We clear our plates as the sun slowly sinks toward the horizon. The crowd on the street gets thicker with each passing moment as more and more people funnel onto the strip in search of a good time. Beer-bikes wheel by, their drunken participants singing off key as they pedal down the street like parade floats. Music fills the air, drifting out every open window in a half-mile radius as the neon signs begin to flare to life all around us.
“You can talk to me, you know,” Carly says eventually, drawing my gaze back to her face. She looks uncharacteristically serious. “If you ever need a place to pour your heart out, or a shoulder to cry on, or simply someone to take you dancing as a distraction… I’m your girl.”
“Thanks, Carly.”
She winks. “What are spirit guides for?”
* * *
We endup at Tootsie’s.
The famous Orchid Lounge, so named for its bright purple paint job, is a Nashville institution. With three floors of live music plus a rooftop bar, the honky tonk backs straight up to the Ryman and pulls in crowds by the hundreds every weekend. Everyone from Kenny Chesney to Kieth Urban has been spotted here, whether sipping beers at the bar or singing on stage. By the time we reach the violet building, the sun has set in full and there’s a line wrapped around the corner.
I groan. “We’ll be waiting an hour at least.”
“Stick with me, kid.” Carly winks and winds her arm through mine, tugging me past the front entrance to a narrow alley. There’s a towering bouncer dressed in all black guarding a side door, but he breaks into a smile as soon as he lays eyes on us.
“Carly! I didn’t know you were coming tonight. How’ve you been, gorgeous?”
“Hey, handsome! Can’t complain.” She squeezes me. “This is my friend Felicity.”
His eyes slide to mine, skittering down my frame. I try not to fidget as his gaze lingers a few beats too long at my cleavage.
Carly’s voice is flirtatious and bubbly. “My girl here is brand new to Nashville and I’m taking her for a night out on the town — naturally, I knew our first stop had to be Tootsie’s. Y’all do honky tonk right.”
“New, huh?” His eyes meet mine. “Carly was right to bring you here, we’ll make sure you feel right at home.”
“I’m, like,soexcited,” I gush, doing my best Lacey Briggs impression.
Carly pinches my arm, trying not to giggle. “Anything you could do to keep us from standing in that line? You’d be our hero!”
“Ah, hell.” The bouncer winks at her and cracks the door open a few inches. “You know I’m your guy.”
She lets out a squeak of excitement but before we pass through, there’s a toll to be paid — he holds out his arms and engulfs Carly in a suffocating hug that includes some serious groping of her behind.
Yuck.
Carly doesn’t bat an eye. As soon as she’s free, she drags me inside before I’m swallowed up in his arms as well, calling back over her shoulder to the doorman.
“Thanks again, handsome!”
We cut our way across the bar on the ground floor. My eyes scan the walls, which are covered in pictures of famous celebrities dating back decades. The dark room is packed with so many people it’s hard to breathe, all drinking beers and bobbing their heads in sync as a man goes wild with an electric guitar on the corner stage. Carly barely pauses to let me take in the sight before she yanks me up a set of stairs to the second floor.
It’s a larger space, but no less crowded. A all-girl group is covering a Martina McBride song, with mixed results. Most of the audience is too drunk to care much that the lead singer isn’t entirely in tune when she stretches for her high notes.
With a grimace and a head shake, Carly vetoes the second floor and heads for the third. The crowd thins slightly as we ascend, giving me room to breathe again. We’re halfway up the stairs when the female vocalists are finally drowned out by the top floor act. The song sounds naggingly familiar, but I can’t quite place it… until we step through the archway and I get my first clear glimpse of the stage.
No, no, no.
“Carly, wait—” I yell, trying to stop her, but she doesn’t hear me over the music. And then, it’s too late. She spots Ryder, Aiden, and Lincoln on the stage and grins like it’s the best surprise of her life. Turning to look at me, she screams, “Oh my god! Look who’s playing!”
I’d be convinced she arranged this specifically to torture me, if the astonishment on her face wasn’t so completely genuine. Plus, she has no reason to think I’d have any problem being here. No one knows about my strange issues with Ryder, because I haven’t confided in anyone about them. As usual.
Like he said the other day…
Felicity, you’re a closed book. Padlocked shut. Written in code, so in the off chance you do manage to pry it open, you need a cypher key to make sense of it all.
He was right.