Chapter 26
Heads Carolina
Sam swings our hands between us as we walk back—probably because my body language screams flight risk when I see the number of people gathered at the stage.
He’s got a guitar and his tablet ready to go.
Carla meets us at the steps on the right side in a small area hidden from the audience’s view.
She’s in on our opening song and knows what to say to get it started.
“Carla?” I swallow hard. “This looks like more than a hundred people.” I hope we’ve become good enough friends today to express the betrayal I feel without sounding rude.
“I know. I didn’t think this many would stay. A lot of them are from out of town. I thought most of them would skip out and get on the road.”
Luis waves to let us know he’s ready. Before I come out, Carla will greet everyone and lay down the behavior rules.
I peek around the corner and see teenagers and their families spreading out blankets to sit on, several scanning the code on Sam’s sign, pointing and talking excitedly.
I have my notifications silenced, but comments are already pouring in.
I’m fine. Really. I am.
“Sammy?”
“Yeah?”
“You can do that sexy hat-turn move, right?”
“Lu Lu.” His brows knit together with a look of utter betrayal. “It’s like you don’t know me at all.”
I grin up at him, feeling good that we’re on the same page. We work well together. We’ve just never applied it to anything quite like this.
“Come here, Smalls. Let’s pray.”
He drops his big arm around my shoulder and leans down to say a rather unconventional prayer.
“Dear Heavenly Father. Please give us insane energy, intuition to make the perfect song choices, memory of all the right notes and lyrics, and good vibes to encourage everyone here tonight. Also keep us all safe and please, please, please, let Lu Lu have fun and for the love of Skittles, not throw up. In Jesus’s name, Amen. ”
“Well. Amen to all of that.” I laugh.
“Give me your phone.”
“What? Why? I’m going to monitor the requests,” I insist.
“Trust me. You get ’em up, get ’em movin’, and get ’em loud.
I’ll take it from there. The tablet will be at the keyboard if we need help with lyrics, but I want you to focus on me and them.
” He tilts his head toward the crowd. “I can manage requests and loop rhythms in seconds, so let me handle it. I don’t want you lookin’ at comments or messages. Just follow me. Please?”
“Okay, Moose. You’re the boss.”
“Good. Just like Tuesday night. I’ll flirt. You’ll smack me. We’ll dance and have fun. Nothin’s different.”
“Yes, sir.” I mock-salute him as he takes my phone and drags me forward to kiss my head. I push back, shooting him a look.
It’s not the same. It’s weird.
“I’m following orders,” he says apologetically.
“You ready?” He puts his hand out, and we slap our hands back and forth, doing the long version of our handshake, then jump up and down a few times.
He reaches around me to a table and grabs the black cowboy hat he’s wearing in the picture on the vinyl poster.
“Remember, I’m the boss,” he says, dropping the huge hat on my head as he pulls his Braves cap low over his eyes. He strums the first song quietly, giving me the pitch.
Let the record show I did not fight him on the hat.
His show. His rules.
As soon as Carla finishes her spiel, I jog out with one hand holding the hat until I reach the microphone at center stage.
“Good evening, beautiful Tennesseans! How are we tonight?”
It’s just like radio. Just. Like. Radio… except they can see me.
I’m fine. No reason to throw up. I just need my inner voices to play nice tonight.
Everyone in the crowd whoops and cheers. This is good, right?
Their exuberant response is encouraging, so I grab the mic and walk over to Sam’s life-size sign, pointing out the code.
“I feel like y’all were expecting someone taller.
Is everyone following Sam Haynes on social media?
He’s feeling a little shy tonight, but Sammy loves making new friends.
If we work together, I think he’ll come out to play his favorite game. ”
I give them brief Requesto-Rando participation and prize rules and recruit Carla to get us started.
“Come on, Carla, whatcha got? Person, place, or thing? Let’s get Sammy to come out and play.”
I don’t know how he feels about me calling him Sammy on stage, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
“A place!” she yells.
“Anywhere specific?”
“Maybe somewhere on the coast?”
“Hmm, east or west?” I act deeply invested in her reply.
“I think either one. Maybe flip a coin, because I can’t choose.” She smiles big, knowing what I’m about to do.
“I’m a terrible guitar player, y’all, but maybe Sam will join in if we get it started for him. What do y’all think? Should we try?”
The crowd cheers, and I shrug. “All right, help me out.”
I blow out a steadying breath. I can do this. Think confident thoughts.
If I were anywhere else with Sam, we’d be singing anyway.
I catch a glimpse of Sam thumping his guitar, and I can feel him stomping his foot to set the tempo he wants.
I get the crowd clapping on his beat and sing the chorus to the original “Heads Carolina.” When I point to the crowd and cup my ear, they know exactly what to do.
Sam scrunches his face and throws his fist with a big grin when I get the crowd going, and it gives me the biggest rush.
It was risky with a younger audience, and my heart pounds in relief.
I did it.
Can I go home now?
He leans around the corner with his hat still low, and girls scream. He begins strumming and walks out behind me. Motioning for me to sing it again as he plays, he slowly raises his head and looks over the crowd with a growing smile.
Toward the end of our chorus, he stops playing and whips off his hat, turning it backwards in an exaggerated slow-motion move while pressing pedals with his foot. “Y’all ’bout ta make me act up!”
Girls go crazy, and I fade back, hopping on a riser to give him more room while clapping over my head to encourage the audience to get louder.
When I hear him begin to strum the Cole Swindell version of the song, I yell out over the screams, “Give it up for Sam Haynes!”
He performs it perfectly, changing lyrics on the fly to replace words that mention a bar. Carla is cracking up at his spontaneous rewrite, but I don’t think anyone’s too worried about typical country lyrics in Nashville.
After I back him on the first song, he enthusiastically greets the crowd.
“What’s up, Nashville! Thank you for havin’ us! What should we do next? Any ideas? I thought we’d just wing it, so it’s up to y’all,” he jokes, and everyone laughs. “I see you’ve already met my best friend, Lucy Sky. The more y’all sing, the more she’ll sing, so y’all gotta stay loud.”
I wave as he hands me his guitar, subtly lifting his chin to another. He pulls his phone from his pocket and entertains the crowd reading the funniest comments and requests into the mic as I switch out his guitars. He’s such a natural.
“Ooh, looky here—@tater365 wants a song with fire. Come on, Lu Lu. Let’s ‘Start a Fire,’ y’all!
” He looks to me with a satisfied grin because it’s one of the camp songs we practiced.
I see where he’s headed, so I grab a capo, placing it on the first fret while he continues to chat up the crowd.
This earns me a side-eye because I just gave away that I do in fact know how to play this song.
I also realize he’s hand-picking comments that match songs we rehearsed. Sneaky genius.
We sound great, and the whole field of people sings along. I can’t believe how interactive they are with such a simple setup. He goes straight into “Press On” before I have a chance to think about the second verse being mine.
Oh well. There’s no turning back now.
“You wanna play with fire, Lu Lu? That just wasn’t enough for me.” He gives me his heart-stopping stage smile before leaning down to my ear. “I’ll do a verse and chorus, then you run into me with something big. Surprise me.”
The fact that I understand the assignment is absurd.
It’s like we have sibling telepathy. He raises back up, lifting the neck of the guitar.
“Do it, Sammy!” I walk backward, laughing but giving him space so he doesn’t take my head off. I’ve seen this before, and I know the danger.
He dramatically hitches the guitar up, spinning once before he sings a verse and chorus of “Ring of Fire.” Just as he ends, I hop off the riser. I playfully shove him to the side, mouthing, “Firework,” so he’s ready when I belt it.
I don’t know it well besides the chorus, but I know it’s not hard to play. He’s got it. The crowd jumps in and takes over before I have to worry about the lyrics.
We’re completely off-script now. He does a classic Springsteen song, and I top it with Pink’s “Just Like Fire.” This is even better than singing Poison Tuesday night. The crowd is electric, singing and yelling out requests, erupting in squeals when Sam reads a comment by someone they know.
“A few of y’all said a flower. How about a rose?” he asks.
A group of moms in the back on a blanket together cheer, with their kids joining in.
“Maybe not what you’re thinkin,’ but it’ll make Smalls very happy.”
I pull two stools from the side of the stage and make a dramatic show of having him kneel and remove his cap before I crown him with his own cowboy hat. He pops his Braves cap on me when I hand him the guitar he tuned for this.
“It’s time, Moose,” I say into the mic.
He nods solemnly. “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.”
I lift my chin up to him. “Yeah, it does.”
It’s probably all the moms, but there’s a lot of screaming as he begins soft and low. I’ve known this song since I was a toddler, and we sing it together often. It’s smooth where it should be and rough where it hurts.
How is this my life?