Being back in Rayna's band was hard at first. She had had a long conversation with him about boundaries. He always thought that the boundaries were for her as much as for him. He would catch her sometimes looking at him. When he caught her gaze, she would blush and turn away. He liked the fact that he got to stand behind her because that allowed him the chance to look at her and remember everything about her, how soft her skin was, how sweet she smelled, how her breath felt on him, how her skin felt touching his. Of course, that would lead him to need a way to release the tension and, since he couldn't drink it away, he used other women to ease the pain. Never anyone that wanted anything beyond a quick roll in the hay and he was lucky that there was always some woman who would oblige him.
He knew it bugged Rayna. She didn't say a lot about it, but he knew it bothered her. He could see her out of the corner of his eye when he would leave with yet another young girl, his arm draped possessively around her shoulder. Rayna's eyes would have a sadness to them and he would see her pain. But when he looked her full on, it would be gone and she would smile and wave. She was always good at putting on her performance face when she needed to.
It bugged him too, that she went home to Teddy. Occasionally Teddy would meet her somewhere on the tour and when that happened, the tension was always ratcheted up. Whenever Deacon was around, Teddy's arm would be a little tighter around Rayna's waist, he would lean in to her and kiss her or playfully nibble at her earlobe. And his eyes would always be on Deacon, seeming to dare him to say or do anything about it. And when Rayna turned away, he would smirk at Deacon. So Deacon started to sex it up onstage with Rayna a little more whenever Teddy was there. She would always look a little surprised, but would quickly respond in kind, smiling at him, letting him know with her eyes that the spark was still there. When she turned away, Deacon would look towards Teddy on the side stage and give him a look that let him know he knew exactly what he was doing. Teddy would fume and Deacon would smile to himself. It was like a game between the two and all it ended up doing was making them hate each other more and causing distress for Rayna as she tried to manage it.
Over time, however, Deacon acknowledged that she was loyal to Teddy, regardless of whether he made her happy or not. She was committed to Teddy and her marriage and her girls and that was something that Deacon always respected about her. She was loyal. Hell, she was loyal to him as well, bringing him back to her band and keeping him as a friend. Together they learned how to maneuver the landscape of friendship without anything more. Not always an easy proposition, with their history, but because of that history, they knew how to support each other and respect each other.
He never stopped loving her though. He stayed sober for her, to prove to her that he could do it, and he wanted her to know he was doing it for her. He always hoped there would be a chance for them, even after she got pregnant with Daphne. That had knocked the wind out of him when he found out. Until then, he could convince himself that she and Teddy had a shell of a marriage and that she was only in it out of loyalty, but Daphne proved that wrong.
He'd been as close as he'd ever been to taking a drink after she admitted to him that she was pregnant. He remembered how she'd been sick off and on and couldn't seem to shake it. Because she was so familiar to him and he noticed everything, he had noticed that her breasts had gotten bigger. And he'd noticed the soft roundness to her belly. Nothing most people would have noticed, but he did. When he'd asked her how she was feeling, she had burst into tears and told him she was pregnant. He couldn't decide if she was happy about it or not, but he knew, as much as she loved Maddie, it wasn't the baby she was unhappy about. He convinced himself that it was the fact that it tied her more to Teddy that made her unhappy, but she would never confirm that. She used the excuse that it made the tour more complicated.
She postponed the rest of her tour when she got to her seventh month. She was exhausted and felt like she was waddling around the stage. Deacon wanted to tell her that she'd never looked more beautiful, that other than her tummy you would never know she was pregnant, and that she still was kicking ass, but he didn't. He couldn't. So since they weren't touring, they wrote. On a miserably hot day in mid-July they met at Percy Warner Park and hammered out "Changing Ground" in about an hour. He remembered that she was in a very cranky mood and had complained about the heat, about how heavy she felt, about how miserable she was, and how ready she was for the baby to get out. He tried not to laugh at her too much because she would frown and smack his arm every time he did. Luckily for everyone, Daphne was born the next day.
She went back to work sooner than she had after Maddie was born. Daphne was barely three months old when she got the band together to start rehearsing for the rescheduled end of the tour. Deacon thought she looked tired, but when she was on stage, she looked alive again. Their relationship began a subtle change then. They talked more, they met more often at a little bend in the river that was their place for private conversations. She looked him in the eye more often and, when she did, it was with a warmth that she seemed less bothered by. In many ways, they were back to where they'd been before she married Teddy. Minus the sex, of course.
He didn't know what had changed, but he didn't really want to dissect it much. He liked this feeling of being comfortable again with Rayna. He especially liked that he was doing it sober. It sharpened the edges and made everything extra clear, as though a film had been wiped off. She was his best friend. Slowly, he got more okay with the idea that they might just stay friends. They knew so much about each other, though, that they always seemed to be teetering on the edge of something more. One thing he had learned this time around from his sobriety was patience. He was certain that Rayna didn't love Teddy the way she'd loved him. He was certain she still loved him the way she always had. He just needed to be patient.
The other thing that changed after Daphne was born was that they started arguing again. When they had been together, their passions had led them into shouting matches and fights that always ended up with them in bed, making up. These days they didn't end up in bed, unfortunately, but the fighting seemed to solidify the relationship again. They had finally seemed to come almost full circle from where they'd been when Rayna had kicked him out all those years ago. The passion was back. Rayna and Deacon were back. Almost.
She asked him to perform with her at a campaign event for Teddy, when Teddy had run for mayor of Nashville. Actually, that wasn't true. Bucky asked him. After the night at The Bluebird and the decision to do the smaller, more intimate tour, she had seemed skittish around him. The scab had been pulled off the wound that was them pretending they didn't still love each other. He knew she was struggling with where to put that. At first, when Bucky told him what the gig was for, he wasn't sure he wanted to do it. He was voting for Coleman and it seemed disrespectful, not to mention that he despised Teddy Conrad. Rayna was going through that phase where she would not look him in the eye, seemed to hold him at arm's length, and picked fights with him. But he decided to do it anyway, because he felt like she needed him.
It turned out to be pretty much a disaster. It was all the things he hated – politics, the country club, Teddy, and Lamar. Plus he was late getting there, which prompted Lamar to be his usual jackass self, at least when it came to him. He felt ridiculously out of place there. Even Rayna, in her pretty gold dress, looked like it was where she belonged, even though he knew how much she despised it too. He was on edge already and first Lamar, then Teddy, picked at him, and he fought back. He really had meant to just do his job and get the hell out of there, but it became kind of a squaring off between him and Teddy.
Teddy was all dressed up and acting like his typical pinhead self. It was times like these that Deacon would feel like he didn't quite measure up to Teddy. He wasn't as smart as Teddy, he didn't have all the connections that Teddy had, he didn't have the presence that Teddy had. All he had was an ability to write and play music and he could make the great Rayna Jaymes look pretty damn good on stage. He let Teddy's nastiness get under his skin and then he played up the onstage chemistry between himself and Rayna. Hell, he overdid it, truth be told. Rayna kept looking at him and he could see the anger building.
He tried to play dumb afterwards but she was having none of it. I can't believe you put us in this position. He had challenged her about which us she meant. But he knew. He had exposed the undercurrent in their relationship, not only to Teddy, but to everyone in that room. He had put Rayna in an awkward position, just to throw it in Teddy's face. He walked out mad, leaving her in tears, but after he got in his truck and gunned it out of Belle Meade, he knew he'd made a big mistake. He had never meant to do that to her, never meant to force her hand like that. She had fired him the next day. She had actually called him and done it herself, instead of letting Bucky do it. She had wanted him to know just how much he had cost her and the damage he had done.
It wasn't the first time she had fired him. But it was the time that hurt the most.
He kissed her in the elevator in Chicago. He hadn't really meant to and she clearly wasn't expecting it. After she'd fired him in the wake of the debacle at Teddy's campaign event, he had felt as low as he could feel. He really did feel like he'd lost her then. That he had done something that finally pushed her to the point where he would never have a chance with her again. He had worn his heart on his sleeve in front of Teddy and it put her in a bad place. He hadn't really meant to do that either, but he couldn't help himself where Rayna was concerned.
He had joined the Revel Kings, just to get out of Rayna's orbit. Although they had patched things up by then, he knew that as long as she was married to Teddy Conrad, professionally they were through. And he needed to get out of town and try something new. It ended disastrously, when Sy assaulted Scarlett, and then Sy had painted a very negative portrait of him, suggesting Deacon had fallen off the wagon. When Rayna came to check on him, just like in the old days when she felt she had to save him, he'd blown up at her. He really hadn't needed her to worry about him anymore. When he was at his low point, Juliette Barnes had approached him again about joining her band. This time, though, she hadn't pushed, hadn't used sex as an enticement. So he said yes. He didn't know if she really understood that he did it for Rayna. He wanted to be close to her and he didn't know another way to do it. She was still pushing him away. But he needed to be near her.
Rayna knew how to get under his skin. He was trying to keep his distance – her request – but she just pushed and pushed. When she had asked him for what seemed like the hundredth time why he was on the tour – and didn't she really know the answer to that? – he decided to show her. And so he kissed her in that elevator. And she kissed him back. And then she texted him to come upstairs and he thought they were back. But when he went to her room, there was Teddy, standing outside her door.
He'd thought she was sending him a message then, that she was ready. But it seemed not. Apparently talk meant just that – talk. He'd thought at the time it was to remind him she was still married and that she couldn't break that commitment. Then when she didn't tell him she was getting a divorce – he'd had to find out via the tabloids, damn it! – he got the message loud and clear. There wasn't going to be a Rayna and Deacon again. She was moving on, but doing it without him. At least romantically. It was clear, at least to Deacon, that for her moving on meant doing it on her own.
So it appeared it was time for him to move on as well.
Stacey was the first woman he'd had a real relationship with since Rayna. He'd rarely had to spend a night alone if he didn't want to, but he had avoided the women who wanted more than a one-and-done or weren't ok with being a short-term booty call. He couldn't imagine ever having the kind of relationship with another woman that he'd had with Rayna. And truth be told, even though as time went on it seemed less likely to happen, he was still waiting for Rayna to ditch Teddy.
Most of the women were those he met after a show or at an after-party. Although he was pretty sure Rayna didn't like to see it, she couldn't really say anything. She never asked about the other women. The only one he really regretted was Juliette Barnes. He knew Juliette was after him mostly to one-up Rayna and he also knew that hooking up with her hurt Rayna, more than any of the others. In the very beginning, he didn't care, but then it became clear to him that it didn't just piss her off, it hurt her. He got out of it before too long, not because of Juliette so much as because he hated seeing the pain on Rayna's face when she thought he wasn't looking. Because she'd been right when she'd said that about what writing songs led to.
When the rumors started about Teddy and another woman, he thought Rayna might finally be close to ditching him, but when it finally happened, he wasn't the one she turned to. So when Juliette had given him that dog for his birthday and he had taken him to the vet, there was Stacey.
Things happened fast, as they usually did, and he hadn't necessarily planned to see her again, but Cole convinced him to try harder this time. So he did. He liked Stacey. A lot. Things felt different with her than they had with anyone else. She was so different from Rayna. And not part of the music business, which was refreshing. She was a breath of fresh air in many ways, although her insecurity about Rayna bugged him. He had actually been able to move on in some ways because of Stacey. He was actually able to see himself building a new life with someone other than Rayna Jaymes.
He still had found it hard to tell Rayna that Stacey was his girlfriend. It felt awkward. It also hurt Stacey that he had not been as upfront with her about his relationship with Rayna. He tried to calm her fears, but as her insecurities grew, it caused him to wonder what he was doing. He fought it, because he felt like he needed to move on. Because Rayna was apparently moving on, without him. And then Rayna and Liam sang "Postcard from Mexico" at the Nashville show.
Standing alongside the stage with Stacey, he tried not to let it bother him, but there Rayna was, sexing it up with Liam, to their song. He and Rayna had written a lot of songs together but somehow that one was special. Partly because they did a call-and-response format that wasn't typical for them, partly because they had written it while they were in Mexico on vacation, acting out a dirty little scenario with each other. And because that song, more than any other song they did, caused them to practically tear each other's clothes off when they got backstage. For that reason, it was usually their last encore. And now she was singing it with him.
He hadn't been able to stay and listen and he had left Stacey standing there. When she found him later, she had, correctly, pointed out to him that he was still hung up on Rayna. He had tried to be honest with her, but it was the worst thing he could have said to her. She left him there and then Rayna did as well, with Liam, advising him to make things right with Stacey. And he had nothing.
He had gone home, pissed at himself for wearing his heart on his sleeve, again. He couldn't get past Rayna, even though she clearly had gotten past him. And he'd screwed things up with Stacey, but, if he was honest, he knew that wasn't going to work anyway.
He sat in front of the TV, not really watching, trying to decompress. He was too wired to go to sleep. It was after one o'clock in the morning when the knock came at his door. When he'd opened it to find Rayna standing there, he'd been stunned. He could feel his heart beating loudly, unsure of why she was there, and not on a plane to St. Where-Ever-She-Was-Going with Liam. She'd looked a little nervous, a little unsure. He could scarcely breathe.
I love you. That's just never not been true. When she told him she loved him, had always loved him, his first instinct was to call her out on it, to protect himself. He'd waited for this for so long, but now that it was here, he was afraid it wasn't real. When she turned away, he realized he couldn't let her walk away from him again. Hey, he had called out to her. She turned back and was immediately in his arms.
Deacon sat on the bunk, his head leaning against the wall. He roughly rubbed the tears from his eyes. He'd thought that night was the beginning of a new era for the two of them. She'd been so happy, laying there in his bed. He had been too. And even though they still had little fits and starts over the next few months, everything felt right. But he'd had no idea that she was hiding the explosive secret about Maddie and that it was eating her up inside.
He knew in his soul that she still loved him. Even now. If she woke up, when she woke up, he knew she would still love him. Because he still loved her. In spite of it all.
He found himself praying again that she wouldn't die.
He was surprised when the guard opened his cell door and even more surprised when Megan appeared. What the hell was she doing here now? He sighed deeply.
You're being released. He wondered aloud if someone had posted his bail. It was pretty steep, so it couldn't have been Scarlett. Juliette, probably. Then she told him no, nobody posted bail, that someone had confirmed he wasn't driving the car. He had scoffed at her. Who did that?
When she said it was Rayna, that she was conscious, he felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. He felt tears in his eyes and he ran his hand over his mouth. He wanted to collapse to the floor on his knees and thank God. His heart felt like it would explode from the joy of it. She's okay. Thank God, she's okay. Megan told him she'd give him a minute to collect himself. So many thoughts and emotions ran through him. He went from sheer joy to a moment of prayer to a sigh of relief. And then he smiled. She was okay. He had never heard better news in his life.
He walked out of the jail and squinted against the bright sunlight. He found his sunglasses in his shirt pocket and slipped them on. He stood for a moment, just thinking about the fact that he was out of that orange jumpsuit, even though he was in the same clothes he'd come in with. Apparently they had washed them before giving them back, because the bloodstains were gone. He had not seen Megan again after she had explained the details of his release. A part of him was glad she had pressed for more information, but none of it would have mattered if Rayna hadn't woken up. Rayna. He remembered all the times when she would be waiting for him outside a jail. Usually looking pretty pissed off. Most of the time she wouldn't speak to him until they were almost home and then it was to ask him what in the hell he thought he was doing. He took a deep breath.
He saw her wave, tentatively, and smile, just as tentatively. Scarlett. He needed to apologize to her. He walked down the steps and over to her, where she was waiting by her car. She looked up at him and then she reached for him and pulled him into a hug. He let himself hug her back. She opened the car door for him and he slid into the passenger seat. They didn't speak on the drive home.
When he walked into his house, he noted the fact that it was cleaned up. He knew when he'd left that night to go to The Bluebird – so long ago now – that it was a wreck. He knew that Scarlett had moved in while he was in jail. She'd broken up with Gunnar apparently and moved out of the house they shared, even though she was the one who'd rented it. But she'd known he'd need someone to keep an eye on him, at least for a while, although he was embarrassed that she had to do that.
When he walked in the house, he'd been overcome by an incredible sadness. This had been his and Rayna's house, long before it had just been his house. They had rented the house for several years before they bought it. They actually had talked about their dream house – a house on the water, away from Nashville, a place where they could get away from the stresses of life. He had bought that house when he'd gotten out of rehab the first time, when Rayna was 21 and he was 24. He knew he wasn't supposed to do something like that, but he'd done it for her. He'd found the place, on a lake just over the border in Kentucky. The man who owned it was practically giving it away and it had been perfect. Just exactly what Rayna had always wanted.
He'd taken her there on the eve of her very first CMA nomination and win – for Best New Artist – and she had been entranced. She had scolded him, of course, for buying it – the rule after rehab was no big decisions – but she hadn't really been angry. Some of the best times they'd had had been at that cabin. But this house, this was their home. After she had won that first CMA award, her career took off, and finally they had money. So they bought this bungalow in East Nashville, in a transitional neighborhood, and made it their own.
He looked around the living room. His eyes lit on the coffee table. He felt tears in his eyes as he thought of all the times he and Rayna had sat on the floor by that coffee table and written songs. So many of their biggest hits had been written in this very house. If not on the living room floor, then in the bedroom. He thought back to her sitting here with him the night of the CMA nomination party, wearing only one of his shirts, singing with him. The night he'd quit Juliette Barnes' band. Rayna had been pushing him away that night, and he thought they were done before they'd really gotten started again, but he'd confronted her, and the love they had for each other had pushed away the doubts. Her doubts. He chewed his lip as he thought that probably the secret about Maddie was weighing heavily on her then.
He went in the kitchen, where Scarlett looked at him shyly and offered him a root beer. He gave her a tiny smile and took it. He thanked her for being there, for being there for him. And then he apologized for hurting her and she'd nodded and then given him a ghost of a smile. She surely didn't understand what his pain was and he wasn't ready to tell her either.
He looked around the kitchen. Neither he nor Rayna were much in the way of cooks. She liked take out, he liked canned stuff. Someone, he couldn't remember who now, had talked him into remodeling the kitchen a few years ago. So now it was all dark wood and stainless steel and granite countertops. All of which was really lost on him.
He went to his room and gingerly sat on the bed, holding his hand and laying down. On the bed he'd shared with Rayna. He'd never gotten rid of it. And although he knew it was impossible, he imagined he could still smell her in it. When she'd come back to him not so many months ago and they had made love in this bed that first time, he'd felt like they had come full circle. That they were home. Truly home. She'd come back after all those years and they finally could have what they'd always wanted. Each other. But it hadn't been meant to be.
She had left him many times over the years they were together. Always because of his drinking and what that led to. Sometimes it was just overnight, sometimes longer, but she'd always come back. But then she hadn't. He couldn't quite remember what it was that was the last straw for her, but he'd come home one day and as soon as he'd walked in the door he had felt the emptiness. It was as though the soul of the house was gone. He had wandered through the rooms and made note that all of her personal things were gone. The closet was mostly empty, the medicine cabinet in the bathroom had only his things in it. A few pictures were gone. Her guitar, the one she didn't play particularly well but treasured all the same, was gone. There was no note, no nothing. Just the emptiness. He had looked for a bottle of whiskey and noted the fact that she'd also gone around the house and found all the bottles he'd hidden from her and thrown them out. Except for the one out under the shed in back. He'd sat on the ground, leaning against the shed, drinking straight from the bottle, and cried.
She'd started dating Teddy then. He was still in her band, but she wouldn't talk to him, except about business. He drank more, because he missed her, because he was mad at her, because he didn't know what else to do. And he'd ended up in rehab – again – and wasn't sure exactly how that had happened. So he had left after three weeks and come home and then woken up in jail. Coleman had told him that he'd gone to Rayna's apartment and trashed it. He hadn't remembered.
She sent him to rehab one last time. The time that took. At least until the night of the CMA's.
He really wanted to see Rayna, but he was reluctant to go to the hospital. Teddy would be there. Lamar would be there. Tandy would be there. Maddie would be there. None of them would want to see him and he didn't really want to see them either. He didn't know what he would say to any of them, particularly Maddie. He sent flowers and a note, but he heard nothing from Rayna. He wasn't sure if that was because she hadn't gotten them or because she didn't want to talk to him.
Juliette was the one who told him when Rayna was released from the hospital. He wanted to call her, but at the same time he was waiting for her to contact him. He knew they needed to talk about what had happened, talk about Maddie, but he was also afraid. He wasn't sure what to do about Maddie or what she wanted from him with respect to Maddie. He felt confused, by the whole situation and by why Rayna was being so silent.
Scarlett had taken him to the specialist that Juliette recommended. She had given him all his options and none of them sounded particularly promising. What he kept hearing was that he would never play again. Hearing that gave him an empty feeling inside. If he didn't have music, what was left? It was all he knew. He told the doctor to put a cast on his hand to make it stop hurting. At this point, that was the best he could think to do. As he sat at home, all he could think about was never playing again. And Rayna. He needed to see her. He knew he didn't have any right to ask her for anything, but he needed to see her. He needed to talk to her.
They had driven past the crash site on the way to the doctor's office. The whole side of the road was covered with signs and flowers and other paraphernalia. He was shocked. Scarlett had told him it had been there since the accident. He'd had Scarlett take him back there later. After she drove off, he'd walked over, in the deepening dusk, to look at all the flowers and cards and stuffed animals that Rayna's fans had left. It was painful to look at all that, to see the desperate notes filled with anguish and the prayers of people who loved her from afar. His chest hurt thinking about how they could have died there, that Rayna could have died there. He didn't know what was ahead for them, but he had to find out. He didn't think he could wait any longer. So he called her and she agreed, a little reluctantly, to meet him. He didn't really know why, but he thought it was appropriate that they meet there, at the corner of Granny White Pike and Battlefield Drive, the last place they'd been together.
When he saw the car lights approach, he stood up. He watched Rayna get out of the car and slowly walk towards him. She still took his breath away. She was so beautiful. He was glad there were no scars, none visible anyway. He was sure she hurt inside just as much as he did.
He told her about his hand, about his fears that he wouldn't be able to play again. He told her that he knew he had no right to call her. I don't want you to be the one, it's just…you always have been. He wasn't sure exactly what he expected. They'd been through a lot in all the years they'd known each other and she'd almost always been there on the other side. He had to admit to himself that he'd been hoping they were going to work this out. But then she'd shattered it all when she'd said that bullshit about how she couldn't this time. I don't think we can save each other. I think we each need to save ourselves now.
He'd just stood there, looking at her. He still loved her. All those times before, it had been enough. He'd thought about how many times she'd left him, how she'd broken up with him that last time, but it had never truly been final. But this, this seemed final. He'd stood there, with his heart breaking, trying not to let it show, wondering how he was ever going to go on without her.
Then she reached towards him holding something between her thumb and index finger. I sorta thought we might need this someday. He took it from her and looked at it. A ring. Kind of a plain ring, a band. He looked back at her and her eyes seemed to say that it was something meaningful. Then she turned and walked back to the waiting car. He stood and watched them drive off and then looked back at the ring in his fingers. He noticed then that it had a design on it, hard to tell exactly what in the dark, but he had no idea what it meant. Clearly it was significant, that much he gathered from what she'd said and the fact that she'd given it to him. He wondered if it was a ring he had given to her, but it would obviously have been when he was having blackouts because it meant nothing to him. He thought hard for a moment, trying to bring some long distant memory to the forefront, but nothing came.
Whatever it was, it represented something that was over. He looked at it one last time, then tossed it in the middle of the pile of mementos on the street corner. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone. He scrolled down to Scarlett's name and pressed "Call". When she answered, he said, "Hey, I'm done. Can you come get me?"
THE END
