Rayna and Deacon 1992
Deacon watched as Rayna buzzed around like a crazy person, moving things around the apartment, trying to make sure everything was perfect, checking on the food she'd had delivered for dinner. It was clear her nerves were getting the best of her, and with good reason.
Lamar and Tandy were coming for dinner.
He would have rather stuck nails in his eyes than sit across a table from her dad and sister, but it was important to Rayna. She hadn't been face to face with her family in almost three years.
"I don't know why they gotta come here," he grumbled. "Can't we just meet at a restaurant or something?"
"Because," Rayna leaned over and kissed his cheek where he sat on a wooden chair at the kitchen table, which had been set with candles and cloth linens she'd bought especially for tonight. "You know Daddy likes to do things his way. Now how do I look?" She spun around in front of him.
She was wearing some kind of summer dress with big flowers on it, had her hair all done up. Even had slipped on some high heels.
Ray always looked good to him. But he always liked her best barefoot in rhinestone jeans and one of his old tshirts.
"Baby, you look fine," Deacon said patiently. "And no matter what they think, you know I love you."
Her heart melted. The last six months had been hell, with the fallout from Jack Fulton and Warner Bros. She was ashamed to admit she should have not been so stubborn and listened to Deacon and Watty in the first place. Fulton had tried to make a move on her the first chance he got, and when she refused, he'd made it perfectly clear what his expectations of her making an album with him were.
The problem was that when Deacon found out what had happened, he'd immediately decided to take the matter into his own hands. Fulton had ended up in the hospital, Deacon ended up in jail, and she ended up with no contract, no record, no tour, and a reputation as being "difficult to work with" that was proving hard to overcome.
She felt like they were starting all over now. Three years in Nashville and back to playing bar shows for tips, trying to get their songs heard.
"Love you too," she sighed, pressing a kiss to his mouth and leaning her head against his chest.
"We're doin okay, right?" He asked earnestly, his eyes meeting hers. "You and me?"
"Yeah," she forced a smile. "We're okay, babe." Deacon had ended up in thirty days of court appointed rehab after the Fulton incident. It had been the longest month of her life, sleeping in this little apartment without him. She couldn't really be angry at him for going off on Fulton. He'd been trying to protect her, and taken it too far.
He always tried to protect her.
A knock on the door had her sliding off his lap.
Deacon sighed. "Well let's get this over with."
Lamar looked gigantic and intrusive as Rayna led him and Tandy into the small apartment.
Tandy hugged her sister tightly and then turned to Deacon.
"Deacon," she pursed her lips. "Oh, you're still around?"
Rayna's sister had hated him from the beginning. He sometimes didn't know if it was because she resented him for supporting Rayna leaving home, or if she was just a bitch. Probably a little of both, he decided.
"Tandy," he said cordially. "You're still you, I see."
Tandy didn't look impressed.
"So this is where you've been hiding my daughter," Lamar's voice bounced off the walls, like the place was just too small to hold him.
Deacon reluctantly held out his hand to shake Lamar's, but the man made no effort.
"We're not hiding, Daddy," Rayna said, quickly stepping between them to kiss her father's cheek, as was the obligatory greeting. "We've just been...busy."
"It certainly is...cozy," Tandy drawled. "It's almost like y'all just live in one room."
"Well it's an open floor plan," Rayna said hurriedly. "We'll be looking at houses soon. But like I said, we're not here much..."
Deacon frowned. He didn't like that she felt like she needed to explain them to anyone. Sure, they'd talked about houses. Somewhere down the line. But they'd both agreed this place was good enough for now. It was just the two of them anyway, and he liked the way she'd fixed it up a little at a time since she moved in. It was the first place that had felt like home to him in a long time.
"We're waiting til we find the perfect place on a lake, right?" He added, reaching for her hand, making them a united front. "That's what Rayna wants."
"Right," she shot him a grateful look.
But he could see her confidence wavering. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all.
Dinner by all accounts, was fine on the surface.
Deacon didn't say much, until the subject of Rayna's current state of career was brought up. Then things went from bad to worse in a hurry, and before he knew it, Rayna and Tandy were yelling at each other across the table, arguing about her coming to work for Lamar at the family business.
"Now hold on just a damn minute," he cut in. "Maybe things aren't great right now, but this girl here, she's the most talented woman that's come out of Nashville in a wrong time, and we're going to make sure everyone knows it one way or another. We don't have much right now, but we got each other and we're doin just fine. And if you two got a problem with that, well...there's the door."
Rayna was already crying, and she fled to the bathroom.
Tandy glared at him, and stood up and dropped her napkin on the table. "Well this went exactly as I expected. I'll be in the car, Daddy." She stalked out.
Lamar rose to his feet, and stood there for what seemed like the longest five minutes ever, his eyes scrolling every inch of the tiny apartment before landing on Deacon, who stared him down defiantly.
"You'll never be able to give her everything she needs," he smirked. "My daughter was raised with a...certain kind of lifestyle. And this is not it. That's what she deserves. She is a Wyatt. And she will always be a Wyatt."
"You're right," Deacon said quietly. "She does deserve it. But whether she wants it or not is her decision, not yours and not mine. She's Rayna Jaymes now, and there's a reason for that. You never really knew her. And that's the part that gets you more than anything, doesn't it, Lamar? You don't understand the music, because you don't know her at all. But I do."
Lamar's smirk faded. He dropped an envelope on the table with Rayna's name on the front and stalked out of the apartment without another word.
When Rayna came out of the bathroom 10 minutes later, her eyes red and puffy, Deacon was sitting on the well-worn sofa with his head in his hands.
"Hey," he pulled her back onto his lap. "Baby, I'm so sorry. I know how bad you want to fix things with your family. I should kept my mouth shut. I seem to have a problem with that."
"I'm glad you didn't," she sighed, and leaned into his strength. "It was true what you said. And I'm glad you didn't keep your mouth shut with Fulton either. Don't blame yourself for that, babe."
"He left you something. Not sure I want to know what's in that envelope."
Five minutes later, they were both still staring at it in shock. Lamar had written her a check for $100,000.
"What do I do?" Rayna murmured. "That's a hell of a lot of guilt money, Deacon. But god, think what we could do with it... hire more musicians, all the studio time that could buy. All the demos we could cut. But he'd never let me forget it if I took it."
"I think," Deacon said quietly. "Sometimes there's no shame in taking help from other people. But sometimes it's okay to say "no thanks" too."
She nodded. Then she slowly ripped the check in half. "I don't think we're going to be needing this."
He let out a sigh of relief. "Not gonna lie, I'm glad you just did that. You got enough talent, you don't need Lamar's money to get you there, Ray."
"You really think so?"
"I do. I know it," Deacon promised. "Some day you're gonna be the queen of country. And I'll be standing right there next to you..."
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Maddie and Landon 2016
They made it back to Tennessee by Saturday night. The closer they got to the Davidson county line, the antsier Maddie got in the seat next to him.
And then the phone call he'd been half expecting finally happened. Cash's name showed up.
"Hey," Landon said, keeping his voice level. "Nice you finally decide to call."
Maddie stared out the window and tried not to listen. Cash was his sister, after all, no matter how frustrated and disappointed she was, they were family to each other.
"Yeah, she's with me," he said, trying not to get pissed. "Well what did you think was going to happen to her, Cash? You left her in California by herself."
Whatever Cash said, it didn't make him very happy.
He handed the phone to her. "She wants to talk to you."
Maddie sighed, but she reluctantly took the phone.
"Hey. How's Europe?"
"Oh it's great!" Cash said happily. "Sorry I left so fast, but it came up suddenly and I couldn't say no. Why did you let my brother talk you into going back to Nashville? You could have stayed at the house in L.A. til I got back. He's hardly ever there anyway."
"L.A. isn't really my place, Cash," she said, glancing at Landon. He just drove and stared straight forward, his hands gripping the steering wheel. "So uh...are you planning on coming back to Nashville soon?"
"For sure," Cash said. "I mean, we want to get that meeting with Sony, right? And I have a couple friends I want you to meet. We're talking you and me fronting a whole band, Maddie. This could be huge."
Listening to Cash make plans for her future, it started to make a lot more sense then. All of it.
"You know I'm more of a solo artist," Maddie said slowly. "So I don't really think that would work out for me. Good luck with it, though."
Cash wasn't too happy to hear that, and she made it clear.
"Alright, well see ya," Maddie said quietly, pressing the end call button.
They drove in silence for awhile, and Landon didn't ask.
"Well," Maddie said finally. "Guess I just got my first taste of what it feels like to be used."
Landon shook his head. "Don't hold it against her. She's just...had a hard life. Doesn't really get that she's not dependable. Or accountable. She looks out for herself. Guess you get used to doing that, and sometimes you don't realize you're hurting people."
What about you? Maddie wanted to say. Two days in a vehicle had a way of getting a person talking. She'd told him way more than she ever intended. About finding out Deacon was her dad, her parents' accident, the struggle of trying to find her own place in a house full of musicians.
He'd told her things too. Things she'd carry with her always. Things that made her realize her life might not have been so godawful hard as she made it out to be.
Landon didn't say anything now, and she wondered if it was because they'd already told each other too much.
"Well, here we are," she said softly when they passed the first "Welcome to Nashville" sign. "Back on the home turf."
"Yep. You ready for this?"
She couldn't take her eyes off the skyline, all starting to get lit up as the sun settled down for the day. Facing the place she'd grew up in for the first time on her own. "Guess I have to be."
Landon knew she was thinking about that question he'd asked her the day before.
What now? What's your plan?
He also knew she might not have said it out loud, but she was fully expecting him to take her home. To drop her off on her parents' doorstep and leave her to deal with it from there.
The confusion on her face was evident when they rolled to a stop instead in front of a tiny house in east Nashville.
"What's this, do you have another house?" Maddie smirked. "I'm losing track of them all now."
He grinned. "You're cute when you try to be funny."
She rolled her eyes, but she smiled.
"It's a friend's Airbnb. There's a studio apartment upstairs above the garage in back. You can have it for six months."
She stared at him, stunned. "What?"
"You gotta stay somewhere, right?"
"And when was all this arranged?"
"This morning when you were snoring like a lumberjack in the other bed."
"I don't snore!"
He was teasing her. "Whatever you say."
Maddie shook her head slowly. "I don't even have money to pay rent, Landon. I don't know what's going to happen with that Sony contract, and I need to try to sell some of my songs, or get a job or something. I'm not living off my mom's credit card. That would just defeat the entire purpose of being on my own."
"I know that," Landon said easily. "It's been taken care of."
Maddie jerked her head up. "Please say this isn't some kind of setup by my parents."
"It's not. But here's the deal. You give it six months and if you can't do it on your own, I want you to go back to your parents. Just to their house. Just so I know you have somewhere to go."
He could see how hard it was for her to accept help. Pride could be a hard thing to swallow.
"What about you?" Maddie said. "What are you going to do? Turn around and go back to L.A? That's crazy."
"Well I haven't been in Nashville for five years, so I don't plan on sticking around long," he said wryly. "But If I actually walked into the label office, they might all die of shock, so that might be kinda fun. I might do that. Then I have some shows coming up in Austin. And its about time for a new album anyway. My manager's been on my case for a couple months about that."
"So I probably won't see you again." She said quietly.
His eyes met hers. "You will. Some day. It's just...how it is, you know? Gotta keep working, stay busy. This is how it goes. You'll figure that out. Nobody in this industry stays in one place too long."
She nodded her head slowly. "If I take your...offer for this place," she said. "I want you to do something for me before you leave again."
"What's that?" He gave her a little smile.
"Go see your dad while you're here."
His smile faded.
"Listen, I know you're leaving things out about that story with you and Frankie," Maddie said tentatively. "But I know he's sober and he's doing really good. In business with my dad at the bar and all. People make mistakes. Sometimes they deserve to be forgiven. If my mom and dad's relationship taught me anything, it is that."
"You know," he said quietly. "You're a lot better at being a grown up than you give yourself credit for."
"That's a good thing. I think."
"It is."
They sat there in silence for a few minutes staring at the little blue house.
"Well," Maddie said with a sigh. "Guess I better go check this place out, huh?" She opened the passenger door and climbed out of the truck. Night had fallen now, and the streetlight came on overhead.
Landon came around the front and leaned against the fender with his arms crossed. "Key's under the flowerpot on the landing, Kelly said. And she left a list of things you'll need to know on the table, along with her number."
"Right. Okay." She took her guitar case out of the back, grabbed her duffel bag and set them on the sidewalk.
And then she hugged him. It was supposed to be a quick goodbye hug, but it lingered on far longer. She couldn't make herself let go, and he couldn't stop his arms from finding their way around her waist, and they just stood there holding onto each other for dear life.
"Want to help me carry my stuff up?" She murmured.
Landon smiled and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "That's a terrible idea and you know it. I gotta go. Take care of yourself, alright? You got my number. Don't be afraid to use it if you need anything."
"I won't. But thanks," she nodded, forcing herself to let go, back away slowly. But he was still holding her hand. "I mean it. For everything."
"You too, Maddie Rae." He forced himself to let go of her hand and walk away, get back in the truck, and put it into drive.
But he couldn't help looking in the rearview mirror, and she was still standing there, watching him drive away.
The words to her song came back to him.
Everything about me and you...looks better in my rearview.
With a sigh, he picked up his phone from the seat next to him and scrolled to a number he hadn't dialed in a hell of a long time.
"Hey Dad," he said cautiously. "It's Landon. I'm in town. Thinkin' maybe I'd stop at the house if you're around..."