“Won’t that be a problem if you’re taking a music class and then competing in front of a crowd?”
“That’s for me to worry about, isn’t it?” She pushed past him. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an inner tube to find,” she said over her shoulder.
“Hey.” He jogged to catch up with her. “Let me help.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“I’m sorry about the confusion, but I seriously didn’t want anything to happen to your fiddle.”
“Thanks.” She kept walking.
“I’m Brock, by the way. Brock Jones. My friends call me Badger.”
“Yeah, I can see why.” But she said it with a hint of a smile. “I’m Brianna Taylor.”
“Wait.” He paused and she stopped mid-step and looked at him curiously. “TheBrianna Taylor, fiddle player?”
Her mouth dropped open and she frowned. “What are you talking about? Nobody’s heard of me. I’m no one.”
Brock grinned. “No oneyet. So I just wanted to be the first one to say that before you win the contest and everyone knows who you are.”
She made a scoffing sound as an incredulous smile spread across her lips. “You’ve never even heard me play.”
“No, but I have a hunch about this. And my hunches are never wrong.”
“Never, huh?” She arched an eyebrow.
“Nope. Just like I know we’ll find your inner tube.”
She rolled her eyes and started walking again. The river was to their left and the ground to their right started to rise as they walked into a canyon that was carved around Lyons. A couple minutes passed before she said, “I’ll buy you another coffee.”
“I was kidding. You don’t have to.”
“Why? You didn’t like it? Riversong, right?” She pointed up. They were about to pass under the bridge near the coffee shop in question.
“No, I love their coffee.”
“You’d better because I work there, and I make a damn good cup of coffee.”
“But not this week,” Brock said, looking down at her. He’d been resisting doing that, because every time he looked at her it got harder to look away.
That got him a big smile. “Nope. Not this week.”
“This week, you’re Brianna Taylor, world-renowned fiddle player.”
She shook her head. “‘Badger’ is right.”
“Yup, I’m right.”
She laughed. “That’s not what I meant.”
He was about to ask if she’d like to just skip finding the inner tube, climb the stairs on the other side of the bridge that lead to the street above and grab that coffee, when they spotted a couple of kids coming the other way. They were each carrying an inner tube slung over one arm and a third balanced between them on their heads.
“Do you know if someone lost this?” one kid shouted.
“Me,” Brianna said. “Thank you!”
When the kids reached them, they bent and dropped the inner tube on the ground and started up the stairs to cross the town and drop back into the other branch of the river. They’d probably be at it all day.
