Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
PATTY
“ S ean, Dad, I have to talk to y’all about something.”
It’s just past closing, and Sean and I are cleaning up for the night while Dad counts out the register. He’s already put his forearm crutches down and is sitting in his wheelchair, but he looks up from counting the money.
“Anything,” Dad says.
Sean nods. “Go ahead.”
“I have the chance to go on tour with Lucy Jane as a sound tech.”
Sean’s laugh is more of a scoff. “A sound tech? Isn’t that a bit beneath you, Piano Man? Besides, she may be pretty, but you can’t stand Lucy Jane’s music.”
“You don’t know Lucy Jane’s music,” Dad says with a snort. “You’ve never let us play it for more than two seconds.”
“I can learn to like it,” I say, even though they’re right and I’m lying through my teeth. Ever since I heard that chorus with its stomps and claps and that inane line—“It’s all a bunch of baby llama drama”—I banned her music in the bar. Her brand of country-pop nonsense makes my ears bleed.
But that doesn’t matter, because this tour could change everything. It could change all our futures. Maybe it could even right the past.
“She has a concert coming up with Connor Na?—”
“Do it,” Sean interrupts.
“Don’t do it,” Dad says.
The two swap loaded glances.
I’ve tried to become as unflappable as a guy can be in the last several years, but this is an opportunity I’ll never get again, and just thinking about it makes the blood in my veins rush faster.
“This is my one shot,” I say with more urgency than I should.
I keep telling myself this is about money. About Dad’s surgery. But something about Lou’s offer hit a nerve.
Not hope. Just … the chance to matter at something again.
Dad frowns. “One shot at what?”
I exhale, staring at my hands. "If I can get Nash to listen to me—really listen—he might finally make good on his promise."
Dad pauses before saying, “When are you going to stop chasing the past and start making yourself a future?”
“Because you need surgery,” Sean says before I can. “Even without Nash, these tours pay big. Pat’ll bring home half, I’ll cover the rest.”
“You’re not helping,” I tell him. “I got this.”
Sean doesn’t quite roll his eyes, but it feels like he does.
Dad shakes his head. “I have everything I need. If you’re doing this, do it for you—not for me.”
“I’m doing it for all of us.” I look around, frustrated, and point to rusted hinges and the dripping pipe. “Yeah, it’s for your surgery, but also so we don’t have to scrape by just to fix a door or patch a roof. I’m doing this so we can take a break! We need this.”
Sean pats my back. “You have my support.”
“It’s hockey season,” I say, even though his reaction is exactly what I hoped for. “This is a big ask.”
“I know.”
“This could be your last season on the ice?—”
“All the more reason to get this done now. If you can come home with a payday, all our problems are over.”
“And maybe future generations would remember your name,” Dad says wryly.
“I don’t care about that.”
“If you say so,” Dad says.
He closes the register, putting the money in a bag and rolling past us into the office, where the overnight vault is.
Sean and I speak through glances while we wait for Dad to get back. And Sean’s glance is so supportive, my throat tightens.
“I love you, my boy,” Dad says, sounding almost as Irish as our last name. My mom’s family is Irish too, but I don’t think about her any more than I have to. “If you want to do this, you have my support.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I say.
I turn to Sean. The cost of my failures clamps onto my gut, and it doesn’t shake off. “I’ll remove myself from the payroll for the time being so y’all can hire more help in my place. Don’t let this stop you from chasing your dreams.”
“I’m a thirty-three-year-old goalie with three knee surgeries under my belt. My body’s got an expiration date.”
“Don’t think like that,” I say, even as the toll cuts deeper.
“I don’t regret anything,” Sean says. “You need to forgive yourself.”
I shake my head. “Some things are unforgivable. All I can do is try my best to atone for it.”
“You don’t have the power to do that,” Dad says, clapping his big hand on my forearm. “Nor the need, son.”
I nod as if I agree, as if I believe him, when nothing could be further from the truth.
“You’re not the same guy,” Sean says. “You gotta let yourself move forward.”
“I know.”
I look at my feet and then force my gaze up to meet theirs.
For years, Sean ran around behind me, picking up the pieces of whatever I so carelessly broke, and when he put it all back together, he never complained.
The worst part is that I’m doing it all over, willingly, knowing full well the impact it had on my family last time. If I let myself think too long, I can remember the way his voice cracked when he said, “Dad’s hurt. We need you.”
And then there are weeks of me ignoring them. Staying away. Until I found out my mom was leaving. Then, thirty-six hours are missing. Thirty-six hours of me drinking to avoid, ignore, forget. Then my own accident.
I like to think I’ve grown, but have I?
When, once again, I’m asking Sean to sacrifice for weeks and months on end so I can follow a new star on tour?
Lucy Jane.
Lou Williams.
A woman who makes every interaction feel like a staring contest. And this time, I blinked.
She dangled the bait, and I took it. That game of push and pull didn’t end—it just hit pause.
To be continued …
But this isn’t about Lou.
This is about having a chance to convince the biggest name in country to listen to me.
This is about a chance to fix the past.
Sean had a shot at the NHL. One he turned down when Dad had an accident, Mom left, and one of us had to come home.
And it wasn’t me.
Guilt gnaws at my gut.
Am I really going to leave them again? For what? A dream I buried years ago?
My stomach twists.
“Don’t second guess it,” Sean says. “I’m not getting called up to the NHL, Pat. If it ain’t my knees, it’ll be my shoulders like Blackburn or my hips like Rask. Netminders take a beating.”
I open my mouth, but Sean stops me.
“I’m not the only one who sacrificed. You’ve paid your penance. You need to do this. You’ll regret it otherwise.”
“Or you could learn to make peace—” Dad starts, then stops himself and snorts. “Who am I kidding? Go, son.”
I feel like I swallowed a rock. “It’s not about fame. I’m not the same guy. I care about our family. I just want to make things right.”
Sean pats my back, but I don’t move. It’s like the moment hasn’t caught up to me yet. I should feel lighter, but my stomach is tied into knots.
Dad grabs my hand. “I know, son. Send us pictures from the road.”
His voice is steady, but there’s something behind it—something unsaid.
Is he worried about what being on the road did to me last time? Worried I may not actually come back?
He shouldn’t be.
Should he?
Ever since the accident that paralyzed my dad, I’ve tried to block out all emotion—to become a robot, unwilling to hurt or feel.
But Lou’s offer stirred something in me.
Not hope. Not quite. But the sense that maybe I haven’t entirely slipped off the map.
And unfortunately, opening the door to that possibility also opens the door to the shame that’s lurked at the edges of my life for years.
I want to shut it all down, to lock it in the deepest recesses of my mind. But it’s harder now, with Lou unwittingly holding the key.
No.
I can’t think like that.
I won’t let myself entertain the idea that she has my number … or that she’s determined to figure it out.
This is my last shot, and nothing can get in my way.
Lou’s pretty blue eyes flash through my mind.
I ignore them.
Nothing.
The bar is quiet as I lock the door behind me.
One last look.
One last breath.
My fingers drift into my pocket, closing around the slick metal of the flash drive. I pull it out, rolling it between my fingers, the weight of it suddenly heavier than before.
I could watch it now. Just plug it in, let the past spill out onto the screen.
My thumb runs over the edge of the drive, then clenches.
I shove it back in my pocket, harder than necessary.
Not yet.
The next morning, I’m in my buddy Rusty’s truck as he drives me to Columbia, South Carolina, where Lou’s rehearsals are.
I talked to Lou’s manager, Manny, last night. After answering every question he threw at me, he gave me the info on where to meet today.
“Listen, Lucy Jane isn’t messing around with the tour stipulations,” Manny warned me. “You seem like you know your stuff. You sure you can commit to six months of this?”
“Six months?” The word jumps out before I can stop it. “I thought it was three.”
“The Southern states locations sold out so quickly, the label added a lot more stops.”
“No kidding,” I say, annoyed and impressed in equal measure.
But I can’t let myself be annoyed just because I think pop belongs in Rice Krispies and not country music.
“I can commit for as long as need be,” I told Manny, content to let him interpret that however he wanted.
I interpreted it to mean: as soon as I talk to Nash.
If he interprets it differently, that’s on him.
“So, how you feelin’?” Rusty asks. The truck rolls past foliage so dense, if you don’t know where the turns are, they’re almost impossible to find.
“I’m fine. Ready.”
Rusty nods.
He’s younger than me—a couple years younger than Sean, in fact—but he’s what the town matriarchs of Sugar Maple call an old soul. And I trust him more than about anyone else in the world.
His dad caused the accident that paralyzed my dad and killed his younger sister. Shared tragedy has a way of bonding people.
“Why are you doin’ this, Pat?” Rusty asks after a long stretch of silence. “I don’t know much about music, but you working soundboards? Why would you agree to that?”
I don’t mind keeping secrets from the rest of the world. I like it, even.
But I almost feel bad keeping this one from Rusty.
“I have my reasons.”
“I can guess one of them,” he says.
“Because you’re one of the only people who knows my past, and I expect it to stay that way.”
Rusty blows air out of his mouth. “I don’t like keeping secrets from Ash.”
“They’re not your secrets.”
“Then why am I keeping ’em?”
“You’re not keeping ’em. You’re keeping your mouth shut. My sordid past don’t hurt Ash, and it won’t hurt Lou, either,” I say, tasting the lie on my lips.
It’s bitter, but it goes down smooth.
I’m not intending to hurt her, but if she’s the kind of girl who gets upset by people having motives outside of her, yeah, it’s gonna hurt her.
If things with Nash go my way, though, it’ll all be okay in the end.
Rusty seems relieved by my words. “Just know that if you hurt Lou, Ash has ordered me to hurt you .”
I snort. “You could try.”
“I would try. And I’d succeed,” Rusty says, his voice sharp enough to cut. My eyes drift to him.
He’s looking right at me.
The narrow roads that lead from Mullet Ridge to the main highway are winding and tight, yet Rusty’s fixing me with a death stare while navigating them like he could do it in his sleep.
I’m impressed.
“You don’t need to worry,” I tell him. “She’s headlining a big tour. She’ll be in her luxury dream coach by herself while I bunk up with fourteen of the forty people on the crew for three months.”
“You mean six,” Rusty corrects, but I see the wheels turning in his brain. “You’re gonna drop out after you talk to Nash, aren’t you?”
I shrug.
“Just give her time, then, will you? Give her an idea so she can prepare? She doesn’t trust easily—or at all, outside the Janes. She deserves to be leveled with. She can handle it.”
I nod, feeling the token in my pocket.
The flash drive that holds my hopes and dreams on it.
“I’ll take it under consideration.”
“Patty—”
“I’ll give her a heads-up that I won’t be there past her Memphis show. Is that enough?”
Rusty hesitates, but he doesn’t protest.
We drive in silence for a bit, and then he turns on the radio.
After only a few minutes, one of Lucy Jane’s songs comes on.
It’s no coincidence—this is a Columbia country-rock station, and her first show will be at the Capital City Theater in a couple of days. It would be more surprising if they weren’t playing one of her songs every hour or so.
I don’t let myself groan, but I do force myself to listen, bracing myself for more Baby Llama Drama.
But this …
This ain’t that.
The piano has a nostalgic feel to it that would be easy for someone to get swept up into. And when the fiddle kicks in along with the piano, I grudgingly admit the melody is cleverly composed.
But when Lou starts singing …
Her voice is so smoky, I almost choke on the ash.
My grip tightens on my thigh.
I don’t want to hear this.
But that voice—so smoky, so rich—hits something inside me I thought was long dead.
My fingers drum against my knee, an instinct I don’t even register until it’s too late.
Shoot.
I’m keeping time.
I’m listening.
And worse?
I’m feeling it.
The world vanishes, and it’s only me and this song.
The tune is both hopeful and haunting. I expected a lazy four-chord progression, but this? It twists, dips, refuses to settle.
Does she have other songs like this?
Songs that are so complex and captivating, I’m incapable of thinking about anything until they’re done? I feel like I’ve been taken out to sea on a slow, relentless tide, and when I finally open my eyes, it’s to find myself floating amid the stars.
It’s incredible.
When the final note fades, I open my eyes with something bordering on reverence. “What was that?”
“Pretty, ain’t it?” Rusty asks. “It’s called Last Train to Midnight . It’s not one of her big ones, but it’s my favorite. She played all the instruments.”
I stare at my friend. “You’re jokin’ me.”
“Nope. Fiddle, keyboard, guitar, drums, all of it. She’s a lot more talented than you’ve pegged her for.”
I return my eyes to the road and give myself a mental shake.
It was one song.
One stunning, unexpected song.
“Plenty of musicians are talented, but that doesn’t mean I want to listen to ’em,” I say.
“Right, just like you didn’t want to listen to that one.” Rusty chuckles under his breath. “Pride goeth before the fall.”
“My fall made Ancient Rome’s look like a minor stumble,” I say, and Rusty laughs.
After a little more talking and a lot more comfortable silence, we reach the bustling Capital City Theater in downtown Columbia.
I hear the low, steady rumble before we even turn into the parking lot.
A line of semi-trucks is parked outside, and everywhere, crew members are unloading equipment and taking it through a set of large, wide-open double doors on the side of the building.
Security guards are posted at the sides, and a short, long-haired man with a team of assistants directs crew members like a cop managing traffic.
Manny, no doubt.
Lou is evidently big enough to sell out arenas, but the first stop on a tour is where you work out the kinks. I’m glad to see her tour manager is smart enough to schedule a smaller venue to ensure the bigger shows run smoothly. That speaks well for Lou, because the artist hires the tour manager, not the label.
Of course, she probably had her mom’s help in picking him. Winona Williams is an absolute legend.
Although, asking her mom for advice would indicate a willingness to learn that also speaks well for her?—
Stop thinking about her.
Rusty parks, and the two of us get out of his truck. He grabs my oversized duffel bag from the back and meets me around the front. It’s bright out, and I’m glad I remembered sunglasses. I drop them over my eyes, then give Rusty a hug.
“Thanks, man.”
“Good luck.” He slaps my back, then separates from me. “I think the guy sucks, but I hope Connor Nash is willing to listen.”
I sniff. “Thanks. Check in on Sean for me, will you? And my dad?”
“I’ll be there as much as they need me,” Rusty says, as if he isn’t cut from the same self-sacrificing cloth as Sean.
I should feel awful asking him, but, well, I’m not a good enough guy.
“Rusty!”
Lou’s gorgeous, gravelly voice hits me before I see her, like a chord struck too hard. Then she’s there—laughing, hugging Rusty, sunlight tangled in her wild hair.
And I hate that I notice.
She slaps Rusty’s arm with a grin that could give a guy a sunburn. “Where you been lately?”
Rusty smiles. “Trying to give Ash as much Janes time as she needs.”
“Oh, come on. You’re an honorary Jane if there ever was one.”
He drops his head like he’s honored. “I hope Sonny won’t mind the company,” he says.
Sonny… Luciano?
Yeah, that’s right. The ex-NFL star is dating one of the Janes. Parker, I think?
Honestly, I can’t keep any of them straight except Ash and now Lou.
Not that I’ve tried.
Sean and Sonny have become friends over the last few months, and Sean is probably closer to that whole crew than I am.
Which tracks.
Sean was student body president. Captain of every team.
I was the weird band kid that coaches shook their heads over, mourning my wasted athletic potential.
Rusty and Lou keep talking, and something twists low in my gut—sharp and stupid.
It’s nothing.
Two friends catching up.
Still, seeing her so unguarded—when I’ve only seen her with walls up—makes my hand tighten around the plastic shoulder strap of my duffel bag.
I look away, focusing on the crew members nearest me unloading front-fill speakers and subwoofers.
I don’t have time to think of this.
Whatever this is.
I’m not here for Lou.
I’m not even here for Lucy Jane.
I’m here for me.
My family.
My bar.
No complications.
No distractions.