Loving Dallas - Caisey Quinn Page 0,3
ease, almost as if playing is effortless for her, something that just occurs when she touches an instrument. But I’m more like my mom. I had to practice my ass off. Playing the guitar began as something I did for fun, just fooling around. But when people started paying me fifty bucks to play at their parties, I realized I could earn money doing something I thought was fun instead of schlepping a push mower all around town.
Fifty bucks bought my sister new blue jeans of her very own. And all the ice cream she could eat.
I’d saved and sacrificed and given everything I had to give. I’d even tried to give up my shot at making it when a label executive didn’t want my sister as part of the deal. But Dixie had shoved me out the door, telling me that I’d given up enough and it was my turn to live my dream now.
Part of me is here for selfish reasons. Because I love the thrill of performing, and because it feels like I’m proving something to my late father. I like to think he’d be proud of me. But mostly, my hope is that I can make the kind of living with music that will ensure my sister doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to. Like spend her life in an orchestra pit. Or work as a waitress in Amarillo for the rest of her life.
“It’s your turn now,” she’s told me several times. “This is your dream. Stop worrying about me and go get it already.”
“Dallas,” my sister says slightly louder, breaking into my thoughts. “This is still what you want, right? The tour? The music?”
It takes me too long to answer. So I make sure to add plenty of gusto to my voice when I do.
“Yeah. Yeah, of course it is.”
“You sure everything’s okay? Is Gavin okay? He told me about the whole probation thing, but maybe now you can get the label to talk to someone and explain—”
“Everything’s fine. I should go, Dixie. Afton Tate says hello, by the way. I’m grabbing a few drinks with him now. Call and check in when you get to New Mexico, okay?”
“Okay,” she says, so low I have to strain to hear over the sounds of cars passing by. “I’ll call you soon. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” I say before disconnecting the call.
For a second I thought she was about to say something else, but I wait a beat and she doesn’t text or dial me back.
My skin prickles at my lie of omission as I make my way back inside the bar. Gavin Garrison isn’t with me and he hasn’t been since he left after the audition in Nashville. I thought he would’ve gotten in touch with her by now and as much as I want to tell her, it doesn’t feel like my truth to tell.
Then there’s the fact that I feel like I’m faking it until I make it out on the road alone. I haven’t written a full song in over a year. Not one that was any good, anyway. If it weren’t for my sister’s lyrics, I probably wouldn’t even be here. But I have to push aside my writer’s block or inspiration block or whatever the hell it is that’s blocking me. Because I’m here now, right where I always dreamed of being.
2 | Robyn
IT IS DAYS LIKE THIS THAT MAKE ME THANKFUL PEOPLE ASSUME I am a bitch. Something about my red hair, I guess. Usually I’m pretty chill, actually. But incompetence irritates the ever-loving shit out of me. And I’ve been dealing with it all morning. There isn’t enough coffee in the world to make this day run smoothly.
Ignoring the pinch of pain my Louboutins cause and the dull ache in my calves, I stomp over to where two muscle-covered men are setting up the Midnight Bay blue line display.
“What part of ‘forward facing’ is unclear?” Reaching toward the LED-lit shelf, I turn the bottles so that the labels can be seen. Both men give me their what-do-you-want-from-us-lady face. Once I have the bottles positioned correctly, I force a smile at them. “There. See? Now it actually makes sense to spend several thousand dollars on this display.”
The younger of the two rolls his eyes so I narrow mine.
My blood pressure skyrockets as he hops down from the ladder and smirks at me. “Think you can do it better, Red? Knock yourself out.”
He’s cocky in a way that