Page 61 of Grumpy Bear

A big guy in a Winnie the Pooh T-shirt—with no pants—felt me. He actually started blubbering.

When the song ended, my personal cheering section lost their minds hooting and whistling and applauding. Jim, as I knew he would, started calling out various artists and song titles.

I planned to stick with a campfire vibe, but I couldn’t play all sleepy ballads. I wanted to pick the mood up a little bit. Ever since the night of the storm, I’d had Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” on my mind. It had enough of a laidback groove for the drummers to play along, and everybody there could sing every word, so we got some decent crowd interaction going.

The whiskey loosened my throat, shot right through any remaining inhibitions I might have had, and the Hummingbird played itself.

I kept going. Kept singing. Kept performing my heart out. Ignoring the obligatory cries of “Free Bird,” I gave them a female country mini set starting with Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” and ending with—before Jim lost his voice yelling for it—Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.”

I’m not just a country singer by any means, so I threw in my cover of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” It was unexpected, and hearing it all torchy and acoustic makes you listen to it with a fresh perspective.

I wanted to attempt Johnny Cash’s “If the Good Lord’s Willing” for Coleman. I had found it on Spotify when I was rehearsing at the cabin, but I didn’t know it that well and I couldn’t remember the lyrics. I regretted scrapping it, but it was better than butchering it.

Once I had the guys on board with a bunch of familiar tunes, I sang a couple of my originals. The response was good, so I took a chance on my new one.

“I haven’t played this one for anybody yet. I’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks now.” I picked the opening chord progression as I talked. “It started out about leaving LA and coming back east, to the South. I wasn’t sure where I was going. Maybe coming home, but I wasn’t sure where home could be. It has a bit of a Goldilocks story structure. Ha, ha. Yeah. I know. Kinda apropos, huh? Nashville wasn’t the place for me. A surprisingly bad fit. LA chewed me up and spit me out. Wrong for me, in so many ways. I guess this is a song about finding a new home in old country.”

I shut up and sang. About leaving that cold condo on the beach where my ex never listened to me, always on the phone. About finding a remote cabin in the woods with no cell service and a bear of a man who was content to lie in bed and hang on my every word.

I thought it would be harder to look at Coleman during that one. It was barely written, and I’d intended to keep my eyes closed and concentrate on getting through it. I didn't know what came over me—the Fireball, the rush of the performance—but I sang it straight to him.

I picked the crowd back up with Shania Twain’s “Any Man of Mine” and left them stomping and carrying on like a bunch of happy redneck fools.

Mission accomplished.

I made my way back to my group of familiar faces—to Coleman—flushed, accepting the claps on my shoulder, meeting the fist bumps and high fives. It felt good. I loved to sing, and I couldn’t remember when an audience had loved me singing as much.

Austin’s eyes twinkled. “Man, you killed that. Everybody ate that shit up.”

Jim threw his big arm around my shoulder, hugging my neck too tight, crushing the Hummingbird against me. His whisper was too close to my ear. “Honey, Wayne would have loved that.”

I didn’t know if Coleman heard him, but he winked at me. “I liked that song, Surfer Cowboy.”

“Which one?”

“You know the one.”

25

Sawyer

He wrote a song about me.

Yeah, sure, technically he’d started writing it before he ever got here… So, he finished a song about me.

But he wrote a fucking song that ended with me. With us. With my home.

God.

The sap factor was through the roof. The compliment of it. The damn honor of it… What could I have even said? I had to say something.

I liked that song, Surfer Cowboy.

Ugh. I needed a retake on that.

Luke was standing near the bonfire’s heat, his silhouette unmistakable. I approached from the shadows behind him. He startled when I pressed my lips to the back of his neck. “You chilly?”

He pulled my arms around him and sighed. “A little bit.”