"Mom!" Maddie protested. "This is soooooo unfair!"
Lucy had walked into the middle of a Wednesday afternoon warzone. Rayna and Maddie were facing off in the kitchen, Maddie with her hip cocked and her arms across her chest.
"I don't care if you think it's fair," Rayna said firmly. "I'm the mama and what I say goes."
"Deacon won't agree with you," she said, trying to use her dad as a bargaining chip. "Because he's cool."
Rayna laughed. "Are you kidding? He'll probably tell you that you have to wait until you're 35. And Teddy would agree with him for once. Now go on upstairs and finish your homework before dinner. End of discussion."
"This is so lame." Maddie glared at her mother and stomped her way up the stairs.
"Whew!" Lucy chuckled. "Those teenage hormones. What is she belly-aching about?"
Rayna rolled her eyes. "She wants to go to a movie this weekend. Alone. With a boy."
"Oh my. They start younger and younger these days, don't they?"
"Well we've told her only group dating until she's out of high school, and she doesn't like that too much." She sighed. "Am I being unreasonable? I mean really."
"Kids grow up fast these days."
"They do," she said, feeling a little sad. "My babies are going to grow up and leave me."
"Being raised by the two of you, you don't have to worry much. They'll make good choices."
"I sure hope so," Rayna said. "I mean, I was sixteen when I met Deacon. We didn't date right away but he was four years older than me and it felt like a million years back then."
"He told me," Lucy said with a smile. "Some of it. That he met you at the Bluebird."
"Yep," Rayna said with a sigh. "And the rest, as they say, is history….I think I fell in love with him in the first ten minutes. It just took me awhile to figure it out. "
That night at the Bluebird changed her life. In more ways than one….
#####################################
Rayna would never admit to save her life that she was scared to death to go out there and sing in front of all those important people. She kept scanning the crowd, hoping none of her father's businessmen cronies had decided to stop in for a drink on tonight of all nights.
"You'll be fine," the guy next to her said, impatiently tuning his guitar as they waited to go on. That guitar player guy Watty had rustled up for her. Deacon, he said his name was. Deacon something-or-another. What the hell kind of a name is Deacon? she wondered.
He'd be cute, she thought, if it weren't for that grumpy look on his face. Too old for her. Not that it mattered. She was probably going to be 60 years old before her father let her date anyone.
They called her name. Rayna Jaymes. She was Rayna James now. Hell with the Wyatt part. She was gonna make her own way.
"Oh man," she muttered as they walked to the middle of the stage. "I don't think I can do this."
"You can," he said as he sat down on the stool next to her. She was turning pale in a hurry, seeing all those suits sitting in the front row. "Stop looking at them ugly suckers," he murmured. "Just look at me."
So she did. She hit her cue right on like Watty had taught her. And she sang, with him singing backup as he played. Her eyes never left his face. It was the only thing that got her through that. She felt kind of funny, weird, all like something was happening that she didn't quite understand. But he just kept right on holding her gaze while they sang.
When they were done they got a standing ovation. Walked off the small stage, and she was so excited, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.
"Whoa there," he said with a low laugh, taking a step back.
Her face flushed, embarrassed. "Sorry."
"No big deal," he said easily. "Nice job. I'm going back to work now, though. Good luck."
"Yeah," she said softly, watching him set down his guitar and walk back behind the bar to go back to serving drinks. "Thanks."
Someone tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the phone lying sideways on the back counter. "You have a phone call."
She picked it up uneasily. Nobody was supposed to know where she was. Lamar thought she was having a sleepover at good old Susie Stewart's house. Too bad he didn't know Susie had moved to Georgia in second grade.
Lamar's voice came at her like a foghorn. "I want you in this house in 30 minutes. Or don't bother to come back. The locks will be changed by morning."
She knew if she did as he asked, if she bowed down to his commands once more, this would be all over. Tonight could be her chance. And if she went home, he'd find a way to take it all.
"I'm not coming back," she said quietly. "Go ahead and change those locks, Daddy. From now on I'm making my own way."
He laughed harshly. "We'll see about that. See you in 30 minutes."
"No," she said. "You won't." Slowly, deliberately she hung up the phone.
She didn't know at the time it was the last conversation she'd have with her father for four years.
She turned back and Deacon the guitar player turned bartender extraordinaire was watching her intently.
"What was that all about?"
She lifted her chin. "None of your damn business, thank you." And turned and walked away.
She stuck around as long as she could, until they closed down at 2 am. And then went outside and started walking, dragging that damn guitar case with her that felt like it had rocks in it.
Well if this ain't the stupidest idea I ever had, she thought. She should have told Watty she couldn't go home, but her pride had stopped her. Tandy's place was clear across town, but she didn't want to go there much either.
She only got about two blocks before a rusty rattle-trap truck screeched to a stop next to her.
"What the hell are you doing?" He demanded. "Trying to get killed or just mugged?"
Deacon. The grumpy guitar picker. What the hell did he say his last name was? She couldn't remember to save her own life. "Oh, just taking a walk," she said with false cheerfulness, walking faster. "See ya around."
He threw the truck into park. "Get in."
"I don't want to!"
"Well dammit, do it anyway!"
Cursing all the way, she yanked on the doorhandle. It took three tries before it finally opened and she got in his truck.
"You might as well leave that guitar on the curb," he commented. "You're never gonna be good at it."
She gritted her teeth. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. And I am not leaving it anywhere. It was my mothers." Watty had told her the same thing, that she wasn't a natural guitar player. Her hands were too small, and her fingers were too clumsy. He didn't say it to be cruel, but she knew he was right. It wasn't her gift. Hers was in her voice.
He swung the truck around back in the other direction, and she knew right where he was going. To her father's. Everyone knew which one was Lamar's mansion, because it was one of the biggest estates in the ritzy part of town, lit up like the fourth of july every night. Tour buses stopped sometimes to take pictures.
"I'm not going to Belle Meade," she said hesitantly.
He glanced over at her. "What? Where am I taking you then? To a friend's?"
Ha! She didn't have any of those.
With a sigh, Deacon pulled over to the side of the road once more. "What the hell is going on here? Are we driving in circles all night or what?"
"I don't know where to go," she said softly. "My father kicked me out. I don't know how he found out I was singing tonight but….I can't go home now. Or I'll never get to do it again."
He cursed that insufferable man none too quietly and glanced at the clock. 2:34 am. Pulled back out onto the highway.
"Um…." She asked hesitantly. "Where are we going?"
"Home," he replied. "I'm tired. We'll deal with you in the morning."
It turned out "home" was a two bedroom apartment he rented with a guy named Vince and his girlfriend.
She knew this because when they walked in, the guy was laying on the couch with a beer in his hand and a girl next to him asleep while he watched porno on tv.
"Wow, she's a little young," the guy commented. "Even for you, Deac."
"Shut up, Vince," he muttered. "She's just staying here for tonight. Get your ass in your own room. I get the couch."
Rayna tried real hard not to look at the tv as they walked past it to go down the hall.
"Um…I can sleep on the couch, you know," she said tentatively. "You don't have to give up your room."
"It's no big deal," he said as he showed her where the bathroom was, and then flipped the light on in his room.
It was cleaner than she thought it would be. Just clothes in a pile on the floor and about 5 different guitars. The walls was what got to her.
There was writing on the walls.
Without even thinking she walked over and traced her hand over the words that said your goodbye gets me every time.
He wrote songs on his walls. Who the hell did that? My god.
She looked over at him in amazement.
"Sometimes I run out of paper," he muttered. "Grab a tshirt if you need one. They're clean." And just walked out of the room and left her standing there.
She went to sleep in a t-shirt with Johnny Cash on the front, with her head on an unfamiliar pillow that smelled like cologne and cigarettes. And her last thought was Claybourne. His last name is Claybourne. What the hell kind of a name is that?
When she woke in the morning, she heard him on the phone in the other room.
"Yeah, she's fine," he said. "No, she can stay here with me. It's fine. …Well if you insist."
A pause.
"Jeez, Watty, she's 16! You know me better than that. I slept on the damn couch."
She stifled a giggle.
Watty was there in a half hour to pick her up. Before that, Deacon made her bacon and eggs for breakfast and watched her like a hawk while she ate it. Didn't say a word. It was unnerving. He had these eyes that seemed to be able to guess too much about her.
When they went to leave, standing in the parking lot, Watty just gave him this Look.
Deacon shook his head and looked away.
"It's there," Watty said. "You know it is. I saw the look on your face last night. You need to hear the recording. It's like nothing I've ever heard."
Rayna listened from the front seat of Watty's car. What the hell were they talking about, she had no idea. Probably would never see that guy again, she figured.
But a week later, Watty got her into the studio to try out some new songs, and there he was. All grumpy looking and messed up hair, with a guitar on his shoulder waiting impatiently.
She opened her mouth, closed it again. And picked up the sheet from the first song to read the lyrics.
You're goodbye gets me every time.
It was the beginning of something real and crazy, a ride neither of them could have ever imagined. She spent the next two years living with Watty and Anna, finishing school, searching for paying gigs, and playing every fair and small town festival she could get. Deacon was finally having his own string of luck, selling tons of songs, playing with her and in his own band, working on recording his own album. She got an offer to make an album of her own, and took it. It wasn't a huge label by any means, and a new one, but she had to start somewhere.
Her and Deacon didn't date in all those first 5 years, but they were good together. Good writing partners, good friends. By the time she was 20, she'd moved out of Watty and Anna's, and into the apartment he still shared with Vince and his girlfriend Carmen. The place was crowded as hell, and she didn't understand why now that things were finally going right, those guys couldn't get a bigger place.
It only had two bedrooms. Which meant Rayna and him shared a bed. Sharing a bed as in, he got the bed on the even nights and the couch on the odd nights.
They weren't around much back then anyway, so it didn't make much difference when they were out on the road on the crappy old tour bus. But when they were home it made for some pretty amusing sleeping arrangements.
Deacon would lay in bed and smell her perfume on his pillow from where she'd slept the night before.
She'd turn on the tv in the living room and there would be a porno left in the vcr.
"Rayna! Why the hell does my pillow smell like flowers?"
"Dammit, Deacon," she yelled from the living room. "Why is there naked girls on the tv again?"
From the other bedroom Vince would yell "Aw, just share the bed and do it already!" And then the sound of Carmen smacking him to shut up. Laughter from three different rooms would echo.
She'd go to sleep on that couch smiling.
It was a good life. The life of musicians. Rayna was was happier than she'd ever been living in Lamar's gated mansion. They weren't quite making it big yet, but they were getting there.
###########################
Rayna got so lost in her memories for a few minutes she nearly forgot about the pot that was now smoking on the stove.
"Oh, for Pete's sake," she muttered as she turned down the gas and grabbed a spoon.
Lucy chuckled and took another sip of her coffee. "It was real nice of you to invite me to stay for dinner."
"Well, you know, Deacon really is a much better cook than I am," she said. "But he's playing in Knoxville tonight and won't be home until Friday, so I thought the girls and I would like to have your company."
"Bet y'all miss him when he's gone."
"We do," she said. "But you know, you do what you gotta do. Lord knows I spent enough years on the road leaving everyone behind. It's his turn to get the spotlight now for once. I'm pretty happy just staying here in Nashville running the label."
"You said you didn't date for the first five years? When did that all change?"
"Oh…." Rayna said with a small smile. "I guess that year was the year I got the gig opening for George Strait. Everything changed then…."
##################################
They threw her a party for her 21st birthday at the Station Inn.
She was amazed as she stood back and looked at the crowd, all the friends she'd made in the last 5 years, the life she'd built for herself.
Even her father had come by the party briefly. It was the first time she'd seen him in years. He wouldn't say he was proud of her, but he asked her to come by the house on Sunday for dinner. It was a small victory on her part. He was still her daddy and she loved him.
The best present had come just a little while earlier, when this new manager guy Watty had suggested she hire had given her the news. They wanted her to open for George Strait.
It was weird to need a manager now, but Watty was right, it was too big to be handling herself. He seemed like a decent guy, his name was Bucky something-or-another. For the life of her she was terrible with names. Deacon always had to quiz her before the parties and label events, or she'd just call everyone "hey you." Couldn't do that anymore.
She couldn't believe what Bucky had told her. She was still pinching herself 10 minutes later. This was the big time now. She'd really made it. This was a huge break. Not just for her, she knew, but for Deacon too. She'd told Bucky flat- out she wasn't doing anything without him leading her band.
He was in the crowd tonight too, across the room there. She met his eye and raised her beer.
He raised his too and gave her a grin.
Across the room, Carmen stood next to him, and smirked. "You don't have a chance in hell."
He scowled at her. "Please. She's like my sister."
"Don't you have a sister already?"
"Don't you have a boyfriend to babysit?"
Carmen waved it off. "I'm not his keeper. We're on the outs again anyway. He'll probably show up on my caller ID in a week when he needs bail money. Rayna looks pretty good, though, huh? I do good work."
She did.
Rayna was all dressed up tonight, thanks to Carmen. With her hair on top of her head, six inch heels, and a sparkly silver dress that was short enough to make her long legs seem 10 miles longer. He'd noticed. So had every other guy in the room. He wanted to yank the hem of that dress down about 12 inches.
He couldn't take his eyes off her as she crossed the room. Five years ago, the age difference between them had seemed like a lifetime. Now it seemed like water under the bridge. She had grown up, before his eyes. He didn't know how lucky he'd gotten enough to watch her do it.
"Hey there," Rayna said, as she approached. She looked so happy, her eyes were just absolutely shining. "Did you hear the news? George Strait, here we come!"
"I heard," he said, forcing a smile. "We?"
"Hell yeah," she said without hesitation. "I'm not doing that without you."
"I don't know, Ray," he said quietly. "I got a lot of stuff going on trying to finish this solo album and all…"
She looked hurt. "What? I mean, really, this is goddamn George Strait, Deacon. How can you say no to that?"
He couldn't look her in the eye. Or she was gonna know.
"I'll think about it," he said. "That's all I can promise." He disappeared into the crowd.
She was left there feeling confused and a little ticked off. Why did men have to be such idiots?
Well, she told herself. I guess if they weren't, women in country music wouldn't have much to write about.
A few days later, she came home from a rehearsal, and he was moving his stuff out of the apartment with Vince and the guys.
He wanted to have it done before she got back. No such luck.
And she was clearly pissed.
"What's this?" She said, standing in the parking lot with her arms across her chest.
"I bought a house," he said simply.
A house. He bought a house, she thought. It took awhile to buy a house. He had known for months and not mentioned it.
"You coulda told me that."
"Does it matter?" He said as he closed the tailgate and leaned against the truck. Looking anywhere but at her.
Vince pointed at the sky. "We gotta get a move on, or you're going to have a new shack full of old furniture that smells like a wet dog."
"Go on," he waved them off. "Key's on the ring. Take this truck and I'll meet you guys over there with the last load in a little while."
So they were left alone standing in the parking lot with the storm clouds building in the east rapidly.
"Well…..yeah, it matters," Rayna sputtered.
"Why?"
"I don't know," she said. "It just does."
"It's just getting too hard," he said quietly. He couldn't keep standing there, with her looking up at him with that hurt look on her face, or he was going to do something he'd been trying not to do for a long time now. "You're better than us, Ray. Better than all this. You're successful now. You can get your own place, your own everything. And probably a better guitar player than me too."
He turned to get into the truck. Raindrops were hitting the sidewalk now at a rapid pace.
"You really think that?" She called.
Damn if she wasn't right on his heels.
She cocked her hands on her hips and slammed the door closed before he got in. "You really see me as someone who thinks I'm better than everyone else?"
"You are. Better 'n all of us, that's for sure."
"Hell with that!"
He shook his head and smiled. "I gotta go."
"What did you mean?" she said, her voice oddly quiet. "About it getting too hard?"
He sighed, and looked her straight flat in the eyes. The pretty blue eyes that somewhere in the last year or so he was pretty sure he'd fallen in love with, which was the last thing he ever wanted. He didn't do attached, he didn't do all that happy crap, and that would be what she wanted. That was what she deserved. "It's getting too hard…to share a life and a bed with you…and not "share a bed" with you, you know?"
Rayna drew in a deep breath. "Dammit," she said, her voice a little shaky. "If that's what you've been thinking all this while, why didn't you just say so?" And she kissed him. She kissed him. Just like that she was in his arms, and he'd be a saint if he could stop it, because he wanted her more than he'd ever wanted anything. The rain was beating down on them painfully, and all his furniture was getting wrecked, and he didn't give a damn because Rayna was in his arms.
"This is going to ruin everything," he murmured when they finally came up for air, soaked to the skin and water dripping off their noses. He pushed her wet hair off her face, and she had rain drops on her eyelashes. And she just had this smile...
"Wrong," she whispered, laughing. "This is gonna be the best thing that ever happened to you. Think we should go upstairs and say goodbye to that apartment and all you're pretty words on those walls."
"There's no bed left in that room."
"Who the hell said we needed a bed?"
And just like that, five years of friendship turned into a love neither one of them had ever expected.
A week later, she was living in the house in east Nashville with him. She was 21, he was 25, and they bought new furniture.