5. Tinsley
CHAPTER 5
Tinsley
In the four days we’ve been here, Mikey and John have turned the quaint, blue painted lake house Briar rented into an impenetrable fortress. They’ve installed enough cameras and motion activated functions to rival the President’s private home. It’s not just in and around the house they’ve covered either. Their setup stretches down to the dock and out onto the lake about 500 yards in each direction so we have warning if anyone or anything comes down this way. There are even features on the security system to alert us of drones flying overhead.
The excess of high tech security is one of the compromises I had to make in order for them to also take a vacation. One that isn’t with me. That and a crash course in evasive driving for Briar.
I tried explaining to them we’re in a small town in East Tennessee, not some remote war zone with IEDs and insurgents. But they’re overprotective and I think having a small crisis of duty about leaving me alone.
Since we met eight years ago when I got mobbed leaving the grocery store and they rescued me—best unintentional job interview anyone has ever had—I hardly go anywhere without them. Even when I’m home in Bel-Air, one, if not both, of them is with me, each of them having their own permanent suite across the hall from my own.
I never complain about my situation. It comes with the territory and I’m well aware of the danger that comes with my celebrity—not just to me but those around me, even innocent bystanders. But after living this way for eight years, I desperately want to recapture some semblance of normalcy. Which is where Berry Falls comes in.
It’s the last place I can remember feeling completely at peace. It’s the only place that has ever felt like a true home. Not even where I grew up along the Ohio River in a small, overly affluent town outside of Louisville, Kentucky felt as warm and welcoming as Berry Falls.
As dual surgeons, my parents were always busy. Still are. At most I see them once a year—if I’m on tour, I’ll take about a three day detour from Nashville back home—and hear from them maybe once every three weeks. But only if I’m the one who calls. If I don’t, it could be as long as six or eight weeks before I get so much as an email.
Their demanding careers were how I ended up in the small Tennessee town alone for the first time. I had just graduated high school, and neither of them had been able to attend. After eighteen years of missed sporting events, recitals, talent shows, and canceled vacations, it wasn’t a shock or disappointment to me. It was simply reality.
It was also reality that while we had planned a family vacation to Berry Lake to finally use the condo they purchased when they got pregnant with me, I knew that if I went, my parents would probably not follow through on the promise to come when their schedules allowed it. I hadn’t cared one bit though. At that point in my life, I had already signed with my label and had a date set to return to L.A. in August to record my first album and knew it wouldn’t be long before I would be just as busy and career oriented as they were. But from Memorial Day weekend to August first, I was free and wanted to make memories. So I went home from my graduation and instead of going to parties, I spent the night packing my suitcases with the intention to leave for L.A. straight from Berry Falls, and I made the drive first thing the following morning.
Those ten weeks were the happiest of my life. Not that I haven’t been happy this last decade or that I’m not grateful for the incredible blessing I’ve been given with my success. But all of that is a different kind of happiness. One that highlights a glaring reminder of what Archer showed me.
Home isn’t a place, it’s a person.
And for a time, he was my person.
At least until I fucked it all up by leaving the way I did.
I’m not sure what I thought would come from my being here. It’s not as if I had some silly little daydream of running into Archer and us falling right back into that summer. At least, I didn’t think I did. Not until I saw him and the world tunneled in until there was only him, and all I felt was the furious thumping of my heart.
For a moment, I was filled with what if. The pain of my broken heart was gone. The nights of checking my phone for missed calls or texts only to cry myself to sleep when, once again, there was nothing from him were forgotten. Years of carefully crafted walls to block him from my mind so I could carry on crumbled.
He was here and so was I, at the very place we first met. His words an echo of the last time I had bumped into him. Every piece had fallen back into place.
In that moment, I believed we could fall back into one another. That we would. That maybe I wasn’t the only one still in love and regretting the foolish decisions made ten years ago.
But there's that beautiful little girl who looks just like him. Ellie, short for Eleanor. Named for his mama, something we had stayed up late one night in his bed talking about, naming the babies we would one day try to make together.
Every hope and what if that quickly swelled inside me deflated when I heard her talk about her daddy. Of course Archer moved on and found someone who is more deserving of his love and to have those babies with. Someone not stupid enough to run away from him but instead run to him.
And since then, I’ve been truly pathetic, mourning my loss of him all over again. Hair in an unbrushed top knot, not a stitch of makeup on, eating strawberry ice cream out of the container and drinking a sparkling strawberry rosé straight from the bottle while binge watching Hart of Dixie , pathetic.
“Okay, this ends now!” Briar firmly declares, throwing the curtains open. The dramatic effect is a little lost as dusk is settling over and we’re shadowed by the trees. She turns around so she’s framed in the window, hands on her hips, and says, “It’s been four days which is three too many.”
“But—”
“No buts! Doom and Gloom are gone, and we need to cut loose.”
I gesture to the TV where Zoe and Wade are having another tension filled moment.
“You’ve watched this show like a half dozen times on the tour. We all know what happens after they sleep together.” She points at me, face stern and brow raised when I open my mouth. “No! Put the ice cream down… now the rosé… and get your well toned ass off this couch. Good girl.”
“Briar—”
“Don’t, ‘Briar,’ me with those sad eyes,” she cuts off. Grasping my shoulders, she hunches so we’re at eye level and lays out her battle plan. “As your best friend, it is my job and expectation to pull you out of this and bolster you back up.
“Now here’s what’s gonna happen: you’re going to get a shower. Then I’m going to do your hair and makeup and put you into something flirty. After that, we’re going to handle this situation like the bad ass, modern women we are. By getting tipsy on pretty cocktails in a bar and letting some, like, cowboys or farmers or whatever they have here get a little handsy while we give them sloppy, drunk girl kisses on the dancefloor. And if that leads to you finally getting under a new man to get over this one, then all the better.”
She turns me around and slaps me on the ass, shouting, “Now march!” calling after me as I grumble and stomp up the stairs, “If you aren’t done in fifteen minutes, I’m coming in, Tinsley. Fifteen minutes, you hear me?”
“Yes, Mom,” I mutter, entering my bedroom.
“I heard that!”
* * *
“Thank you, Ames!” Briar and I chorus, accepting our latest round of shots and margaritas—classic and on the rocks for her and strawberry and frozen for me—from the owner of Dark Horse.
Tipping his head at us, he smiles, “You’re most welcome, ladies.”
We hold up our tequila shots, clink them together, and throw them back, finishing off with savage bites into salted limes. I hiss at the hot burn, stomping my feet on the barstool’s railing while shaking my head, eyes scrunched closed. When the intensity subsides, I sip from the ice water Ames has been scooching towards us all evening before taking a hearty sip of the far sweeter margarita.
I set the glass back down, the blended liquid sloshing over the rim and making me giggle. After four previous shots, three other margaritas, and finishing off the bottle of sparkling wine while getting ready, I’m definitely tipsy. Probably outright drunk.
“Next question,” I say a bit too loudly, tipping over onto Briar’s shoulder as I laugh more.
When we arrived and she started asking about Archer, I told her I was nowhere near drunk enough to get into our history. Thus started our shots-for-questions game. For every one we do, I’ll answer a direct question she asks.
Briar straightens me up, her blue eyes bright and shiny. Hands on my shoulders she loudly whispers, “Was he your first?”
“Shhh,” I sloppily admonish, reaching first over then under her arm, my coordination severely lacking as I try to grab another bacon, cheddar, and ranch smothered French fry that Ames dropped in front of us at some point, commanding us to eat. I pop it in my mouth, moaning at the greasy taste, and after wiping my fingers on a cocktail napkin, answer, “He was. He was my first everything. I’d never had sex or done any of the fun beneath the clothes stuff before him.” My mouth turns down and my face scrunches up. “I hadn’t even been kissed until him. He was everything, Briar. Every-fucking-thing to me. I loved him so much. Like, take his last name and have his babies, loved him.”
“Why’d you…” She pauses to lick the rim of her margarita before taking several healthy glugs. When she’s done, she lets out a loud belch making me cackle into the bartop. From behind the counter, Ames is laughing, too, as he pours a beer. “Oh my god, excuse me, that was gross. Anyway—hey don’t laugh at me.” She points to Ames and me. “It’s not nice. Anyway, why’d you leave?”
“I was stupid and scared and terrible!” I wail, letting my head drop with a thud onto the polished wood. “Ow.”
“Shit Tinsel, you okay?” Ames asks, smoothing my hair from the side of my face.
“She hates being called that,” Briar informs, playing with the ends of my hair. “Last guy to say that got his car keyed.”
Ames snorts, “Bullshit. We’ve always called her Tinsel—Ryder, Hunter, and me. So pretty and sparkly.”
“That hillbilly had a nickname for you?”
“It’s true,” I confirm, head still down. “Hunter didn’t always wish me a painful, miserable life, before dying a slow, agonizing death. Shocking, I know.” I peek up at Ames and finally break my resolve not to ask about Archer. “How is he? Is he happy?”
Outside of Ryder and Hunter, Ames is Archer’s best friend. They grew up together and, except for when Archer went away for college, have been as inseparable as Archer is with his brothers.
“He was fucked up when you left,” he answers with brutal honesty. “I’ve never seen him so broken. You were the air he fuckin’ breathed, Tins. He would have followed you to the ends of the earth, and you left. Didn’t even tell him goodbye. But yeah, he’s happy.” He taps a finger on the bartop, drawing my head up to look at him. “Don’t hurt him again, Tinsley.”
“Well, I’m not a homewrecker, so you don’t have to worry about that,” I say, finally straightening back up. I lift my margarita up in his direction and mockingly toast, “The only heart that remains broken in this situation is mine,” chugging the mixed liquor down until my brain freezes.
“Homewrecker?”
“Yeah, you know, like a woman who comes in and destroys a marriage,” Briar answers, but Ames doesn’t hear her because he’s shouting at someone.
“I know you did not just take a picture of her!” He squeezes my hand and earnestly says, “Welcome home, Tinsel.” Then, as sharp as before, his voice booms, “Gimme your fuckin’ phone!” He stalks out from behind the bar and goes to get in some guy’s face.
“Well that’s hot,” Briar admires. She spins on her stool, leaning back on the bartop as she finishes off her margarita, the both of us watching Ames’s standoff with one of his patrons before kicking the guy and his girlfriend out.
He stands up on a table, cutting his hand over his throat to silence the music. With everyone’s eyes on him, he lays down a new edict.
“You all leave Tinsley the fuck alone when you’re in my bar! Ya hear? I won’t put up with this shit! You got a problem with that, then go the fuck some place else because you ain’t welcome here!”
Everyone remains silent, and when Ames is done scanning the crowd and he’s satisfied, he raises a hand over his head and spins his finger, signaling the music to come back on.
“I guess your muse was right. We don’t have to worry about this town.”
“Told you.” I toss back the last of my drink and pop off the barstool. It takes a minute for my feet to turn steady, but when they do, I hold my hand out for Briar’s and say, “Now, let’s fucking dance!”