june 1990

—

When Watty comes back home, she's waiting on the living room's couch. She should probably have called someone already — him, Tandy, Adria, anyone — because she's been tracking her contractions, and she knows what it means.

"I think it's time," she blurts out before he can say anything.

"Time, you mean—"

"Yeah."

Watty looks panicked for a second — he never looks panicked — and it does nothing to ease her own panic. She's not ready. She's not sure when she'll be ready, but it's not now. Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

"Alright," he says then, "you just wait here while I'll go get your bag, and I'll call Tandy to tell her to meet us at the hospital. You can do that?" he asks, and he sounds like the Watty she knows again; calm, reassuring, purposeful.

Rayna nods, because what else can she do? Her daughter's not going to stay in there for another 6 months just to accommodate her.

She's been feeling uncomfortable for the whole last month, and more than once she's been hoping it would happen sooner than later, but now that the moment has arrived, she's not ready.

She thinks about Deacon all of a sudden. She wonders where he is, she wonders what he's doing, she wonders if... no, she can't go there. Josh told her he'd heard from a friend of a friend that Deacon may have left town for good. She doesn't know if it's true, but it doesn't change a thing.

Steel is forged in the fire, Watty always says.

It's time to be strong.

—

present day

—

"So... I kissed Deacon."

Adria stops in her tracks. "Excuse me, wait, what? Hang on." She runs after Rayna to catch up with her. "We've been walking this stupid trail for 15 minutes, and you're telling me this now?"

"Shhh," Rayna says, pointing a finger in direction of Maddie who's ahead of them on the trail. She's playing with June, Adria's Aussie Shepherd, and she's clearly too far away to hear anything, but Rayna doesn't want to take any chance.

"It was after I came back from the party last night. He'd just told me he'd turned down a solo deal because he wants to be here, here in Nashville, for Maddie, and it just... it kind of happened."

"It... kind of happened."

"Don't look at me like that."

Adria draws both her hands up in the air. "I'm not, I swear, but it seems there's a pattern with you and Deacon Claybourne and things just... happening."

"Shut up."

"Do you want it to... happen again?"

Rayna sighs. "I don't think that it should."

This last month has been going so good. She'd been downright terrified at first, but then everything with Deacon has been so easy. Maddie adores him.

"But you want it to, right?" Adria asks.

Of course she wants it to. And she's almost sure that Deacon wants it to too. He'd kissed her as much as she'd kissed him.

"There's this thing when he's around, I'm not sure I can explain it. It's ridiculous, it's like I'm 18 again."

"Well, he's really hot. Even more than I remember back then."

"You're not helping, Adria."

"I think it's the scruff. Gives him that sort of sexy, tortured kind of—"

"Not helping, Adria. Not helping." Rayna growls, burying her face in her hands. "Seriously, what am I doing?"

"Kissing the father of your child?"

"You know it's more complicated than that."

"Is it?"

"Of course it is. Imagine it doesn't work. Maddie is so attached to him already, I can't risk messing that up."

Maddie isn't exactly a master of subtlety, and Rayna has noticed how her daughter has started asking a whole new bunch of questions lately. About how she met Deacon. If she loved him. If she still loves him. To give her daughter hope only to crush it later would be unbearable.

Adria sighs and waits a few seconds before she asks, "But what if it does work?"

—

"So... Rayna kissed me."

The tip of Vince's fishing rod drops into the water. "We've been standing here for 30 minutes, and you're telling me this now?"

Deacon looks around to make sure no one's there even though he knows no one's there. No one but him, Vince and the fish. He's not even sure about the fish because it's been half an hour and neither of them has caught anything.

"It was after she came back from the party last night, it... kind of happened."

"Uh."

"What?"

"It seems a lot of things just kind of happen with you and Rayna."

"Shut up."

"Did you spend the night?"

"What? No! Of course not. We just kissed."

"Did you want to spend the night?"

"Dude."

"It's a legitimate question."

It's a question Deacon isn't ready to think about yet. Things have been going so good with his daughter for the past month. What if he and Rayna get together and it doesn't work? It would complicate everything.

On the other hand, it's Rayna. Rayna, the girl he's been thinking about for the last ten years. Rayna, the girl he's never been able to forget even though they had only spent about 24 hours together. Rayna, the girl he's sure he fell in love with in all of ten minutes.

And now they have a daughter together.

And maybe a second chance.

He sighs as he looks over at the lake. He thinks about how he should bring Maddie and Rayna here someday. He could teach his daughter how to fish and how to make a fire. They could eat s'mores. He's sure Maddie would love it.

"You should ask her out on a date," Vince suggests, pulling Deacon out of his reverie.

"What?"

"Rayna, you should ask her out on a date."

"What? No, it's ridiculous."

"I don't think so. You two did everything out of order. Maybe you should try it from the start again."

—

He gets a cryptic text from Rayna the next day. There's an address and a time, and she's asking him if he could bring his guitar and meet her there. He has no idea what to expect.

When he gets there, he finds Rayna in some sort of bland office space. There's gray carpet, a long conference table, a few chairs and that's pretty much it. He's even more confused about what he's doing here.

"Hey." She smiles and gets up when she sees him.

"Hey."

She gets a folded piece of paper out of her bag. When she unfolds it, he recognizes the page from the notepad with the song.

Oh.

With the kiss and everything, he'd entirely forgotten about that. She's going to kill him then. That's why she brought him here, it looks like this place would be easy to clean. Yes, it makes sense now.

"Did you write this?" she asks, though obviously she knows the answer.

"Yeah. Listen, I'm sorry, I know it was none of my—"

"I think we should write the rest of it," she cuts him off.

Wait, what?

"You mean... now? And here?"

"I know it's a bit of a weird place to write, but I asked Buck to book it. I told him I wanted somewhere... neutral."

Maybe neutral isn't such a bad idea. He can do neutral.

"Well... yes, we can do that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Can you even play guitar in those chairs though?" she asks.

He looks around. "I feel like I should be playing a stapler or something."

She bursts out laughing. "Yeah... do you want to go somewhere else?"

"No, you know what? We can try it here."

—

It turns out those chairs have indeed not been designed for someone to play guitar on.

He's not sure how it happens, but at some point, they end up sitting on the table. They've kicked off their shoes, and they're cross-legged, facing each other.

It hasn't been hard for them to forget where they are. He'd played her the melody he'd come up with the other night when he'd first read the lines, and she'd loved it. Using his line, they then came up with a chorus and another verse.

It's just been so... easy.

Natural.

She's been smiling too much, laughing too much, and damn if he doesn't want to kiss her so badly. There's so close, there's only a guitar between them. A guitar and a daughter, he reminds himself. Right. After some more thinking, he'd come to the conclusion he and Rayna wouldn't be a good idea. He should stick to that.

But then her hand is on his knee, and she is the one leaning over the guitar and kissing him. All the reasons why it's not a good idea evaporate.

Clearly, no bland office will stop them.

His hand in her hair and the guitar has dropped in his lap when he registers the sound of a door opening. They abruptly pull off each other at the same time.

"Hello! How's everything going in—" Bucky starts, but he stops when he sees them. For a second, Deacon thinks he's seen them kissing, but then he remembers they're sitting on the table.

"Those chairs are not made for playing guitar," Deacon explains.

Bucky laughs at that. "I would see why."

"What are you doing here, Buck?" Rayna asks.

"I was in the neighborhood, I thought I would drop by to see how everything's going in here."

"It's going great," Rayna emphasizes, and there's no way Bucky doesn't catch Deacon's huge, stupid grin.

"Awesome," Bucky rejoices. There's an awkward silence. "Keep up the good work then," he adds, giving them a thumb up.

As soon as he's headed out of the door again, Rayna and Deacon burst out laughing. Rayna lets herself fall backward so she's lying down on her back on the table, still laughing, and God, she looks so beautiful, it almost hurts.

"What do we do now?" she asks, and he knows she's doesn't mean now now.

"Would you... go out on a date with me?"

She sits back up, looking amused. "On a date?"

"Yeah, the whole making a reservation, dressing up, picking you at the door thing. What do you say?"

"Like on a proper date?"

"Yeah." He tries to remember the last time he took a woman out on a proper date, and he doesn't come up with anything.

She cocks her head to one side, smiling. "You know what? I think I'd like that."

—

TBC