Chapter 22 Mae
Two weeks later...
I’m nervous. So damn nervous.
My stomach twists as I stand outside the concert stadium in Nashville, the massive venue already pulsing with the energy of thousands of country music fans waiting for Cody to take the stage.
The opening bands have already started, their music vibrating through the pavement beneath my feet, but I can’t focus on any of it.
Because Georgia is on her way.
Her flight landed from North Carolina where she lives an hour ago, and now she’s meeting me here with the results of the DNA test—the test she had done after discreetly securing a sample of Cody’s twin brother, Wilder’s, DNA and sending it off to a lab along with Elsie’s.
I tap my foot anxiously, my arms wrapped around myself despite the warm Tennessee night. My mind is a mess, my heart caught somewhere between dread and hope, between fear and relief, between the desperate need to know the truth and the terrifying weight of what that truth might mean for my life.
Thankfully, Georgia managed to secure VIP tickets from Cody’s manager without him knowing I’d be here tonight. I don’t even know if he’d want to see me. Not after how things ended the last time that I saw him. Not after the way I know I broke his heart.
The thought is enough to make my own chest ache, my pulse hammering against my ribs as I glance toward the entrance, watching the steady stream of fans file inside, buzzing with excitement, wearing Cody’s merch, carrying signs that profess their love to him, ready to lose themselves in his music.
I’ve seen every photo, every video, every snippet of his concerts over the past two weeks. He’s still Cody—ever the professional, putting on one hell of a show, performing with a fire that draws people in. But I can hear it in his voice.
There’s a sadness there.
A rawness, an ache that wasn’t there before.
Some critics have praised this tour as his most emotionally charged yet, claiming they’ve never heard him sing with such conviction, never felt his lyrics cut so deep. But I know the truth. I know what’s behind that ache.
And I hate that I might be the reason for it.
I hadn’t meant for it to get to this point.
I hadn’t meant to break things off the way I did.
But at the time, it felt like the only option—the only way to give myself space to figure things out, to get the answers I needed before dragging Cody into something that could turn his whole world upside down.
Because if he is the father…
God, I don’t even know what that means for us.
I don’t know how he’ll take the news, what it’ll do to him, to his career, to our already fragile relationship.
And if he isn’t?
I swallow hard, staring down at my phone, waiting for Georgia’s name to flash across the screen, waiting for the moment my life could change forever.
“I’m so sorry I’m late!” Georgia shouts, waddling towards me from the sidewalk, noticeably more pregnant than when I saw her a few short weeks ago.
“No problem,” I say nervously as she reaches into her back pocket and hands me a piece of paper.
“You want to open it before the concert or after?”
“Now. I need to know now,” I say with a firm head shake.
She nods and watches as I tear into it, my eyes scanning the sheet until they finally land on the results.
“Oh my God, Georgia.”
“What is it?” she asks nervously.
“Cody is Elsie’s biological father,” I whisper.
Georgia gasps, then grips my waist, pulling me in for a hug as we hold each other in stunned silence.
“This isn’t a bad thing,” she finally says, pulling back to search my eyes. “Cody will be an amazing father to her.”
I nod my head because it’s all I can do right now as my brain tries to process this news.
The wasted years of Elsie’s life not having a dad in the picture because of Vance’s absence.
The guilt at not realizing this was a possibility sooner.
When Cody and I had last been together our summer before leaving for college, I’d been distraught.
It was the summer after we graduated from high school, and as Cody had promised, we’d spent the time working at the rodeo together, sneaking out to meet up, and making love.
The last time we'd had sex had been the day before I left for college. We’d gone for a night swim in his pool, and then had sex underneath a willow tree while his family slept a few feet away.
I’d been heartbroken but knew it was goodbye as we parted ways—he headed to Michigan for college, and I went to Texas State.
A week later I met Vance and had a drunken, reckless hookup with him at a frat party that at the time I thought resulted in my pregnancy with Elsie.
A month later, when I found out that I was pregnant, the memory of my time with Cody felt like a distant lifetime.
The good news in all of this is that Elsie never really knew Vance, or had to be around him long enough for him to affect her.
The bad news is that Cody’s missed out on the last nine years of his daughter’s life.
This is… horrible...
“I'm going to tell him,” I gasp, tears running down my face now. I pull out my purse, grab some tissues and wipe at my eyes aggressively, trying not to ruin the makeup I put on this evening.
Georgia nods her head silently.
“He’s going to hate me,” I say.
“You didn’t know, Mae. I’ll be there for you when you tell him if you’d like.” She gives my hand a comforting squeeze. “Come on, let’s not think about the future for a moment and go see your baby daddy perform.”
I know she’s trying to lighten the mood.
I know Georgia wants me to laugh, to push the weight of the envelope in my pocket out of my mind, even if just for a moment.
But I can’t. It’s there, pressing against my thigh with every step we take, a reminder that no matter how much I might want to, I can’t pretend this doesn’t change everything.
We make our way inside the stadium, the crowd pulsing with energy, the opening bands wrapping up their sets as an electric anticipation builds in the air. Cody’s name flashes across the massive screens, and the roar of the audience is deafening.
And then he steps onto the stage.
The sound of his voice fills the stadium, and my heart pounds so violently in my chest that I swear I can hardly hear him over it.
The concert rages around us, his fans singing along to every lyric, their voices weaving together in a chorus of devotion.
I’ve watched his performances through live streams every night since the tour started, but being here—feeling the energy of the crowd, the way he commands the stage, the sheer force of his presence—it’s something else entirely.
And then he transitions into a new song.
The melody is hauntingly beautiful, his voice raw with emotion, and I feel it deep in my bones.
Every word, every note, carrying a weight that pulls at something inside me.
The young girl who saw his potential and wanted to be with him.
The man who I love now. His face is a perfect storm of passion and pain, his voice thick with something real, something I know all too well.
Then, toward the end of his set, his gaze sweeps over the VIP section, scanning the faces, the crowd blurring together in the glow of the stage lights. And his eyes find mine.
For a split second, time stops.
Heartache, hurt, longing—it all flashes through his expression, sharp and devastating, before he blinks it away. His jaw tightens, his shoulders straighten, and just like that, the moment is gone.
I am so sorry for not fighting harder for us. For not realizing that Elsie was yours.
All those lonely, scary nights I spent wondering whether Vance would show at his parents' house while I was at work and take Elsie from me.
Moving to Las Vegas to escape his and my family.
Elsie's first-time walking. First time talking. The way she smiled as a baby.
Oh, God! I hate myself for not realizing this years ago.
Cody reaches for his guitar before settling onto a stool that someone from the back has brought out to him.
“I’d like to share a new song with y’all if that’s alright? One I haven’t yet released.”
The crowd goes wild with cheers, and he smiles at all of them, flashing that mega-watt, panty-dropping grin without looking my way.
"I wrote this one last night on the tour bus, so my band hasn’t had much time to practice it.
It’s a song about a girl I once knew and lost, who came back into my life but refuses to acknowledge that we’re too deep in to let anything stop what’s been brewing for years.
I’ve titled it, ‘Mayday,' to signify the distress signal I'm sending out to her tonight.”
My breath freezes in my lungs, heart stuttering. He strums his guitar gently while the crowd cheers, before he begins a song full of longing, heartbreak and pain. Tears fill my eyes again as I listen to him.
“Oh my gosh,” Georgia whispers in my ear. “He wrote this song for you, Mae. Mae-day.”
Though his eyes are closed as he sings, I know without a doubt she’s right. Cody wrote this song for me and the distress he’s felt since I asked for a break.
Georgia grips my arm, her eyes panicked. “Bad timing, Mae, but I think my water just broke.”
“What!” I shout, finally tearing my eyes away from Cody and looking at her.
She nods nervously and points down at her dress which now has a noticeable wet spot in the back accompanied by a trickle rushing down her leg.
“We need to get you to the hospital right now!”
She clutches her stomach and groans. “The contractions are starting.”
I grab her arm and pull her through the VIP section to a side exit, rushing towards the curb of the stadium parking lot and flagging down a cab from the waiting line.
“The hospital, please!” I scream as Georgia slides into the back seat of the car, groaning in pain.