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I sigh. “All right. Fine. Meet you at the Hideaway in an hour?”
“Better make it half, girl. I’m already on my way.”
I hang up the phone, letting it fall from my fingers. Going to get a drink at the Hangout isn’t a big deal. It’s the only bar in town, and drinking age be damned, I’ve been going to party there since high school.
People who care about you watch your alcohol consumption better than your boneheaded teenage friends do, anyway. Can’t get away with much when the bartender played third base on your dad’s baseball team, and the waitress cheered with your mom until graduation. They’d cut us off before things got too rowdy, but let us have our space to enact all the same teenage dramas year in and year out. I definitely want to go.
But what if you see the guys there?
I shake off the thought, a little fissure of anger motivating me to get up and walk to my closet. I have all my normal ranch wear, but in my suitcase, still packed from college…
I dig it out. When I find what I’m looking for, I grin.
Maybe the guys will be there. And when they see me in this? Maybe they’ll be having some thoughts about me, too.
Not even three drinks in, Kendall abandons me to go sing. Shocking.
It does kind of remind me of her first real break. In college, she was two years older than me, and on her graduation night, I recorded a video at the bar that people love in Boulder of her singing along to Shania Twain’s Any Man of Mine, and then when Kendall uploaded it to YouTube…
Well. The rest is history.
I don’t mind that she’s up and singing. Really, I don’t. It would be hard to be her friend if I got jealous of the spotlight. People seem pretty stunned to see her—one of the biggest names in country music—but I’m sure that any PR is good PR these days. She’s great on stage, and people are absolutely entranced with her. But I do wish we could have made it through a couple of drinks before she left me.
I order another whisky sour, turning from the bar to watch my friend. Even though I’m a little annoyed, I have to admit that she’s fun to watch. There’s a reason that she’s a star, after all.
I’m so engrossed in Kendall’s performance that I fail to notice when three certain men slide up to the bar next to me.
“Hey, Hellcat,” Landon’s voice rumbles. “Whatcha drinkin’?”
I spin back. Landon, Clint, and Shane are all lined up down the bar next to me.
Of course Landon is closest. I roll my eyes. “Funny that you three should show up here.”
“It’s the only bar in town,” Shane says dryly. “And, apparently, books world-class entertainment.”
I wince. “Yeah. Kendall’s something, all right.”
“You a fan?” Landon says.
Oh, God. Here it is. The inevitable starstruck request to get Kendall’s number…
“She’s good,” Landon shrugs. “But I think my entertainment is right here.” He winks at me.
“With a drink,” Shane rumbles, looking at the bartender again.
I flush. There’s no way they’d rather be here with me than watching my best friend sing. I don’t want them to know about the blush on my cheeks, though, so I raise an eyebrow at Shane. “What, you don’t keep your own stash of private Japanese whisky locked up in your weird evil genius hut?”
Landon cackles. “He absolutely does.”
“But drinking alone is pathetic,” Shane says. “At least here it’s social.”
“Well, I can’t deny you that,” I say, a small smile playing across my lips. I reach for my glass, pulling it up for a sip.
“Whisky sour?”
Landon turns to me again, and I nod. “Sure is.”
“Great. We’ll have what she’s having,” he calls to the bartender.
