You'd Be Mine(12)

5



Clay


Jesus Christ, the set is an old train car.

Do you ever feel like you’re hurtling across the continent on one of those high-speed trains?

Next to me, Annie swears under her breath.

I arch a brow down at her. “How’s that for irony?”

She shakes her head, walking forward on unsteady heels. She stops and turns to the production assistant, a stuffed shirt named Beth, with her little fists on her hips. Her guitar is slung across her back, and I hide a smile at the picture she makes. I hear the rapid click of a camera behind me. Clearly, I’m not the only one.

“How accurately are we holding to this Johnny-and-June farce?”

Beth looks up from her clipboard. “Why?”

Annie slides her feet out of her pumps and loses at least five inches of height.

More clicking behind me. Beth sighs, long suffering, but doesn’t argue.

I move forward, placing a hand on the small of Annie’s back and ushering her toward the train car. “That’s settled. We have a long afternoon of this, so let’s move along.”

First, they set us up opposite each other: me leaning casually against one door, her sitting against the other, single bare foot swinging, neither of us looking at each other. Then they had me playing to her, her playing to me, the two of us back to back singing to the heavens. All of it is awkward. We take a break and move over to the food cart so the photographer can rearrange his lighting, and Annie perches on a stool, sipping some kind of green smoothie through a twisty straw. The bottoms of her feet are black, and I can’t help but smirk.

My name is called, and the caterer passes me a sandwich on a Styrofoam plate with one of those pickles on a spear. There’re no other unoccupied stools, so I stand, balancing the plate in one hand, trying to eat as carefully as possible, but dripping mayo and mustard all over.

Beth claps her hands. “Five more minutes, people.”

I chew faster.

“Super-glamorous, right?” Annie says with a wry smile. “I remember my momma running out the door in her curlers more than once when she was late for a shoot. This is the stuff they don’t show the enamored masses—dirty feet and mustard in your stubble.”

I swipe at my chin with my napkin, but Annie’s already hopping down, neatly. She grabs the napkin from my hand and moves in so close I can feel the rustle of her skirt against my knees. She reaches up, still chatting.

“I suppose if they did see it, though, we’d lose our appeal, wouldn’t we? Who wants the man behind the curtain when they can have the Wizard?”

She finishes rubbing, lowers her hand, but is still so close. Her eyes find mine, and her lips are parted. Even though they have way too much red lipstick smeared on them, my mouth waters.

Click click click. Annie stutters backward, and I breathe again. Her eyes are wide, and her cheeks are a high pink.

“S-sorry,” she says. She’s patting down her dress as if looking for something.

“Don’t be,” the photographer says behind me.

I roll my eyes. “Back at it, then?”

“Change of plans,” he says sharply. “Stand together in the middle of the door. Someone get me a backlight! We’re going to do some silhouette work.”

The rest of the shots are face-to-face, our bodies entwined and draped together, the picture of iconic love.

The entire crew is cooing over a particular backlit favorite where I have my guitar strapped to my back and I pick up Annie. Her face is inches from my own, and we look moments from a kiss. In reality, my arms are shaking because this is the tenth time I’ve lifted her and she’s breathless from being squeezed so tightly. Any awkwardness we might have felt at the start of today is nothing. I’ve learned every inch of this girl’s shape in the last two hours. It’s like some sort of cruel trust exercise. My restraint has been tested beyond belief, and I’m wrung out and exhausted.

Suddenly it’s become very clear to me I didn’t have the first damn clue what I was signing up for this summer when I went to Michigan and got her signature.

may

atlanta, georgia

A few mornings later, Fitz bangs on my hotel room door bright and early, and he’s not alone.

“Summer Tour Day of Bonding!” he shouts, shoving through the door. I’ve been awake for a while, making use of the fitness center’s weight machines. Even still. I haven’t made it through my coffee yet.

Dark-haired Kacey perches on my unmade bed as if she owns the place. She wrinkles her nose. “He needs to shower.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I say. “And you’re here because?”

She grins. “Summer Tour Day of Bonding.”

“I heard that part.” I turn to Fitz, who’s commandeered my Mac. “What does that even mean?”

He doesn’t move his eyes from the screen. “Means I got us off the hook from Trina, and we’re gonna spend the day getting to know Under the Willows.”

“Like zip lines and shit?” I ask. I grab my toothbrush from my case and load it up with toothpaste.

“It’s not a corporate retreat, man. It’s supposed to be fun.”

“I, for one, think zip lines sound amazing,” Kacey says.

“Yeah, well, another time. We’re going to an amusement park.”