Chapter 24
BOBBY
“I’m here to see Jeremy Marshall,” I tell the receptionist.
“Do you have an appointment?” Her tone is snippy, like I’m beneath her.
“No. Tell him Bobby Tannen is here, please.”
My name doesn’t mean shit, especially here. And after last week’s phone call where I told a shocked Jeremy that I was turning down his offer, he might not want to see me at all. But I hope he does.
I drove all night into this morning to get here. I slept for a few hours in a truck stop parking lot and dug a fresh shirt out of the backseat of my truck. By fresh, I mean clean, not unwrinkled. Despite the receptionist’s lingering glances, I know I look like hell. I feel even worse.
Not exactly how I thought signing a contract was going to go, but here I am.
The receptionist hangs up the phone. “He’ll be with you in a moment.” Almost as soon as the words leave her lips, the door opens.
“Bobby! Good to see you, man! You reconsider our offer?”
He’s excited, eager, even hungry. I can feel it in his handshake, see it in his eyes.
“I am reconsidering,” I give him. I’m still not sure how I got here.
“Excellent.” His smile beams, blindingly white and straight.
“Let’s sit down and go over things. Right this way.
” He throws a hand out, leading me through the doorway.
I can feel the receptionist’s eyes on my ass as I walk through.
I glance back and catch her red-handed, but instead of looking caught, she smiles coyly and lifts one brow.
A growl tries to rattle in my chest. I don’t want her to look at me like that. I only want Willow’s eyes on me that way.
She owns me—body, mind, heart, and soul. Whether she wants me or not.
Jeremy invites me to sit in his office, not the conference room this time. He opens a small silver door on a credenza, a hidden mini-fridge, and hands me a cold water. “Looks like you’ve had a long day already,” he says, still smiling that too-bright smile.
“Drove in last night. Slept in my truck,” I explain, wiping a palm over my shirt to smooth the creases. It doesn’t work, it just leaves a trail of condensation along my belly. I look at my hand, not realizing that it was even damp from the bottle of water, and wipe it on my jeans-covered thigh.
“Oh, no. We’ll get you a hotel for tonight. No worries about that, man. What else do you need?”
“Nothing,” I grunt. “I’m pretty low-maintenance. I’ll grab a few T-shirts from Walmart later. That’ll get me through.”
His lips quiver, though he’s fighting it. He’s laughing at me.
“What?” I growl.
“Nothing,” he says, letting loose that chuckle that makes me feel like a damned fool.
“You’re just not what I’m used to. Most guys come out here and expect to be wined and dined like they’re special when they’re not.
You actually are special, and you don’t give a shit about the bells and whistles. It’s refreshing.”
“Okay.” I don’t know what to say to that. I am who I am, what I am, a farmer who can sing a bit and write songs, which wasn’t good enough for him in the first place.
“So, the contract?” Jeremy opens a drawer in his desk, flipping through folders just like I thought he’d have.
Each one contains someone’s dream, and he keeps them filed away like paper airplanes that’ll never fly, never feel the rush of air, never come crashing back down to Earth painfully crunched and broken.
Dramatic much, asshole?
He finds the one with my name on it, pulling it out. “Here we go. Are you ready to sign? NCR Records is ready to be your new home, Bobby. I think we can make some beautiful music together.”
Cheese spillage, aisle three. How many people has he said that to? How many of them actually bought it?
I stare at the contract, the black dots of the words marching around like ants on the white paper.
Signing it feels so final, like the end of something instead of the beginning.
Putting my John Hancock on that page is the nail in the coffin for me and Willow, an acknowledgement that it’s over, and the end of Bobby Tannen, farmer.
Once I sign, I’ll be Bobby Tannen, country singer.
It’s what I’ve always wanted, what I’ve dreamed of. So why does it feel so empty?
Jeremy holds out a pen that I don’t take.
“Can I read it over again? You told me to have a lawyer look at it, and I’m afraid to say I never did.
Once you said that stuff about Willow, I never thought I’d be sitting here.
So, I should probably do some due diligence so we both know what we’re getting into. ”
A look of disappointment flashes through Jeremy’s eyes, so quick it’s gone in an instant. He leans forward, elbows on his desk. “Sure, good thinking. I like that you’re not just another pretty face.”
I have never been called pretty. Handsome, attractive, fuckable . . . sure. Pretty? No.
“Let’s do this. We’ll get you a room so you can rest and get cleaned up.
I’ll send a car by and we’ll hit the Bar again tonight.
You can listen to other folks, or I can arrange for you to sing if you’d like?
You have any new songs? I can set you up with Miller again. I know you liked working with him.”
I agree woodenly, the contrast to his excitement obvious. It should be the other way around. He’s the pro who should be no-big-deal about another contract, and I’m the newbie who should be jumping for joy at his dream coming true. But I don’t have it in me.
I watch a kid play guitar like a demon has possessed his fingers on the stage at the Bar.
His voice is good, but his playing is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
Kid can’t be more than nineteen, blond and sweet-looking, but you can tell the music infects him like it does me. He’s exciting to watch.
“He’s good,” I murmur to myself. Jeremy hears me loud and clear.
“You like him? We could see if he’s interested in a guitarist position for your band. I don’t usually pull guys who want to be solo acts, but his vocals would be a good contrast to yours. I’ll get his name and see if he has representation yet.”
All that because I said the kid’s good.
After that, I keep my mouth shut.
I don’t get on stage at the Bar that night. The demon in my gut is screaming loudly, wanting the outlet desperately, but I’m afraid I’ll slit myself open too wide and let everything I’m feeling leak out. Vulnerable is one thing, completely and utterly defenseless quite another.
Miller is already booked, so I have the whole day to myself.
Jeremy tried to fill the time with sightseeing tours, as if a trip to the Country Music Hall of Fame is going to keep me in town.
He even mentioned getting me a personal tour guide if I wanted.
I felt like that was a roundabout way of asking if I needed any company.
I angrily turned him down outright, telling him I’d take the day to write and have something new for Miller tomorrow.
That had appeased him, both that I’m feeling creative and that I’m not leaving town.
Hours later, I’m stuck. This song had poured forth initially, angry, fresh lines of pain, but it needs resolution and I don’t have one. Not for the song, not for myself.
I look around the hotel room. That first trip out here, it’d seemed fancy—a sign that I was on my way, that I was going to make it big.
Now, it seems so temporary. Like everything else.
Nothing about this contract deal, this dream feels the way I thought it would. It’s not as awesome as I thought it’d be. It doesn’t feel exciting and happy. It feels . . .
Meaningless without Willow.
Fuck, I even miss my asshole brothers and the Bennetts. I miss nightly cornhole tournaments and Shayanne’s pot roast putting us on edge to figure out what she’s up to this time.
I look at the room service menu, searching for pot roast for even a small taste of home.
But there’s nothing that unsophisticated on the list of dinner options.
It’s all filet mignon and haricots verts.
A quick Google search tells me that’s steak and green beans, so why don’t they just say so?
Even room service isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
I let the boredom distract me, staring out the window at the lights for a while and watching some stupid television show where I don’t even know what’s happening.
I send Brutal a text.
Me: Hey asshole. You check the east pasture?
Brotherly talk for I miss you, are you okay doing your work and mine? It takes a long fifteen minutes for him to respond.
Brutal: Yep. East and did two rows on the southern end too.
Translation, I’m fine. You do what you need to because I’ve got you covered.
Me: Good work.
I love you.
Brutal: Head in the game, man.
I love you too.
I take his words and his meaning to heart.
I have work to do and need to stay focused.
This isn’t a done deal, for me or Jeremy.
At any moment, he could decide that wining and dining me isn’t worth his time if I’m not signing that dotted line.
So I’d better make sure he still wants me and all that I bring to the table.
I sit on the couch, pulling the coffee table over and re-reading the lyrics I’ve written so far. I pick up the pen, painfully ripping my soul open to let it pour onto the page.
Gave you everything, I was yours.
Took your heart because you were mine.
Standing in the tatters that you left behind,
I still love you.
“Holy shit, Bobby. That’s . . . Wow!” Miller breathes out with a wide smile.
The song is slow, plucked chords resonating around notes held until my voice breaks. Until I break.
Miller looks at Jeremy, who’s standing over him like a hawk. “We’ll do another take to be sure, but I think we got it in one.”
Jeremy laughs, jabbing the intercom button. “Goddamn, kid. I guess what they say is true . . . a broken heart is the best inspiration! You’re going to be a big hit. You’re the real deal, Bobby.”
“Play it back again. Let me hear it,” he tells Miller. I join them in the booth. The speakers are better in here.
The playback starts, and I hear myself, every note full of pain and heartbreak. Jeremy shakes his head. “Damn, that’s good. I can’t believe she actually did it. She didn’t seem strong enough, figured she’d be hanging on your coattails as long as she could.”
He laughs like he said something funny.
“What?”
I have no idea what Jeremy is talking about, but a stone has settled in my stomach. Something’s wrong, my instincts yell.
“The girl . . . what was her name? Willa? Winnie? The blonde with glasses.” He makes circles with his fingers, laying them over his eyes like glasses.
“Willow?” I growl. “When did you talk to her?”
Jeremy must sense the danger zone he’s stumbled into because he stammers, his smile fading quickly. “Uh, that first night I heard you play. She was behind the bar, and I asked her who you were.”
That rings false, even though I know that happened. There’s more, I can feel it in his need to back away from this conversation.
“And then?”
Jeremy finds his balls, tucked up somewhere in those khaki pants. “Well, you couldn’t very well expect me to let a talent like yours go without a fight. I came back out there to track your ungrateful ass down. The girl—”
“Willow,” I correct.
He rolls his eyes dismissively, “Fine . . . Willow didn’t seem to know about your turning the deal down.
She seemed to think I didn’t offer you one.
I told her what you’d done and she said she’d take care of it for you.
I didn’t figure she had it in her. Girl like that, and a guy like you, she had to know it was only a matter of time for you to realize you could do better.
” He scoffs like that’s an obvious conclusion when it’s anything but.
He even smiles like we’re good ol’ boy buddies and he’s not the asshole who fucked up my life.
Red slashes across my vision and my fist flies through the air before I even intentionally make a fist.
Pop!
Jeremy’s jaw makes a loud sound as the punch lands. It’s a good thing those teeth are all cemented in or I would’ve knocked one or two out.
I grab his shirt, twisting it in my fist and lifting him up.
“You manipulative son of a bitch. You had no right! I made my choice and you fucked it up.” I’m yelling in Jeremy’s face, which has gone pale, spitting out the pain he caused, raging with the sharp loss again as though it’s new and fresh, not days old.
Miller touches my arm. “Let’s all calm down here. Take a breath, man.” He’s using some soothing, chanting voice I haven’t heard from him before. He must have experience talking down crazed musicians because shockingly, it works.
All the puzzle pieces click together in an instant.
The most important of which is . . .
She’s mine and I fucking lost her.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I drop Jeremy to the floor, running toward the door. I don’t stop by the hotel, don’t need any of that shit. I need to get home.
Now.
Hang on, Willow. I’m coming for you, sweetheart. And we’ve got some shit to get straight right the fuck now.
Number one, you’re mine.
Number two, I’m yours.
Number three, nothing else matters.