"Who are you and what have you done with the woman who, three weeks ago, was nervous about picking a dress?" Tandy asks.
Rayna winces. "I know, right?"
It's a hot August day in Nashville, and the sisters are lounging poolside, a pitcher of sweet tea on the cocktail table between them.
"Things have been going great. And Maddie is happy as a clam." Rayna glances at her daughter and Talia playing in the pool, and she smiles. "And we've been writing together, it's just so easy with him. I want some of these songs on the new album, I've talked to Watty already. I don't care if I have to fight the label about it." She stops talking when she sees Tandy's grin. "What?"
"Nothing, I've just never seen you like... this," her sister says, wagging a finger at her.
"I know, it's almost... too good to be true."
"Oh, honey, don't say that, it only ever brings bad luck."
Rayna hopes not because she and Deacon are going to Sadie Stone's Opry induction on Saturday for what is going to be their first appearance in front of the press together.
As if she's reading her mind, Tandy pushes her sunglasses up onto her head and asks, "Are you ready for Saturday?"
"I think so. And I don't think the press will make a big deal out of it anyway. They've never shown much interest in my love life."
"It's because you didn't have one, sweetie," Tandy half-jokes.
Rayna gapes at her but doesn't bother trying to argue. She supposes Tandy's right, none of her relationships ever lasted long enough for the press to find out about it.
"Hey," Tandy says then, serious again. She reaches out to cover Rayna's hand with hers. "I'm really happy for you. For you and for Maddie."
—
"I think you should move in," Maddie casually announces between two bites of blueberry pancake.
Deacon almost chokes on his orange juice. At this point, he wonders if it's really a coincidence his daughter always chooses to drop truth bombs on him while he has a glass in hand.
Rayna, who's sitting next to him at the kitchen table, gives him an amused smile and a pat on the back. He would appreciate if she could look at least a little panicked, but it seems he's on his own here. "It's an interesting idea," she weighs in before she gets up to go put the carton of orange juice back in the fridge. Better be safe than sorry.
Maddie is staring at him from across the table, waiting for an answer. "You'd like me to move him?" he asks, mostly to buy himself some time while he's trying to come up with an elaborate argument as to why it isn't such a good idea. Such a good idea yet.
"You're here all the time anyway," his daughter points out.
It's true he doesn't remember when he last ate breakfast at his house. Maddie, one. Deacon, zero.
"Wouldn't y'all get fed up with me?" he asks, using humor to try to deflect.
"Oh, we would not," Rayna chimes in. Deacon realizes whoever told him parents are supposed to always stick together against the kids was lying. Rayna has chosen her side here, and it's not his.
Rayna and Maddie start fixing him with the same puppy eyes, and he has to smile at how much they look alike. Vince keeps telling him Maddie has his eyes and his nose, but somehow he has trouble seeing it. He knows where her guitar skills come from, though, because the kid definitely didn't get that from her mom.
It's Rayna who comes to his rescue. "Maybe you should think about it?" she suggests.
He can recognize an off-ramp when he sees one. "I will," he assures them.
Maddie seems satisfied with this answer and resumes eating her pancakes. Deacon knows it's only a matter of time, though, until she'll ask him if he's thought about it. Maddie, he's come to learn, rarely gives up before she gets what she wants.
Like mother, like daughter.
—
september 1989
—
It's the second time Rayna is ordering a plate of blueberry pancakes, and Deacon knows she's not that hungry. Hell, she has barely touched the first one yet.
He knows she's only buying time.
Getting out of this place means they'll have to say goodbye, and she isn't ready for that. He isn't either. He keeps ordering coffee, and at this rate, he'll have to stop for a thousand pee breaks before he'll even reach the next town.
Rayna is poking at her pancake like she would with a wooden stick and an animal to check if it's still alive. He grabs a napkin and the pen in his front pocket, and he writes down. Rayna looks up at him when he slides the napkin across the table and looks back down to read. I'm pretty sure it's dead, you can eat it. She bursts out laughing.
"I'm sorry," she says," it's just—"
"I know." He reaches out for her hand across the table.
It's been the best 24 hours of his life. Meeting Rayna Jaymes has been the first good thing that ever happened to him. He doesn't want to let her go either.
—
present day
—
Maybe Tandy was right.
Maybe Rayna jinxed it.
Because Deacon was supposed to pick her up half an hour ago, and now she doesn't know what to do. Should she worry something happened to him? Should she head to the Opry anyway? Maybe he got held up somewhere, and he'll call to say he'll meet her there.
She chooses to be optimistic, and she decides on the latter. She calls Adria to check if she has left already and to ask if she could pick her up on her way there.
"I'm sure everything's alright," Adria reassures her as soon as Rayna hops into the car. It's another reason why she called Adria. She knows her best friend will stop her from jumping to the worst-case scenario. "Wasn't he working with Riff Bell in studio today? That guy is an asshole. Maybe they got behind schedule, and he didn't let anyone leave."
"I hope you're right," Rayna says, checking her phone again as if she might have missed a call during the ten seconds she didn't look at it.
"Stop staring at this thing," Adria admonishes her. "A watched pot never boils."
Rayna hesitates before she puts it away in her purse.
Maybe Adria's right, and she's worrying for nothing, but maybe there's something else. She was the one who'd advanced the idea of going public, and when Maddie had suggested he should move in, she'd sided with their daughter. Maybe it's all going too fast for Deacon, and he got second thoughts.
It's her fault. When she's excited about something, she tends to go full in, there's no middle ground. It's part of her personality.
Now she's afraid she scared him away.
—
"Claybourne!" Deacon knows that when he gets the Claybourne treatment from Vince, it usually means he has screwed up. "What the hell are you doing? I've been driving all over this damn mountain trying to find you!"
"Nobody asked you to."
"Rayna asked me to, you asshole."
This gives Deacon pause. "She called you?"
"Of course she did, you disappeared last night!"
"I didn't disappear."
Vince looks around at the tent, the guitar and the campfire waiting to be lit. "So, what, right when you and Rayna are supposed to go public, you decide to go camping and not tell anyone?"
"I needed some time alone," Deacon defends himself.
Vince takes a deep breath before he sits down on the ground next to him. "You can't do that anymore, Deac. You can't disappear without telling anyone. Not with Rayna and Maddie in your life now."
"I know," he says. Vince looks at him. "I know," Deacon insists.
"Then what happened?"
Deacon gets up, pretending to pick some pieces of wood for the fire. It's just an excuse to keep his body occupied. "I called Bev."
"Ah," Vince sighs like everything makes a lot more sense all of a sudden.
"I hadn't told her and Mom yet. Obviously, I didn't want them to learn about it in the press."
"What did she say?"
"She was furious I had kept if from them, and she then proceeded to list all the ways I've let them down in my life." Deacon scoffs. "She asked how I think I could ever be a good father when I'm such a terrible son and brother."
"You know it's a whole bunch of crap, right?"
"See, the rational part of me knows that. But there's this little voice in my head that just..."
It's the same little voice he used to shut off with cheap whiskey. So much cheap whiskey that there are whole parts of these last ten years he has no clear recollection of. He doesn't drink anymore, but the thing with alcoholics is they drink so they can escape. And even when they stop drinking, sometimes they still need to escape.
"When that happens," Vince says, "you go see Rayna and Maddie. You go see me. You let me talk you out of your next..." he starts, and he gestures around to illustrate his point, "...stupid idea."
If Deacon had really wanted to disappear, though, he'd gone somewhere Vince couldn't find him. He'd chosen this place because he knew his best friend would know where to look.
"Was she mad?" Deacon asks, not having to specify whom he's talking about.
"She was... worried."
—
Rayna is pissed. Rightfully so. He knows he's going to have to make it up to her.
After her initial relief of finding out he was fine, not harmed in any way, her behavior had changed. She'd closed off. She's pretending things are okay between them, but he knows they're not.
When he'd come to pick her and Maddie up this morning for their fishing trip, she'd announced there was a change of plans and that it was going to be him and Maddie only. She had some last-minute thing she'd forgotten about. It was code for, I'm still ten different kinds of pissed at you. Maddie had looked between them, sensing something was off, but she hadn't said anything.
They'd driven in relative silence which was unusual for his daughter.
It's only now that they've arrived at the lake and he's getting the gear out of the truck that she asks, "What did you do?"
He doesn't know if he should be offended she's assuming it's his fault. It is his fault. But, still.
He sighs. "I ditched your mom. There was this thing we were supposed to go to together, and I bailed."
"Why?"
"It's... complicated."
Maddie is smart enough to know that when adults say it's complicated, it's only an excuse not to talk about it. She won't have any of that. She balls her fists and puts them on her hips. "Spill it, Dad," she says, and he smiles at how serious she tries to sound.
He stops what he's doing to sit on the edge of the open trunk. He gestures for Maddie to come sit next to him, and she does as told.
"You know how I don't really talk about my sister and my mom?" he asks. Maddie nods. "It's because we don't get along too well. Things in our family have always been... complicated." Maddie frowns, but this time, he's not going to elaborate. "Anyway, the other day, I called my sister, and we had a fight. It was right before I was supposed to go to that thing with your mom."
"Did you explain it to Mom?"
"I did, but it wasn't an excuse to disappear like that. I should have called. Your mom got very worried. She's right to be mad at me."
"You have to make things right," Maddie pleads, and he can't help but note the desperate tone of her voice.
"Oh, I will, sweetie, you don't need to worry about that." He leans to kiss the top of her head.
"You should write her a song," Maddie suggests then. "Like an apology song."
He smiles. "It's actually a great idea. Wanna help me?"
She hops down the trunk, resolute. "Okay, let's do this."
"Oh, you mean now?"
She waves at the lake. "The fish will wait. Mom... I'm not so sure."
—
TBC