Chapter 15
I bolt from the dance hall like a scalded cat and hook a right toward the field where everyone parked today. The crew’s work lights cast a dim glow over the main lot, but out here it’s all shadows. Crickets chirp unseen, and somewhere in the distance, an engine turns over.
I’m halfway to my car when I remember I left my keys in the front pocket of my cooler, which is still sitting behind the bar.
Because of course I did.
I stop in the tire-flattened johnsongrass, nails biting into my palms. Laughter carries across the field—close enough to sting.
There’s no way on God’s green earth I’m going back in there, so I pull out my phone to call my brother, who—I also just remember—is three hours away with his boyfriend. Celebrating his birthday. Our birthday.
Happy birthday, Maggie!
Even if I had Holden’s number, I’d be too ashamed to use it. And I’m not about to involve Artie. My only options are Old Lady Perkins and my ex-best friend, and Perkins is practically blind.
Constance it is.
Constance, whose request to “hang” tonight went unanswered because she’d forgotten my birthday, and I was too embarrassed to remind her—not to mention depressed that I didn’t already have plans.
A rush of voices spills from the dance hall, and I pick up the pace, boots chewing through weeds I wish would just swallow me.
“Magnolia!”
God hates me. That’s all there is to it.
I pocket my phone and keep walking. “My name is Maggie!”
“I know. Shit, I’m sorry,” Holden says, hurrying to catch up to me. “Maggie…”
“Why are you out here? Come to gloat? Say I told you so?” I reach the driver’s side door and stop. “Do me a favor and save it for Monday.”
“I brought your suitcase,” he says, attempting a weak smile. “Thought you might need it.”
The knot in my chest loosens. If he were anyone else, I’d kiss him. “Thanks.”
“Maggie—”
“Please don’t.”
He gives me a small nod, then rests his elbows on the roof of my car and looks up at the stars. “I love it here. LA’s got nothing on this.”
“LA’s got Uber.” The fact I’d need one in my own hometown makes me want to crawl under my car and stay there.
Hear that, Holden? I have no life, no talent, and no friends.
I pull my keys from the cooler pocket. “I should get going. Wouldn’t want to keep you.”
“Don’t think you’ll have to worry about Barrett anymore,” he says, brushing right past my dismissal. “Artie’s in there giving him hell. Doubt he’ll be back.”
My face flames. “Does everyone know?”
“No. Just me.”
“Just you,” I repeat, but it comes out like just you, of all people.
“You can trust me, Maggie.”
“Trust you to what?” I turn away, like that’ll hide the brittle edge in my voice. “Not tell the world what a loser I am? Not laugh at me?”
“No—”
“Because you have every right to, you know. You warned me.”
My hand trembles as I put the key in the lock. Holden stills it with his, the rough pad of his thumb sweeping across my knuckles in a way that’s oddly comforting.
“I’m fine,” I whisper, mostly to myself since he didn’t ask, and pull my hand away.
“Are you?”
“I will be.” I manage a smile. “Soon as the bourbon kicks in.”
“Barrett’s a fool, Maggie. Don’t let him get in your head.”
“Too late.”
Holden’s mouth tightens, his expression hard to pin down. My fragile ego calls it pity.
“I really do need to go.” I check my phone. It’s after nine.
“Can I see that a sec?”
“Why?” I smirk as I hand it over. “Fall on yours again?”
His thumbs move quick across the screen. “No, smart-ass. I just want you to have my number. In case you get stranded again.”
My stomach does a stupid little flip.
“I wasn’t stranded, exactly,” I say, but Holden’s cocked brow calls my bluff.
“You don’t have to be stranded. You can, you know, just call.” His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he hands mine back to me. “Pretty sure you’ll approve.”
I laugh when I see Jackass in my contacts. “So you admit it?”
“I admit it.”
“It’s possible I may have been wrong about that.”
“I wish you were.”
His gray-blue eyes hold mine a beat too long, and my heart begins to pound.
Look away, Maggie. Just look away.
The whack of a slamming door does the trick.
I wrench my gaze from Holden’s to see Graham Barrett stomping down the steps, work lights throwing his shadow across the grass.
I shrink at the sight of him while, beside me, Holden stands to his full height.
I watch his hands clench into fists, his jaw tense.
He keeps his eyes on Barrett as he stalks across the field and doesn’t break his stare until he’s in his pickup, driving out of sight. Only then does Holden relax.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I will be.” He smiles, faint but genuine—and sweet mercy, I think the stubble is growing on me. “So this bourbon you speak of. Think I can get in on that?”
The wind stirs the cedars nearby, their branches rustling against each other.
“Oh, um…” I scrunch my nose, give my head a quick shake. “I don’t know if that’s—”
“But we should probably eat first,” he says. “You hungry?”
—a good idea.
My traitorous stomach replies with a growl.
“I make killer pancakes. Best you’ve ever had.” He grabs my cooler and hauls it to the back of my car. I toss him the keys.
“You sound pretty sure of yourself,” I say, propping a hip on the door. “If they suck, don’t expect me to spare your feelings.”
He grins. “Is that a yes?”
The trunk slams shut, and then he’s beside me, spinning my keys on his finger.
“I’m not sleeping with you,” I blurt.
“Didn’t offer.”
“Do you even have a car?”
“I can’t ride with you?”
“And how exactly would you get back?”
“I’ll call my driver.”
More voices carry into the quiet night as another group files out of the dance hall, Artie among them.
I hug my waist. “Are you sure Artie doesn’t know?”
“He knows Barrett’s a prick, and he knows he was a prick to you, but that’s all.” Holden tilts his head. Studying me, maybe. “If you’d rather be alone tonight, I understand. I shouldn’t have pressed.”
I consider taking the out, but birthday pancakes sound so much better than a birthday frozen burrito. I nod at the keys in his hand. “Can you handle a stick?”
His eyes widen. “You’re letting me drive the Goat?”
“Yeah,” I say, pushing off the car. “Don’t wreck her.”
“I’m not used to you being so quiet,” Holden says as he stops at a blinking red light.
“What? I can be quiet.”
“Fuming-quiet. Plotting-my-death-quiet. This lost-in-your-head-quiet you have going on is new to me.”
I roll my eyes.
“You can talk to me, you know.” He checks both ways, then glides through the intersection. “I’m really not the villain.”
“I know. I just…”
“Prefer to suffer in silence?”
“Something like that.”
He tips his chin at the radio. “How ’bout some music then?”
I turn the knob, static giving way to old Cory Morrow. “She’s only got AM, so it’s either this or last season’s high school football highlights.”
“I’m good with this.” He clocks my raised brows. “What? I like it.”
“What do you normally listen to?”
“Alternative, mostly,” he says, coming up to a stop sign. “But nineties stuff.”
“Take a right here.”
The blinker clicks like a metronome as we ease into the turn.
“I’m fine with country,” he says. “Just not country with stupid-ass lyrics.”
I huff a laugh. “So ‘Get up, shut up, buck up, and take the bull by the horns’ doesn’t do it for you?”
“It absolutely does not do it for me.”
I glance out the window where the Hill Country rolls by in a dark blur. “It does it for someone, but I refuse to believe it’s Artie.”
Holden’s sigh cuts through the hum of the radio. “The lead singer is Barrett’s nephew.”
My head snaps around. “No way!”
“You can’t repeat that,” he says, and I sketch an invisible “X” over my heart. He meets my eyes. “Bottom line, Barrett insisted Artie use the song, and Artie—quote, unquote—didn’t want to rock the boat.”
“Well, according to you, Barrett just got an ass chewing. I’d say the boat has sufficiently been rocked.”
“Yeah,” Holden says, his jaw tightening. “I hope Artie really laid into him.”
Me too.
My phone lights up with a call from Constance. I send it to voicemail and shoot her a text. Can’t talk. Can I call you tomorrow?
Just wanted to wish you a happy birthday! In my defense, I didn’t forget. Just didn’t realize we were already into May until I saw that stupid Justin Timberlake meme
Has that been your excuse since high school? I regret the thought as soon as I have it. Thank you, I type instead. Sorry I didn’t text you earlier. It’s been a long day
I know you’ve been busy. What are you doing to celebrate?
Oh, nothing. Just hanging out with a mega-famous movie star. Alone. In my house. A shiver rolls through me. Ben’s out of town so I’m taking it easy tonight. This week wore me out
Let’s do something when things settle down. Have a girls night in Austin maybe? Somewhere fancy like the Mendon
I balk at the thought. Fancy for me is twenty-dollar steak night at the Chuckwagon. For sure yeah. When things settle down
Can’t wait! Have a good night
You too
“That’s it, coming up,” I say.
The iron gate catches in the headlights, and Holden slows to a stop, his gaze snagging on the overhead sign: Calhoun Family Hill Country Bed and Breakfast.
“Your family runs a B&B.”
“Just Ben and me.” I reach across him to press the button on the remote clipped to the visor. The gate shudders open, revealing an empty driveway and a dark house.
“Is this your slow season?”
“You could say that.”
“Have you considered advertising, maybe? Because I searched—searched—and there’s not a single thing left within miles of here.”
I tense at his snippy tone. “I advertise. Not that it’s any of your business.”
We roll forward across the cattle guard, the gate clanging shut behind us.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since we pulled into town. To know this was just sitting here vacant…”
“Where are you staying?”
“Across the street from the dance hall. It’s my own damn fault. I picked it.”
“The lodge?” I narrow my eyes at him, trying to picture it but can’t. No more than I can picture him in a Civic. “I’d have guessed Austin.”
Somewhere fancy like the Mendón.
“Too far. The lodge would be fine if it weren’t for the paper-thin walls. And it doesn’t help that my neighbors are loud as fuck.” He pulls up to the house. “This good?”
The headlights illuminate my front porch—and the large bouquet of blue hydrangeas left by the door.
I nod and wrench my gaze back to Holden.
“We’re seasonal,” I say, as if ignoring the flowers will keep him from noticing them.
But I can’t stop the smile from sneaking through.
Mama started the tradition. Aunt Z keeps it going.
“Magnolia…is today your birthday?”
I let the name slide. “What? A girl can’t get flowers just because?”
He juts his chin at the porch. “That mylar balloon may have outed you.”
I glance up to find the balloon in question whipping against the house. “Yes, it’s my birthday. Please don’t make a big deal.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
My smile slips. The only thing more humiliating than Holden witnessing my confrontation with Graham Barrett is him knowing it happened on my birthday.
He leans over the wheel, squinting at the house. “And young Benjamin? Is he off celebrating without you?”
“It’s just Ben,” I say, and yeah, pretty much. “He’s…away.”
Holden kills the engine, and the porch goes dark. “Really? Just Ben?”
“Just Ben.”
“Doesn’t that bother him?”
“What are you talking about?”
“His name, Magnolia.”
I cross my arms. “Why would it?”
“It’s a nickname.”
“It’s not.”
“I just mean, if I had a twin, and my mother gave her a name as beautiful as yours and stuck me with Just Ben?” He clucks his tongue in disapproval. “What’s your middle name?”
“May,” I say, turning my phone in my hand until his words sink in. “Wait, you think my name is beautiful?”
“It is beautiful.”
Wind chimes stir in the breeze, rising over the balloon’s thwap against the stone exterior.
“Then why are you always making fun of it?” I glance at Holden, the outline of his face barely visible in the scant light.
“I’ve never made fun of your name, but I have used it to rile you. On occasion.” A crooked grin crosses his face as he climbs out of the car. “And like I told you before, it suits you.”
My beautiful name suits me?
The trunk opens and shuts, followed by the sharp rapping of knuckles on my window.
“That bourbon ain’t gonna drink itself,” he says, then hauls my cooler to the porch.
I poke my head out the door. “My name…you reckon you’ll keep using it?”
“Would you hate it if I did?”
“No,” I say quietly. Not anymore.
“Then yeah, Magnolia. I reckon I will.”