Whiskey & Wine – By C.G. Burnette #3
I check the mic and make sure my guitar is tuned.
Tonight I’m using my favorite guitar. The summer after graduation, Cassidy gifted me this beautiful instrument, a Martin.
The sound is perfect. When I strum the strings or polish the wood, I’m reminded of her.
And soon I find myself playing Luke Combs’ Beautiful Crazy.
The warm familiar melody rises as my fingers glide over the strings and lyrics fill the space.
I’ve played the tune so many times on this Martin.
For her, when she was sad or we were fighting…
late at night, watching her sleep after I’d exhausted her gorgeous body because I couldn’t get enough of her.
For us, when I mourned our breakup. I was alone in a Nashville hotel room the day I left her crying in the parking lot of her dorm.
She wasn’t the only one crying that day.
I still don’t know how I made the drive from Raleigh to Nashville without causing an accident.
My heart never left her. She owned it. I sing the last of the chorus, let the notes sail away, and acknowledge what I’ve known since our sophomore year of high school… Cassidy Reynolds will always own not only my heart, but all of me.
Now… inside Riggs…
“You were hiding.”
We ordered our drinks from the bar and lucked out to find an empty booth in a quiet corner of the bar.
The patio is still packed with people. As much as I love talking to my fans, I need this time with Cassidy.
We have unfinished business – but once we’re done, she’s going home with me, whether she knows it or not.
Cassidy looks beautiful sitting next to me.
Her curly raven locks are in a sexy rumpled mess from my hands, her cheeks are glowing and her full lips are slightly swollen from my kisses.
She never needed makeup to be stunning, and if she had on lipstick or that shiny gloss she always wore, it's certainly gone now.
She lifts the glass of red wine to her lips and glances away. Silly girl is still trying to hide from me. I can’t take my eyes off of her. After all this time apart, I get to touch her.
I wrap my arm around her waist and carefully pull her toward me so she doesn’t spill her glass.
I don’t want any space between us, not even an inch.
I catch a stray drop of the cabernet sauvignon from her lower lip with my thumb and suck it into my mouth.
I don’t close my eyes. I want to see her reaction.
She doesn’t keep me waiting. Long lashes fall over her smokey eyes.
Her breath stutters and her breasts — way more than a mouthful — rise and fall against the lace of her dress.
The wine is rich and bold, the taste coating my tongue.
Cassidy has always been like a fine wine I want to sip from, but I never want to quench my thirst. I want to sip from her until I’m so drunk I can’t stand up straight.
I take her glass and set it next to my bottle of beer on the table in front of us.
Her head is bowed but she bravely peers at me.
With a sigh and a slight shake of her hair, she says, “I got into the bar and I waited at the doors while you were introduced. Waited a little longer until you finished the first song and then found a seat near the back. I won’t lie. Maybe I was hiding a bit.”
I laugh loudly and she shrugs her shoulders.
God, I want to sink my teeth into her. “There’s no way you could hide from me.
You look like sex walking, Miss Reynolds.
I saw you. I knew if I didn’t stop staring, I would have put my guitar down, and then everyone would see the crazy I try to hide when it comes to you. ”
“So you kept singing and lured me into a false sense of security,” she says. I chuckle again with a nod. She tries to pull back from our embrace, her face full of curiosity. “Wait. Have you seen me at your other shows?” I don’t bother to answer when she sees the affirmation in my eyes.
“The smaller events. I saw you in Greensboro, in Asheville at a Christmas gig, and in Myrtle Beach at the festival. Nice bikini, by the way,” I inform her with a smirk.
She looks stunned. The beach gig was a test of my willpower, especially when some drunk guy wouldn’t take his hands off of her.
I had security remove his hands from her and then politely escort him from the venue.
I was nice about what happened. What I wanted was to jump off the stage and punch the fucker in his mouth until I was satisfied he understood to never touch what is mine. And she is mine.
“I had to see you making your dream come true. So between classes and rotations, I did.” The smile on her face is so full of pride and for a moment, I’m speechless.
There it is – the unwavering support and I’m in awe of it.
I don’t deserve the universe-sized faith she has in me, but I want to earn it and her.
I turn my body slightly on the seat so we are knee to knee.
I take her hand in mine and gently bend my head to run my nose across her cheek.
“I saw you. So many times, Cass. You always got away. After the shows, I would try to find you. I asked security to help me. You were a slippery woman, determined to get away from me.” I take her cheek in my hand.
“Look at me, baby.” She does as I ask her and I see the tears begin to swell in her eyes. “Why did you run?”
I see the tears dry and her soft eyes harden and narrow to two slits of angry slate.
“I don’t know, Whiskey? Why did you run?
” Cass roughly removes herself from my embrace and moves away from me.
Well, she tries because I’m following her across the booth.
There is no way she’s getting out of this bar and away from me before we talk this out.
I grip her upper arm and drag her back to my front.
I wrap my arm around her middle and place my face in the space between her neck and her shoulder.
She stiffens and then she growls. “Let go of me, Jonathan.” She wiggles and twists in my lap cussing at me, demanding I let her go. I hold her tighter.
“Hell, no. I was stupid and did already. Not again, you hear me? Never again. Hold still, Cassidy.” I kiss her shoulder over and over, then inhale the scent so familiar to me.
It’s crisp and floral, jasmine and sunshine.
She’s my home and I want nothing more than to stay here holding her and setting my world back on its axis. God help me, I love this woman.
I feel her resistance start to ebb and as quickly as the anger came, she lets it go.
She sinks into my chest and I relish this moment.
Now we can start over. “First, I owe you an apology for running away. I should have just talked to you. I had those damn lights in my eyes. You know my life, Cassidy. You know where I came from. My broken as fuck family. Raised by a single mom who spent more time working than she ever did with her son, who was desperate for her love. I’m lucky Cole, Kane, and Ro took me in.
They became my brothers. They still are.
We’re still the Four Horsemen, only a bit older now.
They keep me grounded and never let the fame go to my head. ”
I need her as an anchor as I tell her the rest. I take in a deep breath and release it with a heavy sigh.
“My mother and I don’t talk. When I left for college, she decided she had completed her obligation to the child who had kept her from her dreams.” I hear Cass’s loud astonished gasp and she turns to face me.
Her expression is etched with pain and her brow is furrowed in confusion.
When we were in high school, she knew my relationship with Mom wasn’t exactly ideal.
She doesn’t know it bordered on abandonment.
“She told me right before I left for Chapel Hill — she was leaving town. She needed her own life. She was bitter my father had turned his back on her when I was a kid, and she took it out on me. I never talked about it. I just wanted to start over with you.” I learned from Ro she had sold the house and was living with her new husband in California.
I looked her up when I had a show in LA, but I never reached out to her.
She made her choice and I have to accept it, even if the little guy in me longs for his mother to be proud of him.
I hear the first sniffle, then see the tears on her cheeks.
Her eyes are liquid silver and brim with sadness.
I don’t want her to cry for the lost boy she met in high school.
She cups my cheek. I lean into her touch and press a kiss into her palm.
She’ll never understand how much her kindness and compassion helped to heal me.
She releases a heavy sigh. “Whiskey, we don’t have to rehash this.
This hurts so much. I can’t stand this. We can let this go.
Please, sweetheart,” she begs me. We both know we have to finish this.
I give her a reassuring smile and take a deep breath.
“I ran. Period. I can make excuses. I can say it was fear. There was a lot of it. The fear I wouldn’t be able to take care of you.
The fear I would fail you. I could say it was me trying to show Mom I was worthy.
It doesn’t change that I left. I own it and I’ve paid the price.
Five years of chasing you on social media the same way you’ve chased me, and begging the guys to keep me updated about your life.
” I take her left hand and fist it over my heart.
The beat is a strong thump-thump against our joined hands.
I have hated seeing her life only through the lens of Facebook and Instagram.
She blossomed and made new friends. She went to parties and posted selfies.
She dated. With every picture I saw, I wondered if I would get a second chance to be hers.
I should have been with her. But if I hadn’t gone to Nashville and taken a shot at my dream, I would have resented her, the same way she would have resented me if I’d insisted she leave school.
We weren’t ready. We had to live for us to have this moment.
“I’m so proud of you, baby girl. You graduated summa cum laude.
Now you’re working toward becoming a nurse practitioner.
You’re incredible. You set these goals and you achieved every last one.
I was wrong to expect you to give up your dreams. The time we spent apart hurt, but I wouldn’t change who you’ve become.
So strong, independent, and beautiful. My Cassidy. ”
I lean forward and press a needy kiss to her lips.
She opens for me and I take full advantage.
She tastes like the wine she’s been drinking and something so uniquely her.
She moans my name and the kiss goes from a sweet union to a possessive claim.
Mine. I want her to understand she’s mine.
I want her back. I pull back one more time and take her face in my hands.
I press our foreheads together and make a final plea.
“Cassidy, I need you. Come home with me. Right now. Give me a second chance. Let me take care of you, the same way you’ve always taken care of me. Please.”
She gives me a stern look. I know she won’t make this easy, but having her back in my life will be worth the fight. “I’m still mad at you.”
I press a brief kiss to the sensitive spot under her ear and nuzzle it with my nose.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her in a deep, throaty whisper.
I can’t help the knowing smile that spreads across my face.
“Come home with me and I can start to make it better. The tour is over, and I’m on an extended break.
I have songs to write and five years' worth of Sunday brunch to catch up on.”
She pretends to give me a skeptical look. “I don’t know, Mr. Walker. You have a harem and I don’t want a Whiskey Woman coming after me. Those bitches are crazy.”
I’m stunned for a moment and then I laugh.
I laugh so loudly that I draw attention to us but I can’t help myself.
Soon Cass joins me and I know we’re going to be okay.
I’m holding my stomach, I'm laughing so much and we finally manage to catch our breaths. “You’re insane!” I say, still laughing at her statement.
“There’s no damn harem or Whiskey Women. Now, are you coming home with me?”
She stands from the booth and reaches out her hand. I stand and take it. I tuck her into my side and we head to the bar to grab my guitar case. I thank the bartender and yell good night to everyone. We walk out onto the patio hand in hand, me humming the chorus to our song.
THE END…