Chapter 1: Leave the pieces

"Bella get up! We are already running behind schedule!" Alice sang excitedly as she pranced into my room.

"I'm getting up, I'm getting up," I said as I rolled back over and punched my snooze one more time.

"I mean NOW!" I heard as my covers were violently yanked off of me.

"OK! I'M UP! GEEZ," I said as I slowly rolled out of bed.

"Bella you would think that you would be a little more excited, this is the day we have been dreaming about for years!" Alice said with her tiny hands placed on her hips.

"Yeah I know, I am excited, I would just be a little bit more excited if it were about four hours later." Alice knew I was as far from a morning person as you could get. She rolled her eyes and chunked my hairbrush at me.

"Well the time is now, my dear friend. Get ready and meet me downstairs, Charlie is waiting on us to take us to the airport." Alice said as she skipped down the stairs. How she can possibly be so chipper all the time baffles me. Sure, I was beyond excited that I was about to start this new journey through life with my best friend, but come on… it's only 6 am!

As I walked down the stairs, I saw my dad Charlie standing there. "Bout time Bells, I should have known you were going to run late."

"That's why you love me." I said as I placed a kiss on his cheek.

"Well come on. We need to get to that airport soon and you know how traffic is in Seattle." Charlie said as he picked up our bags and headed to the car. Charlie hated traffic, which I guess is one reason why he wanted to live in Forks. The only traffic problem we ever had was if an animal escaped from a pasture. Ah, the quaint city of Forks. Sure, I would miss it, but I have always seen myself as being a city girl. I was never much for playing outside or getting dirty, I'd much rather curl up in front of a fireplace and read a nice book. But Charlie on the other hand, couldn't get enough of the outdoors and quiet streets. I think this boring town is the one thing that drove my mother away so many years ago. I guess I'm a little like her in a sense, ready for something bigger in life than going fishing every weekend on my dad's old bass boat.

We finally made it to the Seattle airport 3 hours later just in time to board our plane to Nashville. I gave my dad a big hug and thought I saw a small tear forming in the corner of his eye.

"Ok Bells, you know I love you more than you could ever imagine. Take care of yourself down there. Alice, I trust you to watch over her, and I know you will. And you both stay away from boys, all they are is trouble." He said as he returned a bear hug, one for me, and one for Alice. I felt kind of bad for leaving Charlie all alone to fend for his self. I would be 2,500 miles away from him, by far the longest I have ever been away from him in my entire life. But, he reassured me that he would be fine and that he trusted me to do the right things, so I felt a little better about chasing after my dream.

"Ok Dad," we both said in unison. Although Charlie wasn't Alice's dad, we had been best friends since we were 7, and she was just as much a part of the family as I was. Alice was right, this was the day that we had been dreaming about for years. Our whole lives we had always been told we could sing. Alice and I met each other in school choir in second grade and had been best friends ever since. We had both loved music more than anything else, and we couldn't think of anything else in the world we would rather do with the rest of our lives than sing. After we graduated high school, I told Charlie that Alice and I wanted to move to Nashville to try and become a star. He of course went absolutely berserk and made me promise that I would at least try college out for a few years before doing anything drastic. After just graduating from a local community college with an Associate's degree in Business, he finally gave me the ok to go ahead with our plans.

Sitting on the plane going from Seattle to Nashville, all Alice and I could talk about was what lies ahead. "I just never thought this day would come!" Alice said as happy as she could be.

"I know… me neither, considering we have been talking about this since 7th grade. I never really thought that we would go through with it, but we did." I said proudly. I was proud that Alice and I were finally doing this. We were finally taking those first steps to growing up; living on our own, in a city we had never been to. I admit, I was a little scared to be so far away from home. I had never in my life been this far away from home. I know that there would be no way I could have ever even imagined doing all of this without Alice. There was no one else in the world that could be a better friend, and I was extremely excited that we were pursuing our dreams together.

As we walked out of the Nashville Airport, I couldn't be more excited. We called for a taxi to take us to our new apartment. We had to decide on an apartment before we moved, so we had only seen it online. When we got there we couldn't believe our eyes. It was way better in person! As we walked in to the open living and kitchen area, all of our things had already arrived and were in place. This couldn't be more perfect.

"Ok so I say we tear open our suit cases and find those swim suits! I have been dreaming of that pool for months now!" Alice practically screamed. It was nice to be able to go swimming in September. Being from Washington, we didn't have very much of an opportunity to lay by the pool.

As we made our way into the pool area, we couldn't help but notice the most beautiful girl we had ever seen tanning by the pool. She was the perfect size, had the perfect face, and the perfect blond hair… just the type of girl I usually couldn't stand. We passed through a heavy iron gate and let it slam shut behind us.

"Could you please be quite, some of us are trying to nap." The perfect girl snapped.

"Sorry, we are new here. What's your name?" Alice said nicely. Most of the time Alice was too friendly for her own good, but that's why I loved her so dearly.

"Rosalie, but please don't talk to me, I have better things to do."

"Wow what a bitch," I whispered to Alice.

"I know" Alice said sadly, "I hope everyone from Nashville doesn't act like that."

After we had lain by the pool for an hour, we decided we should go back inside. We were not used to all this sun, and being sun burnt for our first performance would not be fun.

"Ok so we have to be at the Honky Tonk by 9:15" I said to Alice.

"Ok. Gosh Bella I cannot believe we are finally doing this! Let's practice some just to make sure we are good and prepared." But just before we started to practice, someone knocked at the door.

"Who could that be? We don't know anyone yet" questioned Alice.

"I don't know, answer it." As Alice opened the door, a man was standing there with a clip board and some keys in his hand.

"Hello ladies," the older man said. "My name is Bert and I'm a car salesman from down the street. A man by the name of Charlie asked me to come by and drop off these keys to a 2004 Toyota 4Runner to a Bella and Alice. Is that y'all?" the old man said with a long southern drawl. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Charlie bought us a car! There is no telling what he paid for that. My dad was the greatest.

"Yes that's us!" Alice said as she was jumped up and down.

"Ok ma'am. Just sign right here and here are the keys!" the man said excitedly.

"Oh my goodness Bella, a car! A 4runner! I can't believe it! Now we don't have to call a taxi, this is awesome!" I agreed with Alice. It was beyond awesome. My dad always knew just what to do to brighten my day.

It was 9 and we were leaving our apartment for our first gig in Nashville.

"Alice are you sure I look ok? I'm not used to all of this makeup, and I'm definitely not used to wearing a dress, or cowboy boots." I said looking down. I must admit, I was a little insecure with my plain Jane looks.

"Bella, I'm not even going to answer that question. You always look amazing! And besides, this is our first night in Nashville! Live a little!"

"You're right. Let's go!" We pulled into the parking lot of the Honky Tonk and there were only 3 other cars there.

"Well this looks promising," I said sarcastically to Alice.

"Bella we still have 45 minutes till we go on, I'm sure it will be packed by then." Alice is always so hopeful. I parked our wonderful new SUV and looked at Alice.

"I….I… I don't know if I can go through with this Al"

"Bella, you KNOW that we can do this, we've done it a thousand times before,"

"I know but that was in front of people we know, this is all strangers and possibly even an agent… we could blow it all in one night," I wined to Alice.

"Even if we do blow it tonight, which we won't, there is way more than one agent in town. Now come on Bella, get your ass outta the car." Alice said as she opened her door. She was right, what was I so worried about? I had sung in front of audiences almost every weekend while we were in college and I was never nervous. I finally got out of the car and we made our way into the bar with our guitars in hand.

"Alright are y'all the Vixen Sistas?" A man in a cowboy hat asked us at the entrance.

"Uhh nope… we're Alice and Bella," I wearily replied.

"Oh… alrighty then, well I guess they ain't gonna show up. That means y'all are next. You're up in ten. Oh, and be sure to sing y'all's pretty little hearts out, there's an agent sittin' at the bar," The extremely country man said. I was going to have to get used to this southern slang.

"Ok Bella don't freak out. We're going to do this and we are going to be awesome!" Alice yelped.

"Ok, deep breaths, long deep breaths" I kept saying to myself. Before I knew it, the ten minutes were up and we were walking on stage. I had pretty bad stage fright when Alice and I first started singing together in some bars back in Washington. I had worked up a little bit of immunity to it, but that was all downhill now. This was Nashville, they don't play around. Either you're good or you're bad, and we were about to find out.

I hadn't noticed but there were a few more people in the crowd now that it was a little later. As I stood there, I couldn't help but look around in the audience while Alice was setting up our guitars. There was an older trashy looking couple going at it in the back corner, a few heavy set girls with entirely too much makeup and hairspray in the middle, an awkward looking man sitting at the bar talking on his cell (the agent, I assumed) and then a table of 3 guys near the front, who were all very nice looking. Especially one of them, he had bronze spiked hair and the loveliest face I had even seen. I couldn't take my eyes off of him.

"Ok Bells, I'm ready when you are!" Alice whispered excitedly into my ear.

"What? Oh… sorry, yeah… yeah, I'm ready." Next thing I knew, Alice started playing, and I began to strum along. I stepped up to the mike and started to sing.

"You're not sure that you love me

But you're not sure enough to let me go

Baby it ain't fair

You know to just keep me hanging 'round…"

As I nervously began to sing, I heard someone yelling from the front table. "ALLL right, baby! Sing it to me. You sound good sugar, damn you look good too!" Screamed the tall one in the middle.

I tried my best to block him out, but the bar was pretty small and they were right in front of us. I just pasted my eyes to the back wall. Maybe that would help me concentrate.

"Oh come out sweetheart… show us some sexy moves!" he screamed again. Guess this guy wasn't going to stop. Finally the song was finished. Other than the guy screaming, it went pretty well. I was proud, I had to admit. As we were walking down the steps to get off the stage, I saw someone walking towards us.

"Excuse me miss, I just wanted to come over and apologize for my brothers screaming. He's a little drunk, and isn't very good at containing himself. I truly hope it didn't hinder your performance. You were both great by the way." Said the outrageously beautiful man that I couldn't take my eyes off of.

"Oh… no, it's…its fine" I managed to spill out with a stupid grin on my face. All he did was give me the sexiest crooked smile I had ever seen and walk off. I could feel all of the heat rush to my cheeks and knew I was blushing all over.

"Dude we have got to go now. If we don't get him back to Rose sober by midnight, our ass is grass," said the smaller one holding the tall drunk one up.

"I know, I'm coming. I do have to be at work in a soon anyway," the gorgeous one said back. And with that, they were gone. Maybe I would see him again one day. At least I knew who I would be dreaming about.

"Oh my goodness Bella that guy was absolutely gorgeous! In fact, they were all gorgeous! And we did great!" Alice blurted into my ear.

"Yeah I know, I'm so glad we're here Alice!" I said as I gave my best friend a hug. As we were walking back to our 4runner,I couldn't help but be a little giddy. We had survived our first performance in Nashville, and saw some gorgeous guys while we were at it. Man, life was good.

On the drive home, Alice of course could not stop talking about the night.

"I wonder if that agent will contact us? Oh my goodness Bella would that not be amazing or what! Gah I feel like I just had the best sex of my life!"

"Whoa Al, the night was great, but I wouldn't take it that far" I said sassily back.

"Yeah I guess you're right" she said with a huge smile on her face. I turned up the stereo almost as loud as it could go. Alice and I were singing our favorite songs at the top of our lungs and dancing to the beat.

"Damn girl where'd you get them moves?" I said mocking a guy.

"Oh if you think this is good, just wait till later!" Alice laughed back.

"Slut!" I screamed back at her.

"Oh you're just jealous cause you don't have my sexy moves!"

"Hmm maybe you're ri.."

I was abruptly interrupted by screeching tires and bright lights coming quickly towards us. I just closed my eyes and kept my hands firm against the steering wheel as I feared for mine and my best friend's life.

A/N: Please let me know what you think! And thanks to my amazing beta, Red on the Head00!