Willow bit back a laugh as Ash finished the opening guitar riff and then launched into the first verse of Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” Was it too on the nose? Maybe, but sometimes words were just words, and a song was just a song. Singing with Ash beside her strumming on his guitar, she realized how much she hoped she was right.
They’d roughed out a set list that afternoon. They’d intersperse their original songs with duet covers. Right now Willow sat on her stool, leaning into the mic for the harmony on the chorus as he sang the song she’d always wondered about.
“I Loved You Once.”
Something niggled at the back of her mind while Ash launched into the bridge and then the final verse. It was the same sense of déjà vu she’d had when they were arguing about the words she’d chosen for the chorus of the duet.
It’s just a song. They’re all just songs. And they’re all about you.
The wine at the bonfire. Ash holding her hands so the room would stop spinning and then staying with her in case it happened again.
She’d flat out asked him if the song was abouther, and he told her what she’d never in her wildest dreams thought she needed to hear.
She stared at him as he sang the final refrain, hiseyes closed as he went somewhere other than the sticky floor of a local bar.
I loved you once and broke your heart.
Spun out of reach and called it art.
Made my bed and played my part.
I’d trade it all to go back to the start.
I loved you once.
I loved you once.
I loved you once.
I loved you once. I love you still.
And every damned day between then and now,
All the days to come, this is my vow.
I’ll love you. I’ll love you. I’ll love you. I will.
Everyone in the bar sang the last three lines with him, but Willow sat transfixed, forgetting her part as she let it all sink in. Every word he’d written… Every song he’d sung…
When the last string had been strummed and the whole audience broke into applause, Ash finally opened his eyes and glanced her way.
Willow flung her guitar over her shoulder so it hung across her back, slid off her stool, and threw her arms around Ash’s neck.
“They were all forme,” she said. And then she kissed him, not caring who saw, what they thought, and what they might decide to post on social media once they got their phones back intheir possession.
“Every last song,” he admitted, his lips parting into a smile against hers. “A song is neverjusta song, Wills. At least…not mine.”
The tavern patrons had plenty to say about Ash moving his own guitar out of the way so he could plunge his fingers into her hair and kiss her like only he could. There was continued applause, some whistles, and even aGet a room!that sounded an awful lot like Boone.
Willow kissed a trail along his jaw and then whispered in his ear. “We’re supposed to do one more song,” she reminded him.
“They don’t know that,” he whispered back, sending a wave of goose bumps over her flesh and setting her on fire from within. He kissed her again and then spun toward the crowd.
“Willow Morgan, everyone! Get your tickets to see her at Acoustic Acres next month!”
Before she had a chance to give him the same recognition, Ash’s hand was around hers, and he was pulling her through the crowd and back toward the kitchen. Like a couple of teenagers fleeing a party that just got busted, they ran toward the back door, stopping only to toss their guitars into their respective cases before bursting out into the night.
“Wait!” Willow cried before they got twenty feet from the tavern. “Eli drove us here!”
