3. Tinsley
CHAPTER 3
Tinsley
Berry Falls is a world away when comparing it to L.A. Already I feel as if I can breathe again and we’ve only just left the municipal airport after signing for our rental cars. For the first time in years, I’m even in the front seat of one of the three cars—Briar and I in one SUV and Mikey and John split between two others, one in front of us and the other behind.
As I take in the bright afternoon sun and the smog free sky with puffy white clouds, I feel the exhaustion I didn’t realize I’ve been carrying lift from my shoulders.
This is exactly what I needed. To come home.
I’m not originally from Berry Falls, but it’s more like home to me than any place I’ve been. That’s how deeply ingrained in me that summer is. How far those ten weeks burrowed under my skin and slipped into my soul. And while it’s been years since I’ve been here, it feels like it was only yesterday I was turning off the freeway and driving this very road into town for the first time on my way to meet a boy from East Tennessee who would change my life forever, though I didn’t know it at the time.
The wave of nostalgia crashes over me and I roll the window down, urging Briar to do the same with the rest of them. The lazy breeze, combined with the 65 mile per hour speed we’re cruising at, has the waves of my hair whipping around my head. I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn to reach into the backseat and pull my hat out from one of the bags.
It’s not actually mine. The faded black cap with the gold stitched Vanderbilt V on the front belonged to Archer. Somewhere along the way I claimed it as mine. I hadn’t known when I left that it would become a reminder of how perfect he and that summer were.
I put it on and immediately begin to braid my hair to prevent the wind from knotting it into a rat’s nest. Grinning back at a smiling Briar, I tempt, “Music?”
“Duh!” she yells, hands off the wheel as she twists her blonde hair up into a messy bun.
I leave my phone with a library of tens of thousands of songs at my fingertips in the cupholder and opt for turning on the radio. It takes a bit to clearly catch a station, but as I’m going, the chords from one of my earlier songs grabs Briar’s attention. She swats my hand away and turns it up, declaring “This is my favorite song of yours.”
“You say that about all of them.”
“That’s beside the point.”
Laughing, we sing the words to my own song at the top of our lungs—her using the steering wheel to play the drums with her palms and me whipping my head side to side as the beat drops and tempo increases.
We continue on like that, singing every song we know that comes on and making up words to the ones we don't until the speed limit begins to gradually decline and we’re welcomed to Berry Falls by picturesque wooden signs on either side of the road.
Ten years and for a moment, it’s as if not a single day has gone by. The signs are the same now as they were then. Intricately carved, bright white pillars hold up the signs, not a hint of sun bleaching having occurred or humidity induced algae creeping up. The painting behind the bold lettered “Welcome to Berry Falls” blends the rolling mountains, fields of ripening strawberries, and the emerald colored lake the town is famous for, and it’s as pristine as I imagine it was the day the painter first made it. To cap off the charming welcome to town, a white-tailed fawn is laying in front of the immaculately cut bushes, unafraid as it watches us.
“Oh my God!” Briar squeals, grabbing her phone to take a picture. “It’s like a little Hallmark town. Do they have, like, blue ribbon competitions for the best shortcake and pie? Please tell me that they do.”
“The first week of May is the Strawberry Festival. Carnival rides, an opening parade with the high school’s marching band, and yes,” I confirm, “A Best Pie and Best Shortcake judging as well as Mini Berry, Teen Berry, and Miss Berry Falls pageants.”
“Shut up!”
“I’m serious. I didn’t come until Memorial Day weekend, but Archer said it’s like a whole big thing every year with actual rivalries between current and former winners of the Best Shortcake ribbon and accusations of sabotage and store bought shortcuts.”
“We need to go,” she decides. “Like, we can’t be friends anymore and I’ll be forced to quit if you do not take me. I need to experience this. It’s like being an anthropologist and going into some remote village in, like, the Amazon or something. I need to study and see the Hallmark people in their natural habitat.”
“Oh my God,” I laugh, pointing forward to show her the light’s green and Mikey’s already crossed the empty intersection.
As we drive, the thick trees that have lined the road and hung over us begin to part and make way for sidewalks and homes. Children with backpacks are riding their bikes, parents are pushing strollers, and grannies are on porches with pitchers of sweet tea and lemonade and plates with homemade treats waiting on side tables. Everyone waves to one another and says hello as they pass by, and for a moment, we’re caught up in the small town charm. We wave back, and Briar nearly vibrates in her seat like a kid who’s just arrived at Disney World and not Berry Falls.
“Okay babe, I need the rundown.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, rolling up the window as two grannies chatting on the street corner do a double take after waving to us. Even though I know the people in this town will keep my being here secret, I’m not ready for anyone to know just yet. Rather, I’m not ready for him to know. I need more time.
“I’ve known you for ten years and in all that time, Archer’s been a non-starter. You almost never talk about him or this town. In fact, you keep everything from before locked down tighter than Fort Knox unless you’re writing. Hell, ten years and I know, like, almost nothing about this man. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a picture of your muse.”
“Can a man be a muse?”
“Tins,” she says, low on patience for my attempt at avoidance. “The man inspired an entire album. A phenomenal album that you’ve sat on for all these years and then out of the blue while on tour you wanted me to get you studio time so we could get those songs recorded and released into the world. So yeah, a man can be a muse; at least that man can. Now spill.”
With the windows up, I take my hat off and begin releasing the braids in my hair, trying to buy myself a few minutes.
“Tinsley,” Briar sing-songs to the beat of the SUV’s blinker. “I’m waiting.”
I sigh and look out the window.
“What do you want me to say, Briar? I was eighteen and… Archer was… he was everything to me.”
He was everything to me and if only to myself, I can admit he still is and that I wish I was still everything to him. And even when it was clear that I wasn’t, I still came back. After a year without him so much as sending me a text, I still came as promised because he was the only one for me, and I hadn’t spent a single second of that year not hopelessly in love with him.
And in the nine years since I last saw him, that hasn’t changed. The only difference is, now I’m tired of pretending it has.
Briar is in disbelief as she runs her hands over the silhouette of the parking meter.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says for the third time.
I’m trying not to laugh, but the instant love she had for Berry Falls is dying a quick death as she checks, yet again, for a place to tap the credit card on.
“Do we not have change?”
She ignores me as she looks up and down the street, muttering, “Is there not a parking kiosk?” She takes several steps down each side of the sidewalk, stretching up in her heels, before throwing her hands up in the air. “What in the ever loving name of Mayberry is wrong with this place? Who still uses coin operated meters?”
“We could call Mikey and?—”
“No!” she snaps, pointing the credit card at me. She flips her hair over her shoulder and squares up, chin raised as she proudly informs me, “I did not fight with them all day yesterday and for the entire flight today for your chance to be proven right that you can move freely about this town without them acting like Doom and Gloom as they hover over you to turn around and call them for help twenty minutes after we get here. You wanted a real vacation where you could exist with no connections to being Tinsley Jacobs, and I’m going to make sure you get it.
“You pay me to handle things, and I can handle this.” She pulls out another card and says, “You stay with the car in case Barney Fife wants to give us a ticket, and I’m going to order our coffees. I’ll simply get cash back and ask them to give me, like, a roll of quarters or something.”
“Okay,” I nod, losing the battle against laughing.
“We wouldn’t have these problems if we had gone to Paris,” she mutters, wrenching open the door to Berry Station.
I’ve been all around the world several times and nowhere has coffee quite like Berry Station, which was why I insisted that, before we did anything else, we had to stop and caffeinate.
While in the main area of town, the coffee shop got its name from its original outpost when the rail tracks were still operational. When the route became defunct, the shop closed down. Decades later, with the rise of Berry Lake becoming a summer tourist spot thanks to the resort that was built and the market for designer coffees, Berry Station was reborn, with the owners taking design inspiration from the original outpost and giving the shop a luxury travel, Art Deco vibe.
It’s also where I first met Archer.
I had just ordered a strawberry shortcake frappé and was oblivious to my surroundings as I scrolled through social media. Not paying attention to where I was going as I walked to the pickup counter, I bumped into someone. I was almost too distracted to fully look up from my phone to apologize, too engrossed in something I’ve long since forgotten about.
It was a half hearted glance I initially gave him. But when I looked up and saw nothing but a white t-shirt stretched across a firm, tight body, I took my eyes completely off my phone and looked further up, my mouth going dry as I met the deepest shade of green eyes I’d ever seen. His rough, calloused hands had reached out, gently touching me at my shoulder and my elbow, searing my skin.
He asked if I was okay—his voice as rich and deep as his eyes but slow and thick, clinging to me like the humidity outside. I smiled and stammered over giving him an answer and asking the same thing since I was the one who hadn’t been paying attention. My inability to speak made him smile, and in that moment when his full lips pulled up, softening his stubble covered sharp jawline, I was gone. Swiftly struck down like an arrow to the chest.
We spent two hours talking while seated in moody colored arm chairs that his body dwarfed before he quietly asked for my number and if he could take me to dinner that night, his suntanned cheeks turning pink all the way up to his ears.
I’ve never said yes to anything as quickly as I did to Archer Hayes.
“Ugh!” Briar shouts, blustering back out the door, her fist closed and raised as she shakes it, tumbling me free from my reverie.
I open my mouth to ask her what happened to put her in such a snit, but she turns around, face pinching in annoyed anger as she lifts her middle finger up at someone still inside.
“Tell me again why I agreed to this?” she demands, stomping in her Jimmy Choos up to the meter, quarters dropping free of her hand and pinging on the concrete. “We could have gone anywhere, Tinsley. Anywhere . The world is your oyster and we ended up in this… this… this… UGH!”
I scramble out of the SUV, waddling like a hunched over duck to grab the coins before they rolled into the street or down the gutter.
“What happened?”
She paces several steps in each direction, muttering to herself before stabbing a finger towards Berry Station.
“That fucking James Dean wannabe hick in there. Like excuse me , I have a MBA from Stanford ! Can he even spell Stanford?”
As soon as I’ve collected the change, I pop up and pump several quarters into the meter. Behind me, Briar continues to mutter before she growls.
“You know what, no. I’m going back in there,” she decides, spinning around, the skirt of her dress blowing up as she goes.
“Shit,” I rush out, hauling ass after her.
I grab the door before it can bounce back into the brick exterior, but my blood runs cold when I hear an all too familiar voice stopping me from fully entering the coffee shop. It’s the same voice that, nine years ago, took my already broken heart and made sure it was crushed.
“The coins go in the slot, Barbie.”
“Listen here, asshole.” The entire shop—which has several employees and a dozen or more guests inside—falls to a hush as they scoot in to listen. “Just because you?—”
At just above five foot nothing and only getting an extra inch or so from my pink cowboy boots, I’m not much of an effective wall between my runway model tall best friend and Archer’s twin brother. Still, I quickly slip between them, mindful to keep my face hidden, and catch the finger Briar is about to stab into Hunter’s chest and quietly remind her, “People are watching us,” more thankful than ever before for the media training that’s stripped me of my identifying Kentucky drawl.
It’s all she needs to suddenly snap back into composure. With a brush of her fingers along the side of her face to smooth away her blonde hair and a quick breath in as she squares her shoulders back, she musters out, “Yes, I was able to work that out; thank you,” taking my hand and turning us towards the front counter.
I think I’ve made it unnoticed. Can feel the relief settling over me and the excitement creeping in that the seasonal menu of strawberry anything and everything is available. But then the song on the coffee shop's sound system changes as I’m taking my sunglasses off and putting them on my head.
Behind the counter, the barista’s eyes go wide as her mouth drops and her finger lifts up to point at me. She stutters over my name several times before squealing.
“Tiff, you okay?” Hunter asks from down the counter, pocketing his phone as he looks up and over to us. The moment his eyes move from Tiff to me, the concern melts away and cold rage has him turning to stone as he seethes, “Get out.”
I take a deep breath, closing my eyes for a second as I tuck away every emotion that comes with him and Archer. Smooth as glass inside my mind, I open my eyes and turn to face him, offering a practiced smile.
“Hello, Hunter.”
“You know him?”
“Hunter, this is Briar,” I introduce. “Briar, this is Hunter—Archer’s evil twin.”
“No,” she denies.
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing here, Tinsley, but I thought I made myself clear the last time; there’s nothing for you here. You’re not wanted.”
For a moment, I’m nineteen again and every accomplishment I’ve made since then doesn’t matter. Past and present blur together and all I can feel is the same constriction in my throat and the crush of my heart over his words.
What did you expect? That you’d come here and bat your pretty little eyes and he’d fall all over himself at the chance to have you again? He’s moved on. Forgotten all about you. So go write one of your silly little songs and do the same because you’re not wanted here.
On the inside of my elbow, I feel the sharp pinch of Briar’s manicured nails. The pain halts the torrent of emotion trying to break though and allows me to recenter myself.
“Well actually there is,” I reply with indifference, turning back to the counter. “Tiff, right?” I ask the girl. She nods her head, stars shining in her eyes. “Do y’all still make the strawberry shortcake frappé?”
“Yeah, we can, we can totally do that for you, Miss Jacobs. Whatever you want, we can make it.”
“Perfect,” I beam. “I’ll have one of those, large, and an iced Dirty Hippie Chai Latte, also large. Oh and please, call me Tinsley. Briar and I are going to be here for the next several weeks, so we may as well get on a first name basis since you’ll be supplying us with our daily caffeine fix.”
“Oh my God, that’s amazing. Tinsley Jacobs is staying here. In Berry Falls. Oh my God.”
With Briar paying, I turn back to Hunter with a self satisfied smile and ask, “So, how have you been, Hunter? I see you’re still as hateful as you always were.”
He ignores the coffee that’s set down right in front of him and closes the gap between us. Briar goes to intercede much like I did for her, but I put my hand up to call her off and let her know I’ve got this. Hunter may have had the upper hand for a moment, making me feel small and insignificant all over again, but I’m not the same girl he once knew and bullied out of seeing his brother again. In the nine years since we last saw each other, I’ve performed in front of sold out crowds in some of the world’s largest venues, headlined the Super Bowl halftime show, and reshaped the industry as one of the biggest musical names of all time.
I’ve become a goddamn icon known around the world. No one gets to bully me and make me feel unworthy. Especially not Hunter fucking Hayes.
“He’s happier without you, Tinsley. Stay the fuck away.”
“In case you’ve missed it, Hunter, it’s been ten years. So do like your brother and move on.”
“Here you are, Miss Jacobs—I mean, Tinsely,” Tiff excitedly interrupts, handing me our drinks.
“Thank you, Tiff.”
I slide my sunglasses onto my face and link arms with Briar, dismissing Hunter without so much as a backward glance.
“Damn, babe,” Briar admires. “I was worried about you at the start but you were like ice.”
“It’s like you said—I’m Tinsley fucking Jacobs.”
“Hell yeah, you are,” she proudly agrees, cheersing our plastic cups together.
“So, where to first? I’m thinking we do a little shopping while word spreads, then we tour the town some because with word out, Mikey and John won’t be able to call any of today a fluke when I’m proven right. And after all of that, word will definitely spread. Small Town Collect at your service.”
“Sounds perfect, though I still need to text them and give them an update about where you’re going.”
“Ugh, fine,” I playfully grumble.
At the door, I let her arm go and turn my back to push it open while she texts. Briar goes out ahead of me, eyes still trained on her phone, and as I turn around to follow her, I bump into someone, dropping my coffee on the ground.
“Oh my gosh,” I startle, squatting down to pick up the cup. “I am so sorry, I wasn’t… paying attention,” I finish, my words trailing off as I’m met with deep green eyes, full lips, and a sharp jawline covered in dark stubble.
“Archer?”
“Tinsley?”