Chapter Thirty Five
Maeve
The Lone Coyote is exactly how I expected it to be on a rodeo night.
Loud, dimly lit, with just the scattered neon signs to light up the place, including the stage lights.
The bar is packed to the brim, voices competing with the speakers hooked up to a karaoke setup in the corner.
No one is singing yet, just music coming from the laptop it’s connected to, waiting for the first singer.
The girls behind the bar are taking turns to show off their two-step routines, just like the show.
I am trying very hard to enjoy myself. My first, probably my last, rodeo night.
And I am loving it. I didn’t really expect to love it the way I did.
Constantly grabbing onto Naomi’s arm whenever someone came flying out of that gated area they all kept telling me was called a chute.
I felt my heart hammer each time the men got flung about.
Some even coming off the bull, then having to run to safety.
Shit is scary! I can’t believe that is something Wade used to do.
The whole thing has me wired with adrenaline just from watching it.
Since we got here, everyone else seems to have slipped effortlessly into having a good time.
Colt disappeared the second he found Jae. The pair of them have barely stopped talking since. Noami keeps getting dragged into conversation with locals she knows. Bryan is working the room like it’s his job to chat up as many girls as possible in one night.
Watching them all like this makes me smile. These people, who were strangers a few months ago, now feel like a big part of my life. Saying goodbye in a few weeks is going to leave an even bigger hole in my life. Bigger than it was before I came to Wildbrook Hollow.
But that’s another day's problem. Right now, I am worried about Wade.
I didn’t clock who Gina was until he mentioned Gino.
The second he did, every nerve ending in my body had me alert, ready to respond in any way I needed should things have gone south.
Wade went from the easy version of himself I'd spent the first few hours of the rodeo watching, to the closed-off, distant man who met me at the airport months ago.
And it broke me to see him revert to that.
My eyes scan the bar until I find him perched on a stool, one arm resting on the counter and a beer bottle sitting untouched in front of him. His gaze keeps drifting around the room. The doors. The windows. Any sudden burst of noise.
He's pretending everything is okay and, to anyone else, he probably looks it.
But I know better now.
I pull my gaze back to my friends, who are dancing without a care in the world. Have a good time, Maeve. That's all you have to do right now.
It isn’t long until the karaoke starts up.
One man gets up there singing Shania Twain’s “Let’s go girls”, throwing his legs up one by one to the beat.
Giving the audience a good damn drunken show.
Everyone is enjoying themselves, cheering away!
Then a group of women, who’ve clearly been building up to take the stage, take the mic.
Suddenly it's less karaoke and more like a girl group contest. The energy in the room shifts completely, louder and looser.
We watch singer after singer from the bar, Bryan, Colt, Wade, and I. Wade has hardly looked up, but when our eyes briefly meet, he offers me a soft smile.
“No Bryan, don’t embarrass yourself like this,” Colt says. As my eyes shift towards the stage, I can see Bryan's back walking towards it. He gets up on stage with the confidence of a man who has never once been embarrassed in his life, taking the microphone.
“We are going to slow this down a bit, guys,” he announces.
When he opens his mouth, the entire bar goes quiet. The words of “Tennessee Whiskey” flow out from him in perfect harmony. Everyone is absolutely shocked that Wildbrook Hollow’s own playboy has a voice like he does. It’s rich and full.
Colt’s head swings around to Wade, and Wade looks genuinely caught off guard. Then he starts laughing. Colt starts laughing. It breaks something open in the air between them, and I feel my chest loosen watching it.
“Did you know he could sing like this?” I say.
“Not a clue,” both say in unison, causing me to smile.
“He's actually good,” I say.
“Don't tell him that,” Colt says. “He's already insufferable.”
“No, I mean it, he's really good.”
The song comes to an end, and Bryan bounces off stage toward us.
He is riding the high of the applause from the crowd, joining us again.
Everyone has questions about where he has been hiding that voice; he just shrugs it off like it is nothing.
When deep down, we know when it comes to it, he will be using that to flirt with someone tonight.
We all sit and chat as a group. But again, Wade has become disconnected. The earlier worry is still plastered across his face. No one else spots it, maybe because this is how they expect him to be, but not me. I can see him.
I lock my eyes on the stage, where no one has sung for about ten minutes, just a playlist playing now. I start crossing the distance, and before the group realised I am gone, I was at the stage.
“You Look Like You Love Me,” I say. “Ella Langley and Riley Green.”
She raises an eyebrow. “It's a duet.”
“I know.” I take the mic. “I'll manage.”
I've sung this song more times than I care to admit in the shower.
Every part of it. Both parts, because that's what you do when a song is this good, and there's no one else around.
I know every word, every shift, every place where the two voices are supposed to meet and pull apart. It's my favourite.
The opening plays. I'm not looking at the screen because I don't need to. I'm looking out at the bar, at our table, and Naomi's got her hand over her mouth already, and Jae’s grinning, and Colt's got that look he gets when something surprises him.
Behind them all is Wade. Who has now turned around his stool, looking past the shoulders of Jae and Colt, straight at me.
That dark, unreadable expression from earlier isn't exactly gone, but there's something else in it now. Something that sits underneath all that quiet like an ember.
The first verse comes, and I find my voice easier than I expect, the bar noise fading as I focus on how fucking bizarre this is. I don’t have the best singing voice, not by a mile. But liquid courage has me telling me I can do this. My heels find the rhythm as I sing the words with ease.
I’m smiling by the chorus.
The whole group is there in front of me, Naomi on her feet now, Jae with his fingers in his mouth whistling, Colt laughing and shaking his head. All of them between me and Wade, which means no one notices when my eyes find him over their shoulders.
He's still on his stool.
Arms folded. Jaw tight. Fighting it, I can see him fighting it, and then the corner of his mouth pulls up despite everything he's doing to stop it. Just barely. Just enough.
And God help me, that does something to me.
I am now mid-chorus, still singing Ella’s part, the bit just before Riley Green joins in. Just as I am about to jokingly lower my voice for his part, putting my best Texas drawl on, everything stills as I see him moving toward the stage.
Not the man I had my eyes fixated on the whole time.
No.
Colt.
My heart does a double beat as Colt appears at the foot of the stage steps, grinning up at me as he reaches for the second microphone the karaoke woman is holding out. He then begins to sing Riley’s part, turning it into a full duet, about looking like we love each other.
Oh fuck.
I can’t stop, that will be embarrassing for him. So, I carry on, still hitting every note on instinct, but my brain has just caught up to what I did, and what song I picked, and why I picked it, and the full weight lands directly on my chest.
I picked a love song.
I sang it while looking at his father, who was sitting behind him. And now, Colt is on stage.
Damage control is not going to be fun after this.