His For Keeps: (50 Loving States, Tennessee) (9 page)

“Not bad, Red. Not bad at all,” Colin says when I come out of the bathroom. He’s sitting on the couch, arms spread across the back, like a king waiting for his pet.

His appreciative gaze lingers on me a little longer than I’d think it wouldI expect, considering this is all a ruse to get the girl he really wants.

But then he turns back to Ginny, who’s standing nearby with a clipboard, and he’s all business. I’m left to stand awkwardly near the window, listening to him and Ginny go over his day. He’s got this brunch with Josie, then a couple of interviews for local TV, then an early dinner with Geoff Latham, the new head of Big Hill Records. He’s flown out for the concert, probably hoping to poach Colin from his current label, Stone River, but that’s not going to happen, because Colin doesn’t even have enough new material to present to Stone River, much less, let himself get poached by another head.

“When you call to confirm with Geoff Latham, tell him I’ve got a new songwriter I’m working with,” he tells Ginny. He glances over to where I’m standing by the window, like he’s only now remembering I’m there. “You gotta get back to Tennessee tonight, Red?”

“No,” I answer.

“Then you should probably stick around after this brunch with Josie. Ginny will set up a backstage meet and greet for you with Geoff.”

My eyes widen. Colin’s setting up a meeting for me with Geoff Latham, the thirty-four year old music exec who’d just been hand -picked by the retiring head to take over one of the most successful labels in country music history. The same label my mother was trying to get signed to that fateful night at The Rusty Roof. This is a connection I couldn’t have dreamed of making on my own without years and years of hard work, and Colin Fairgood is going to make it happen in just a matter of minutes.

“Th-thank you,” is all I can think to say.

Colin shrugs. “No problem, just make sure you send me a copy of your publishing contract before you sign with him. Geoff’s a good guy, but there’s nothing such as a labelno such thing as a label who won’t try to screw a new kid for rights. It’s just their nature.”

“O-okay,” I easily agree. “Thank you. Thank you so much! You, too, Ginny! I can’t believe this!”

“Like Colin said, it’s really no problem,” Ginny answers, like this life-changing opportunity isbusiness if something she does for aspiring artists every other day. “But I better get out of here. Josie’s due in ten minutes.”

The reminder of Josie’s arrival takes some of the wind out of my sails as I remember exactly what I agreed to do in order to get an opportunity like this.

“Leave the door propped open, will you?” Colin says as Ginny leaves.

Then he waves me over, indicating I should sit down next to him on the couch. Someone’s set out an elaborate brunch on the coffee table, two trays full of pastry, bread, meat, and cheese selections. The plan, Colin tells me after I sit down, is to let Josie walk in on us, eating and talking. Let her get a mental picture in her head about what a relationship with him would look like.

I busy myself with “playing my part.”
Don’t think about what you’re about to do
, I tell myself as I fill my plate with fresh fruit and a croissant. Think about meeting Geoff Newsom tonight instead. Think about anything but the weird feeling this is giving you in the pit of your stomach.

I keep myself together, and somehow even manage to joke, “You think Josie will bring any more of her fried chicken for you to eat tonight after your concert?”

Colin laughs. “I didn’t feel right asking her for another pan, so I’m letting the venue take care of the chicken tonight.” He glances sideways at me. “That is, unless you want to step up to the challenge with your grandma’s recipe.”

“Like I said, I can’t say for sure whether I know that recipe or not. And say I did, it’s not like I have a kitchen here.”

“I’d find you a kitchen,” Colin promises. He sounds exactly like a knight swearing a solemn vow.

“…and it’s not like I’d have this recipe memorized. My grandma’s still alive, you know—”

I stop, remembering. Yeah, my grandma’s still alive, but his mother isn’t. “I’m sorry,” I say to Colin. “I wasn’t thinking. Sometimes we get to talking and I forget how short a time it’s been since you lost your mama —”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Colin says quickly. “That’s not how I want Josie to see us when she comes in here.”

I wonder about that. About all of this. Him acting like his mama’s death is just a sad line in his biography. Him putting more time into getting at Josie than he put into arranging his mother’s funeral, which I read online ended up just being a simple cremation and closed service.

But it’s not my place to ask, so I just fake a smile, and say, “Okay, Spock versus Yoda in a fight. Who would win?”

He shakes his head. “You know it would be Yoda, Red. C’mon let’s not even pretend to have this fight.”

“Can you tell me something? Can you just answer me this one question? Why must you hate on Spock the way you do? Because you know that Vulcan would totally win in a fight with Yoda!”

“The words coming out of your mouth don’t even make sense. Yoda is a Jedi. A
Jedi
. You think Spock ishe’s going to outgun Yoda? With what? Vulcan mind tricks and a phaser?”

I squint at Colin. I thought that maybe the nerdy guy I’d met all those years ago, had been wiped out by this smooth talking country singer, but judging from the amount of outrage in his voice, he is definitely still in there.

“Obviously you’re not taking into account that a phaser has longer range than a light saber. Spock could put your itty bitty Jedi down, soon as he came through the door—”

My defense of Spock is cut short by a knock on the door.

Colin points at me. “This ain’t over,” he says in a low voice, before calling over his shoulder, “Come on in. We’re back here.”

Forcing more watts into my smile, I stop arguing and look up to see Josie’s reaction to the scene when she comes through the door.

But it’s not Josie who comes through the door. It’s not Josie at all.

My heart, my mind, my lungs—every single vital organ I have stops working when I see the person who’s entered the room. And I unconsciously come to my feet, unable to do anything but stare at him.

It’s him. The reason I ’ve never came back to Alabama. The one boy I’ve been trying to forget all these years.

He’s here. In Colin Fairgood’s penthouse suite.

Colin surges off the couch. “Don’t say anything. Not one word,” I hear him whisper beside me.

It’s a command he doesn’t have to give. I continue to stare at the man standing at the entrance of Colin’s penthouse suite, near paralyzed with shock.

Then Colin says to Beau Prescott, “You have got some fucking nerve coming here.”

9

Mike and Beau, I know, used to be good friends. But Colin and Beau? Well let's just say if they were ever friends, it's obvious as soon as Beau gets into the room that they ain't anymore.

Beau doesn't even acknowledge Colin's words. Just turns his handsome face toward me. “Josie, I know you don't want to see me. But I had to see you.”

My eyes widen. He thinks I'm Josie? Why does he think I'm Josie? And what does she have to do with any of this?

I answer the first two questions on my own. I've been stalking Beau online for years, and even have a Google alert set up on him. So I know he was officially let go as the quarterback from the Los Angeles Suns a month ago for “medical reasons.” That had been enough for the Bleacher News blog to run with the speculation that Beau had gone blind from a bad hit he'd taken during a game.

I had hoped for Beau's sake that they weren't right, but apparently they were. I notice the pair of gold-plated aviators he's wearing, and see him for what he currently is, a very handsome, very rich, and now very blind former football player.

Colin answers my third question about how Josie figures into this situation soon after Beau says his first please.

“And that's who it's all about, isn't it? You! All these years and it's still about what you need from Josie.”

My eyes have got to be wide as saucers by now. So I'd been right to suspect Josie was hung up on some other guy. And the other guy was Beau! My Beau!

It all comes together then. The football player Colin claimed still held a grudge against him because Colin stole his high school girlfriend-that was Beau! Beau was the guy Josie had broken up with after he punched Colin.

As if to confirm I got it exactly right, Beau's fists ball up, like he's thinking of punching Colin again. But then he sighs and says, “He's right, Josie. I've been bullheaded and selfish and just about everything else. The truth is, you were right, I don't deserve you. I've never been half the man Colin was when it comes to you, and that's the reason I went crazy when he came looking for you. Because if it was a battle of who deserved you more, then I knew it was him no contest.”

“Finally something out of your mouth I can agree with,” Colin spits out beside me.

Beau doesn't even seem to hear him, though. Just keeps his face turned toward me like I'm the only person in the room as he keeps going.

“But when it comes to who loves you more, that's also no contest, darlin'. It's me. You two met when you were twelve, but I can't even remember a time when I didn't love you. First like a sister, then as something else. Everything good I've ever done has been because of you: Football, learning to get around blind… I just started a charity to teach blind kids sports here in Alabama, because you taught me how to stop feeling sorry for myself and use what happened to me to do good. Colin wants you. But I know for a fact he doesn't love you like I do. Not with his whole body, his whole…”

Beau stops, the intensity of his emotions having obviously become too much. Then he takes a deep breath and says, “Josie, I should have told you this the night you left-I love you with my whole soul. You have no idea how much I love you, how much I've always loved you. But…”

I just about faint when he takes a velvet box out of his pocket and gets down on one knee.

“But if you agree to be my wife, I will spend the rest of my life treating you like you deserve to be treated,” he tells me, thinking I'm Josie. “I'll make it all up to you, darlin', just say yes.”

I have never been witness to a silence as powerful as the one that comes after that proposal. Colin's eyes are blazing with hatred. My mouth's hanging open. The only person in the room who seems capable of saying anything in those moments is Beau, who tacks on a, “Please” after a few seconds of silence goes by.

Like he needs to say “please.” Like that wasn't the most romantic proposal I'd ever heard in my whole wide life.

I tell him that.

“Oh, my God. That's the sweetest thing I ever heard!”

Beau straightens when he hears my voice. He knows I'm not Josie now.

“Who are you?” he demands, coming to his feet.

Colin furiously shakes his head at me, silently commanding me not to say anything else. But I don't even give him a moment of consideration.

“A damn fool for staying quiet as long as I did, that's who,” I answer. Beau Prescott. Who I still can't believe is here in the same room as me. “I would've spoke up sooner, but Colin here motioned for me to stay quiet.”

Now Beau turns toward Colin. And even though he's got those gold aviators on, I can tell he's scowling real hard behind them.

“Where is she?”

“None of your damn business,” Colin answers, mean as a snake.

“Did you already marry her?” Beau shakes his head, looking anguished at the thought.

“No. Not yet,” Colin says, like he's anywhere near getting Josie to go out with him, much less marry him.

His answer makes Beau smile real big though. “See what I mean. If I'd been you, I would have sealed the deal by now.”

“You know what? Fuck you, Prescott.”

But Beau just keeps on grinning, like he's won something. “You tried. You tried your damnedest, coming back to Alabama with your big music career and your platinum albums, and she still said no.”

“What she said was she wasn't ready to be in a relationship.”

“With you,” Beau shoots back. And I can see Colin isn't the only one fighting dirty in this conversation.

“Because of what you did to her!” Colin says. And now I begin to wonder if I'm going to have to get between him and Beau, because Colin's got his fist bunched up, too, like he's planning to brawl.

But Beau isn't checking for Colin. His head's too busy, whipping from left to right, trying to catch scent or sound of Josie. “Let me talk to her. If you were any kind of man, you'd let me talk to her-”

“She's not here,” I say quickly, before the situation can escalate into the rematch I can just smell Colin wanting to have with Beau real bad.

“Shut up,” Colin says to me. “Shut up right now. This ain't none of your business.”

And there he is. That pit viper of a teenager I'd met the first time Colin Fairgood took his mask off in front of me.

However, I once again stand my ground. “No, but it's not necessarily any of yours either,” I tell him. “And I'm not going to let you torture him.”

Then I tell Beau, “She came by for the show yesterday, and he's scheduled to meet her for brunch today. Colin was going to use me to make her jealous, but from what I'm putting together, that plan wouldn't have worked out so well.”

Colin takes me by the arm, his voice as ominous as a tornado warning. “If you tell him, all those hopes and dreams of yours? Well, I'm going to make sure they never happen.”

“Don't listen to him,” Beau says before launching into an argument about why I need to ignore Colin and help him.

I barely hear him over Colin's hard glare. He's not kidding, I can tell. If I help Beau get to Josie, he's not just going to call off our demo deal and the meeting with Geoff Latham, he'll do everything in his power to make sure I never get a publishing deal. Because he's that kind of devil. His hat's all the way off now, and I can see his horns, clear as day.

“…I am nothing without Josie,” Beau's saying now. “She is the love of my life. So please tell me how to find her. Plus, whatever Fairgood is paying you, I will double it.”