CHAPTER 1 #2
“No.” She paced around the room in her stocking feet.
“You know I don’t condone violence.” It wasn’t lost on her that Derrick pretended to kill people for a living.
His movies were nothing but blood and guts, mostly murders for hire and that type of thing.
But after the Vegas concert shootings she couldn’t watch anything to do with gun violence.
She thought about it every time she went on stage, more concerned for her fans’ safety than anything.
“Yeah, hang on . . .” She could hear him close the sliding patio door to their—no, his—house. “We need to talk when you get home.”
“Can’t it wait?” She sighed heavily into the phone, aware he was about to pressure her into a commitment. “I need to focus on my album.”
“I want to get married and settle down, Jamie. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”
She looked at Ruth and mouthed Asshole .
“Miss Keaton?” a man’s voice called from behind the door. “Five minutes, ma’am.”
“I’ve got to run,” Jamie said, happy for any excuse to get off the phone.
“Happy new year . . .” Derrick said before she hung up on him.
Happy fucking new year.
“Are you okay?” Ruth asked, her voice soft. Being highly empathetic, she always sensed when something was wrong.
Jamie dabbed the corners of her eyes with a tissue, not wanting to ruin her perfectly drawn eyeliner and mascara.
“Five years of this, Ruth. Right after I won Star Factor. I didn’t even want a relationship.
” She rolled the tissue into a ball, mad at herself for letting him get to her.
“It was more like a one-night stand that never ended.”
She was twenty-five when she met Derrick, her first real boyfriend.
He was driven, focused, serious about his career—and controlling.
It was a recipe for disaster, given her childhood.
Her mother, once a Vegas showgirl, had left when Jamie was eight, her struggles with drugs and untreated mental illness making her unfit to raise a daughter or hold together a relationship.
Not that Jamie’s father helped: he didn’t believe in marriage, preferring the excuse to cheat on her mother without a guilty conscience.
“He chased after me, not the other way around,” Jamie said after a pause.
“I know, James.” Ruth shook her head and unwrapped a stick of gum. “I almost died when I saw you that morning.”
“You were the only good thing to come out of this,” she said, taking satisfaction in stealing Ruth from under Derrick’s nose.
“He treated you like a housekeeper, not an assistant. I couldn’t stand the way he spoke to you.
” She focused on Ruth’s freckled face. “You don’t have any regrets about working for me, do you? ”
“Not at all.” Ruth never lied. “Do you want me to mix a scoop of Metamucil into his protein powder like the last time?”
“Maybe some Nair in his shampoo?” Jamie laughed as she poured vodka into a red Solo cup with a heavy hand. “Who wants to date a sober celiac germaphobe anyway?” Derrick Anderson was the most boring person on the planet. His screenwriters deserved awards for inventing even a shred of personality.
“Do you want some ice with that?” Ruth asked, gesturing toward her drink. “Or club soda?”
“No time.” Jamie took a gulp. “I can’t pour this vodka down my throat fast enough.” She tried to ignore Clayton’s twangy singing voice in the background. “Why is he still playing?”
Ruth shrugged as she stood from the couch. “Are you ready?”
Jamie slipped into her Frye Harness boots and black leather jacket, then yanked the poster off the door. She tore it down the center and put her half back up, slightly crooked.
“Now I’m ready,” she said, pleased with herself .
An enthusiastic production assistant guided them backstage as she finished her drink. He’d introduced himself during her soundcheck but Jamie struggled with names unless she immediately committed them to memory.
“May I have an autograph?” he asked nervously, unrolling a copy of the same poster she’d just destroyed.
“Sure,” Jamie said as Ruth pulled a Sharpie from her back pocket. She signed her name and drew a mustache and devil horns on Clayton’s dumb head. “There. That’s better. It’s a Jamie Keaton original.”
“Th-thanks, ma’am.” The production assistant tilted his head, wondering why she’d defaced it.
“Jamie’s fine.” She wrinkled her nose, agitated by the Southern hospitality.
From the stage Clayton caught Jamie’s eye, and she tapped her Mickey Mouse watch to signal the time. He shrugged and flashed her a charming smile, playing to the crowd as though he were the headliner.
This fucking guy.
She stormed over to where Shorty stood and rested her arm on the guitar cabinet next to him. “Are you kidding me?” She stomped her boot heel. “He’s running the light.”
“We have plenty of time,” Shorty said, placing a friendly hand on her shoulder. She flinched when anyone touched her, not accustomed to affection unless it was sexual.
“That’s not the point,” she said, fixing her gaze. “He’s gone over the time limit.”
“Think of the children.” Shorty winked, turning his attention back to the country artist. At least Clayton’s band was good—no, great. She couldn’t believe how well they’d played her songs at soundcheck without even practicing .
She noticed a bottle of Ketel One on the drum riser. “Is that my vodka?”
“Sorry, it seems they mixed up the dressing rooms.” Shorty turned his head and frowned. “I don’t think either of you should be drinking until the show’s over.”
“Shorty, the kids would want us to drink.” She lifted her empty cup. “It’s New Year’s!”
The audience in the front row cheered as she walked across the stage.
She blew them a kiss and waved. The wooden pews at the Ryman Auditorium reminded her of being in church with Derrick, but religion wasn’t her thing.
It wasn’t Derrick’s thing either, but he went to please his mother, who was best friends with ol’ JC.
Jamie sat on the drum riser and poured herself a double shot of vodka.
When in Rome.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Clayton boomed into the microphone, “Miss Jamie Keaton is in the house!”
The stage lights shone on her face and the crowd erupted.
“Do you like the view from there, darlin’?” the country singer asked with his back toward her.
The audience laughed as Clayton turned around, stretching a grin across his hillbilly face.
She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of his pewter belt buckle, directing her gaze to his dark, soulless eyes.
He wore a blue and white plaid button-down shirt open to his chest, and his shaggy auburn hair appeared red under the lights.
The production assistant handed her a microphone and she tapped on the windscreen to ensure it was on. “I’d rather look at your ass than your face any day, Clayton, but sometimes I can’t tell them apart.”
The audience roared with laughter and she took a sip of vodka .
“Come, sing a song with me.” He stomped toward her in a pair of worn cowboy boots and swung his guitar to the front, revealing the engraved letters on his leather guitar strap: c-l-a-y-t-o-n . He turned to the crowd and asked, “Y’all want to hear us sing?”
“Yes!” they cheered, and Jamie almost choked on her vodka.
I’m going to kill you.
But then she remembered Tennessee had the death penalty, so she stood from the riser and put her hand on her hip. “You don’t know any rock songs.”
“You don’t know any country songs,” Clayton countered. “Well, maybe one. I bet you know ‘Islands in the Stream’ from all that karaoke.”
It was a jab at her for winning a singing competition, but she’d rather die than let Clayton Langley outdo her. She finished the last sip of vodka and smiled at Ruth and Shorty’s astonished faces on stage right.
The band began to play and Clayton was the first one up.
His brooding eyes locked onto hers as his perfectly square jaw moved when he sang the opening verse.
He towered over her by more than a head, even with her boots on.
She wasn’t short; according to the doctors’ charts she was average height, maybe even slightly above.
Jamie knew he’d been a baseball pitcher back in the day—a southpaw, obviously—but she didn’t know much about his short time in the majors. She only half-listened when Shorty talked about him, which, considering their history, was almost never.
She joined in on the next part, singing in her low, raspy voice. She gave him a fake smile and shot darts with her eyes—bullseyes. She struggled through the rest of the song, avoiding his gaze during the “making love” parts.
After Clayton played the final note on his guitar, he held Jamie’s hand and they bowed as the audience applauded. They waved to the crowd until the descending gold curtain obscured them from view and she could finally give him a piece of her mind.
“What the fuck was that about?” she asked, wiping the cooties from her hand.
He flashed a toothy grin. “What?”
She lowered her chin and looked up at him.
“First, you went over your time, and second, I didn’t agree to sing with you, for your information.
” The lines on his cheeks were pronounced from his dimples, and he looked every bit his thirty-five years.
He was the same age as Derrick, but her ex-boyfriend injected Botox like a diabetic with insulin.
“The guy before me started late and I didn’t want to disappoint the fans,” he explained as Buddy, the tour manager they shared, handed him a beer and a towel.
“Then you should’ve stayed home,” she said. “You’re lucky I love Dolly.”
“What do you know about Dolly Parton?” Clayton snorted and stepped closer, the fumes from his cologne invading her nostrils. He smelled like a sandalwood candle but lacked the brightness.
Jamie furrowed her brow. “She’s the greatest songwriter in country music, maybe ever.”
“She listens to Dolly all the time on the bus,” Buddy said, supporting her story. “I’m sorry to hear about Derrick.”
She tensed her shoulders at the name but avoided making a face.
“Well, well,” Clayton said. “Action Jackson isn’t here, huh?” He took a swig of beer. “Not enough danger? Not enough bad guys to capture—or punch out?”
She looked him dead in the eye. “We broke up.”
Clayton smirked. “Better than breaking down. ”
Before she could fire back the announcer’s voice boomed through the speakers: “St. Jude’s and the Ryman would like to welcome . . . Jamie Keaton!”
Buddy stepped in, settling a Les Paul Goldtop over her shoulder with practiced ease.
“Break a leg,” Clayton said, his voice laced with amusement.
Jamie tightened her fingers around the fretboard. “Yeah, you wish, cowboy.”
At five minutes to midnight the other performers joined Jamie onstage. She poured another splash of vodka into her Solo cup and turned around to see Clayton standing at the center microphone, beer in hand.
“What are you doing?” She gestured toward the available microphones on either side of them.
“Ringing in the new year!” His eyes danced when he spoke, glossy from alcohol. “Great show, by the way.”
The compliment took her aback, but she figured it was the beer talking.
“Fine,” she replied, not wanting to argue in front of everyone.
“We’ll sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ when it hits midnight.
” She shouted into the microphone, “10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . .” Clayton took the microphone from her and counted down.
“7 . . . 6 . . . 5 . . .” He draped his arm around her shoulder. “4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . .”
“Happy new year!” Clayton leaned in and she turned her head . Smack . A kiss landed squarely on her mouth, and it tasted like beer.
Yuck .
“What are you doing?” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
They were hardly friends. She considered him her archenemy, like Lex Luthor to Superman.
Unsurprisingly, Tammy Travis, a one-time popular country singer, had divorced him a few years ago.
The gossip around the music industry was that Clayton had cheated on her, and it seemed accurate based on everything she knew about the opposite sex.
Men can’t be trusted .