Chapter 21 #2
And though it might not have ended up quite the way we thought that trip would, that future can still be ours. All I need is for us to be together. That’s enough. It’s more than enough.
He’s all I need.
I pull my phone out, taking a picture of him onstage, singing this song to me for the first time. Click.
Everyone else claps as the song ends, but Bobby’s heated look across the space is all for me. Click.
“All right, folks. Enough sappy shit,” Bobby says, flashing a cocky grin. “This is a honkytonk, not a Celine Dion concert. You know what time it is . . . get a drink, raise it up, and don’t forget to tip your waitress and bartenders.”
There’s a resounding rush for beers before Bobby rolls off into a few cover songs to get the crowd riled up. They sing along, the whole crowd swaying with their hands in the air, giving the bar a sense of community.
This is Bobby Tannen’s party. We’re just the lucky attendees to this shindig. And for a moment, he seems more like himself, the rough and tough cowboy with a golden heart who sets my whole body on fire when he says filthy things in my ear while filling me. That’s who’s onstage right now.
I sing along with him under my breath as I make drinks, keeping up with the tickets and checking on Unc as I make my way up and down the bar. It seems like he’s doing better now, pulling beers and talking to Richard, who showed up a bit ago.
I see a new shirt at the far side of the bar and make my way over. “What can I get you?” I ask the guy’s back.
He answers over his shoulder, watching Bobby onstage. “Johnnie Walker Black, neat.”
I pour his drink and set it on a napkin. “Tab?”
“No.” He reaches for his wallet, pulls out a twenty, and lays it down.
I’m mentally calculating his change when he says, “Keep it.”
“Thanks.” I drop the bill in my apron, ready to move on to my next customer, but he finally turns around. I recognize him instantly.
“Jeremy? I mean, Mr. Marshall?”
I only saw him the one time, when he was asking questions about Bobby, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the man who offered Bobby a shot at his dream before he snatched it away.
“You must be The Willow?” There’s a sneer in the way he says my name that I don’t understand.
“Well, I’m Willow. I don’t know about The Willow.” I have no idea what he’s talking about or why he’s looking at me like I’m some weird anomaly. It makes me feel the way I used to as an awkward kid. To him, I’m an outsider, easily dismissed.
Jeremy laughs as though I said something funny, and I frown.
“Well, Bobby would disagree with you there. He thinks you’re something really special.” It should be a compliment, but it certainly sounds like an insult.
“What?” I blink in confusion. “We seem to be having two different conversations here.” An idea springs to life, fully formed in my mind, and excitement rushes through my entire body. “Oh, my God, did you change your mind? Are you here to offer Bobby a deal after all?”
I lean forward, praying he says yes. Bobby will be so happy!
Jeremy’s brows jump up his impossibly unlined forehead. “Offer a deal? Change my mind?” He’s silent for a moment, looking at me then over his shoulder to Bobby.
“I hear hundreds of singers every year, you know? I hit every dive bar, club, and county fair concert in towns all over the country. I watch YouTube videos and shitty TikToks of people who can’t sing their ABCs with decent pitch.
I have never seen anyone like that guy up there. ” He tilts his head toward the stage.
“Then why didn’t—”
He cuts me off. “I didn’t tell him this, but I offered him a better deal than any artist who’s sat at my table, knowing he would be worth it in the long run.
Told him we’d get a band to back him up, give him an image that’d let him have the sort of fun kids like him dream of.
All he had to do was ditch the girl. You. ”
“Me?” I stammer, not understanding.
Jeremy looks me up and down again. “I don’t get it. You don’t seem all that special. But shit, you have some magic hold on him, don’t you?”
It’s starting to click together—Bobby’s grumpy mood, his passionate lovemaking, his telling me how much he loves me over and over. He was doing it to reassure himself that he’d made the right choice.
They offered him a record deal, but he chose me over his dream. His dream!
And he hid it from everyone, especially me.
“You offered him a deal,” I summarize.
“I damn near laid out a silver platter for him,” Jeremy bites out. “And he just walked away.” He waves a hand, obviously still in shock that anyone would do that.
This is what Bobby has dreamed of since he was a kid. It’s what his family needs. It’s what he desperately wants. Before he went to Nashville, he told me how it seemed like something impossibly good might actually happen for him for once.
Time shouldn’t matter. You can know someone your whole life and barely scratch the surface of who they are or meet someone and know them bone deep in a matter of seconds.
I believe soulmates can be like that. But can we be soulmates if it means him losing everything he’s worked for his whole life? I’m just not worth that.
I swallow the bile that’s trying to rise up as my heart shatters into a million pieces.
I know what I have to do. It’ll kill me.
It’ll hurt Bobby. But the sacrifice of my own happiness is worth his.
When he said he didn’t get the deal, I thought I would do anything to change that.
In this moment, I know that’s absolutely the truth. Anything.
“Is that deal still on the table? Would you still sign him to NCR Records?”
“Fuck yes. That’s why I came here tonight, to talk some sense into him.”
I shake my head. “Don’t. Let me talk to him. Please.”
Jeremy looks at me, sees the tears in the corners of my eyes, then back to Bobby, who’s singing his closing song.
“Don’t fuck this up for him. He’s special—better and bigger than you and me and this whole podunk town.
” He looks around the bar, and I can tell he doesn’t see the blood, sweat, and tears that go into keeping this place open.
He doesn’t see the history inside these walls or feel the love they hold.
He certainly doesn’t understand this town or how the people here are welcoming and supportive, even their gossip mostly coming from a place of love because they care about one another.
But he sees what Bobby could be, and that’s all I need him to recognize.
With that, he swallows the Johnnie Walker in one gulp, gives me a hard glare, and strides straight for the door.
My eyes are drawn to the stage, to Bobby. He’s listening to someone in the audience intently. He nods, smiling, and begins one more song. An encore request.
He sings Dig Down Deeper once more.
It hits differently this time, seeming like a prediction.
I’ll dig down deep, Bobby, so you can get yours.