You'd Be Mine(24)

I reach back for the volume toggle on my phone and turn the music so loud a fighter jet could fly overhead and I wouldn’t hear it. Then I close my eyes and sink back into the white sand, ignoring the empty towel next to me.



* * *



I shake out my freshly showered hair a few hours later, knowing in this humidity, resistance slash professional elegance is flat-out futile. Not that it matters, I suppose, as Jessica, my newly hired stylist, will just torture it into perfection before I hit the stage anyway. Wardrobe has set out a pair of artfully torn jeans and a black leather vest with gobs of fringe dangling off the edges. It’s actually sort of cute. When I was little, I had a favorite suede jacket that was pale pink and covered in rhinestones and fringe. I probably looked like a walking BeDazzler infomercial, but I didn’t care. Kacey has a pair of dangling feather earrings that would look perfect with this, but she’s MIA, so I set off to find her.

After checking the food trailer and the soundstage, I decide she’s probably with Fitz. He’s taken it upon himself to teach my bandmates how to play Texas Hold’em. I approach the trailer Clay and Fitz sometimes share with their grizzled, leather-clad drummer, an older man named Jackson Colter.

I make out guitar playing through an open window and slow my approach, sneaking closer to the trailer. Rows of goose bumps pop up on my arms at Clay’s voice, but I don’t recognize the words. I freeze in place and close my eyes, leaning against the side of the bus, letting his smooth tenor wash over me.

It’s so different from his other music. It’s like his soul is bared and naked before me. Gone is the bravado of his stage persona. The beer-drinking frat boy ladies’ man has been replaced by a tortured boy who speaks of a hurt that wrenches his heart and burns in his gut.

I’m breathless. It’s too much. I’m feeling too much. But it’s everything. This man has such a gift. Up until this point, his voice has been wasted. This is his life’s work right here. I’m shaken and thunderstruck and electrified to the point of jittery. He’s a fiery summer storm and I’m in the middle of an open field.

His voice fades, and before I can stop myself, I raise my hand to knock on the bus-trailer door. I know Kacey isn’t in there, and anyway, I can’t remember what I wanted her for in the first place. I don’t wait for his response, just climb in.

It’s dim inside, and Clay is sitting on a sofa in a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a faded T-shirt. His hair is still stiff with ocean spray, and his face glows with too much sun after the beach this morning. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out at first, and I feel my cheeks warm.

What am I doing here?

He drops his hands from his guitar and flips over the paper in front of him as if to hide it. Too late.

“What?”

I swallow, realizing I’ve spoken out loud. “I said, ‘Too late.’ I already heard you.” His eyes widen slightly, and I gesture to the open window. “Don’t worry. Only me. I came by looking for Kacey.”

“It’s nothing,” he says. “I’m just messin’.” Clay’s from southern Indiana originally, but a year on the road has tightened his accent. Now, however, it’s looser—softer, somehow. As though being caught out and exposed has thickened his tongue and sent him south toward the Bible Belt.

I run my fingers through my hair, but my hand sticks in a patch of curls. “Look. I know I don’t have your sales or CMAs, but I do know real music. That was not nothing. That was the best damn something I’ve ever heard. Why’re you hiding that?”

Clay blinks, his face a mask of indifference, but I swear I can feel his appreciation. “No one wants to hear that. They come to me for a good time.”

“Maybe so, but surely you see you are so much more than a good time.”

A shadow passes over his features. “A good time is what pays for this tour and that fancy bus you’re riding in and your band, and really, it’s paying you for the right to be all high and mighty about what music is real or not real, so forgive me if I don’t give a shit about what some internet sensation thinks about my work.”

I stumble back, slapped by the sting of his words. He closes his eyes, and the brief moment of camaraderie between us snaps.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

He lays his guitar on the seat beside him and gets to his feet. “No. You did. Don’t backpedal now.” He’s smiling, but it’s the cruel kind of smile. “You think you’re the only one who can write about something real? You aren’t. I’ve been singing for crowds for a few years now, Annie Mathers, and I know a thing or two. So don’t jump on my tour and give me all those gooey-eyed stares like I’m different than you thought. I’m not. This is who I am.”

I reach for the door, feeling humiliated. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

Clay turns, swinging his arm and accidentally knocking over a bottle that falls to the floor with a clatter, and I flinch. His eyes widen but then harden. “You did. We aren’t friends, Annie. And I’m not your mentor like Patrick Royston or any of those other washed-out stars who fawn over you. And I’m sure as hell not Johnny to your June, so I’ll thank you to remember that. You work for me. That’s it.”

“You’re right. I know that. I’ll get out of your hair. I shouldn’t have come.”