“A place!” she yells.
“Anywhere specific?”
“Maybe somewhere on the coast?”
“Hmm, east or west?” I act deeply invested in her reply.
“I think either one. Maybe flip a coin, because I can’t choose.” She smiles big, knowing what I’m about to do.
“I’m a terrible guitar player, y’all, but maybe Sam will join in if we get it started for him. What do y’all think? Should we try?”
The crowd cheers, and I shrug. “All right, help me out.”
I blow out a steadying breath.I can do this.Think confident thoughts.
If I were anywhere else with Sam, we’d be singing anyway.
I catch a glimpse of Sam thumping his guitar, and I can feel him stomping his foot to set the tempo he wants. I get the crowd clapping on his beat and sing the chorus to the original “Heads Carolina.” When I point to the crowd and cup my ear, they know exactly what to do. Sam scrunches his face and throws his fist with a big grin when I get the crowd going, and it gives me the biggest rush. It was risky with a younger audience, and my heart pounds in relief.
I did it.
Can I go home now?
He leans around the corner with his hat still low, and girls scream. He begins strumming and walks out behind me. Motioning for me to sing it again as he plays, he slowly raises his head and looks over the crowd with a growing smile.
Toward the end of our chorus, he stops playing and whips off his hat, turning it backwards in an exaggerated slow-motion move while pressing pedals with his foot. “Y’all ’bout ta make me act up!”
Girls go crazy, and I fade back, hopping on a riser to give him more room while clapping over my head to encourage the audience to get louder.
When I hear him begin to strum the Cole Swindell version of the song, I yell out over the screams, “Give it up for Sam Haynes!”
He performs it perfectly, changing lyrics on the fly to replace words that mention a bar. Carla is cracking up at his spontaneous rewrite, but I don’t think anyone’s too worried about typical country lyrics in Nashville.
After I back him on the first song, he enthusiastically greets the crowd.
“What’s up, Nashville! Thank you for havin’ us! What should we do next? Any ideas? I thought we’d just wing it, so it’s up to y’all,” he jokes, and everyone laughs. “I see you’ve already met my best friend, Lucy Sky. The more y’all sing, the more she’ll sing, so y’all gotta stay loud.”
I wave as he hands me his guitar, subtly lifting his chin to another. He pulls his phone from his pocket and entertains the crowd reading the funniest comments and requests into the mic as I switch out his guitars. He’s such a natural.
“Ooh, looky here—@tater365 wants a song with fire. Come on, Lu Lu. Let’s ‘Start a Fire,’ y’all!” He looks to me with a satisfied grin because it’s one of the camp songs we practiced. I see where he’s headed, so I grab a capo, placing it on the first fret while he continues to chat up the crowd. This earns me a side-eye because I just gave away that I do in fact know how to play this song. I also realize he’s hand-picking comments that match songs we rehearsed. Sneaky genius.
We sound great, and the whole field of people sings along. I can’t believe how interactive they are with such a simple setup. He goes straight into “Press On” before I have a chance to think about the second verse being mine.
Oh well. There’s no turning back now.
“You wanna play with fire, Lu Lu? That just wasn’t enough for me.” He gives me his heart-stopping stage smile beforeleaning down to my ear. “I’ll do a verse and chorus, then you run into me with something big. Surprise me.”
The fact that I understand the assignment is absurd.
It’s like we have sibling telepathy.He raises back up, lifting the neck of the guitar.
“Do it, Sammy!” I walk backward, laughing but giving him space so he doesn’t take my head off. I’ve seen this before, and I know the danger.
He dramatically hitches the guitar up, spinning once before he sings a verse and chorus of “Ring of Fire.” Just as he ends, I hop off the riser. I playfully shove him to the side, mouthing, “Firework,” so he’s ready when I belt it.
I don’t know it well besides the chorus, but I know it’s not hard to play. He’s got it. The crowd jumps in and takes over before I have to worry about the lyrics.
We’re completely off-script now. He does a classic Springsteen song, and I top it with Pink’s “Just Like Fire.” This is even better than singing Poison Tuesday night. The crowd is electric, singing and yelling out requests, erupting in squeals when Sam reads a comment by someone they know.
