Chapter 19:

"No, it wasn't."

"Yes, it was."

"No, it wasn't Deacon!"

"Ugh what are they arguing about now?" Maddie asked her sister as she came down the stairs.

"Where their first kiss was, Mom said it was in dad's truck after a party and Dad says it was coming off stage. Mom how old where you when you kissed?"

"Seventeen", Rayna replied while Deacon followed up with, "to young to be kissing a twenty-one-year-old."

"Oh, so now I was too young, must have been so hard having a teenager take advantage of you."

"I didn't say that Ray."

"Weren't you two like living together already? If you ask me that was a little more inappropriate than a kiss."

"What! I didn't know Mom and Dad lived together when mom was seventeen!" Daphne exclaimed.

"Actually, she was sixteen when she moved in with dad; when Pawpaw kicked her out of the house." Maddie responded.

"Maddie that's almost your age! I can't imagine you living with a boy."

"I think I'd like the freedom." Maddie was playing with her parents but keep her features neutral.

"Maddie," Rayna groaned.

"Go right ahead Maddie, move in with a boy and I promise you he won't be making it to your seventeenth birthday." Deacon snapped, already irritated by the argument he was having with Rayna.

"Whatever," Maddie replied grabbing a water from the fridge.

"Don't worry dad, Maddie can't even clean up after herself let alone a boy."

At Daphne's words, Maddie rolled her eyes, Deacon rubbed his face and Rayna asked herself for the hundredth time this month why she pushed to write this album.

"Fine then…" Deacon let out exasperated. "… who did I kiss coming off stage at The Exit Inn?"

"Samantha Beeswax!" Rayna exclaimed.

"Who was Samantha Beeswax?" Daphne asked.

"Your dad's girlfriend." Rayna said looking vindicated.

"Wait, you were living with mom and dating someone else?" Maddie questioned with a look of disgust.

"Your Momma and me were just friends," he explained.

"Just friends?" Rayna snorted.

Just then Deacon let out a slow grin. He looked like a Chestier cat and then started nodding his head in approval. "What?" Rayna asked as all three of his girls stood looking at him.

"It was Samantha Beeslee I kissed that night." Rayna reached down, grabbed a pillow and immediately whacked him in the head.

"Hey! What was that for? I just said you were right!"

"That was for smiling while thinking about kissing her." Rayna was actually mad at him. She was mad at him that night when he kissed another girl after their amazing performance, she was mad that he was smiling about it now and she was hurt that he didn't remember their first kiss.

"You know, I only kissed her because I couldn't kiss you." Rayna looked at Deacon like she didn't believe a word he was saying. "Seriously Ray, you were seventeen, I was trying to do the right thing by you, I was trying to be a gentleman," he defended.

"How did this one even start?" Maddie asked Daphne referring to their parent's argument. For the past three weeks it seemed all her parents did was argue about the past, she knew it was part of the writing process, but it was exhausting. Sometimes it was like they were living in their own little bubble and Maddie and Daphne weren't even there. To add to the weirdness there was a camera crew that would occasionally be at the house or the office to capture the making of the album. Maddie though it was strange to have a bunch of people video tape something so intimate and personal as writing a song but the team at her mom's label was insisting on it. If nothing else, it gave Maddie a whole new view on how the music business worked.

"Mom wanted to write a song about their first kiss but obviously dad was kissing someone else." Daphne said starting to laugh.

"Okay, I think that is enough for the day." Deacon said putting his guitar back on the stand, by the couch.

"Fine. I am going to start on dinner." Rayna replied irritated.

Dinner was rather quiet. Both Maddie and Daphne knew to tread lightly after writing sessions like today. It wasn't that the tension of the session would bleed into their time as a family but after a particularly tough day both Deacon and Rayna would withdraw and crawl inside themselves. After dinner Rayna excused herself needing some time alone while the girls helped Deacon clean up.

After the girls kissed Deacon good night, Deacon sat in the kitchen sipping a cup of tea and listening to the quiet of the house. He was just about to call it a night when Tandy came through the door a satisfied smile on her face.

"Past curfew isn't it?"

"Oh, come on now Deacon, I am sure if you hurry up you can get downtown in time to find a barely legal roadie to go home with tonight." Tandy shot back, her smile not leaving her face.

"Oh, I'm sure I can but maybe I'll slum it and pop over to the country club. I hear there are lots of desperate divorced women looking for a good time."

"Screw you Deacon" she said with a smile.

"Now Tandy, you know you're not my type."

Tandy rolled her eyes at him. "Go home Deacon, doesn't look like anyone in this house is in the mood to put up with you tonight." Tandy hit a nerve with that one. She knew Rayna's absence from the kitchen and the stillness in the house meant that he and Rayna were having an off day.

"I really don't know how Bucky puts up with you. "

"You know Deacon, he seemed pretty satisfied tonight when I left his place."

Deacon definitely didn't want to think about Tandy having sex, most especially with Bucky. "Satisfied because you were finally leaving."

"Whatever you say Deacon, but I am the one going to bed tonight with a smile on my face."

"You know what Tandy, you're right and it's about time I do something about my level of satisfaction." At that Deacon headed up the stairs taking them two at a time. He opened the door to Rayna's room just as she was coming out of the bathroom in a robe, a towel wrapped around here hair. "Get dressed we're getting out of here."

"What?" Rayna asked confused by his words and demeanor.

"Don't ask questions Ray, just get dressed."

Ten minutes later they were passing Tandy in the kitchen as she was sipping on a glass of red wine.

"You got the girls tonight Tandy; Ray and I are going out!" Deacon said as he hustled Rayna to the backdoor.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

Deacon ignored her question, telling her not to wait up before he closed the door behind him.

Forty minutes later, Deacon and Rayna were laying on Deacon's living room floor trying to catch their breaths. It had been almost two years since they had slept together, and it had been months since he had slept with anyone at all. When they got in his truck Rayna kept asking what was going on and where they were going but Deacon stayed silent, mostly because he had no idea where he was taking her, but he knew they needed some time alone. When he realized there weren't a lot of options at nine o'clock on a Tuesday night, they drove to his place. They barely made it through the door when is mouth was on hers. She tried to get him to slow down and talk to her, but he told her he was done talking and when he pulled his shirt over his head, she seemed satisfied with his answer.

Finally, when he caught his breath, he sat up and pulled the blanket down that was draped over the arm of the couch as well as the throw pillows. He placed a pillow under each of their heads and then pulled her close so he could wrap them both up in the blanket.

"I don't know where you found the inspiration, but I hope there is more where that came from," she said kissing his chest.

He sighed running his hand up and down her back. Her lips finding their way from his chest, up his neck then to his mouth. "Tandy."

"What?" she said stopping her actions cold and pulling back to look at him.

"She came home tonight and was taunting me about being… well frustrated while she was… well… you know… she was with Bucky and…"

"Hold on, you mean to tell me this was inspired by Tandy sleeping with Bucky? Babe, I really don't know how I feel about that," she finished a look a repulsion on her face.

"Well yeah, I guess saying it out loud, it does kinda kill the mood." Rayna just continued to look at him expecting further explanation. "It wasn't really them that, well you know…" he said not wanting to put a mental picture in his head by saying it out loud. "… it was just she reminded me we haven't done this ourselves in quite a while and then I realized that was what was wrong with us, why the writing was so much harder than it had been in the past."

"Not that I am complaining here but I still don't understand what you are trying to say."

He sighed as he rearranged his thoughts. "When we were younger we had all that energy and passion and we would pour it out on stage or in a writing session or recording session but even those things were not always enough, most of the time it would lead to this," he said before lowering his head to kiss her with all the passion and energy he still had coursing through him. "Even after Maddie, we still needed that physical release. Since we've started writing again, we haven't had that. Instead we have been trying to be responsible and careful with our feelings and Ray we don't work that way. You can't be that passionate in song and then just table it at three because we have to pick up the girls or run to the office to do paperwork."

It was Rayna's turn to sigh understanding exactly what he meant. "I know Deacon, but we do have to do those things. We have the girls and the label. We have PTA meetings, dance classes and soccer games. We have demos to listen to and marketing meetings and finance meetings. God, back when we started out it was just us and the music but now, we have all these other responsibilities and we can't just pretend we don't."

Deacon sat up, looking down at Rayna. He lifted her left hand and kissed it. "I'm not saying we should skirt our reasonability. I love all that stuff Ray, the girls, the label, the music, I want it all. I just mean we still need time together, we need the release, the physical connection. Do you have any idea how hard it was to stay away from you for nine years, to see you and not kiss you anytime I wanted?"

Rayna reached up and pulled him down to kiss him. "Yes, I do Deacon. You know what was worse?"

"What?"

"All those months we lived together, and I watched you kiss another girl. All those times you were in rehab and I went to bed lonely, all those years I listened to the gossip about all those women you were kissing that weren't me. Then this last year seeing you kiss those other women on the road, Deacon that was torture."

"I'm sorry about earlier Ray. You know I'm getting old, my memory isn't what is use to be and the truth is that since I met you, you're the only woman I have wanted to kiss, so I guess my brain just inserts you in any memory I have kissing someone else."

"Smooth Deacon," she said before kissing him again.

"You know what night I do remember?"

"Hmmm?"

"The first night I had you in my bed, naked."

"Oh yeah, you sure it was me," she teased.

"Yupp, it was after playing at the crappy bar on 5th and I got in a fight with that guy for grabbing your ass and you were so mad at me. When we got home you told me that I made it clear you didn't belong to me."

"Ugh, I was so mad at you. We would have these moments when we were playing or writing that I would feel so close to you, then you would go and treat me like a friend or worse a little sister, just about drove me crazy."

"God you were furious, you slammed that bedroom door in my face and when I did come through the door you practically jumped me." They both laughed thinking back to that moment.

"I wanted you to make love to me so badly and then when we got to that moment, I was so scared, scared I wouldn't be enough."

"Really?" he asked amazed "Baby, I was scared for the exact same reason. I didn't want to disappoint you or hurt you, you deserved so much better than me."

Rayna rubbed his check with the back of her hand. "I guess we were both wrong, we were more than enough for each other." She laughed then and sat up to kiss him forcing him to turn his back to the ground with her on top of him. "Seventeen or not, as I recall that was the last time you tried to be a gentleman," she finished slyly kissing him.

"Tough to be a gentleman when you spend all your time with a vixen," he said laughing before they spent the rest of their night blowing off steam.