That Night In Nashville – Chapter 1
Hailey Watkins had been having the time of her life when she saw him.
Her whole body froze and flash-heated at the same time. Her eyes went wide, and the world narrowed down to the cut of his shoulders, the color of his hair, the feelings that surged through her. She might just hyperventilate.
Maybe it wasn’t him. She told herself it wasn’t, that it couldn’t be.
In her memory he was still sitting on the edge of her bed, in that little trailer in Carroll Hollow. Neither of them had enough money to even get to Knoxville.
She hadn’t thought she’d ever see him again. Certainly not here in Nashville and certainly not in that suit, looking like the man she’d always known he’d grow into.
What would he even be doing at the festival anyway?
At first, she’d caught sight of the back of him and her heart had stuttered. Hard. Her brain had quickly shut that down. It didn’t make sense that Adam would be here, so clearly it couldn’t be him.
She’d climbed onto the temporary stage assembled for the Nashville Brewer’s Festival, her boots treading on the hot black surface. The squares were joined together and felt sturdy enough right now, but tomorrow? If the band started jumping? It would yield and sway a bit under her feet. She’d learned to roll with it and just keep singing.
Her label, Heart Beats, had her running around and singing every joint and fest they could get her booked at. It was hot, sweaty work for crowds who mostly hadn’t heard of her. Hailey figured it was paying her dues, and she was willing to pay them. What most people hadn’t figured out was that her tour bus—the one without her picture or name on the side, not yet—was nicer than the trailer she’d grown up in. The singing gig paid her actual money, and though it wasn’t much, it beat working in the local factory.
Adam had gone to work in the factory. That’s what he’d told her he was going to do, not that she’d stuck around to see.
The night she’d walked away, he’d yelled at her to just go and leave it all behind, including him. She’d been so hurt and so mad, that was exactly what she’d done. Now, with his words ringing in her head again, she put her vocal chords on auto pilot and kept singing even though no one was really listening except her sound guy.
He wasn’t even her sound guy—Chad was there for all the performers. She was just the singer for the fifth slot as the festival changed from afternoon to night the next day. She hoped the attendees would have enough beer in them to give an unknown girl from outside Knoxville a chance—though she was hardly a girl anymore.
She’d been at this for eight years, waiting tables, performing at every open mic night, and opening for friends at clubs every chance she got. Now, she had the act down. Timing her breathing and watching where she planted her feet, Hailey sucked in a breath and went up for one of her high notes. She held it and fought a smile as a few of the workers stopped to listen and watch. She could do this.
Then the man in the suit turned around and the note cut off abruptly.
It was Adam.
The look on his face, though kind and clearly in charge, told her he’d been expecting to see her.
It wasn’t fair. If he was here in a suit, then he would have seen the program. He would have seen her name in that fifth time slot, the one between the bigger acts than she.
Clearly, he’d had time to prepare for this non-reunion. She’d been blindsided by old memories running wild at just the thought that it might be him. Now, she was smacked again by grief, the kind she’d felt the whole first year she’d been gone. Hit by the feeling of the air being different just because he was close by—that feeling apparently hadn’t gone away though she’d believed she was over him.
Nope. She wasn’t.
She’d been so wrong about him.
He wasn’t in the factory. He wasn’t in Carroll Hollow. He wasn’t stuck in the back hills of Tennessee, never having gone any further. He was here, in a damn suit that looked far too good.
The clothing was clearly tailored to fit him. It fit the new version of the man. He’d been just a boy when she left, when he refused to come with her. Clearly, everything was different for him now. Her, too.
She was standing on stage, doing lighting checks on her slinky top and swishy skirt and cowboy boots for tomorrow’s show. She was doing sound check, so her high notes carried to the back of the crowd tomorrow. She’d come a long, long way. So she forced a smile onto her face, the same kind she used on stage, the one her manager called the “Megawatt Hailey.” Pushing the grin up into her eyes and creating an expression she didn’t feel, she made eye contact and gushed, “Adam!”
