CHAPTER SEVEN
NASH

The door to the convenience store dings overhead as I hold it open, waiting for Ainsley to walk through first. “What kind of souvenir do you think we’re going to find in the,” I crane my neck to see the sign overhead, “Fast-Stop in Nowhere, Oklahoma?”

She gives me a sideways glance as she makes her way down the first aisle, her eyes scanning the rows of products perched on the shelves in front of her. “First of all, this isn’t Nowhere. It’s Okmulgee.” Her head bobs from one side to the other. “Almost nowhere, but not quite.”

I catch myself scanning the shelves too as I walk up beside her. I have no idea what I’m looking for. “What kind of thing makes a good souvenir for this little game of yours?”

“Something we wouldn’t find anywhere else,” she says matter-of-factly, before going back to her treasure hunt.

“Hmm.” I stuff my hands in my pockets and rock back on my heels. “All I see is your run-of-the-mill gas station loot. I could go for some of those sour gummies though.” I grab a bag of critter shaped candy off the hook and hold it up. “This is my souvenir.”

Her mouth transforms into a scowl, pulling her eyebrows down in the process. “There is always something special hidden right in plain sight.”

“Always?”

“Always,” she says with a confidence in her tone that’s equal portions admirable and hot. I mean, really, really hot. “Okay.” I try to sound committed to the idea that we’re going 

to find something special in a random aisle of a side of the road convenience store. “Tropical trail mix? I mean, tropical in Oklahoma can’t be that common. Right?”

“Nash Miller,” she smacks me on the shoulder with a chuckle, “are you making fun of me?”

“Maybe a little,” I say, pinching my thumb and index finger together. “But only out of love.” Shit.

She freezes just as she’s reaching for something that caught her eye; but now, instead of grabbing the object she has in her sights, she’s frozen with one hand outstretched and her eyes as wide as silver dollars.

Damn it.

I’m so bad at this… “You know what I mean.” I shrug, trying to play it off. It’s not working.

“Right, of course.” She nods and swallows a big gulp of air that she chokes on. “Sorry. I swallowed wrong,” she says through a barely stifled cough and pointing at her throat.

“Uh-huh.” I reach over to pat her on the back. “You okay there? Need me to do the Heimlich?”

She shakes her head and pulls herself up straight with a final clearing of her throat. “I’m fine. Got it.”

I make a mental note to not let my guard down too much on this little adventure or else I might terrify the poor woman.

If she only knew…

I don’t dare to tell her how her eyes always pull my attention, even from across the room, or how the second she speaks every other sound gets put on mute and she’s all I hear.

If she knew any of that… She’d run straight for the hills and away from me.

“Oh!” A ball cap on the top of the rack grabs my attention. “What about this?” I ask, holding it up like I’m showing off a brand-new baby. “It’s a little off-beat.” It’s black with a highway lane embroidered on it and the words Road Zen centered over the bill.

I can’t tell if she likes it or not. She focuses her gaze on it, but I get the feeling her mind is somewhere else. Just as I go to put it back where it came from, she claps her hands together. “I love it!” She grabs a second one off the shelf and pops it on her head. “How does it look on me?”

Gulp. If I’ve learned anything from the last three minutes, it’s to not tell her what I’m really thinking. Keeping my cards, a little closer to my chest shouldn’t be hard. I’ve always been just fine keeping things to myself, but I don’t seem capable of doing that with her. I absolutely cannot tell her she is gorgeous with or without the hat, or that the hat is lucky to have been chosen by her, and I definitely can’t tell her that the light always seems to find her the second she enters a room. 

Or that she has my heart in her hands…

Nope.

Can’t say that.

“It looks good.” I nod and turn to make my way toward the fountain machines at the back of the store. I’m going to have to keep my distance unless I want to dissolve into a puddle of feelings at her feet. No one has time for that. “I need a drink for the road,” I call back over my shoulder as I tap the brew button for my coffee. “Do you want anything?”

“I think today calls for an iced coffee.”

“You got it.” There isn’t a machine to make a fresh iced coffee, so I check the freezers and find one in a can. That’s going to be gross, but it’s what she asked for. I grab the last one and make my way to the counter where she’s already waiting. “This is all they have.”

Her entire body shudders as she cringes. “That one is disgusting.”

“I kind of guessed that, so I grabbed this as a backup.” I hand her a cup of the same coffee blend I’m having. “It’s not bad,” I say as I take a sip.

She does the same and a faint smile crosses her lips. “And now we’ve got souvenir cups too,” she giggles.

“That was the real deciding factor for me.” I slide the card to pay for our stuff and pop my hat on my head with the tag still hanging off the side. Just as we’re about to walk away, the cashier reaches under the counter. “Hey, I know this is probably really annoying and you get this all the time, but…”

Sigh.

He pulls a pad of paper and a pen out and slides it across the counter. “I’ve been a fan since before y’all signed with The Machine. Could I get your autograph?”

“Of course.” I pass my things to Ainsley, so I can free my hands to scribble my name on the blank piece of paper.

Thanks for sticking with us and keeping us caffeinated for the road.

Stay safe.

Nash.

I make a little swirly squiggly thing with the tail of the S in my name and then slide it back over to him. “Here you go. Have a good one.”

“Wow, oh my gawd.” He runs to the back of the store and disappears into the employees only area.

“Sorry about that.” I give her a sheepish grin as I take my coffee and keys back. “Let’s go.” I make my voice deeper than normal, giving her the full effect of the performer’s voice. She tries to hide her reaction as she turns to follow me out to the truck, but I saw the way her breath caught.

She liked it.

“So,” she says, as her seatbelt clicks into place, “is it weird for you being stopped all the time by random people who think they know you?”

“It used to be,” I admit with a snort. “I think I got used to it somewhere along the way, but it’s nice being able to go out once in a while and just fly under the radar.”

She nods as she sips on her coffee from the passenger seat.

“I’ve been kind of fighting against myself lately, anyway,” I blurt out, and I have no idea why.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

How can I explain it when I’m not sure I understand it myself? “I’m not sure.”

“Not sure as in you don’t know, or not sure if you want to tell me.”

“I would tell you if I knew. Clearly, I have no issues just blurting out random shit in front of you, but I honestly have no idea. It’s just been this battle inside for a while. It’s like I want to keep doing this, but somewhere inside of me I don’t.”

She leans her head back against the headrest and closes her eyes. “Sometimes when I can’t figure out an answer to something that seems like it should come easy, I close my eyes and just melt into some music. Eventually, my brain will shut down enough that it’ll quit throwing up those defensive walls and I can get some answers,” she says through a chuckle. “It’s kind of like music meditation.”

“I can’t exactly close my eyes, right now,” I say, flicking my finger towards the windshield and the road stretched out in front of us. “We’re kind of in a predicament here.”

“Well, listen to the music then,” she says. “You’re a musician, so I bet you’re hearing every note and seeing the melody in your mind, right?”

“And a lot of changes they should’ve made in the final production.”

She grins and turns it up. “Lean into that.” She hums the melody, adding another layer of sound for my ears to pick up. After a minute, she stops humming and my ears search for that extra layer of sound. “What’s the fight about?” she asks out of nowhere.

“I want to create music because I want to inspire people and I don’t feel like we’ll be inspiring anyone with the crap we’re getting ready to release.” Whoa. “I can’t believe that worked.” I gasp, turning to look at the woman giggling in the seat next to me. Her eyes aren’t closed anymore, they’re looking right back into mine. “How’d you do that?”

“I’m good. What can I say?” she smirks as she brings her coffee up to her lips. “Feel better?”

I do. I’m surprised. “Thank you. I think I needed to put that out there.”

“Now you can start figuring out what to do about it.”

Ah. “That’s the tricky part.”

Her eyebrows pull together as my words hang in the air. “Why is that tricky?”

My fingers tap against the leather of the steering wheel matching the speed of the thoughts racing through my mind right now. “Griffin set up the studio so we could launch our own label, but somewhere along the way the focus shifted from creating the music we wanted to make to trying to overcome the smear campaign The Machine launched against us when we left their label.”

“So, you’re feeling kind of like you’re just spinning your wheels?”

“Pretty much.”

Her lips twist into a pout. “Do you think your brothers feel the same way?”

“I’m not sure. We haven’t talked about it. They’re so focused on recording the new album and making sure our sound is what the radio and the market expects to hear from us I’m not sure they’d hear anything I have to say at this point.”

“If you could design your own plan for the next year with Amaryllis, what would it look like?”

Hmm. “I think I would trash everything we’ve written for the new album up to this point and start over. I’d have my students involved somehow.”

“Your students?”

“Uh-huh,” I mumble. It’s like I can see all the pieces of the idea floating in space, but I can’t grab them and put them into any logical order. “I’m not sure how it all fits together, but I’ve always wanted to make a positive impact through our music and I’m just not sure we’re doing that right now.”

“That guy back there seemed like you had a pretty positive impact on him,” she reminds me.

She’s right. “I just feel like we can and should do more.”

“I respect that.”

“I want to make music, but I also kind of love the fact I can go out right now without being accosted by the press and the media.”

She points behind us with a confused look on her face.

“I love our fans. They’re the entire reason we get to do this for a living. What gets me is when we can’t sneeze without the press putting a click-bait headline to it.”

Her laughter fills the cab. “I can see that headline now. Nash Miller, addict?” She makes air quotes around the fake-headline.

“That’s exactly what would happen. It’s draining.”

“So, what can you do about that and still ensure you make a big enough impact for your message to get out there?”

“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” He shrugs. “I have no idea.” The image of Adair and Travis sitting around his piano while they were trying to work out the melody for their first-class assignment floats through my mind and makes me laugh. “Actually, I may have already started on that.”

“Oh!” She sits up straighter in her seat. “Tell me.”

“So, the other day I told you was going to do my class from Travis’s house.”

She nods. “Right.”

“They were irritating the hell out of me.”

“As per usual…”

Ha! “Pretty much. But I decided to divide my class into four groups and assign each group to one of us.”

“Your brothers were cool with that?”

“Who knows?” I shrug. “But they’re going to do it anyway because it’s out there. “I tasked each group with creating one part of a song that we’ll produce at the end of the school year.”

She lets out a high-pitched squeal as she claps her hands together. “I saw that trending on social media the other day!”

“You did?” I’m more than a little flattered that she follows our hashtags.

Her face turns bright red as recognition hits her, and she realizes I know she’s been keeping an eye on us. “I might cyber-stalk you sometimes, okay?”

“I don’t mind.” I cut my glance in her direction, hoping she doesn’t notice, which she doesn’t since she’s turned to face the window. In the side mirror I catch her biting the corner of her lip. “Are we coming up on the exit soon?” I ask to change the subject, hoping it’ll make her comfortable enough to turn back around.

She nods and checks the GPS on her phone. “Five miles from there.”

“Do you want me to come inside with you, or wait in the truck?”

Her expression hardens, and she shakes her head. “I think I’d rather go in alone, if you don’t mind waiting.”

“Sure.” I wonder if she’s noticed I would be happy to do anything for her. “That’s not a problem.”

“It’s just kind of a weird thing to ask someone to do, you know?”

“What is?”

“Oh, hey. Can you take me to see my sister—in jail?”

“It’s okay. Everyone has a past and a family.” I hope she’s not thinking that I would judge her or her sister for the situation. If she knew my past, then she’d know I’m not judging anyone; but if I tell her about all my demons, it could scare her away. With her reaction at the convenience store, I’m guessing opening all the way up to her right now isn’t the best move.

I’ll wait.