and basically a nightmare. “Why did Misty Lynn steal your wallet?”
He groaned. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“She’s crazy, all right? I dated her for a little while about a million years ago and she’s been trying to worm her way back into my life ever since.”
I gaped at him. “Oh my god. Please tell me you’re kidding. You dated Misty Lynn Prosser?”
His expression clouded over. “It’s not like I’m proud of it. Fuck’s sake, I was twenty-one. Everybody makes mistakes, especially at that age.”
I didn’t know why I found it so funny. Maybe it was because he was getting so defensive. “Sure, but not everyone makes a Misty-Lynn-sized mistake.”
The veins in his forearms popped as he clenched his fists.
God, he had nice arms.
“I’m never gonna live that shit down, am I?”
“It’s Misty Lynn.” I tried to suppress my smile. “Probably not.”
He spun around and stomped down the hallway. Before I could react, he stomped his way back. “I want to yell at you to get out but if I do, I’ll probably never fucking see you again.”
I covered my mouth again, trying not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. Callie was retreating back into the recesses of my psyche, and I felt like Maya again. “I’m sorry. I’m just giving you a hard time. I wouldn’t want you to meet some of my mistakes.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, but I couldn’t tell what that expression meant. “All right, you can stay.”
I tucked my hair behind my ear. “We both know I really can’t.”
“What if you just stayed for a little while?” he said, his voice soft again. “If you have to disappear again, fine. I get it. But it’s been thirteen years. You really gonna show up here after all that time and stay for half an hour?”
“Like I said, I don’t know what I should do.”
With his hands on his hips, he looked down at the floor and took a deep breath. Some of the intensity in his posture seemed to melt away. When he lifted his face to meet my eyes, he looked so much like the Gibson I remembered, it nearly made my heart stop.
“How about a song?”
I bit my lower lip. I didn’t think I could refuse him anything when he looked at me like that. “You want to play with me?”
“It was our thing, right?”
“It was.” I glanced down, the question leaving my lips before I could stop myself from asking. “You don’t have a girlfriend who’ll show up and get mad because I’m here, do you?”
He scowled. “No.”
I had to fight to keep the smile off my face. “I was just making sure. I wouldn’t want to make more trouble for you.”
He took a few steps closer. His arm moved a little, as if he was going to touch me, but changed his mind. “Look, this mess is bigger than both of us. All I know is right now, I have my friend back. I’d kinda like to make the most of it while I can.”
I met his eyes. They were so blue. “Okay. I’ll stay a while.”
He went into another room and came out with an acoustic guitar. I took one corner of the couch and he sat on the edge of the other. After plucking the strings and making a few small adjustments to the tuning pegs, he strummed the opening chords to “I Fall to Pieces,” a classic Patsy Cline song.
God, it felt good to sing with him again.
One song turned into another. Soon we were singing and talking like we used to. Not about Callie, or investigations, or the Kendalls. About music. I told him about some of the artists I’d worked with. The things I’d seen. Places I’d been.
And he told me about Bootleg. About the tourism boom. The new vacation rentals and spas in town. The things that were different, and the things that were the same.
He talked about meeting his half-brother, Jonah, last year. About Scarlett’s mini real estate empire, and the unlikely man who’d captured her heart. He told me about his brother Bowie finally marrying Cassidy Tucker. About Leah Mae Larkin coming back to Bootleg and getting engaged to Jameson. About Jonah’s girlfriend, Shelby, and her brother George, the big football player who was dating June Tucker.
There was so much I’d missed. The kids I’d known had grown up and started their lives. So many were still here. Bootleg Springs was that sort of place—the kind of town that drew