Chapter Thirty-Four
“Ifeel like I’m going to throw up,” I admitted.
“That seems normal for the current situation,” Maggie said.
I called Maggie after I left Rolling Meadows and told her everything.
How Stetson had turned my article into Country Music and Company, the conversation with George, and how my mom thought I needed to let him hear the whole story from me, to give him a chance to really understand the situation, and how that was exactly what I planned to do by going to Nashville.
Within twenty minutes of hanging up the phone, her and Booker were on my doorstep with suitcases in hand.
“The fact that I have to wait for his entire show to be over makes this even more grueling,” I whined.
“At least we’ve got a good view.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Booker managed to snag a couple of last-minute seats just a few rows back from the front. When George said a benefit concert, I’d envisioned something small, intimate, but this was anything but. The outside venue was very much an amphitheater, and there were barely any empty seats.
“Yeah, I’m not sure how Booker managed it, but we’re here and that’s all that matters.”
“Except, do you have plan? Like when are you actually going to talk to him?”
I hadn’t gotten that far. I just assumed I’d figure it out once I got here.
“Scarlett?” a familiar voice came from behind us, followed by a tap on my shoulder. I rotated around and was met with Ruby’s gaze.
“Ruby, hi!”
“Hi,” she said, practically bouncing up and down. “Why aren’t you backstage with Uncle Stetson?”
“Oh, um.” I paused, figuring out what to say next. “Why aren’t you in the front row? I thought that was your favorite seat in the house,” I deflected.
“Ugh. I’m with my aunt Lucy and she didn’t want to be smooshed between all the girls screaming their faces off. This is the closest she’d let us get.”
“Ha, I can’t blame her.” I chuckled. “Ruby, this is my best friend, Magnolia and her boyfriend Booker.”
“Hi, Ruby, it’s nice to meet you!” Maggie said.
“Very nice to meet you.” Booker added.
“You too.”
“Ruby Tyler, what did I tell you about talking to strangers.”
Tyler.
The name rattled through my bones.
“She’s not a stranger, Aunt Lucy. This is Uncle Stetson’s girlfriend, Scarlett.”
Lucy and I looked at one another, exchanging smiles.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry. How rude of me.” Embarrassment flooded her cheeks, turning them a soft red. “Hi, Scarlett, how nice to finally meet you. I’m heard nothing but wonderful things.”
“Oh.” I blushed.
The bass rumbled the audience alive, directing everyone’s attention, including ours, to the stage. I turned around quickly to face Lucy and Ruby again. “It was nice to meet you, Lucy.”
“Yes. You too!” she shouted back.
The thunder of the bass mimicked the thunder of my heartbeat against my chest. The louder the music, the faster my heartbeat got.
Maggie grabbed my hand. “Are you good?”
“I’m good,” I said, unsure if I was telling the truth, because something else had proved to be yet another distraction. “But did you hear what Lucy called Ruby? She called her Ruby Tyler.”
“Yeah, what about it?” Maggie asked. Her body was facing the stage, and by the looks of it, I didn’t think there was much of anything that could’ve peeled her eyes off of it.
“Never mind. It’s nothing.”
“I think he might be getting ready to come on.”
“Oh yeah, what makes you say that? It wouldn’t be the massive amounts of gawking girls packed in like sardines at the foot of the stage, would it?
” I laughed. Although, something about all of those girls pining over him wasn’t funny at all.
It actually had the taste of jealously crawling up the back of my throat.
“They are wild,” she said. “I can’t imagine what they’ll be like when he actually comes out on stage.”
“Well, you’re about to find out.” The song he always walked out to started roaring through the speakers and I wasn’t the only one who knew what was coming.
The thought of seeing Stetson felt like riding a rollercoaster; one second, I was terrified, begging to get off, and the next, my hands were stuck straight up in the air, a smile plastered across my face as I screamed from the rush of adrenaline.
Right now, I was convinced I was about to puke and needed to get off the ride.
Afraid for the initial view of him, I brought my eyes to my feet, but even then, he was staring right back at me. Or at least the beautiful boots he bought me were, so it was basically the same thing. If he was going to be everywhere I looked, I might as well be looking at the real thing.
The lights flashed off and then back on again. This time his silhouette on center stage was illuminated and the place went fucking bonkers.
“Holy shit,” Maggie gasped.
“This is wild,” Booker yelled.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
I couldn’t help but turn back and look at Ruby’s face, and to no surprise, it was just as lit up as it was the first night I met her.
“How we doin’ tonight?” Stetson’s voice ricocheted off the microphone and out into the crowd, coercing my attention to him.
There he was.
I admired him in his regular getup of tighter-than-average light wash jeans, brown cowboy boots, and a short-sleeve striped shirt that was unbuttoned enough to see a peek of chest hair.
His outfit was of course completed by his signature gold chain—the same one I’d gripped in my fingers while he’d had his way with me.
There was the man I had quite possibly fallen in love with over the last seven months.
I couldn’t decide if I wanted him to see me or not. On the one hand, the simple thought of our eyes finding each other through the crowd might set this entire place on fire. On the other hand, I didn’t think I was prepared for what would happen if it wasn’t that big, explosive reunion.
My body shifted, unknowingly stepping a little closer to Maggie. “I can’t wait for you to hear some of the new songs. They’re so good.”
“I’m so excited,” she gushed.
Stetson bounced around the stage for a few songs, interacting with the crowd and creating the most magnifying atmosphere, yet I couldn’t help but notice that he seemed off.
Any normal person wouldn’t have seen it, but I did.
And while I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what it was, I knew he didn’t have the same high-level energy he’d had during his previous show, and my brain immediately wondered if I was the cause of his sadness.
Before I could dwell on the thought any further, the music slowed until it stopped. And then it was only Stetson standing in the center of the stage with his guitar and the microphone. He plucked a few chords, and I tried to pinpoint which new song he was going to play, but I didn’t recognize it.
“I only have a couple of songs left, but this next one I wrote is probably my favorite from the new album,” he said, cracking a smile under his mustache.
He ran his fingers through that luscious brown hair of his.
A few beads of sweat strolled down the side of his face, glistening under the bright lights until he put the hat back on.
I hadn’t noticed before now, but the front of his navy hat caught my eye.
Quincey Falls, Tennessee was printed in big white letters.
My stomach somersaulted.
That was our town. My town.
“Have you ever had someone come barreling into your life so fast you would’ve missed it if you weren’t paying attention?
” He paused, resting his hands on the top of his guitar.
“This last year, I needed to take some time away, to really find meaning behind what I was doing here. So, I went to a small town in the middle of nowhere Tennessee, expecting to spend a lot of time with myself, and instead I wound up spending a whole helluva lot of time with a girl.”
The crowd erupted in whoops and hollers, inviting a smirk to sit in the corner of his mouth.
My hand covered my mouth and Maggie’s eyes widened so big I thought they might get stuck open. We didn’t exchange any words; we didn’t have enough time for the shock to wear off before Stetson started talking again.
“She’s just like whiskey—fiery and she’ll hit you with a quick sting when you least expect it.
She doesn’t put up with my bullshit, which is something I’m not used to.
Instead, she tells me everything I don’t want to hear but need to.
At first, I was sure she hated me, but I was too stubborn and too sure she could be exactly what I needed to give up.
So, I didn’t, and over the next couple of months, slowly but surely, I got to see another side of her—the side that was as sweet as grenadine.
This girl cares so deeply for others that I’m not sure how she holds on to all of those emotions, but she does.
She admires the little things that most people would pass right by in a way that makes me see the subtle beauty in them too, and she’s just one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. ”
This time the crowd wasn’t loud when Stetson stopped talking. In fact, the silence was so overwhelmingly quiet that I could hear his breath through the microphone.
I wanted to react, but I also wanted to hear what he was going to say next.
“This song is called ‘Whiskey Grenadine,’ and as much as I wish she was gonna hear it with us, she isn’t here tonight, and that’s on me. But this one’s for you, Scarlett.”
My mouth and heart dropped simultaneously.
The world seemed to stop spinning and for a second it was only him and me in this big amphitheater; everyone else was just a sea of color. In that moment, I wanted him to see me, I needed him to see me. I waited for his eyes to find mine in the crowd, but they never did.
Stetson voice strummed through the microphone.
She’s whiskey with a splash of grenadine
And somewhere between the burn and the sweet
She became exactly what I need.
“Oh my god,” Maggie said, her words dragging out longer than normal.
“Holy hell,” Booker said. “What a song.”
“Did that really just happen?” I replied.
Any anxiety or doubts that I had about coming here simply faded away. A smile washed across my face as I listened to the lyrics, each one more satisfyingly personal than the last. They strung together in a way that told the story of us, of me.
“Thank you,” Stetson said as the song came to an end and he struck the last chord.
Just as quickly as he’d slowed the music, he picked it right back up with his next song. This time with a little more pep in his step as the rest of his band rejoined the stage.
“Scarlett! Scarlett! That song was about you!” Ruby beamed from a few rows back, her excitement matching mine, although I wasn’t as obvious as she was.
“Do you wanna come sit with us up here?” I shouted, not sure why I hadn’t asked her before.
Her eyes widened and she aggressively nodded her head up and down.
I grinned. “I’ll meet you in the aisle,” I said, pointing toward the end of the row.
We both started in that direction as I tried to stop myself from practically levitating from hearing that song. The one he wrote about me. Whatever it was, it convinced me that everyone had been right. Everything was actually going to be okay, or at least that was how it felt.
“Come on, we’ll get you a better view of your uncle.” I extended my hand out for her, offering her a little stability among the sea of bodies.
“Is that a poppy?” she asked, pointing to the dainty ink on my arm.
I nodded. “Yeah, how’d you know that? Most people just think it’s a pretty flower.”
“Poppies are my favorite. It’s my birth flower. It’s a weird thing to know, I know, but it was something my mom shared with me one time when we were talking about my adoption.”
“No. It’s not weird at all.” I swallowed, and the air from inside of me was sucked right out like helium in a leaky balloon.
The birth flower. The middle name. Things were becoming too much, even for a coincidence.
“When’s your birthday?” I asked, hoping her answer would rescue me from my spiraling thoughts.
“August seventh,” she responded.
But it was like I knew what she was going to say before she even said it.
The music was too loud and everyone around us seemed to be bobbing and swaying so closely that I felt like I was suffocating.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Are you good to get to Maggie by yourself? I need to run to the bathroom really quick.”
“Yeah. Sure,” she said.
I waited until she was almost to Maggie and then I turned and bolted. The world seeming to stand still, but this time, it was just me and the truth, and that was terrifying.
The public bathroom was just that; public.
The last thing I needed was for someone to notice me, let alone notice me absolutely spiraling.
I shifted my feet in a different direction hoping for a miracle and for once, luck was on my side.
I spotted Michael near the side of the stage, watching the show.
“Michael!” I shouted.
“Hey, Scarlett. I didn’t know you were here? Does Stetson know?” A goofy grin plastered on his face.
I shook my head. “Any chance I can take you up on your offer? The one about being backstage…”
“Of course!” he said, opening the security gate that stood between us. “Stetson will be thrilled.”
“Actually, I was just hoping you could point me in the direction of a bathroom, a more private one.” I’d done well at hiding my emotions, but they were wavering and he could tell.
Michael’s eyebrows met in the middle of his forehead and his tone shifted. “Oh. Sure. There is a bathroom just behind the stage, everyone’s up there” —he pointed to the stage—“so you should be in the clear.”
Thank you, I mouthed, quickly excusing myself.
“There’s no fucking way,” I whispered while the heavy steel door slammed behind me. “But how else do you explain August seventh and Ruby Tyler?” I violently threw my head back and forth. “This can’t be happening.”
My eyes slammed shut as I tried to decide what to do next.