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I threw him a look. “What? You’re worried I’m going to bolt?”
I had no intention of leaving. I’d already done that once. No way would I do it again. Besides, I’d be giving up way too much this time.
“No… maybe… yes, I am. You’ve been pacing ever since we got here. But you’ve got this, right? We’ve got this. It’s what we were meant to do, and we’re good at it.”
He made a lot of sense, and just listening to his smooth-as-silk voice reassured me. It was just that my throat felt dry, and I needed some water. Nothing else. Just some water.
“The best! I’ll be right there. Really. No worries.” We stared at each other for a moment, as if we were challenging each other’s truths. “I’m getting a bottle of water, and I’ll be right there. Trust me.”
He gave me one last look, then he turned and walked away.
What bothered me was that over the last couple of weeks, Josh had told me several times that he loved me, and I’d never said it back. I’d wanted to say it back, but I couldn’t. Something would always stop me. And even now, I wanted to tell him before we went up on stage. Before the first note was played.
But I still couldn’t do it.
I walked over to get my bottle of water out of the fridge, paused for a moment, then grabbed it and my purse off the back of a chair and tore out of the room when I ran right into Shea. “Whoa there, little missy. In a hurry much? The stage is in the other direction. They’ve just announced you.”
I could hear the cheers and applause echoing through the long hallway. She held up a cowboy hat that looked exactly like mine.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
“Delivering your hat. I stopped by the ranch to wish you luck, but you and the band had already left. Someone named Tina asked me if I would bring this to you. Said you must’ve forgotten it. Are you all right? You look frantic. I’ve never seen you look frantic. That’s my look, not yours.”
I gazed down at the hat, and I instantly knew it was the last straw. I wasn’t a cowboy-hat kind of person. I wasn’t a singer in a band. I wasn’t a woman with three lovers or a woman who owned a ranch. All those labels belonged to someone else, but not to me. I was a waitress in a pie shop. I liked to knit and drive small cars, and I lived in an apartment above a puppet theater. That was me. That was Connie Manors, not this girl in a leather skirt and a fringed shirt. Certainly not a woman who could sing in front of a live audience.
“I’m fine… really… really, I’m not fine at all… Can you get me the hell out of here?”
“When?”
“Now.”
“But there’s a couple hundred people waiting to hear you sing, not to mention your band that’s already on the stage.”
Just hearing those words,your band,was enough to give me a heart attack.
“You owe me.”
She let that sink in for a beat. I’d saved her from her family and a room full of relatives and friends and friends of friends when her groom jilted her right before they exchanged vows. Oh yeah, she owed me, big time.
“Are you sure about this?”
Somehow, I got the idea she wasn’t happy about my decision, but still, it was mine to make. Not hers.
“It’s too much. I can’t do it.”
We turned towards the stage to make sure the coast was clear.
“Okay. Let’s go,” she said.
“Do you know your way out of here?” I asked. I knew we’d come in through a back stage door, but I didn’t pay attention to where it was located, exactly, and there seemed to be a lot of rooms and doors backstage.
“I do. I just came in from the stage door,” she said. “Follow me.”
As we ran towards the door, I heard Rascal call out my name, but I didn’t turn around. Instead, I ran faster. Now that I started this escape, I couldn’t face him. Couldn’t go on stage and couldn’t tell him why.
He called out once more before we slipped out the door, letting it slam shut behind us.
“Where’s your car?” I asked Shea.
