“I do,” she said thoughtfully, “but you’ve got options now.”
We stayed like that, long minutes stretching in silence until she was curled on my lap and we were sitting in front of the windows streaked with rain.
“Y’know, rainy days aren’t so bad when they’re with you.”
She wrapped both of her arms around my torso, fingertips itching under the soft denim waistband of my worn blue jeans. “All of my best days have been with you.”
I rubbed a flat palm over the curves of her spine, wishing things for both of us had been different.
But they weren’t, and we were left dealing with the consequences.
The knowledge that Augusta Belle was my salvation wasn’t a new one. The realization that maybe even now I still needed her in my life more than she needed me burned like a cheap rye lighting a trail of fire down my throat.
We had a lot to atone for, Augusta Belle and me.
Maybe too much.
SIXTEEN
Fallon
Augusta Belle’s whiskey-brown eyes held mine, her lips turning into a sweet half smile before she sang the same opening lines that’d fired up the same crowd at Slick Willy’s last night, the bar packed to over-capacity tonight.
It was true what they said. News travels fast in a small town, and apparently, today’s news was the reunion of Fallon Gentry and his whiskey girl.
People’d asked both of us to pose for pictures as we’d made our way in through the packed crowd, glasses of whiskey offered to each of us from every other outstretched hand.
I was thankful as fuck I didn’t look like the guy who was smiling weakly on the cover of that single they were thrusting at me. That guy wasn’t me. Never was. The man I was now might be a little rougher around the edges, but he was a helluva lot wiser and a lot more confident than he had been.
I’d earned this scowl, dammit.
It wasn’t until Augusta Belle crooned the opening lines of “Jackson” that my scowl lifted at the edges, my instincts to sing kicking in as we fell into a perfect harmony, arguing in lyrics and having fun every word of the way. Something about this song made me happy, everything about Augusta Belle made meme.
By the time we’d breezed through six more songs together, I finally sat center stage and gave them the one song they’d all come for.
The one that’d been a thorn in my side, that I’d been dreading as we’d inched closer to it every minute of tonight.
I started the opening lines, twisting the notes a little to add a quicker tempo, something the crowd didn’t recognize immediately. Not until I began with the opening lines:It’s not easy to forget, the bitter taste lovin’ you left…
A few women in the room sighed, the crowd hushing as a short gasp spread through the noise.
I charged on, sticking with the kickier tempo, the one they might not have been used to but the one that felt more like me.
The me now, anyway.
The me not soaked in whiskey and hell-bent on bitterness.
I slowed down a few words of the final chorus, my eyes finally brave enough to chance a glance at Augusta.
She was standing riveted off stage, both hands clasped over her mouth, eyes wide with tears, but also with something else. Pride, maybe.
I winked at her once, voice slipping into the last haunting lyric of the song before I let my guitar end on a soft note and stood, ducking into the darkness of backstage as the crowd erupted into a fit of applause.
Adrenaline charging through my veins, I clasped Augusta’s fingers, guiding her quickly through the back hallway and into the fresh air.
She squealed, spinning me around and leaping into my arms.
I yelled into her hair, a smile spreading across my lips, the widest I’d had since I didn’t know when.
