endless scroll of reasons why.
And if Vaughn Tucker is the only person I’ve met so far that I can see myself falling in love with, then maybe it’s time for me to reassess what the hell I’m doing.
Maybe my parameters are skewed. They say that can happen to girls who lose their fathers. You can get lost. Your radars for finding healthy relationships need readjusting.
“Sure,” I hear myself saying. After all, at least Dylan might be capable of being faithful. At least he’s not an out-of-control hedonist who sleeps with at least two different women every night and never calls them again. Dylan’s probably steady and predictable and normal. Maybe that’s better than a wild love affair that devastates you in the moment and then continues to devastate you for the rest of time because you’ll never find anything as intense.
Maybe I’d rather be content than blown away.
Wouldn’t I?
Yes.
I would.
And I’d rather be secure than on some uncontrollable rollercoaster ride of total bliss and absolute destruction.
“Great,” says Dylan, surprised. “You know, this is the seventh time I’ve asked you out.”
“Is it?”
“I was beginning to think you’d never say yes.”
“Yeah, well, I … ” I feel a weird wave of sadness as I say it, because I understand fully what I’m doing: I’m lowering my expectations. I’m no longer counting on true love to ride into my life on a white horse and offer pure, undiluted happiness. Because I’ve just touched fire and it hurts too much. A piece of my heart is already in love with Vaughn Tucker—damn him—like a small, devil-blue ember the exact same color as his eyes is now lodged there, burning me. And I hate him for that. Because he’s gone now, back to his life of women and whiskey and the adoration of millions. They’re all in love with him, because he’s extraordinary. He’s what everyone wants but no one can really have. It would be like trying to hold a shooting star in your hand. “I changed my mind.”
Chapter Five
Regret is an interesting emotion. The way it sits there quietly under every other emotion, biding its time, like a swift river under a smooth, glinting sheet of ice. You can skate along enjoying the sun but eventually it’ll melt a hole and send you crashing through.
By the time we get to Nashville, I’m feeling better.
No, not better.
Removed.
Numb.
Lucid but at the same time untouchable.
I climb out of the Shelby and go into our warehouse, which is swarming with people. They’re packing up for our tour, getting the bus and all the vehicles that carry our equipment and crew ready.
People swarm around me.
I feel separate. I can’t tell if it’s my high or the high. The realization that I met someone today whose whispering memory is having an impact on me even now. I don’t know if that’s ever happened to me before.
It hasn’t.
I meet a lot of beautiful women. Most of them are easy to please and nothing more than a good time that lasts a day or two then quickly fades away. Which works for me just fine.
I’m not sure what’s different here. Except that my head feels full of the memory of her. The colors and softness and the shape of her mouth.
What’s she doing now?
Is she thinking about me?
I shove the inane thoughts out of my head. I’ve got enough to think about, with the tour starting and the new songs we wrote last night that need to be played out so I can lock into place the beats and the rhythms.
Roxie’s here and she walks over to me. “Are you packed?” She studies my eyes for a few seconds and reaches up to push a strand of my hair out of my eyes. My sister is slim and tiny. At only around 5’4’’, she has to stand on her tiptoes to reach me. “You look so tired.”
“And you look so gorgeous.” She looks so much like my mother once did. “We were up late last night.”
She’s assessing my pupils. My sister has the same dark hair as I do and the same blue eyes. She looks like a prom queen but has the personality of a five-star general. She doesn’t take shit from anyone and her concern for me has an edge to it. Don’t be like him.
Not the reminder I’m looking for.
Roxie is easily the most intelligent person I know and also the most stubborn, by a country mile. “Are you on something right now?”
I blink at her innocently. “I’m