Chapter 25
After we arrive at our Target-chic rental, I straddle Nate on the couch, attempting to obliterate my stress.
He takes me to bed for gentle, tender sex that soothes it away instead.
We get a blissful night of sleep, waking up late the next morning, and I spend the afternoon at a nearby gym.
Given that we have no idea where Logan will be tonight, we decide to grab dinner and wait for our surveillance to bear fruit.
Nate picks a cozy restaurant a mile from the neon-lit, guitar-plucking nerve center of Nashville nightlife.
It’s all brick and weathered wood, with blue velvet chairs and vintage overhead fixtures bathing the interior in dim golden light.
The tables are close together, and when he moves to pull my chair out at the same time I grab it myself, the woman next to us murmurs, “First date,” to her companion.
Her assumption is both completely accurate and totally wrong. We have eaten a hundred meals together, but everything feels different now. There’s something fizzy in the air between us, and I guess she feels it too.
By the time we finish our meal, we’re nursing our second drinks, unsure where to go next. As we wait for the check, Nate glances at his phone, and his eyes widen. “I think we have something.”
He angles the device toward me. On the screen is a photo of a blurry figure that could be Logan—a fifty percent likelihood, I’d say—wearing a cowboy hat and a pile of glow stick necklaces.
Okay, a seventy-five percent likelihood.
The figure is standing on what looks like a dance floor, in front of a green neon sign that reads Gettin’ Rowdy in cursive letters.
“Where’d you find this?” I ask.
“Reddit. Someone who claims to be at a club in Nashville that’s hosting a Glitter and Good Times Party.”
If glitter and good times are involved, our odds jump to ninety-five percent.
“?‘Logan and Breanne are here,’?” Nate reads.
“?‘Looks like they’re having fun dancing but no PDA other than one playful ass-smack. The vibes are honestly kinda platonic.’ Good to know.
My most pressing concerns were the quantity of ass-smacks and the vibes.
Would’ve been nice to get the name of the club too, though. ”
“They didn’t say?” I ask.
Nate shakes his head. We Google a half-dozen variations of nashville club glitter night green sign with no luck.
“Is it creepy if I message the person who posted this and ask?” I ponder.
“No less creepy than chasing someone twenty-three hundred miles to ask them a question.” Nate raises his arm, flagging down our waitress. “Excuse me,” he says. “Do you recognize this place?”
She’s probably early twenties, wearing interestingly shaped black pants, with a bob the color of pink champagne. Far too cool to go to this club, whatever it is, but I get what Nate’s thinking. She looks like she might know.
“This is here in Nashville?” she says. “It doesn’t look like Play or Tribe. There’s a new club on Printers Alley, I think? I can’t remember the name.”
This time, our search yields a result. There is indeed a new club on Printers Alley, and its website includes several photos of the green neon sign mounted to the brick wall next to the dance floor. “Go, go, go,” I say as Nate quickly pays the bill. We race for the door and burst onto the street.
“It’s about a mile. Car or walk?” Nate asks.
Logan’s already been at the club for an hour, maybe more. Every minute is crucial. My silver boots aren’t made for running, but a car will take at least a few minutes to arrive—
Somebody jostles me. Suddenly, I’m enveloped in a mass of bodies clothed in various pink fabrics. Satin and sequins and lace and chiffon, with one white-clad figure somewhere in front of me coming in and out of view, tequila and a mix of perfumes filling my nose. Bachelorettes.
“Sorry!” says Sequins as she stumbles.
“Sorry!” a bunch of them repeat.
I can barely see the top of Nate’s head on the other side of the group, and I try to extricate myself as they try to move out of my way and somehow we all get even more entangled. A strand of my hair is caught on one of Sequins’s sequins, and I yelp as she pulls away.
“Sorry! Oh, shit. What a mess. We’re in a hurry, and we’re a little bit drunky-drunk.” She stops so I can free myself. “Lainey Wilson is playing a surprise set at the Lilypad and we want to try to get in! Or at least stand outside so we can listen.”
I comb out my tangled hair with my fingers. “That’s so cool.”
“Yeah, Maggie’s obsessed,” Sequins says. Maggie is the bride, I assume, who’s currently ten feet away, adjusting the ankle strap on one of her heels. “Do you like Lainey? You want a ride? We have room.”
“Where is it?” I ask. Not because I want to go, although I like her music just fine. If the Lilypad is anywhere near the club, a quick trip in somebody else’s limo would be the exact stroke of luck we need.
“Printers Alley,” says Lace, who appears nearly sober and is juggling three separate handbags. “We’re over there.” She points toward the corner, which I can’t quite see.
“Nate,” I call, and with the bachelorettes funneling toward their car, he can finally make his way over to me. “The place they’re going is near the club and they offered us a ride.”
He looks skeptical, but it’s obviously the fastest option, so he nods. Besides, it’s only one mile. How bad can it be? We follow them to the corner, but when I get there, I stop short.
Ah. This is not a stroke of luck. It’s a joke from whoever’s in charge of the universe.
There’s only one vehicle in sight, and it’s not a limo or a bus.
It’s one of those party bike taxis that looks like a tractor with a table attached to the back and a bunch of seats around it, each with its own set of pedals.
This thing is definitely slower than an Uber.
It may also be slower than walking, given how I expect these girls to pedal in their heels and their current state of intoxication.
“No.” Nate steps back. The bachelorettes are clambering onto their seats, and Sequins waves us forward.
I approach the driver, a bored-looking scruffy guy in a windbreaker. “How fast can this thing go?”
He cracks his gum and squints down at me, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening. This man has seen things. “Top speed is about twelve miles an hour, but nobody does that. With this crew you’re probably looking at three to five.”
“And the pedaling really controls it? You can’t just make us go faster?”
He gives me a look of disgust at this apparent insult to his profession, so I drop my head and skulk away. We need to be at the club thirty minutes ago. These girls need to be at the Lilypad now. Every second counts.
“Come on.” I drag Nate over to the two available seats, which are across from each other at the front.
He glances at the woman next to him, Satin, who’s attempting to reattach an uncooperative false eyelash. “How is this going to work?” he asks.
“I’m a professional,” I say. “If I can’t get us there fast, I should be fired.” The angle of the pedals relative to the seat is different from what I’m used to, but I’ll work with what we’ve got. I shift around until I find the position that feels the least weird and take a centering breath.
Before I finish exhaling, we’re off. I mean, barely.
Nate and I pedal, and some of the girls clumsily cycle their legs, but they’re also singing and talking about tomorrow’s brunch plans and passing around a flask.
Chiffon is facedown on the table with her head buried in the crooks of her arms, possibly asleep.
I’m firing my glutes as best I can as I try to get us going faster, but it’s not having much of an impact. This is meant to be a group activity, and the only way to build speed is for all of us to do it together.
“We’re not going to make it,” someone moans. “It’s going to be too crowded by the time we get there.”
“It’s going to be over by the time we get there,” someone else complains, as multiple pedestrians and a dachshund on a leash walk past us.
“It’s okay, guys,” says the bride, waving one floppy arm. “I want to see Lainey, but maybe it’s not meant to be.”
No. My inner motor revs. We need to get to Logan, and we will get to Logan. They need to see Lainey Wilson, and we are going to make that happen. All of us.
“Hey, everyone,” I say.
Sequins looks at me curiously from the seat on my right, as if she’s not sure who I am or how I got here. Everyone else is still talking.
“Excuse me!” Nate tries.
Nothing.
I blow out a loud, shrill whistle, and every head snaps toward me. “Can everyone listen to me for a minute? I want to help,” I say. “My name is Quinn Ray and I’m a spin instructor.”
“What?” Sequins shrieks. “You were sent by Jesus!”
Wheat Jesus, maybe. “Okay, everyone. Do you want to get to the Lilypad as quickly as humanly possible so your friend Maggie can have the bachelorette experience of her dreams?”
They shout a yes in unison.
“We can do it, but we’re going to have to give it our all,” I say.
“You in the lace—wake up the one who’s asleep.
Every pair of legs counts. I want you all to sit as far back in the seat as you can without falling off.
Engage your core, and don’t stop engaging your core.
And remember, your power doesn’t come from your feet.
Use your whole legs and your butt. You can do this! ”
No one’s talking now. They’re listening to me, sitting up straighter and adjusting their positions, pedaling harder. The one holding the flask puts it down. The neon-lit buildings are going by faster, and we’re passing pedestrians.
I increase my own cadence. “Great job, everyone! Can you feel the difference? Let’s keep it up.”
Our driver makes a turn. Now I can feel a breeze blowing, thanks to our momentum. Satin’s eyelash falls off and flutters away on the wind.
“No!” she yells.
“My legs are burning,” complains someone else.
“Stay focused,” I urge. “We’re doing this for Maggie.”
“For Maggie!” they cheer.
“We’re a team,” I say. And we are. They’re feeding off my energy, and I’m feeding off theirs, and the air hums with the sort of magic I feel in a good cycling class. Nate catches my eye, and he’s smiling and pedaling as hard as the rest of us.
“You’re actually moving pretty good,” the driver says over his shoulder. “We’re almost there.”
When we pull up, the guitar melody of a familiar song floats toward us from the Lilypad. There are people outside, but the bachelorettes should be able to squeeze their way to the front if their scheme to bribe their way in the door doesn’t work.
“Good luck,” I say as we dismount.
While Nate steps away to look for the club, Sequins squeezes me in a hug. “Quinn Ray, I love you!”
And then they’re off. I turn to follow Nate and come face-to-face with a woman holding up her phone, recording me. She waves and says, “Spin instructor girl! What are you doing with a bachelorette party? Telling the bride not to go through with it?”
My stomach clenches, but I force a laugh. She’s still filming, so I keep smiling. “You know me. Have a great night!”
This satisfies her. I escape and find Nate, who’s doubled back to fetch me. The club is a few doors down, and thankfully the line out front is short.
“Ready?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “What you just did on that bike ride was ridiculous. You’re ridiculous.”
“I got a little carried away.” I cringe at myself.
“No, I mean it in the best way.” He grabs my hand. “It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
My cheeks flush. I know Nate likes me when we’re alone together, and when we’re with our friends. But it’s important to me that he likes me when I’m on the bike too. It’s the part of me that’s most foreign to him, but it’s still part of me.
His face glows as green as all my best feelings in the light of the neon sign hanging over the club, and I sway closer. But before I lose myself in the moment, I remember that the woman who recognized me is still nearby, and the clock on finding Logan is ticking.
“Let’s go,” I say.
Once we’re through the line, we duck through a dark doorway and emerge into a scene that feels disturbingly familiar after the last couple weeks: a crowd, a bar, drunk people dancing. Another bar across the room, near the neon green sign from the photo.
Perhaps the most familiar part: Logan is here, supposedly, but nowhere to be seen.