“Trouble, times three,” she said with a grin.“Now don’t come cryin’ to me when it hits—y’all grown, and I ain’t hearin’ it.”
“Dar!”Luanne mock-offended.“We have always been three of the sweetest little things in Clifton.”
“Sweet?”Darlene turned away snorting.“Baby, I raised half y’all’s bad habits.”
Cassie, laughing after her, grabbed her jar and took a swig—sighing as she swallowed the old, familiar concoction, memories chasing the taste all the way down.“Holy shit, that’s good…”
Becca lifted her jar.“Now, what did we always use to say before a concert?”
“Go fuck yourself, Miss Delaney!”Luanne crowed, loud enough to draw a few curious looks.
“Because it feels good!”Becca and Cassie replied in unison, laughing and clinking their jars hard enough to send liquid sloshing over the edges.
Miss Delaney, their school music teacher, had been a bitter, mean-spirited woman who never missed a chance to tear down a student.She’d told Cassie her bowing was flashy and self-indulgent, said Luanne’s voice belonged in a honky-tonk, not a concert hall, and forever warned Becca she’d “never be taken seriously dressing like a streetwalker.”Before every rehearsal and concert, they’d huddle and mutter the lines like a good-luck charm.Somewhere along the way, it stopped being about Miss Delaney at all—it just meant showtime.
Luanne tipped back her drink, then shook her head.“Lord, if anyone ever needed some self-lovin’, it was that woman.”
“She’s dead, by the way,” Becca added with a wry smile at Cassie.“Probably lecturing all the demons in hell for singin’ off-key.”
“Correcting Satan’s posture and breath control,” Luanne added.“No doubt even he’s sick of her by now.”
Cassie snorted.“If she’s still conducting in four-four, he sure as heck is.”
Meanwhile, up on the karaoke stage someone had finished mangling “Tennessee Whiskey,” and the opening chords of “Friends in Low Places” rolled out through the speakers.
“Enough about us,” Becca said, shushing Luanne.“I wanna hear about Cassie’s big, glamorous diaper-free life.”
“I wanna hear about all the men she’s dated,” Luanne added.
“Oh, yeah, right,” Cassie huffed.“I’m still the same mess, just with better shoes.And as far as men go—haven’t found any I want to keep yet.”
She hesitated, a slow, mischievous grin curling as she set the jar down.“Although there was this one guy in Vienna that damn near got me to stay…”
“A cellist,” she continued.“Who could play…with his feet.”
Becca just blinked at her.“I’m sorry—what?He could play the cello with his feet?”
“I once dated a guy who could eat french fries with his feet,” Luanne cut in.“He weren’t local neither—”
“Yeah—but South Carolina doesn’t count when Cassie’s over here talkin’ about literal Italians.”
“It was a one-off.”Cassie waved them off, laughing.“And it barely lasted a year.Hell, I’m usually too busy for anything more than a fling, and half the time I can’t stand them after the first week.I mean—” she tipped her head, smirking—“orchestra men: good with their hands, occasionally their feet…but terrible everywhere else.”
The table erupted—Becca choking on her drink, Luanne slapping the surface, laughing loud enough to turn a few heads.
“Speakin’ of terrible…” Luanne said.“You seen Nash yet?”
“Oh god.”Cassie dragged a hand down her face.“So you didn’t hear about me taking a bat to his bar?I figured that’d be halfway to Kentucky by now.”
Luanne’s eyes lit up.“You did what now?”
“Cassie,” Becca said, grabbing her arm.“Please tell me you’re not joking—and that someone got it on video.”
Cassie winced.“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“Jesus Christ,” Luanne leaned back with a slow, impressed smirk.“You’ve been back half a minute and you’re already tearin’ shit up—you’re my freakin’ hero, you know that?”
“But am I the wind beneath your wings too?”Cassie quipped, eager to change the subject.
