Chapter Thirty-Five
Tonight! Rhett Auburn performing for one night only at the Pink Iguana in downtown LA. Don’t miss this performance!
—LA Music, today
Above the doors of the Pink Iguana, the sign reads: RHETT AUBURN: ONE NIGHT ONLY.
Whether because of his recent scandal or the brevity of the gig, it’s already packed inside when I push my way through the doors. I wriggle through the crowd so I can stand close to the stage.
Trying for anonymity, I’m wearing the Rhett Auburn–branded baseball cap I never gave back to him. It seemed fitting for the occasion. I don’t think anyone will recognize me, but I can’t help looking over my shoulder every few seconds.
I haven’t been back here since meeting Rhett a year ago.
Back then, I was a dogged journalist toggling back and forth between Gracie during the day and Georgia at night.
I loved the nights. I loved going to concerts, giddy with the rush of live music.
There, it didn’t matter if I came alone.
Because in the crowd, I wasn’t alone anymore.
A young woman in a cowgirl hat sidles up to me and leans in. Her lip gloss smells like sugar. “Did you hear all the drama about him?”
“Oh, yeah—it’s wild,” I say.
She grins and takes a long sip of her drink. “You know he made out with someone in this club.”
I just nod and smile back, focusing on the stage.
It was right up there that the lead singer of the indie band had leaned into the microphone, waited for the strobe lights to beat once, twice, then said: “Kiss a stranger.” My skin melted into Rhett’s as couples formed around us, and when we pulled apart, the next song was already playing.
Kissing him was like being swept up in a wave.
His hands were steady, assured, but at any moment I could find myself at the edge of the world.
Now, the lights dim, and Rhett steps onstage to thunderous applause.
He’s wearing his usual outfit—a short-sleeve black shirt and jeans, cowboy boots poking out of the bottom.
That damn lock of hair falls over his forehead as he walks to the stool center stage and props his guitar up on one leg.
He adjusts the microphone and smiles out at the crowd, taking my breath away.
“Evening, y’all,” he says.
Next to me, cowgirl-hat lady is freaking out. She squeezes my arm so hard I think she might draw blood and screams at the top of her lungs, “RHETT, WILL YOU MARRY ME?!”
Everyone in the audience can probably hear her. Rhett glances over, chuckles, a hint of a blush creeping up his neck. “Uh, I’m flattered,” he says. “But I think it’s probably best if I say no.”
She doesn’t seem disappointed in the slightest. She’s screaming to her friend, gushing over the fact that he was talking to her. I grin into my chest and look back up at the stage to find Rhett staring at me. After a second, he breaks his gaze away, the blush still coloring his neck.
“This song is from my second album,” he says. “It’s called ‘Time of My Life.’”
Rhett’s fingers strum over the guitar strings and he keeps his gaze down as he begins. I’ve heard this song before, but hearing it live, directly from his lips and fingers, leaves me chilled.
We had the time of our lives
On those small-town back roads
But when you left, you tore me in two.
We had the time of our lives
Fighting our battles
Or was I just having the time of my life with you?
It’s a slow song, perfect for an acoustic performance, and when he finishes, the crowd erupts in cheers. He sings a few more of his older songs, stopping to say a few words between each one.
“I’m almost done for the night,” he says finally. “Y’all’ve been wonderful, but I only have time for two more. These are both new songs that I wrote recently and I’m hoping they’ll be on my next album.” My heart quickens. “This first one is called ‘Being New.’”
The song has a long intro, Rhett’s fingers flying across the strings as he leads the song into its slow, folky tune, before he starts to sing.
Sometimes, it’s a hard time, being new.
It’s the song he was playing when I snuck into his room, but the words hit me differently now as I remember what he said about his drinking, about how things ended with Cassidy.
By the time he gets to the chorus, the entire crowd is swaying, the woman next to me clutching her friend for dear life. When he finishes, I realize I’ve been holding my breath.
“One more,” he says. His eyes scan the crowd and land on me. His voice falters and for a second he just stares. His lips part like he’s about to say something, but no sound comes out.
“I’m sorry,” I mouth, hoping he can see me despite the bright stage lights.
“This song is about someone really special to me,” he says finally, tearing his eyes away from mine with a small smile. “I don’t know what’s in the cards for us, but I still care about her. It’s called ‘One Night Only.’”
I laugh as the double entendre hits me. Rhett Auburn: One Night Only. Exactly what I thought we’d be when we met last year.
As he begins to strum his guitar, tapping his foot with the beat, the woman next to me shrieks to her friend that he was looking right at her! and that this song must be about her. I sneak a glance at her. She can’t be more than twenty.
Baby, I thought we’d be one night only
But now you’re the rest of my nights
From breaking up and breaking down, messing up all around
But ain’t that the thing about life.
My breath hitches in my chest and I let out a quiet sob. It’s about me. It has to be. You were the only one. You are the only one. That’s what he said. And now, here he is, asking me, yet again, to believe him.
The woman next to me throws her arms around me and strokes my hair. Without really thinking, I hug her back and we stand, both crying for very different reasons, watching Rhett sing the rest of the song.
Some of the lyrics pop out in neon, the hot water gospel; flying up the coast; tattoos under fingertips, never going back. Then the lines start getting slower, his fingers heavier, and I know it’s almost over. This perfect bubble is about to pop, and I’m powerless to stop it.
Baby, be the rest of my life.
As he finishes singing, the crowd’s cheers are deafening. I seem to be the only one not screaming because I’m still stuck on this last line. Did he essentially just ask me to spend the rest of my life with him, while I’m disguised and we’re both trapped in an endless reality TV hamster wheel?
I catch his eye, and he winks at me. He leans into the microphone, says, “Or something like that,” and the crowd screams, dazzled by his humility.
Something like that. I smile.
That I can live with.
I’m waiting outside like a groupie when Rhett exits through the stage door of the club. A few others have lined up to see him, and I hover in the back of the crowd, waiting for him to disentangle himself from his fans.
Over the heads of a few teenagers, he catches my eye and gives me a small smile. Swinging his guitar behind his back, he excuses himself from the crowd and comes over to me.
He gives my baseball cap a playful tug and opens his mouth to speak.
“Don’t,” I whisper, putting my finger to his lips. “Me first?”
He nods as the crowd disperses around us.
Once they’re gone, I take a deep breath.
“I’m sorry, Rhett. I’m so sorry.” I start shaking and wind my arms around myself, trying to catch my breath.
“I got in so deep and I was so desperate and I didn’t think I could trust you and …
and I screwed this up so badly. I thought it was over, and I was going to let it be, because you made it clear that you didn’t want this.
But then I talked to Serena, and she said…
” I search his eyes, hoping he’ll silently confirm what I’m about to say.
“She said you asked her to keep me out of the story. I know I don’t deserve it, but I want this so badly.
And I need another chance to make it up to you. ”
His eyes crinkle as he looks at me. “The stuff about Cassidy isn’t a big deal.
” He sucks in a breath, shifting his weight.
“Last year I hoped I could keep everyone in the dark, but I know now that I can’t.
I told her to go ahead and publish it, and honestly …
it’s freeing.” He rubs his jaw, eyebrows stitched in the middle of his forehead.
“I wanted to protect you,” I whisper. “Serena said that if I got her more about Roland, she’d leave you alone, so I had to stay, but then it all went to shit, and there wasn’t anything I could do. But I’m done with her now—the job, everything. It’s over.”
He nods slowly. “I wish we’d been able to talk about it.”
I press my lips together. Of course this wasn’t going to be easy. Of course, I couldn’t just apologize and kiss him and make everything better.
“I wish we had, too,” I say, taking a step back.
His mouth pulls up in a half smile and he catches my arm, drawing me back to him. “Georgia, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m wild about you. And I chose this—I could’ve lied to her, tried to get her not to publish it, but I want it out in the open. I want a clean slate.”
“I love you,” I whisper. It takes me by surprise, but the second I say it, I know it’s right. Saying it is as easy as breathing, nothing like the hack job confession I gave Roland last week. I wind my fingers in the hem of Rhett’s T-shirt and hope he’ll say it back to me.
He presses his lips to mine, pulling me in so close I’m on tiptoe as he whispers, “I love you,” against my lips. “Is that—is that possible? In six weeks?”
“A year and six weeks,” I remind him. “And if it isn’t possible, I think Lainey might be out of a job. But she might be anyway … I’m going to publish the article without Serena. As myself. I have to finish what I started.”
The smile on his face warms my chest. “I’m proud of you,” he says. “Can I give you an exclusive scoop?”
I grin at him. “Of course. But I’d like some things to stay off the record.” I stand on tiptoe to kiss him again, before pulling back.
“There’s one more thing.” I bite my lip. “I’m staying for the proposals. Not for Roland, or Lainey, or Serena … For Monica. I don’t—she shouldn’t have to feel like a last resort—the only one left, you know?”
His eyebrows scrunch together but he nods. “Of course,” he says. He points between us. “I trust this. I trust you.”
I beam at him. “Are you sure?”
He nods, staring into my eyes like I’m the whole world. “There’s nothing stopping us. We can run around LA like a couple of kids, I can take you back to Tennessee sometime, meet my mom, I’ll come meet your folks, we can get a kitten and watch it live forever, we—”
I throw my arms around his neck and hold on tight. “Thank you,” I choke out. “Thank you.”
“I want you, Georgia.” He tightens his arms around my back. “No expiration date.”
It’s so sweet that my chest caves in a little and my lips find his and I kiss him so long that I have to catch my breath.
“So.” The corners of Rhett’s kiss-swollen lips twitch up. “Did you like my song?”
“It was very cheeky of you, Rhett Auburn,” I say. “If I didn’t know any better…” If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were proposing to me. “Well, at any rate,” I say, and grin, “I’d like something like that.”
I thread my arm through his, and we head back to the street to catch a cab back to the mansion.
“There’s something I have to ask you first,” he says.
We stop on the street corner, and he looks seriously into my eyes.
My heart skips a beat. He bends down and for a second I think he’s about to drop to one knee and pull out a ring, but he sets down his guitar case and takes my right hand in both of his.
Taking a deep breath, he grins. “Can I get your number?”