did. I could tell, because I was a virgin and he’d never once tried to take advantage of me in that way. We spent every minute we could together, but he never tried to peel my clothes off.
He didn’t even kiss me until the day I turned eighteen. We met by the bleachers in the fairgrounds, and the heat of our kiss nearly scorched my socks off. Two months of repressed passion sizzled through our writhing bodies. Who knows what would have happened if one of the fairground workers hadn’t walked by at just the wrong moment, startling us apart?
“Did you bring extra-large condoms? I hear he’s massive.” Bitch Number 2’s voice drags me back to the present.
I can’t stay in here and listen to this any longer. I don’t want to know how she knows about his… size.
I fling open the stall door and it bangs on the next stall, startling them. They both spin around to glare at me. The shorter one, friend of Ms. Lucky Bitch, has platinum-blonde hair and glossy pink lipstick. The taller of the two, Ms. Lucky Bitch, is a raven-haired beauty in painted-on jeans. Her pouty-lipped face is coated in enough makeup to paint the broad side of a barn, and her Heat Lightning shirt is strategically slashed to show hints of a lacy red bra.
She wrinkles her perfect little nose. “What the hell are you looking at?”
I draw myself up and fix her with a steely glare. “I don’t know, but it’s wearing five dollars’ worth of ten-cent makeup.”
Rage sparks in her pale blue eyes. “Well, at least it doesn’t look like it dresses from a Goodwill reject bin.”
I smile broadly, because that’s the best way to infuriate a bully. “Have a wonderful day. You stay sweet now.”
Her heavily lipsticked mouth opens in an O of anger, but I don’t stick around to see if she’s got a good comeback. I power-walk into the bar, wobbling slightly in my heels.
Henny’s Hoedown is frosty-cool with air conditioning. When I open the front door and step out into the street, I’m smacked in the face by a wave of sticky June heat. I break into a jog.
The Blue Blazes record company is located in an old converted warehouse in the trendy Germantown neighborhood of Nashville, and their recording studio is at the south end of the building. I’m not the only one who wants to get close to the band today. News trucks clog the parking lot. Hundreds of women mill around behind metal barricades. A row of burly security guards is the only thing keeping them from swarming the barricades and rushing the building.
I stand on the sidewalk, huffing and puffing until I get my breath back. Then I pull out my fake press pass, which is a laminated plastic rectangle, and clip it to my T-shirt.
“Failure is not an option,” I repeat to myself.
Failure means we either risk losing the hotel that our family built in the 1800s, or go begging for a loan…and tell everyone why we need the money. That would destroy my mother.
I head towards the security guards standing by the front door. A group of reporters is lined up ahead of me, standing on concrete steps between metal bannisters. The doorway is guarded by four security guards, broad and intimidating in their dark navy suits.
When I reach the doorway, one of the men glances at me questioningly. I hold up my press pass with trembling fingers.
“What do you want?” His voice rumbles out in an unwelcoming growl. My goodness. City folk certainly have a…different approach to hospitality than we do back home.
I curl my mouth up into what’s supposed to be a friendly, casual smile. I can see myself in the man’s sunglasses and it looks like a death rictus. That smile would make small children cry.
“Maureen Mitchell. My name is Maureen. I’m a reporter covering the music industry. I’m here for the tour today. Hello!” I clear my throat and grip my purse strap so hard that my knuckles turn white.
He looks at the press pass, then looks down at the clipboard in his hand. “You’re not on our list.”
There’s a list. Oh, cow-flops.
Think, Callie, think! “My goodness, I’m ever so sorry. My editor called and he said I was approved. There must have been a mix-up somewhere.”
The guard shrugs. “Yeah, well, take it up with your editor.”
My heart sinks. My shoulders slump.
“Move it, lady!” yells a round-faced man in a rumpled linen suit. He’s standing directly