on the intercom.

  “Mr. Ashford,” Thomas stage whispers, grinning at me.

  “Yes?”

  “We’ll be arriving within a couple of minutes. Mr. Holcomb asked me to drop you at the horse barn if that’s all right. He likes to ride in the evenings.”

  “Ah, sure. That’s fine.”

  “Mr. Ashford at the horse barn,” Thomas rap-teases.

  “Shut up.”

  “Up yours.”

  “Nice to be back,” I say.

  “Nice to have you back,” Thomas says.

  ♪

  WE PULL INTO the cobblestone courtyard of a barn that looks more like a five-star English hotel than anything horses might live in. Boxwood bushes line each side of wrought iron-hinged sliding doors at the front. The exterior of the barn is stucco, the roof red clay tile. From either side of the entrance, horses peer over Dutch stall doors. One whinnies in our direction as we get out of the Hummer.

  Mitchell walks around and says, “I’ll be right out here when you’re finished to give you a ride back into town.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  At the sound of footsteps on the cobblestone, we glance up to see Hart Holcomb walking toward us. He’s wearing a Stetson, Wranglers, and work boots. His shirt is wet in places, as if he’s been sweating. He pulls it away from his midsection. “Sorry about the appearance. Working on some fencing out back.”

  “Not a problem,” I say, stepping forward and sticking out my hand. “I’m Holden Ashford. This is my friend, Thomas Franklin. It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Holcomb.”

  “Hart, please. And thank you. For coming too.” He shakes Thomas’s hand as well and beckons for us to follow him into the barn.

  The center aisle is also laid in cobblestone and it’s so clean I’m pretty sure you’d be okay to eat off it. The interior stall doors are black with gold hinges, and they gleam with care and polish. Flies have been frequent visitors to the barns I’ve visited before, but I don’t see one. Or even a single cobweb.

  “What kind of horses do you have?” I ask, doing a quick estimate of stalls on either side of the aisle and coming up with a total of twenty-four.

  “Quarter horses,” he says. “We do a little cutting. Just for fun, mind you. My wife was a vegetarian, so anything that breathes on this farm isn’t here to get eaten, cows included.”

  I hear something painful at the edges of his voice, and I’m not sure what to say to that. “She must have been a kind woman.”

  “She was.”

  “I’m really sorry for your loss.”

  Thomas murmurs his agreement.

  “Thank you,” Hart says. He stops in front of a stall to rub one of the horse’s necks. “This was her baby. Whip is short for Whippoorwill. I think this horse might miss her as much as I do.”

  All three of us are silent for several moments before he goes on.

  “It’s a damn shame for the world to lose someone as fine as she was. And for no reason. When I heard your song, I felt like you might have written it for me,” he says, his voice thickening with emotion.

  “I can’t think of a higher compliment than that,” I say, and I realize how lame it sounds in comparison to this man’s life-altering loss.

  “I’d like for it to be the title song on my upcoming CD. You okay with that?”

  I’m not sure what I had expected him to say when I got here, but it was anything other than this. I can’t seem to find the words to answer him, so I simply nod.

  “We’ll need to go in the studio tomorrow. I’ve already thrown everything off schedule by adding this last minute. We’ll be at HGT Recording downtown at ten. You boys want to come in for the session?”

  “Yes, sir,” Thomas and I answer in unison.

  “Well, good deal,” he says.

  We shake hands. I like that his is firm, confirming.

  “See you in the morning then. Mitchell will take you back into town.”

  He walks us to the barn entrance.

  “Thank you, Mr. Holcomb, I mean Hart,” I say. “This is such an honor.”

  “For me, too, actually,” he says. “It’s a hell of a song.”

  We climb in the back of the Hummer, and Mitchell eases out of the courtyard and down the long lane leading to the main road. Only then do I realize we never talked about money. And I don’t care. If I could pay him to sing it, I would.

  ♪

  30

  CeCe

  I’m coming up the stairs to our apartment, three Whole Foods bags in each hand when I hear their laughter.

  There’s no mistaking it. Thomas’s big baritone. And Holden’s slightly cautious follow-up.

  My stomach plummets exactly the way it had on an awful elevator thrill ride I once went on at an amusement park. I can’t recall how many stories it dropped. I remember it felt as if there were no bottom and we would never stop but just keep falling forever.<
br />
  I pause on the top step now with that same sensation, making me light-headed, fight or flight battling it out inside me.

  What is he doing here? In our apartment?

  The door opens then and Thomas glances out, spots me and instantly sobers. “Oh. I heard something. Thought you were the pizza guy.”

  “I’m not the pizza guy,” I say evenly.

  “You sure aren’t.” He jumps forward, taking the bags from me. “Come in. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  I can’t make words come out of my mouth, but I think Thomas can see in my face I do NOT want to come in.

  “We’re all grown-ups,” he says in a sympathetic whisper.

  Just the implication that I might be acting out of immaturity is enough to send me through the door with an expression of indifference firmly in place.

  Holden is sitting on the couch next to Hank Junior, who looks like manna has fallen from the sky in the form of his favorite dog treats. His chin is on Holden’s knee. He glances at me with his big brown eyes, and if he could speak, his message couldn’t have been any clearer. He’s back.

  Holden lifts Hank Junior’s head from his knees, stands, and shoves his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Hi, CeCe.”

  “Hey, Holden.” My voice goes hoarse and I clear my throat. “I didn’t know you were coming to town.” My tone is lemonade sweet. I so wish I could erase it and start all over.

  “Kind of last minute,” he says.

  Thomas walks up behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “He’s got some amazing news.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Hart Holcomb is cutting “What You Took From Me” tomorrow. We just went out and met with him. It’s pretty incredible how he connected with the song.”

  “Congratulations,” I say, forcing myself to meet Holden’s sober gaze. “It’s an amazing song.”

  “Thanks.”

  I try to make myself look away, make an excuse about needing to put away the groceries. But my mouth won’t form the words, and my feet won’t obey my brain. We watch each other like two people unsure of who’s going to make the first move. For a second, his guard drops, and I see in his eyes the Holden who sat outside that pound all night with me, waiting to get in and save Hank Junior. I see the Holden who kissed me that same night the way I’d always imagined being kissed; in a way I’d never been kissed before. I remember clearly how it had felt as if I’d found something I didn’t know I’d been waiting for.