15. Boone
BOONE
The house was too quiet.
I sat in the dark living room, phone in my hand, staring at the screen like an idiot.
No messages. No missed calls. Nothing from Carly.
The clock on the mantel ticked loud enough to crawl under my skin, each second a reminder that I was sitting here doing nothing while my wife was God knows where, probably still at that bar, probably still looking at me like I was a stranger she'd rather not know.
I'd stormed out of here hours ago after telling my mother and my father and Emily exactly where they could shove their threats about the money.
The look on my mother's face when I walked out had been worth it.
Pure shock. Like she'd never considered I might actually say no.
But the satisfaction had worn off somewhere between the fourth street I drove down aimlessly and the sixth time I checked my phone to see if Carly had called.
She hadn't.
I set the phone down on the arm of the couch.
The screen went dark, and the room felt even emptier.
God, what was I even doing? Carly had told me to leave.
Twice. Once at the bar last night when she'd looked me right in the eye and said she didn't want my money, didn't want me standing there trying to fix things with cash like that was all I had to offer.
And then again earlier when I'd gone back, thinking maybe she'd cooled down, maybe she'd be ready to talk.
She hadn't even let me through the door.
She'd walked away from me. From the house. From everything we'd built together.
And I was sitting here in the dark like time was going to fix it on its own, like she'd just wake up one morning and decide to come home.
My chest felt tight, like something was sitting on it. I didn't know how to fix this. I didn't know what she wanted me to say or do or be. I just knew I had to try, because the alternative was losing her for good, and that wasn't something I could sit with. That wasn't something I could let happen.
But I didn't know where to start.
Headlights swept across the front windows, cutting through the dark.
I stood up, frowning. Nobody was supposed to be here.
Tuck was in Memphis with the crew, setting up for the next leg of the tour.
My family could go straight to hell after this afternoon, and they knew it.
I walked to the window and looked out. A sleek black car rolled to a stop in the circular drive, low and expensive, the kind of car that cost more than most people's houses.
When the door opened, Savannah Merritt stepped out.
Jesus Christ.
I crossed the room in three strides and yanked the front door open before she could ring the bell.
She stood on the porch in a dress that looked like it cost more than most people made in a month, her hair perfect, her makeup flawless, her mouth curved in a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
She looked like she'd just stepped out of a magazine.
Polished. Untouchable. Completely out of place on my front porch at ten o'clock at night.
"Boone," she said. Her voice was warm, like honey, like we were old friends. Like she hadn't spent the last year circling me like a vulture waiting for something to die.
"What are you doing here, Savannah?"
She tilted her head, and her smile widened just a fraction. "I heard you had a rough day. I thought you might want some company."
"I don't."
"Can I come in?"
"No."
Her smile slipped, just a little, and then she stepped closer.
Too close. I could smell her perfume, something heavy and expensive that made my throat itch.
It wasn't Carly's scent. Carly smelled like soap and shampoo and sometimes like the bar, like beer and wood polish and the faint tang of lime from the garnishes she cut. This was nothing like that.
Savannah's hand landed on my chest, light as anything, her fingers spreading over the front of my shirt. Her nails were painted red. Perfect ovals. They looked sharp.
"Savannah," I said. My voice came out flat. Hard.
"You don't have to do this alone, Boone.
" Her voice dropped, soft and sweet, and her other hand came up to rest on my shoulder.
She was close enough that I could feel the heat off her, close enough that if I didn't move she'd be pressed right up against me.
"You don't have to keep pretending everything's fine when it's not.
I know Carly left. I know you're hurting. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
I caught her wrist and pulled her hand off my chest. Her skin was soft, her pulse steady under my fingers. She didn't flinch. Didn't pull back. Just looked up at me with those big eyes like she was waiting for me to thank her.
"You need to leave."
"Why?" She stepped in again, closing the gap I'd just made, her body brushing against mine, her face turned up like she was waiting for me to kiss her.
"You don't owe her anything, Boone. She walked out on you.
She left you here all alone in this big house with nothing and nobody.
I wouldn't do that. I'd stay. I'd be what you need. "
God, she was relentless. My jaw was so tight it ached, my teeth grinding together hard enough to hurt. I stepped back, putting real space between us this time, and dropped her wrist like it burned.
"Get off my porch."
Her eyes went hard. The sweetness vanished like a light switching off, and what was underneath was cold and sharp. "You're really going to throw me out? After everything my father's done for you? After everything I've done?"
"You haven't done a damn thing for me."
"I've been here," she snapped. Her voice rose, losing that careful control, and suddenly she sounded young.
Petulant. Like a kid who wasn't getting her way.
"I've been standing next to you at every event, every dinner, every photo op your mother scheduled.
I smiled when they wanted me to smile. I played the part.
I laughed at the right jokes and wore the right dresses and made you look good in front of every camera in Nashville.
And you're going to toss me aside for a wife who doesn't even want you anymore? "
My hands curled into fists. I forced them open, forced my fingers to straighten, forced myself to breathe. I was not going to lose my temper. I was not going to give her that.
"This is the last time I'm going to tell you. Leave."
She stared at me for a long, hard second. Her chest was rising and falling too fast, her breath coming quick and shallow. Then she laughed, sharp and bitter, the sound cutting through the night air like glass breaking.
"You're risking the deal. You know that, right?
My father won't let this slide. He'll pull the contract.
He'll bury you so deep you'll never see daylight again.
You'll be playing dive bars in towns nobody's ever heard of, and your precious Carly will be right there with you, wondering why she ever thought you were worth it. "
"Then he pulls it."
Her mouth opened. Closed. She looked at me like I'd just told her the sky was green, like I'd just said something so impossible her brain couldn't process it. "You're serious."
"Dead serious."
"You're going to throw away your career for her? For a woman who left you?"
"Get out, Savannah."
She took a step back, and for a second I thought she was actually going to go.
Just turn around, get in that expensive car, and drive away.
Then her expression shifted, something desperate and ugly crossing her face, her eyes going bright with tears that came out of nowhere.
Her hand went to her stomach, a small, deliberate movement, her palm pressing flat against the silk of her dress.
"I would have kept it," she said. Her voice was quiet now, barely above a whisper.
Like she was confessing something she'd been carrying for years.
"I wanted to keep it, Boone. But my father made me end it.
He said it would ruin everything. He said you weren't ready.
He said we had time, that we could do it right later, but I wanted that baby. I wanted it, and he made me?—"
I went still. The words hit like a punch I should have seen coming.
The baby. Of course she was talking about the baby.
I'd wanted her to keep it. I'd told her we'd figure it out, that we'd make it work somehow.
And then she'd ended it without a word to me, cut me off completely, disappeared like I'd never mattered at all.
I'd spent months back then trying to understand why, what I'd done wrong, why she wouldn't even talk to me.
Her father.
That was the answer she was giving me now. The reason I'd never had. He'd made her do it. Forced her hand. Taken the choice away from both of us.
I stared at her, trying to reconcile the girl I'd known with the woman standing in front of me now. Teenagers. We'd been kids, young and stupid and thinking we knew what love was when we didn't know a damn thing. That was years ago. Another lifetime. Another version of me that didn't exist anymore.
And it didn't change what I knew right now, standing here on this porch with her looking at me like I owed her something I'd never agreed to give.
"That doesn't change my answer," I said.
Her face twisted. The tears vanished as fast as they'd come, and what was left was pure fury. "You bastard."
"Leave, Savannah."
She stared at me, and I watched the calculation happen behind her eyes.
She was weighing her options, trying to figure out if there was another play she could make, another card she could throw down that would get her what she wanted.
Whatever she'd thought this would be, it wasn't working.
She wasn't getting what she came for. Her hands shook, just a little, and then she turned on her heel and walked down the porch steps in those ridiculous shoes, her spine rigid, her shoulders tight.
Halfway to her car, she stopped.
She bent down, yanked one shoe off her foot, and slammed the heel against the driveway.
Once. The sound cracked through the quiet like a gunshot.
Twice. Harder. The third time, it snapped, the heel breaking clean off and skittering across the pavement.
It came to rest near the bottom step, a jagged piece of black lacquered wood and metal, useless and petty.
She dropped the rest of the shoe where she stood, right there in the middle of the driveway, and got in her car barefoot without looking back.
The engine roared to life. The headlights swept across the house again, too bright, making me squint.
She pulled a sharp turn, gravel spitting under the tires, and tore down the drive fast enough that I half expected to hear a crash.
But the sound just faded, the red taillights disappearing into the trees, and then she was gone.
I looked down at the broken heel lying on the driveway. A jagged piece of expensive trash, left behind like a threat or a promise or just plain spite.
I left it there.
The house was still too quiet when I went back inside.
I locked the door behind me, the bolt sliding home with a solid click that should have felt reassuring and didn't. I stood in the hallway for a minute, waiting for my pulse to settle, waiting for the adrenaline to drain out of my system.
My hands were shaking. I shoved them in my pockets, and my fingers brushed something smooth and cool.
The ring.
Carly's ring.
I'd been carrying it since I found it at the studio, sitting there on the mixing board where she'd left it for me to find. Like it didn't mean anything. Like ten years of marriage could just be left behind with a piece of silver and some engraved words.
I pulled it out and held it up to the light filtering in from the porch.
Silver. Simple. Exactly the ring she'd wanted when I asked her what she liked.
No diamonds. No fancy settings. Just a plain silver band with our names engraved inside and the date we got married.
I could see the letters if I tilted it just right.
Carly and Boone. Like it was that easy. Like putting our names on a piece of metal meant we'd figured out how to hold on to each other.
But she was gone, and I didn't understand how we'd gotten here.
I closed my fist around the ring, the metal warming against my palm, and walked back into the living room.
The couch still had the dent where I'd been sitting before Savannah showed up.
My phone was still dark on the arm, the screen blank and useless.
Everything was exactly the way I'd left it, and it felt wrong, like the whole house was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen that I didn't know how to make happen.
I didn't turn on the lights. I sat down in the dark, the ring pressed hard into my palm, and tried to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do next.
Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the windows, making the old house creak and groan.
The trees swayed, shadows moving across the walls in patterns I couldn't follow.
I thought about Carly at the bar, probably wiping down tables right now, her hair tied back in that messy knot she always wore when she worked.
Her hands would be quick and sure, the way they always were.
Efficient. Capable. Like everything she did.
I thought about her telling me to leave. The look on her face when she said it. Not angry. Not even hurt, really. Just tired. Worn down. Like she'd already let me go in her head and was just waiting for me to catch up.
I couldn't let that be the end.
I didn't know what she wanted from me. I didn't know what I'd done that made her walk away, or what I needed to do to get her to come back.
But I knew I wasn't giving up. I'd find a way to fix it.
I'd find a way to make her look at me again without that exhaustion in her eyes, without that distance that said she'd already moved on.
I had to.
The house settled around me, quiet and empty and too damn big for one person. The clock kept ticking. My phone stayed dark. The ring bit into my palm, a small circle of pressure that wouldn't let me forget what I'd lost.
I sat there in the dark and didn't move.