CHAPTER 5 #2
Jamie nodded, not because she knew the song—she didn’t—but she knew who Shania was from a documentary she’d watched.
Everyone interviewed, including Shania, had credited Mutt Lang for catapulting her to stardom.
However, the truth was Mutt didn’t want to help a struggling artist just because he was a good guy—he wanted to fuck her.
“Can I have your autograph, Mr. Langley?” Canary Hair asked, handing him a bar napkin and a pen. Being old enough to be his mother didn’t stop her from flirting. Female fans were worse than men, the groping more prevalent.
“Where y’all from?” Clayton asked, signing his name on the napkin.
“Nebraska,” they said.
“Welcome to Nashville!” He passed the napkin to Canary Hair. “Hope you’re enjoying your stay here.”
“You should get a job with the department of tourism,” Jamie said, smirking.
“I should!” Clayton said. “What do they say? Keep calm and travel on.”
“Ugh.” Jamie shook her head. “Your jokes aren’t even funny—”
“Whiskey?” Beau interrupted, as the line behind Clayton had grown significantly.
“Please, and another vodka for my pal, Jamie.”
Pal? Give me a break.
Clayton continued signing autographs for the people in line while Jamie stared at the neon Bluebird sign on the wall, wondering how long it had been there.
Her gaze moved up to the low acoustic tile ceiling, and she knew the venue hadn’t been designed for live music. The term “cafe” was indeed accurate .
Beau pushed a drink toward her—this time with a straw.
“Thanks!” Jamie took a sip of her vodka soda, aware he was trying to get her drunk. Bo, you don’t know diddly. She laughed to herself, remembering the TV commercial from her childhood. Knocking her out would require more than a couple of stiff drinks. That she was sure about.
A striking man in his late thirties or early forties with dark hair and a Crest toothpaste smile approached the bar. “Happy new year!” he said.
“I haven’t seen you all year!” Clayton reused his line from earlier and Jamie rolled her eyes.
Crest Toothpaste Smile reached out his hand. “I’m Jake.”
She looked into his wide-set brown eyes and shook his hand. “Jamie. It’s nice to meet you.” She glanced at his bare ring finger.
Jackpot.
“Over here!” Canary Hair shouted, nudging people out of the way with her wrinkly elbows. “You’re . . .”
“I am,” Jake said, smiling as he signed his name next to Clayton’s.
Jamie felt foolish for not recognizing him and wished Shazam could identify faces as it did with songs. She wanted to snap a picture of him to make Derrick jealous—this guy was so good looking that straight men were staring.
“Why don’t you come up later and sing with me?” Jake offered the rock star, resting his hand on the back of her chair.
Clayton piped up, “She knows nothing about country music.”
“That’s okay.” Jake tapped his beer bottle against her glass. “I know all kinds of genres.”
“I’ll go up, man.” Clayton clinked his whiskey glass against Jake’s bottle.
Cockblocker .
Jake glanced at him sideways then winked at Jamie. “You never want to sing with me, man. Why the sudden change of heart?”
He shrugged. “I’m going to try out some new stuff.”
A few hours later Jamie was wrapped in a liquor blanket, warm from the inside out.
Beau kept pouring so she kept drinking, stubbornly trying to keep pace with Clayton despite their obvious weight difference.
She recognized a few of the songwriters who had performed—faces she vaguely knew but names she only learned when they introduced themselves.
She had to admit: the songs were good. Too good.
They made her feel things beyond just being drunk—which, at this point, she was, thanks in no small part to the increasingly handsome bartender.
Hosting the evening was a bald, heavyset fellow wearing a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts with a sailboat pattern. She could tell from his tan that he’d recently been somewhere tropical and hadn’t adjusted to the Tennessee weather.
“I’d like to invite Jake to the stage,” the host said, and Canary Hair clapped her hands off.
Jake sat next to Hawaiian Shirt and played a few songs, but she didn’t recognize them.
Most of the tunes were too twangy for her, but she liked “Drink All Day” and wanted to cover it at her next performance.
Drinking songs were always crowd favorites, but it was nearly impossible to write a good one, something original.
“Clayton, are you ready to come up, buddy?” Jake’s voice echoed from the microphone, his teeth nearly blinding her with their brightness.
Everyone clapped and the country singer nodded at Jamie. “Watch and learn something, darlin’.”
She laughed, nearly choking on her vodka soda .
Clayton maneuvered through the crowd with his guitar slung over his shoulder, then shook Jake’s hand and sat beside him, his long legs folding beneath him.
“How about we start with an old one?” Jake suggested, picking at his guitar.
“This is a song I wrote called ‘More Bad Days Than Good.’” Clayton strummed a chord and the audience responded with a series of “oohs” and “aahs.”
“He wrote that song about Tammy,” Canary Hair blurted, and Jamie raised her finger to shush her.
Clayton sang every word with the kind of heartache only the unlucky in love could understand.
His voice carried the weight of loss and regret—emotions she knew all too well.
She’d had more bad days than good, spent too many nights drowning in the certainty that she shouldn’t have existed at all.
And one drunken night AJ had confirmed it, slurring the words she’d already believed: she was a mistake.
At least she was right.
She signaled to Beau to refill her drink as she listened to the song. Something was soothing about his voice, like the tide rolling in and out then crashing against the riprap and dispersing. Perhaps there was another side to Clayton Langley . . .
But it didn’t excuse him for cheating on his wife.
“I want to play something new for y’all,” Clayton said softly into the microphone. “If you’ll indulge me.”
“Oh, a new one!” Canary Hair shrieked, her voice loud enough for people to turn their heads. Jamie glanced over her shoulder and rolled her eyes at Clayton, pointing to Canary Hair as the culprit.
She turned to Beau and ordered a tequila shot, her favorite late-night poison—no lime, of course—but she turned toward the stage before he finished pouring.
No, it isn’t!
“Congratulations are in order . . .” Clayton began to sing.
“Fuck, that’s my song!” Jamie said to no one in particular.
“Language!” Canary Hair scolded, her pruned brow frowning.
“There’s no law against swearing—First Amendment,” Jamie replied, then slid off the stool and marched toward him. There was an empty seat beside Clayton with her name on it. She’d show him how it was done by singing her song, even if she wasn’t welcome.
When their eyes locked Clayton stopped singing but continued strumming his guitar. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Miss Jamie Keaton!”
A few people clapped but most didn’t, so she quickly sat before the crowd turned on her. The audience was seated so close to the stage she could have reached out and touched them, but it was too late to turn back, even if she wanted to.
“Should we take it from the top?” Clayton asked. She nodded, taking a deep breath and exhaling through her nose.
Jamie sang the first verse alone while Clayton joined in during the “I Did a Good Job of Drinking” part.
They exchanged verses and harmonized during the chorus, with the audience singing along.
He played it slowly and with a country feel—she could have killed him without a twinge of guilt.
It was supposed to be a rock song with pyrotechnics blowing up in the background and a guitar solo.
When the song ended at midnight, Hawaiian Shirt returned to the microphone and thanked everyone for coming out .
“Thanks, that was fun,” Clayton said to Jamie with a smile. “Why don’t you stay and have another drink with me?”
It took every last ounce of sobriety she had in her not to rip him a new asshole.
“I’ve got a session in the morning,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Rain check?”
She nodded and walked to the bar, where Beau had lined up six shots of tequila—three on each side. They clinked glasses and downed one shot after another, skipping the salt and lime.
Beau picked up the empty glasses and leaned across the bar. “Can I get your number?”
A.k.a., want to fuck?
But she couldn’t, even though she wanted to. It was only a matter of time before Derrick came crawling back with some big apology, and she wasn’t a cheater.
“Another time,” she said, letting him down easy. She mimed writing her signature. “Just my bill, please.”
“Oh, Clayton put it on his tab.”
She repeated herself. “My bill, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Get me out of this town.