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I could hear her yawn and shuffle around in bed. “Welcome to my world.”
“Not with all three of them. I’m falling in love with one of them. This could ruin me and ruin my relationship with the other two.”
“Not necessarily. Did you forget that you live in Cricket? More importantly, did you forget that I live with three men?”
“Of course not, but I’m a one-man kind of woman. So, this is never going to work. The other two won’t like it… they won’t be able to accept it, and any hope I had of singing with them again will be gone before we even get started.”
She chuckled. “Wait a minute. You’re thinking of singing again… like out in public? When did this happen?”
“Yesterday, when we messed around all afternoon in the music room.”
“What music room?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Are you at home? I’ll get dressed and drive over.”
“I’m not home… at least not officially. You won’t believe where I am.”
“Sweetie, you could tell me you’re on the moon, and I’d find a way to get to you.”
“Well, I may as well be on the moon. I’m on Dusty’s ranch or rather my ranch if I want to keep it.”
“You finally made it up there? How is it? Is it a working ranch with cattle and horses? I can’t even imagine you living on a wide-open sprawling ranch like that. All that space. You’d go mad.”
“You’re not going to believe this, but I like it here. I haven’t seen it all yet, just the house, and the vineyard when we drove in, and the music studio complete with everything a band would need to record their own songs. So far, there’s nothing I don’t like about it. I’m even considering going horseback riding this morning, and I haven’t done that since I was a kid.”
“Are you saying you ran away with the guys from your old band?”
Right after Dusty’s funeral, I’d confided in Shea about what had happened with my band and how much I’d liked singing at the funeral… how I’d had fun doing it.
“That’s exactly who they are: Rascal, Luke, and Josh. The three guys I never, ever wanted to see again.”
“Sooo, let me get this straight. You’re falling in love with one of these guys? One of your ex-band members who abandoned you when you needed them most?”
“Yes.”
“Oh honey, we need to talk.”
“I know. Can you come over tonight? It’s an emergency.”
“Come over where? To the ranch or to your apartment in Cricket?”
“My apartment. We’ll drive back to Cricket after we get a full tour of the ranch and the new dance hall over in Sweet Whiskey.”
“I think Betty’s Startup helped fund the dance hall. But you would know better than I. So, why are you going on a tour of that dance hall?”
And as soon as she said it, I knew she was right, but for some reason, I’d completely forgotten about it. We did, in fact, help fund the opening of Dirty Coyote several months ago. Who knew it would come back to bite me in the ass?
“That’s where we would be performing.”
“Well, that just woke me up this morning. This is a small world we live in, isn’t it?”
“Very,” I told her, reflecting on the irony of the situation.
“Tell you what, we’re going out to dinner in Cricket tonight, but I can work around it. Gio finished a big project at the shop, and we want to celebrate. How about I stop by before dinner? I’ll push our reservations for an hour or so later. I can be at your place around six-thirty. Will that work for you?”
Shea and I had rekindled our friendship to a point where we were best friends again, and I loved it. I had plenty of other girlfriends in town, but no one understood me like Shea did. It was the same for her. We came from a strange dysfunctional family, and it was nice to share that with someone who understood the emotional baggage we carried.
