Chapter 4
EVERETT
ANashville crowd knows how to do a country music concert right, and this one is no exception.
Fans are on their feet, dancing and belting out the chorus.
Eating up every lyric I throw out there.
Normally it’s a high I feed off of. I worked my ass off to become Rhett Dawson.
There’s no one I’d let down more than myself if I didn’t put on a good show.
But tonight, in this arena, I’m going through the motions. Relying on the thrum of guitar strings, the pulse of a drumbeat, and the resonance of vocal cords to guide me. It’s worked so far, until it doesn’t.
Under a shower of applause and screams of excitement, I’m on the edge. I’m Elsa in cowboy boots. A voice chanting inside my head, Don’t let it show.
How many songs have I made it through? Five?
Six… seven… eight…
I go back to counting. I always go back to counting when it’s loud and I’m locked in a cage of static. One that’s blocking out the band behind me.
I strum a chord. The one I know I’m supposed to play next.
“Your—Rhett—line.” My music director’s voice chops its way through my IEM.
Shit. I missed my entrance. That much is clear.
“Over—start.” Steven’s voice muffles. Jumbles. Causes immediate panic.
No.
“Doing—are—what y—?” I think that was Casey’s voice—my drummer.
This is not happening. In all the songs I’ve sung, in all the stadiums I’ve performed, it’s never happened on the stage before, and I don’t know what to do. I make myself believe it’s the speaker’s fault as I press it closer to my ear. Lie to myself.
Deep down I know the truth.
A beam of light cuts a four-foot circle around my body, and I tug at the collar of my shirt.
“Rhett—up—come.” Casey’s words scramble again into an incoherent mess.
What is he saying? What does he want from me? I’m not sure of anything anymore.
Through the beam of light, I know there are thousands of eyes watching. Waiting. Listening.
You can’t hide it this time, the voice in my head says, and something clatters to my feet, oblong and wooden.
The guitar. It lands on the drum. The crowd silences as the thump echoes through the microphone.
I stare at it. Glare at it.
If I pick it up I’ll have to explain why I dropped it, and I can’t do that. I’ll never do that.
All that’s left, I realize, is to run.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, I make it off the stage. I’m down the steps. I’m through the hall. I’m at the back door. My hands slam into the metal bar and my shoulder takes the impact, knocking me back a step.
It fails to open.
Desperate, I try again. I keep my upper body out of it this time, crushing the bar over and over with my palms, begging it to break me free. By happy accident, it collapses with pressure near the locking mechanism. The door gives way, gifting me a gulp of cold night air.
“What—fu—doing—are y—?”
I rip off my hat and claw at the speakers wrapping around my ears. They drop into my palms. I ball the chords in a clenched fist and chuck the communication device along with my cowboy hat.
My boots eat up the length of the ramp until they’re touching pavement, grinding against the cement with my pacing. I flatten my palms to the back of my head, elbows spread wide.
What the hell did I just do?
The last few minutes replay in my mind, amplifying my panic.
How am I ever going to explain this to my manager, my publicist, my fans, the label?
I drag a hand down my face, before I turn and throw a punch into the side of my opening band’s tour bus.
It does more damage to my hand than the metal.
My knuckle splits and bleeds, but I let it.
The stark contrast of cold steel and sweat collide as my back drags down the side of the bus.
It’s never gotten this bad before. I’ve had moments where stage presence overwhelmed me, especially in the beginning of my career. It’s the reason for my rider request—a coping strategy for handling the intensity. It was working until that call about Quinn.
If I lost this career, what would that do for her? A twenty-five-thousand-dollar liability insurance pay-out from the at-fault driver who hit El will only go so far. I didn’t need it to cover her medical and funeral expenses, but I’d rather invest it for Quinn’s future than need it now.
My mind is consumed with an endless abyss of questions I don’t have the answers to. I should have held it together.
A punch of metal rings through the air, and I look up as someone abandons the door farthest from me. They jog down a ramp, and I scoot back into the shadows to avoid them.
I try to make out any distinguishing features—hair, a logo, a face—that would give away who this person is. The dark is doing me no favors. Neither is being near-sighted.
It doesn’t matter, I realize. Any member of my crew would know those doors are locked or have access to get back in. It’s not one of them. Someone’s trying to break into the building.
I’ve never had a break-in at one of my concerts before—I don’t know the protocol.
Tucked away in the shadows, they can’t see me.
I consider crawling over to the earpiece I abandoned and alerting security, but then I wouldn’t just be turning this person in, my location would be compromised too.
And truthfully, I’m not ready to rip off that Band-Aid yet.
If they’re determined enough to get in, who am I to stop them.
And quite frankly, I’m interested to see if they can even pull this off.
It’s a concert arena with a large security detail.
I watch in fascination as they make their next move. They’re closer now. Enough that I can make out the outline of their clothing. A body drowning in fabric at least three sizes too big.
My mind goes to the homeless population in downtown Nashville. There are a number of places you can sleep in an arena of this size, so it makes sense. It also makes me feel guilty for the privileged life I’ve led.
Even when I wasn’t famous, money is not something I’ve ever had to worry about. Other than the purchase of a colonial-style house on Harrison Boulevard, my dad never touched his stock investments. Over time, they paid off.
Once you’re well off, it’s easy to stay that way with smart decisions, he told me once. But the vast number of people who never have the same opportunities is stark. And I hate knowing this person might be in that category.
As the oversized shirt stops swaying in front of the door I departed from—the one with the faulty handle—I hear the person say, “This is all your fault.”
Emotion pours from a woman’s voice. Not sadness, but frustration.
I don’t have a clue what it is she wants inside. And maybe it’s the desperation in her voice that’s compelling, but the next time she tries with more force I decide to help her.
“You have to push on the left end.”
Wish someone would have given me that tip before I barreled my shoulder into it.
“Shit!” She spins around and flattens her back against the door.
It’s still fairly dark, but not enough for me to miss her expression.
I was expecting a wild look in her eye or a desperate plea on her face.
I imagined her hair to look unkept or her clothes worn.
Instead, her shirt still has fold lines from the shipment it came in and her hair, while messy from the wind, is tucked back in a clip.
I think her lips part, but I can’t be sure from here.
I don’t move from my position on the concrete.
I figure she’ll spot me if she really wants to.
I should apologize. I didn’t mean to scare her, and I certainly don’t need another PR nightmare on my hands. Just as I’m about to, though, her eyes widen.
“I bought a shirt with your face on it,” she blurts.
My gaze drops to the obnoxious outline of my head on her chest. She’s been inside the building before.
“Is that why you’re breaking in? Revenge on the merch line?” I ask.
She doesn’t say anything, so I continue talking. “I’d be upset too if they gave me a dress with a mediocre singer on it.” I gesture to where the T-shirt drapes well below her belt line.
She takes a step closer and into the streetlight. I can finally see her smile bloom ever-so-slightly as she grabs the hem mid-thigh.
It’s pretty, her smile. I don’t know why, but I want to see more of it. She still hasn’t owned up to a reason for trying to get in the building, so I take another stab at guessing.
“Wait, I know. You forgot your candied pecans, didn’t you? That’s what everyone comes to these things for.”
It works. This time it’s accompanied with a dimple and striking white teeth, making me forget everything I was worried about thirty seconds before I saw her face.
She’s beautiful, and that’s saying something.
A large percentage of fans that attend my concerts are the opposite sex.
Ones who throw themselves at me with heart-covered signs and in-your-face cleavage—the opposite of what this woman is doing.
Her XL shirt is drowning her entire figure.
It’s leaving everything up to the imagination, and I’m fighting not to let mine run wild as she steps closer to me.
I haven’t had sex with anyone since I lost my fiancée, and there’s an embarrassing amount of pent-up pressure in a certain region.
“How did you know?” she asks.
I nod toward the door. “The way you worked over that metal bar. I can spot a feral nut lover when I see one.”
She acknowledges my humor with a chuckle and takes another confident stride forward. And another. “And what’s your excuse for being out here?”
I finally look at her again. Her attention is consuming—big blue eyes studying me with deep curiosity. She clearly missed my stage exit.
Perspiration beads on my palms—when did that happen?—and I rub them against the stiff denim on my thighs. I clear my throat. “They announced the supply shortage… yep—candied nuts, shirts, beer—it was ridiculous. I was just as pissed as you were.”