This bugger has been sitting around half written for far too long, I apologise!

There was a time when Rayna couldn't stand Deacon Claybourne.

To say they argued wouldn't have come close to covering it - they could barely get through a rehearsal without one yelling and the other slamming a door. She was tempestuous and he was proud and they were both stubborn as all hell. She told him he was an asshole and he told her she was a princess, and that made her spit fire and aim right for him.

And then they shut their mouths and opened them to sing together, and all of their volatility morphed into something beautiful, something that just worked, even if they didn't know why. It was as natural as breathing, the blend of their voices, the feeling that poured from each of them and mingled into something raw and honest. She wrote love songs, broken, guttural ones that she felt in her bones but had never lived, and when Deacon played them with her they took on life, became more than words on paper.

They spent months playing tiny gigs in tiny bars, earning nothing more than an enthusiastic smattering of applause from the twenty-strong crowds, but the reputation they were building for themselves picked up steam in all the right directions. The day Watty White called Rayna to tell her that he'd managed to secure them a paid gig at Tootsies, that someone had actually booked them, she completely forgot how much Deacon infuriated her and was rambling breathlessly down the phone to him before she could even berate herself for knowing his number off by heart.

They rehearsed every day, perfecting their set list, adding in the couple of new songs Rayna had been working on. She reluctantly let him play about with the melodies, cautious to see what he'd come up with, but like everything they did together musically, it slotted right into place, better for the collaboration than it ever would have been on its own.

Rayna was sitting down to dinner with three days to go when Lamar almost ruined everything.

'The Baxters are putting on a dinner at the Country Club in honour of their son passing the bar,' he said, clearing his throat and fixing his two daughters with a grimace. It was rare that he was home for dinner, and Rayna had known there must be a reason. She pushed the food on her plate around as he talked, her mind miles from the overdressed table. 'Ron Baxter's firm are about to close a deal on the arcade downtown, so naturally we will be attending to help them celebrate. I expect you both to be there.'

Tandy sipped her water and picked up a perfectly polished fork with her perfectly polished fingers. 'Sure Daddy. When is it?'

'It's on Saturday.'

'This Saturday?' Rayna asked, her stomach dropping.

'Yes,' Lamar replied in a tone that dared her to challenge him. 'Do you have a problem with that?'

She did have a problem with that. She could tell him the truth. And he could lock her in her room and make sure she went nowhere near Tootsies that Saturday or any other Saturday. Or she could lie.

'It's Lucie Nailor's sweet sixteenth,' she said, looking him steadily in the eyes. 'she's having a party at her house. I don't know what time I'll be back.'

'I don't recall you having mentioned Lucie Nailor since sixth grade.'

'Maybe you just haven't been listening Daddy. I went to the movies with her just a few weeks ago.' Rayna could feel Tandy studiously looking at her plate next to her, opting to keep quiet.

'Regardless,' Lamar said, tucking a napkin into his collar and waving his hand dismissively, 'the Baxters' dinner is more important.'

'Daddy,' Rayna said, careful to keep her voice level though her heart was hammering. The gig was everything to her, the start of all that she knew was to come in her life if she could just make it happen. 'Lucie was really good to me when Momma died, I can't very well miss such an important birthday.' She set down her fork, lifting her chin. 'And her father is on the board at the Credit Union, I don't think it would look so good if I upset his daughter.'

Lamar didn't mention it again, frosty towards her for the rest of their meal, and Tandy's questioning later that night was met with the same story. Rayna knew she couldn't slip up - Lamar had a keener nose for blood than a shark, and their relationship had been more strained than ever since she'd started playing shows, even the ones in the middle of the day to ten people. He made no secret that he disapproved highly of her desire to be a musician, something he seemed to take pleasure in informing her she would fail at.

Saturday came, complete with rain, and Rayna woke up after two restless hours of sleep with lead butterflies in her stomach. She squashed the urge to call Deacon and poured herself a stiff coffee, downed it and poured another two. They were meeting at lunchtime to go through their set one last time, spend the afternoon warming up, and she'd played it out in her mind so many times she felt like they'd already done the gig six times.

She was perched restlessly on a stool in the kitchen trying to swallow some dry cereal when Lamar appeared. He stopped a few steps away from her, the look on his face the one he reserved for her and kitchen staff, something between a sneer and downright disdain.

'Lucie Nailor's birthday is in December,' he said simply. 'You are not old enough to be going into a bar and playing music.' He said it like it was a dirty word, and Rayna bristled. She knew she was in for it when his face turned pink. 'Watty White is not to be helping you,' he spat, so livid she almost expected fire to puff out of his nostrils. 'I don't know who that man thinks he damn well is, encouraging you to piss your life away on some stupid dream.'

'It isn't stupid Daddy,' she said, trying to keep her voice level, 'and it isn't just some dream. Watty got me a gig, a real gig. They're gonna pay us and everythin'.' She hated that even in the depth of her resentment towards him, she wanted his approval, still longed to hear him say he was proud of her for trying so hard to make something of herself. He didn't.

'You do not need paying for anything! You are a Wyatt, you want for nothing, and you do not need to be selling yourself at some filthy two bit bar.'

'Selling myself? You make it sound like I'm workin' a street corner!'

'I'd rather you were - at least you would have no delusions of grandeur turning your head.'

Rayna scoffed and jumped off the stool, her spoon clattering loudly into the bowl of cereal.

'If you really believed you weren't doing something wrong you wouldn't have felt the need to lie about it, would you?' he said scornfully, and pounded his fist on the counter. 'You will not go.'

'You think I'm gonna sit and play nicely at your Country Club games Daddy, just like you?' She shook her head. 'I'm not like you. I never will be - it doesn't matter what you do.'

'You are my daughter Rayna and you will behave the way I tell you to! You will give up this music rubbish - I will not allow you to shame this family.'

'Shame the family, really?' She felt her lungs burn. 'Is that what Momma did so wrong?'

She thought for a second that he was going to slap her across the face, and she braced herself, staring him down. When he spoke his voice was ice cold and too quiet.

'Your mother disgraced this family chasing after things that were nothing but poison. You will not make those mistakes.'

'Watch me,' Rayna hissed, stalking past him.

'If you go near that place don't you think you're coming back to this house,' he called after her, and she would have felt the sting if she hadn't been so furious.

'Fine!'

'I mean it. You are making a choice here - and if you make the wrong one, you are no daughter of mine.'

As she slammed the door behind her she felt like he'd slapped her in the face anyway.

#

'I think we should swap these two around, do the two slower numbers first, build up to this one.'

'Sure,' Rayna said, and Deacon lifted an eyebrow.

'You okay?'

'I'm fine. I think you're right - they sit better that way.'

'You think I'm right? Are you sure you're okay?' Deacon laughed, and she felt the tangle in her stomach loosen a little.

'Make the most of it Deacon, I'm not gonna say that again.' She scrubbed a pencil line through the set list. 'Not to you, anyway.'

'So what's with the bag?' he asked, motioning towards the holdall she'd stuffed under the table. 'You plannin' on pullin' an all-nighter?'

'Somethin' like that.' Rayna fiddled with the rubber on the end of the pencil, scribbled a few more pointless lines on the sheet of paper.

'Rayna?' he said, nudging her knee with his.

She looked up at him and took in a deep breath. 'My father kicked me out.'

'What?'

'He said if I came here tonight that I shouldn't bother going home.'

He stared at her for a moment. 'He kicked you out for playing a gig?'

'Yep.'

Deacon let out a breath. 'Guess your daddy's not your biggest fan, huh?'

She wanted to say something but she thought she might cry if she opened her mouth, the anger and the fear she wished she could push away that made her remember she was barely more than a kid rising to the surface. But Rayna and fear had been due a rematch since the day her mother had died and she'd wondered if she'd ever be able to sleep a full night again without seeing images of her bloody and broken in a hospital bed.

'What are you gonna do?'

'I haven't got that far yet.' She shrugged and gave him a tremulous smile, mentally pulling herself together. She wasn't about to let herself fall apart in front of anyone, least of all Deacon Claybourne. 'We've got a gig to focus on, I'll figure out the rest later.'

He didn't point out that 'later' would be almost midnight, or that she'd pressed so hard on the paper that she'd drawn a pencil whirlwind right through onto the Formica table underneath.

'You can stay with me.'

She couldn't help the shock on her face as she looked up at him, and he wondered if he'd said the wrong thing, but she needed somewhere to stay, and there was no way he'd see her out on the streets. He'd heard stories about Lamar Wyatt, about his money, about his stranglehold on half the town. It seemed that stranglehold extended to his daughter too. That was some integrity she had there, to turn away from him. Deacon knew what it was to have to fight for what ran through your veins.

'I rent an apartment over the other side of town with a friend of mine, it's not the Ritz, but it's something,' he said, feeling shy all of a sudden. 'You can have my room, I'll take the couch.'

Ordinarily she would have turned him down, either out of politeness at not wanting to put him out, or because she'd half-on-purpose dropped a mic stand on his foot last week when he'd pissed her off. But this wasn't ordinarily, and she wasn't in a position to refuse such a gesture. She looked out at the rain coming down against the window.

'Wouldn't your friend mind?'

Deacon laughed. 'Vince is in a different girl's bed every night, he's hardly ever there.' He saw the look that crossed her face and hurried to correct himself. 'He wouldn't maul you or anything, Vince is a gentlemen. He's just got a bit of a thing for women.'

'And you don't?'

He fiddled with the napkin holder in the middle of the table, not sure why he couldn't meet her eye. 'I'm not so bad Rayna. And I make a mean poached egg.' The second it was out of his mouth - How do you like your eggs in the morning? he thought, feeling like an idiot - he waited for her to roll her eyes, but she didn't. She smiled at him instead, and he really wished she'd aim more of those his way.

'Why would you do that for me Deacon?'

'Because you're putting yourself on the line for your music,' he said honestly, 'and you could use a friend.'

'So we're friends now?'

He shrugged. 'We are if you have any girl stuff in that bag that'll make my bathroom smell better than it does right now.'

#

Rayna could pinpoint the best forty minutes of her life to those she spent on the rickety stage trying at first not to catch the eyes of the audience scattered before her, and then trying to look away once she realised she had them in the palm of her hand. She did look away, only to lock eyes with Deacon and forget they were in front of anyone else at all. She felt the applause that greeted the end of their set vibrate through every bone in her body, making her feel like nothing ever had, like something had fallen into place that she would never be able to deny herself again. It was where she belonged, up there, there was no doubt in her mind, however much she had to fight for it.

She sat with Deacon and the rest of their band at one of the tables afterwards to watch the couple of acts that came after them, the elation she felt clearly shared by all of their little group, staying until the harassed-looking barman kicked them out at closing time. Deacon picked up her bag before she could reach for it, ushering her out of the door and into a cab he flagged down.

They didn't speak until he opened the creaky front door of the small ground floor apartment, motioning for her to go first.

'Like I said, it's not much,' he said, hovering by the door and watching her take it in.

She turned to him. 'It's great Deacon, really.'

He smiled, feeling an odd little flicker of relief, and led her to a door down the narrow hallway.

'This is my room,' he said, putting her bag down next to the bed. She noted with surprise that he'd made it that morning, and just as quickly the thought that maybe he hadn't slept in it at all popped into her head, followed by an unwelcome little twist in her stomach. 'I'll put some clean sheets on for you, and there are towels in the closet.'

'You don't need to do that, I'm sure your sheets are just fine,' she said awkwardly.

He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. 'Do you need anything? A drink, something to eat? Or I can just leave you to sleep?'

'Actually,' she replied, 'I don't much feel like sleeping. I could use some air though.'

They sat in the little space outside the living room doors, heads resting against the wall of the building. To call it a garden would be generous; it was more a yard, empty flower pots that Rayna imagined had been left behind by the previous tenant dotting the edges, a rusty patio table that was once white set in the middle. Deacon had hastily moved the empty beer bottles that had been piled up on it when he'd opened the doors, throwing them in a garbage bag in the kitchen.

'This has been quite a night, huh?' he said, settling beside Rayna and looking up at the city-glow sky, rain pattering on the tiled roof. They were close enough to the wall to avoid being soaked, cocooned on a picnic blanket he'd laid out for them to sit on.

'Yeah,' she agreed, still dizzy with the feeling. 'I've never felt anything so good in my whole life.'

He lit a cigarette and lifted it to his lips. 'You smoke?'

'No. Not as far as my father thinks anyway.'

He grinned and handed it to her, and she closed her eyes as she exhaled slowly, feeling him watching her.

'There's nothing like it,' he said, taking it from her when she passed it back. 'That feeling - performing, letting people hear your music. It's the only thing I've ever known that gets better and better instead of more and more fucked up.'

'Yeah,' she breathed, hugging her knees to her chest.

'Why's your daddy so against you making music?'

'Because he doesn't want me to be my momma, I guess.'

'Is your momma a singer too?'

Too. She liked the way that sounded, like it was validation of the path she'd chosen, that she was good enough to be on it. 'She was,' she said, and Deacon waited for her to go on. 'She died a few years ago.'

'Ray,' he said quietly, 'I'm sorry.' She looked at him and plucked the cigarette from his fingers, keeping her eyes on him while she took a drag.

'Me too. So, Deacon Claybourne, where is it you're from?'

'Not too far from Shelbyville ma'am, horse country. My momma and pops have got a farm out there.'

'You're a farm boy?' she asked, surprised.

'Sure am,' he told her with a wink. 'You ever need any horses shoeing, I'm your guy.'

She laughed. 'I'll remember that.'

'So...what now?'

'I find a job, I guess. The gig tonight helped, it's hardly a rent cheque but it's a start. I need to look for someplace to live.'

'You can stay here as long as you want. I mean it.'

She thanked him, gratitude washing over her, and got up to head to bed, the events of the day and their long night rendering her suddenly exhausted. Deacon stayed where he was, looking at her lipstick marks on the butt of the cigarette that had burnt down between his fingers and wondering what they were letting themselves in for.

#

She stayed for two months. On numerous occasions she tried to swap the couch for the bed so that Deacon could get a good night's sleep, but he refused every time.

'And girls complain that chivalry's dead,' he'd tell her, stealing one of her pillows all the same.

'You could always sleep in it with me,' she'd said one night, blushing furiously when she'd realised how it sounded.

'Even if I managed to keep my hands to myself, Ray, your father ever caught wind of that and he'd have a shotgun up my ass.'

Neither of them mentioned his hands or what it was they might want to do again, and she repaid his generosity with bacon and maple pancake breakfasts just like her mother used to make for her, the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of her soft singing waking Deacon up in a morning. Vince wolfed down his pancakes and battled Deacon to the half-eaten one she always left on her plate, and she laughed when they sung her the song they'd written about her playing Wendy to their Lost Boys. She planted sunflowers in the pots in the yard, wiped the toothpaste smears off the bathroom mirror and stocked their fridge with fresh pints of milk, and Deacon wasn't sure if it was him or Vince who asked her first if she'd stay forever.

'What in the hell are these?' Vince said one morning, emerging from the bathroom holding up a set of steam rollers. 'I will never understand why girls need so much crap. My face smells good though - sniff me.'

He hovered over Rayna who snorted. 'Vince…that's tinted moisturiser.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means in five to six hours you're going to look like you've gone three rounds with a sunbed,' Deacon said, laughing loudly.

There were nights they sat on his couch, cross-legged and surrounded by pizza boxes and sheets of half-written lyrics, nights when the power went out - which it did frequently, Vince and Deacon were never great at paying their bills - and they lay on the floor in candlelight, the three of them, talking about anything, everything until the sun came up - their favourite songs, the recurring nightmare about tractors Deacon had, the boyfriend Rayna had dumped when he'd tried to take her to a restaurant wearing pinstripe. There were afternoons Rayna sat on the kitchen counter swinging her legs and eating ice cream while Deacon marvelled at how much mint chocolate chip she could put away, mornings when he tried to teach her how to better her guitar skills, always with little success and much laughter. There were no nights, despite the times Deacon took the washing off the line to be confronted by her flimsy pyjama shorts and silk underwear, that they crossed the lines they'd silently drawn, no nights he gave in to his desire to crack open his bedroom door and sit on the end of the bed to watch her sleep.

She landed a job waiting tables in a café downtown, and saved up enough to room with a couple of girls who were trying to make it on the circuit too. After she was gone, Deacon left it as long as he could before he washed his sheets - which was a while, given that a. he was a guy and b. she'd made his pillows smell like her hair and his covers smell like her skin. In those few weeks with her scent still lingering around him, he slept more peacefully than he had in years. Rayna, on the other hand, tossed and turned every night in her new bed, missing his terrible coffee and the way he sang Dolly Parton in the shower.

If it was a lie she had to thank for changing irrevocably the way Deacon looked at her, for kick-starting a string of gigs that landed them a deal a few months later and a number one record a few months after that, it was one she would never regret.