The crowd goes wild with cheers, and he smiles at all of them, flashing that mega-watt, panty-dropping grin without looking my way.
"I wrote this one last night on the tour bus, so my band hasn’t had much time to practice it. It’s a song about a girl I once knew and lost, who came back into my life but refuses to acknowledge that we’re too deep in to let anything stop what’s been brewing for years. I’ve titled it, ‘Mayday,' to signify the distress signal I'm sending out to her tonight.”
My breath freezes in my lungs, heart stuttering. He strums his guitar gently while the crowd cheers, before he begins a song full of longing, heartbreak and pain. Tears fill my eyes again as I listen to him.
“Oh my gosh,” Georgia whispers in my ear. “He wrote this song for you, Mae.Mae-day.”
Though his eyes are closed as he sings, I know without a doubt she’s right. Cody wrote this song for me and the distress he’s felt since I asked for a break.
Georgia grips my arm, her eyes panicked. “Bad timing, Mae, but I think my water just broke.”
“What!” I shout, finally tearing my eyes away from Cody and looking at her.
She nods nervously and points down at her dress which now has a noticeable wet spot in the back accompanied by a trickle rushing down her leg.
“We need to get you to the hospital right now!”
She clutches her stomach and groans. “The contractions are starting.”
I grab her arm and pull her through the VIP section to a side exit, rushing towards the curb of the stadium parking lot and flagging down a cab from the waiting line.
“The hospital, please!” I scream as Georgia slides into the back seat of the car, groaning in pain.
Chapter 23: Cody
“That was one hell of a concert, Cody. You really lit up Nashville,” Victor says, clapping me on the back with a grin.
I force a smile as I nurse a glass of whiskey backstage while my band relaxes with some groupies after another successful headliner.
I’d quit drinking years ago, but ever since Mae reentered and then rapidly exited my life again, it seems like a habit I’ve decided to pick back up.
Glancing over at my drummer, who’s entertaining a pretty brunette on his lap, I realize we have a short two-day break now, and all I want is to spend it with Mae. Holding her, kissing her, making love to her, telling her that what I’ve been feeling is forever. But after singing the song I wrote for her on the tour bus last night and watching her leave the concert midway through it, I think I’ve finally realized that won’t be happening.
She wants nothing to do with you, man.
I can’t understand what went wrong. We were doing great, hell, better than great. I'd fallen in love with her again, though I hadn’t said it yet. Even after her parents tried to meddle in our relationship, Mae reassured me that we were solid and that she had told them to back off. I was going to meet her daughter, we’d talked about the future and yet, just one week into my tour, shedecides to pull the professional publicist card.
It didn’t make sense then and I still don’t get it.
I know she takes her job seriously and had been upfront about never sleeping with a client but what we had was never a client-publicist relationship. What we had extended beyond Mae and her firm. What we had extends to a decade ago.
I wanted to know she was mine while I was gone.
I wanted to know she wasn’t seeing other guys while I was on the road.
But she thought this would be better for me, so that I could pose with women, my fans, and pretend to be a single guy to maintain this façade when all I can think about is her.
Fuck…
“Need some company?” a sultry voice whispers, interrupting my thoughts. I look up to see Tamara, a fellow country music singer who’s on tour with us, leaning in way too close.
I’ve known she’s had a thing for me for a while, but I’ve never wanted to go there, especially after the recent drama with Harper. Fucking her would be an attempt at forgetting Mae but nothing could ever truly get me past her. Even if Mae doesn’t want me, all I see and want is her.
“No thanks,” I shoot back, emptying my glass as Tamara scowls and rolls her eyes.
I sigh, considering calling it a night and heading back to my apartment alone but then Harper waddles over to me, much more pregnant than she was the last time I saw her.
Great. This fucking night just keeps getting better.
