Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Danny, seriously, man. We need to take a break. I’m freezing my ass off over here trying to get this shot.”
“Five more minutes,” I barked back to Jaylon. “And I told you to wear more than a damn T-shirt.”
He never fucking listened, that kid. We were out past sunset grabbing some promotional shots of the mountain. It was just the two of us at the cabin this week. Barrett had to stay home to deal with some family thing.
Now that our documentary, In His Tracks, had officially been picked up by a streaming service, it was all marketing this, and advertising that.
It was mostly for social media and shit, which I typically despised, but I understood it was a necessary evil.
Thankfully Jaylon was more into this crap and had taken the lead on it.
I glanced up toward the mountain, angling the drone to get some shots of the backside. Even though the snow had long melted away, except for a few patches at the very top, it still looked just as intimidating.
“Let me have your jacket,” he whined.
“I told you to bring yours.”
“It was warm until the sun set.”
“Just like every goddamn evening in the mountains. You know better,” I yelled back.
Jaylon continued to grumble but didn’t protest when I handed him the controller for the drone. He took it over, immediately lifting it higher in the air to get the footage we needed. I was itching to be done.
Personally, I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of here. We’d only arrived back at the cabin forty-eight hours ago, and I couldn’t take it. It had always been my favorite place, despite the weight of what had happened with my dad and the memories that still lay buried there.
But even with all that, it had been this past winter that had made being here all but impossible. She was everywhere. What I had done to her tainted the air in the cabin so badly I couldn’t breathe sleeping in that bed without her.
After another ten minutes of Jaylon complaining, the evening had grown dark enough that we were forced to call it.
The van still sat exactly where we’d left it along the beaten trail, our headlamps cutting a narrow path through the dark as we made our way back.
Jaylon drove while I checked the footage.
When we got to the base of the mountain at the end of the narrow service road, my phone pinged. This was the first spot on the drive where service came back, a fact I knew well from the countless times I’d made the trip.
I’d received a new voicemail from an unknown number. It was probably spam, but curious, I clicked play and pressed the speaker button.
“Hey, Danny. It’s Brady. Long time no talk—”
I clicked end before even finishing it. What the hell did he want?
“Brady?” Jaylon asked, shifting his gaze from the road to me.
“That asshole producer from Tough Love,” I muttered.
Jaylon laughed. “Why is he calling? Is he inviting you to be on another dating show? You were just so charming the first time, they’re clamoring to get another piece of you?”
“Shut up.”
“They could call it, Taming the Grizzly. Or Grumpy Finds Love.”
I shot him a death glare.
“Shit, that one is actually pretty good.” He tapped his chin. “Put Brady on, I want to pitch it.”
When Jaylon met my eyes and saw how much vitriol I’d put into my stare, he wiped the smug grin off his face. “What crawled up your ass and died? It’s just a phone call.”
Just a phone call that brought me straight back to her.
Another reminder of her. They were everywhere, it seemed.
I found them in places she’d never even been, like the pink flowers growing outside my California apartment or the dive bar I used to frequent that now occasionally played her music.
I found her in everything. So a call from Brady—an actual link to her—was even more of a gut punch than anything else.
Another solid reminder of how much I’d royally, epically fucked it all up.
She was gone and wanted nothing to do with me, and I had no one to blame but myself. I truly was the biggest masochist I knew.
Part of me wanted to delete the message without listening to it and forget he ever called, but I couldn’t put it out of my mind.
Because I knew something about Brady, something that I wished wasn’t true.
And that was the fact that he was working on Trace’s new show, the one I’d overheard her talking about back at the reunion.
The one I should have begged and pleaded with her not to accept.
I should have gotten on my fucking knees instead of letting her walk away from me, but I hadn’t.
I’d been so sure she wouldn’t really go through with it, sure I’d have another chance to talk to her.
Now, much to my own goddamned, self-inflicted misery, I had to be tortured with online articles buzzing about the show. Will the country star find love? Will Trace Davis meet the man of her dreams?
Over my dead body.
I knew Trace, and I knew she wouldn’t be taken in by any of the ridiculous guys they cast for her.
Yes, I was a man obsessed.
Yes, I had already read every single article breaking down the men who’d been cast to be on her show. Bums. All of them.
“This is about Trace,” Jaylon said, her name causing my jaw to immediately tense.
“No,” I said, as if thoughts of her weren’t the only thing racing through my mind.
“About the show,” he confirmed.
“What show?” I muttered, still staring at the voicemail.
Jaylon hit my shoulder and I jerked my gaze up to glare at him.
“You know what fucking show, man. The one Trace is on. The one that’s got you on your laptop any free second, obsessively searching for information. Brady calling you has something to do with that, doesn’t it?”
I stayed quiet, eyes glued to the dark, winding road in front of us.
“You think Brady is calling about her,” he continued.
“Why the hell else would he call me? I haven’t heard from him since he tried to convince me to do the reunion.”
And the only way I’d been talked into doing that ridiculous reunion was because Brady had called and dangled Trace in front of my face like a fucking carrot. I’d folded. Almost instantly. Because I had to see her.
After I left her at the airport back in February, she’d blocked me on everything—rightfully so.
She’d blocked Barrett and Jaylon too, when I’d tried to use their phones to contact her.
It had taken me a full day to realize the grave mistake I’d made, but when I finally woke the fuck up, I’d tortured myself sick with what I’d done.
I had to see her, to talk to her.
I’d gone to two of her concerts. Finally witnessing her on stage should have been magical, but it absolutely gutted me seeing the sad, far-off look in her eyes.
I’d tried to sneak backstage both times but had been stopped.
I probably would have gone to more, but I still had the documentary to finish.
I had responsibilities. I couldn’t let down Jaylon and Barrett just because I happened to be the biggest idiot on the planet.
Then, I’d finally had her in the same room as me, at the reunion.
It was obvious she’d told no one about our time at the cabin, not even Calla.
She’d pretended to be pleasant with me while still holding me at a distance.
Whether that was a good or bad sign was beyond me, but I’d been determined as hell to talk to her—get her to realize that I knew how badly I’d messed up.
That I’d realized it almost the moment she walked away.
I’d convince her I’d never do that to her again.
That she was right. I had been, and still was, scared shitless.
But I was done running. I would be stronger. For her.
Then I saw her at the reunion, and all of my motor functions and critical thinking skills went straight out the window. She hated me, or at least what I’d done. I saw it in her eyes the few times she could bring herself to look at me. She’d refused to talk to me for more than five minutes.
What right did I have to her time? After all, I was the asshole who’d broken her heart. Twice.
But she knew why. She saw me better than anyone.
After I’d failed miserably at the reunion, I’d immediately concocted a new plan to go see her. I’d tracked down her address in Nashville—don’t ask. But right as I’d been getting ready to leave, I’d found that damned article about her show starting production.
I wish I could say I’d handled that moment with grace, but Jaylon and Barrett had been witnesses to the fit I’d thrown. I’d nearly put my phone through the window.
But there was nothing I could do. I’d have to wait until she was done filming. There was no way she could open up to someone in a matter of a few weeks. Hell, we met on reality TV, but we were different. That’s what I was telling myself to keep me sane, anyway.
I’d already resigned myself to the fact that I’d have to wait until she was done with the show to see her.
I booked a ticket to Nashville for the day after filming was supposed to end, at least according to some cheesy gossip site.
I wasn’t positive she’d be back that day, or what I’d walk into when I went, but it was past time we talked this out.
We were meant to be together, damn it. And it was no one’s fault but my own that we weren’t.
I would do anything to make things right between us.
“Aren’t they filming right now? Do you think everything is alright?” Jaylon asked as we pulled into the cabin’s driveway.
My fingerprints would likely leave permanent indentations on the edge of the center console given how tightly I was gripping it.
“She’s fine.” My eyelids blinked rapidly, out of my control. “And I wouldn’t be the first call if she wasn’t.”
“What if she asked for you?”
My heart thudded against my chest at the thought, however unlikely it was. As soon as the truck came to a stop, I ripped myself out of the car, slamming the door shut behind me.
Once inside, where I would finally have a few bars of service again, I pulled out my phone. I called Brady, not bothering to listen to his voicemail.
“Danny,” his irritating voice strung out my name in almost a lyrical way. “I was hoping you’d call back.”
“What do you want?” I snapped.
He chuckled. “It’s always straight to the point with you.”
I didn’t bother responding, just waited impatiently for him to continue.
“Look, it’s about Trace. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’re filming a show—”
“I know.”
Papers rustled on his end, and I tried not to let his casual tone grind on my nerves. “Well then, I’ll get right into it. There’s a wedding coming up.”
Rage tore through my chest before I could tell myself to wait for more context. I paced the living room, my empty fist clenched tightly at my side.
“She and one of the contestants have really hit it off, and we all thought—what would America want to see more than a gorgeous wedding?”
My pulse skyrocketed. He was lying. He had to be. There was no way in hell Trace would agree to a televised wedding less than two weeks into shooting.
“Bullshit,” I said.
“I can send you the pictures from her dress fitting, if you like, and the venue we spent all day decorating for the nuptials tomorrow. Everyone is very excited.”
I wished I could reach through the phone and cause real harm to that man’s smug face. He couldn’t be telling the truth. Trace was not getting married.
She would end the show single, and I’d fly to her immediately and somehow win her back.
That was my plan. I needed that plan. Because I needed her.
She’d been right when she left me in that parking lot that day—I did love her, and I did regret my actions.
Now I faced the almost impossible task of making her see just how much she meant to me, and that I would never leave her again.
Jaylon walked in the door at that moment, shooting me a “what the fuck” look. I waved him off and continued my angry pacing.
“Are you still there? It’s awfully quiet on your end, Danny.”
I halted, sucking in a breath through my nose. “What do you want me to say? That you’re full of shit? Because I think I already mentioned that.”
“I’m not lying.” He let out a drawn-out sigh, like this conversation had wiped him out. “Why don’t you fly down here for yourself to see it if you don’t believe me?”
“What are you getting at?”
“We can have you on a plane tonight.” I heard him say something muffled to someone not on the phone. “Where are you?” he asked.
“In the middle of Colorado,” I found myself saying. The thought of getting on a plane right now and ending up in her vicinity had my adrenaline at an all-time high, and I had just spent the winter skiing down literal cliffs, for Christ’s sake.
“More information, please.” I could picture Brady rolling his eyes, which annoyed me more.
“The biggest major airport is Denver, but that’s a solid four hours from here. Closest one is Key Ridge, but it hardly has any flights—”
“Got it,” Brady said. “I’ve got my assistant looking now. There’s a flight from Key Ridge to Denver in…three hours, and then a red eye to Florida. Can you make that flight?”
I dragged a hand over my face.
He was manipulating me. I shouldn’t let this happen. The portion of my brain that handled critical thinking shouted at me to hang up or tell him to fuck right off. But I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t thinking with that calmer, saner part of my brain now. It might as well have been completely disabled.
“I’ll be on the plane.”