He'd been wrong. About everything.
Pure, raw Billy, the label brass had called the songs.
They had no idea.
He hadn't either.
He'd polished the songs with some of the best and brightest songwriters in Nashville. The album came out a year ago. Went platinum within a month of release. He'd had five other albums go platinum in his career, but never that fast.
And Will had felt completely unsettled-and unable to write a song he liked-ever since.
He grabbed the door to Suckers. "Can't write on an empty stomach," he said.
Mikey grunted. "Security in place?"
"Yep."
"Ready to turn up the Billy factor?"
"Let's do this." Will flipped his cap around and swung open the door. The joint wasn't too crowded. A good number of the tables and booths were occupied, though half the stools around the semicircle steel bar were empty. Nary a head turned at first. But then a gasp of surprise came from one of the tables. Will stood taller and slapped on his show smile, prepared to channel Billy's slower drawl. Squeaks and whispers went through the room while he and Mikey swaggered in. Two more couples looked their way. So did a group at the far end of the bar.
Will started to nod to them, but mid-nod, he nearly tripped over his own cowboy boots.
The middle woman-Lindsey.
Her blonde hair was tied at the base of her slender neck, showing off small diamond studs in her delicate ears. A soft ivory sweater molded to her shoulders and breasts. Her lips were tipped up in a grin at a dark-haired woman and big redheaded guy beside her-the newly minted Mr. and Mrs. CJ Blue. But Lindsey's smile slid off her face when her brown cowboy-killers landed on him. Her brow took on a slight pinch, and then everything about her went still and blank. But the pinch was enough to send his brain reeling back about fifteen years.
They'd made unlikely friends when he plowed into her on the ski slope, and after that, he'd waited for her every breakfast, then every lunch and every dinner, fascinated by the girl who could chatter on about any subject Will's slow brain could think of, whose friends kept ditching her, who had a plan to be president of the whole country one day so she could change the world. She was a funny combination of confident and vulnerable, all rolled into the prettiest package a kid from the Georgia sticks had ever seen.
Halfway through the week, he'd overslept. She'd been gone when he went running down for breakfast, and he couldn't find her on the slopes. Dummy that he was, he hadn't gotten her number-not that either of them had cell phones back then-and he'd been sure she'd slipped away, lost to him forever. He'd been all kinds of smittened by then, and he'd had half a mind to go drown his sorrows, when he turned a corner of the lodge and took a snowball to the face.
You stood me up, Lindsey had said.
She hadn't said a word about all of her friends lying to her about where they were having dinner, about when they were meeting, about which slopes they'd be skiing, but she'd hit Will with a snowball because he missed breakfast.
Because he hurt her.
He'd known she had secrets-knew there was a story for why she let her friends treat her as bad as they were-but her eyes had pinched, her voice had wobbled, and right there he'd sworn he'd spend the rest of his life protecting her.
Friends don't stand friends up, she'd said.
And then she'd lobbed another snowball at him.
Are we friends? he'd asked.
I could use a friend, she'd said.
The rest was hazy-how they got to tumbling in the snow, her beneath him, their coats between them, those big brown eyes asking him questions his nineteen-year-old mind couldn't understand. He'd kissed her. Friends kiss all the time, right? she'd said.
And because he'd been a red-blooded nineteen-year-old kid outside of Pickleberry Springs for near about the first time in his life-with a sexy, sophisticated sorority girl willing to kiss him-he hadn't taken the clue that she wasn't falling for him like he was for her.
And he'd fallen hard. Fast.
Forever, by the feel of it.
But it hadn't been forever, and now, fifteen years later, he was watching her in a bar, his fingers twitching for Vera, because Will was suddenly hearing a melody.
Just as well Vera was back at the house. Wasn't good music he was hearing. More like an out-of-tune marching band made of people playing the wrong instruments.
The ring of a bell exploded in the bar and pulled Will fully back to the neon purple track lighting and the silver and red décor inside Suckers. "Phones and cameras away," CJ Blue said to the room at large. Much like he'd been dressed at his wedding, he was in a T-shirt and jeans. Even on the wrong side of the bar to be in charge, he had everyone's attention. "What happens at Suckers stays at Suckers, or Jeremy will toss you out on your ass. Got it?"
A bigger, darker, tattooed dude on the other side of the bar nodded, and everyone-including Lindsey's crowd-made their phones disappear.
"Don't even think of being stealthy," a familiar, shorter, sassier redhead behind the bar called. Another of the sisters from the wedding, Will realized. The baby of the family. "I got every one of your numbers."
"Aw, shit," Mikey said. "Is everyone in here related to Saffron?"
"You mean through blood or through marriage?" a dark-haired girl with Lindsey's crowd called in answer. Pepper. She was the one whose name really was Pepper. She was also the one smart enough to be eyeing Mikey like she knew to keep her phone number to herself. "Only four or five of us, but Cinna's the one you have to worry about." She pointed to Little Red behind the bar.
"Time to go, Billy-boy," Mikey said.
Pepper laughed. "You are Mikey. I thought I recognized you. But the chicken part clinched it."
Any other time or place, Will would've had a good laugh at Mikey's expense. Instead, he had to work just to find a smile. "Always does," Will said.
Mikey grunted.
Pepper patted the seat beside her. "Make yourselves comfortable. Food's good, beer's good, and Saffron's not here to make any outrageous suggestions."
"I'm happy to fill in for her," Cinna said behind the bar.
"Not if you want to keep your job," CJ replied.
"You're such a spoilsport, Princess." She flipped two glasses onto the bar. "Get you boys something to drink?"
"Beer and grub." Will swallowed the butterflies climbing in his throat. He was Billy Brenton. Blonde divorce lawyers in bars didn't make him sweat, dammit. "What's good?"
"The redheads." Cinna winked and pushed her shoulders back, lifting her chest.
"Feeling more in the mood for brunettes tonight," Mikey said. He winked at a table of brown-haired twenty-somethings, and all three of them giggled.
"You really are like this in real life." Pepper seemed equally horrified and impressed.
"Maybe you should date him, Pepper," Cinna said.
Pepper flipped her off.
Cinna laughed. "Two brown ales, coming up."
"Corner booth's open too if you want it," CJ said to them. "Company's good at the bar though."
Will could've picked the corner booth. Will should've picked the corner booth.
But he was here looking for inspiration.
And she was sitting right there, though all she was inspiring was a headache.
"So long as you don't have any more relatives coming tonight." Will slid onto the stool next to Pepper.
"None who are as annoying as Cinna," CJ said.
"I'll drink to that." Pepper lifted a glass toward her brother, then turned to Will. "So, what brings the great Billy Brenton into Suckers tonight?"
The woman sitting three seats down. Not that he'd tell her that. "Needed a place to get away and write some songs for a few weeks. Where better than here?"
Mikey coughed. He'd taken the stool next to Will, and Will didn't have to look to know that his buddy was scoping out the single ladies.
All the single ladies.
But unlike most nights when Mikey was trolling for numbers, there was an extra level of awareness to him tonight.
"Don't worry, we won't tell people you're here," Pepper said.
The girl on her other side went pale. Might've whimpered, matter of fact.
Cinna slid two beers across bar, then followed them with a napkin for Mikey. "From the twins by the door," she said with an eye roll.
Mikey raised his beer and treated the identical brunettes across the room to his I'm-a-country-rock-drummer-god smile.
"Ain't so sure that not-telling-people thing will work for long," Will said to Pepper.
"Right. The Mikey handicap. Oh! He was the one who-"
"Most likely," Will said.
"Near about definitely," Mikey agreed.
No telling which of Mikey's exploits Saffron had told her relatives, but odds were, it was accurate.
The blonde on Pepper's other side peeked around and looked closer.
"Saffron told us about you and the girl in Dallas who-?" Pepper wiggled her eyebrows.
"And Kansas City," Mikey said.
"Boston and Minneapolis too," Will said on a sigh. Mikey didn't kiss and tell, but the girls he picked did.
Some days, Will wished he could've been like Mikey. Living it up, having fun, embracing the moment.