You'd Be Mine(5)

“So that’s a no for Annie and the Mathers, then?”

I try to throw a clump of grass at his face, but it lands embarrassingly short. “What does that even mean?”

“It’s existential,” he insists, his fingers tapping a hollow rhythm on his chest.

“You’re existential,” I mutter.

“Children, enough.” Kacey drags her bow across the freshly tuned strings of her fiddle, Loretta. The shadows speckle her bare shoulders and play across her toned biceps as her nimble fingers dance out a melody. Kacey is a year older than Jason and me. She fully embraced an artful bohemian style in high school I’ve always envied. When I initially came from Nashville to live with my grandparents, Kacey was my first friend. She’s technically my cousin, but that only made it so the whole celebrity thing never got between us. She couldn’t care less who my parents were. She only cared that they were dead and I was alone. The first time I saw her play was at my mom’s memorial service, and I’ve never forgotten the way she was able to put every gloriously mournful feeling I’d had into a song without words.

“The first time I kissed a boy was under these willows,” she says after a minute.

I raise a brow. “Just kissed?”

She winks. “A gentlewoman never tells.”

“Ah, but you do. More than anyone needs to know,” I say.

“Our first kiss was under here, wasn’t it, Annie?”

I strum once, sharp. “Nope. That would have maybe been romantic.” Jason scrunches one eye, trying to remember. “Jaysus,” I say with a snicker. “We only had two kisses. In your basement while watching Superbad and then in your car when you dropped me off two hours later. You’re lucky I even bother talking to you anymore, let alone invite you on a national tour.”

Jason doesn’t bother to apologize, just grins lazily. “I remember now. That was a good movie!” Kacey jabs him in the chest with her bow, and he rubs at it absently. “Ow, you wretch.”

“It was a terrible movie and a terrible first kiss. Thankfully, Craig Logan was happy enough to help me practice the rest of that summer.”

Jason snickers. “I’ll just bet he was.”

“What about Under the Willows?” Kacey says.

“Sorry?”

“For a band name. It’s where we practice—where we spent our summers.”

I repeat the name, testing it on my tongue. “It’s not terrible. I’ve always liked the symbolism of willows—they have super-strong root systems allowing them to hang so close to the water.”

Jason tilts his head. “I don’t know. Now that I know Kacey lost her virginity here, it sort of loses its charm.”

Kacey swats him again, and he laughs.

“I would think that would be the selling point for you,” I say.

“Good point. Let’s call it. All in favor of Under the Willows, say, ‘Aye.’”

We all “aye” in unison, and I pull out my phone, tapping a quick email to the label. “That’s that, friends. We’re officially a band.”

It’s not like we haven’t been playing together for years already, under any number of names that never stuck. And it’s not like we didn’t already sign our summer away to the record label two weeks ago. But, suddenly, the world feels thicker around us. The air we’re breathing laden with expectation.

Jason breaks the silence. “I feel like we need to go get matching tats or something.”

“Tramp stamps,” I agree dryly. “You first, Jason.”



* * *



Two weeks later, I’m packing up my things when my gran finds me. She places a small stack of folded clothes on my bed. “These are off the line,” she says.

I start to sort through them, pulling out a hoodie and a pair of cutoffs to throw in my already overly full luggage. “Thanks, Gran.” She sits down, looking around my room. She grabs a frame from my nightstand. It’s a candid photo of my parents on their wedding day. Neither of them are looking at the camera, instead staring into each other’s eyes as they dance.

“You know when that boy turned up at our door, I couldn’t help but think of Robbie knocking on the same door twenty years ago to pick up my baby.”

I huff out a breath. “Hardly, Gran. Clay Coolidge wasn’t here for a date. He was here because his label paid him to be.”

Gran traces a weathered fingertip across my mother’s beautiful features. “Had the same kind of feeling, though, in my gut. Cocky cowboy strutting in and taking my little girl away.”

I take the frame from her hands and put it facedown on the bed. Kneeling in front of her, I place my hands in her lap and look up into her crinkled eyes. Some of those lines are recent, but most were there long before I came to live in my mother’s old room. “I’m not her. I’m not running after any cocky cowboys. I’m going into this with my head on straight. I know what fame can do to a girl, and I know what love can take away. This isn’t the same situation at all. Besides, I’ll have Kacey and Jason with me.”

My gran chuckles once, humorlessly. “Hardly a comfort. My Kacey is a free spirit if ever there was one, and Jason is halfway to cocky cowboy himself. That reminds me.” My gran reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper, passing it to me. I stand up to read.