Chapter Thirty Six
Colt
Stage lights shine on Maeve like she’s made for centre stage, even if her hand’s got a slight shake when she grips the mic. The whole bar is hollering and whistling, ready to see what this city girl can bring to a bar in the country like this.
She starts singing.
I know the song instantly. Hard not to, it’s been playing on the radio nearly every damn hour for months now. Just don’t get why she has chosen a duet when she has no one else with her.
Not that it’s stopping her. She’s singing it like she’s done it a thousand times before, and she’s damn good too. Even with the fake country accent she’s trying to put on.
But the most important thing is, she’s smiling. Beaming, actually. Throwing in sassy little hand movements, walking the stage like she owns it.
A full country-girl moment for our city girl.
Then the chorus rolls in, and her eyes soften, drifting this way.
I tell myself it ain’t what I think. That she’s looking at the group; we’re all shoulder to shoulder, packed like sardines. Could be looking at any of us.
But then her gaze lands again. Same spot.
And I know it’s on me this time. Got to be.
“You look like you love me…” Her voice echoes through the bar, making something in my chest kick up, heart beating fast and reckless. Makes me wanna move, act, do something before this moment slips through my fingers.
But like a distant whisper, that other voice creeps in.
She doesn’t see you like that.
She’s leaving.
But people change their minds. Don’t they?
It’s been a month since she told me that. That’s enough time for things to shift. Grow. Turn into something more. Hell, it didn’t take me that long to start falling for her, and I barely knew her back then.
Now I know the way she laughs when she forgets herself. The way she hides her snacks when she thinks no one is looking. How she rubs her thumb in circles on her palm when she is bored or having to stay still for too long.
So maybe things have changed.
Before the other voice can talk any sense into me, my feet are moving. I pull away from Naomi’s side, heading straight for the stage.
Maeve’s eyes track me the whole way. Still singing away.
The karaoke lady pops up beside me, mic outstretched, knowing exactly what I am about to do. I take it without thinking. Convinced this is a great idea.
Now I ain’t no singer. Not even close. But I’ve got that low southern drawl that I am sure I can fake my way through, being confident I can get through Riley’s part.
The crowd gets louder for a second as I step on stage and start singing, then fades out till it’s just her and me in the noise.
But when I look at her, her smile has shifted into something tight, almost forced.
Not the one I replay in my head every day—the one that makes me feel a million times better just from the sight of it.
A drop hits my gut, hard.
Did I just make a damn mistake coming up here? Read into things that ain’t there, again?
She lifts her chin when it’s her turn again, and she keeps singing, hitting every word without missing a beat. We’re singing together, but it doesn’t feel like how I imagined this would go.
I lean into the mic, trying to hold it together, but inside I feel like I am dying. I need the song to end. Need to ask her what happened. Surely, I haven’t read that much into things despite all the warnings I’ve had. Why am I like this?
The last chorus comes and goes, and the bar erupts. Maeve’s got that big smile plastered on again.
We hand back the mics. The second we’re off the stage, she takes my wrist with a firm grip and pulls me off to the side, away from the crowd, the noise, all of it.
We stand there looking at each other for a moment, neither of us quite sure how to act.
I try first, breaking the unbearable silence. “Maeve… Everything ok?”
She looks somewhere between the floor and my face.
“Yeah, yeah,” she says quickly, but the tone of her voice says otherwise.
“No. I just—” She stops. Starts again. “I think we need to talk again.
And I hate that I have to say it again, I really do, but— I need to know you still understand.
That I don'tsee you like—” She gestures vaguely, struggling with the shape of it. “Like that.”
Like that. Those two words hit harder than a full sentence.
“Like what?” I act as nonchalantly as I can, like I am not breaking inside.
“Like the song.” She meets my eyes then, and she does look sorry—genuinely.
“I'm not saying you meant something by coming up there. Maybe you didn't. But it felt like… It looked like—” She stops again. Pushes her hair back. “I care about you, Colt. I really do. And I value what we have more than I know how to say, but I am also going back to London soon, so please… Let’s just not make this awkward between us.”
Everything in the room goes quiet and still all over again, the voice in my head screaming so loudly that I cannot focus on anything else.
I care about you.
But I’m going.
The same bullshit I’ve had all my life.
That familiar burn crawling up my chest—anger, upset, insecurity. All tangled up so tight that my breathing doesn’t feel natural. I let my eyes close, focusing on my lungs expanding under my ribcage, and when they open again, it’s like I am hit with every emotion. I can’t help but lash out.
“I get it,” I say, but I don’t. Not really. “I ain’t good enough for you. You can just say it instead of hiding behind all this ‘friends’ bullshit.”
Her face tightens. “Colt, that’s not—”
“It ain't?” The words feel like they're coming from somewhere I can't quite reach. “Maybe next time you don't wanna lead someone on, don't look right at ’em while you're singing a damn love song.”
Now she looks confused. Not just a little, genuinely thrown, acting as though I just switched languages on her. “I wasn’t,” she says. “I was lookin’ at everyone. You just… saw what you wanted to see.”
That lands for two seconds, before I shove it away. Not wanting it to settle any deeper.
“Yeah.” A short sound that doesn't quite make it to a laugh. “That's me, ain't it? Always reading’ it wrong. Too much. Too sensitive.” My voice drops to something barely above the bar noise. “Too damn broken for anyone to want to stick around.”
“Colt—”
But I'm already moving. Pushing through the crowd. Finding the bar and dropping onto a stool because my legs need somewhere to go.
“Whiskey,” I mutter. “On the rocks.”
She’s leaving. Like everyone else I come to care about. I just don’t know why I thought she’d be any different.
The glass hits the counter, and I knock it back in one gulp, letting the burn track all the way down. Praying it numbs some of the pain inside of me.
It doesn’t.
I sit there a minute, letting the noise of the bar crash over me, waiting for my chest to remember how to breathe right.
What a fucking mess.
The drive into town feels longer than usual. My mind should be focused on the road; I suppose it was subconsciously, given I made it here alive, but everything from last night is playing on loop, and I can’t find the stop button.
I know it was bad last night when I woke up to a message from Dr. Palmer telling me to come in today after a series of embarrassing, oversharing drunk texts. Clearly, she thought it was urgent to me today. She never usually has a free space at such short notice.
I texted Dad telling him about the change, asking for the day to myself.
Really, I just wanted to spend the day avoiding Maeve.
I was successful for the most part. Up until I got in the truck, when she saw me across the yard, moving quickly toward me.
I looked right at her, eyes locked and all, and still got in the truck, pulling out of the drive as fast as I could. Just ignored her completely.
Dick move. I know it was. But I couldn't sit there and look at her while she tries to be gentle with me about all the ways she can't stay or feel the same way.
So, I left. Drove into town earlier than I needed to, killed time over eggs at the diner on Main Street until they made my stomach worse than the anxiety already had.
And now I'm here, in Dr. Palmer's office.
This place has become something close to comfort.
Warm and quiet, with that particular kind of stillness that feels intentional to ensure clients are at ease.
Bookshelves along one wall. Two chairs angled toward each other, not quite facing, because she told me once that full face-to-face chairs feel confrontational for a lot of people.
“So, how you feeling today?” she says.
I scoff, “How long you got?”
She gives me a stern look, the one I know she feels comfortable giving to me as a client to say, “come on, cut the shit.”
“Hungover.” I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Angry. Like my head and my life are both about to explode.”
“All from yesterday?”
I nod.
“Tell me what happened?”
And so, I do.
I tell her about the rodeo, about seeing Jae again after months, and the high that came with it.
About Maeve getting up on that stage and the way I convinced myself that things had changed between us, that the way she was looking at me meant something.
How that convinced me to take the mic and join her in a song about looking like you love someone.
Only to be told I had read it all wrong.
I managed to recall what Maeve said, word for word, because I have committed them to memory.
I tell her what I said back, heart sinking as I do.
Dr. Palmer writes in her notebook and listens, the way she always does, with the occasional nod that means I'm here, keep going.
“And how did you feel when you were saying those things to Maeve?” she asks.
“Like I meant every word.” I look at my hands, really thinking about it all. “But also, like someone else was saying them.”
She nods slowly. “Both at the same time.”
“Yeah.”
“Colt.” She sets her pen down, which she doesn't do often mid-session. “When Maeve first arrived, in those very early days, how did you feel about her?”
“You already know all this.”
“Humour me”