Nashville 3 - What We Feel

NASHVILLE

Part Three – What We Feel

A Novella

Inglath Cooper

Published by
Fence Free Entertainment, LLC
Copyright © Inglath Cooper, 2013
Cover © Sarah Hansen
e-book formatting by
Guido Henkel
Nashville – Part Three –
What We Feel/Inglath Cooper. — 1st ed.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the email address below.
Fence Free Entertainment, LLC
[email protected]
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Novels
by
Inglath Cooper

Jane Austen Girl

Good Guys Love Dogs

Truths and Roses

A Gift of Grace

RITA® Award Winner John Riley’s Girl

A Woman With Secrets

Unfinished Business

A Woman Like Annie

The Lost Daughter of Pigeon Hollow

A Year and a Day

Novellas

Nashville: Part One – Ready to Reach

Nashville: Part Two – Hammer and a Song

On Angel’s Wings

WHAT WE FEEL…

Hunky musicians Holden Ashford and Thomas Franklin rescue Nashville bound CeCe MacKenzie and her Walker Hound Hank Junior from the side of the road when her car catches on fire. A less determined girl might have let her dreams go up in smoke as well, but not CeCe. She’s been singing all her life, and she just wants a chance to do the thing she loves in a place where music is part of the fabric of life. As it turns out, Holden and Thomas want the same thing, and it isn’t long before they’re all chasing after the dream together.

Falling in love hasn’t figured in to CeCe’s plans, but the moment she sets eyes on Holden, her heart is asking, why not? Holden is drawn to her as well, but he already has someone in his life; Sarah who still lives in Atlanta, Sarah who loves him. Who he thought he loved back until CeCe makes him realize he hadn’t known that love could turn him inside out.

But an unexpected visit from Sarah brings to light a terrible truth and Holden is faced with a choice between doing the right thing or permanently defining himself as a guy he never thought he would be.

It is only in letting each other go that both Holden and CeCe will come to understand that in life and love, the part that’s real is what we feel.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CeCe

19 months later

The Blue Bird is packed for the early show. Thomas and I are third to perform tonight. The fifteen-year-old girl currently on stage will be a tough act to follow. She sings like nobody’s business. I have to wonder how it’s possible for someone that age to have so much stage presence. The song isn’t memorable, but her delivery is.

“Think she was singin’ when she came out of her mama’s womb?” Thomas asks me now.

I shake my head and smile a little. “Maybe. Is it me, or do the newbies get younger every day?”

We’re both standing at the back of the room, me with my guitar, Thomas chewing gum like it’s the fuel for every note he plans to reach when it’s our turn to go on stage.

“They get younger every day,” Thomas says.

The girl’s guitar goes suddenly quiet, and she smacks out a beat below the strings, urging the crowd to follow along. They do while she does a stretch of a cappella that reveals even more fully the sweet tone of her voice.

Thomas starts to clap. “Kinda grows on you, doesn’t she?”

“She’s got what it takes to get her there.”

“Yup.”

If we’ve learned anything at all in the past year and a half of navigating Nashville’s music industry waters, it is that talent is only a piece of it. Talent steps off the bus in this town every single day, and, with equal frequency, talent leaves. Making it here is about way more than just mere ability. “Think she’ll see it through?” I ask.

“Depends on how many dents she gets in that guitar of hers and how quickly they come, I guess. Although I’d say it’s gonna take some hefty whacks to derail that little girl’s mojo.”

I can’t disagree with him. I’ve met some incredible singers in the past year and a half who seemed like they could take the knocks, most having arrived in Nashville full of the confidence built by small-town accolades and family praise. But most people have a vulnerability of some kind, and the music business has a way of unearthing it, even when it’s hidden way down deep.

The girl ends the song, and the crowd responds with enthusiastic applause. She all but glows with it, and I wonder if my time here has already rubbed some of that shine from my enthusiasm.

She introduces Thomas and me then, my stomach plummeting as it always does right before we perform.

“If you’ve been in Nashville any time at all,” she says, “you’ve probably already heard about these two. Good heavens, can they sing! Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Barefoot Outlook!”

“Let’s do this thing,” Thomas says, dropping his gum in a trash can and waving me ahead of him with a gentlemanly bow.

On stage, Thomas does the introductions, his Georgia drawl full tilt. “Hey everybody, I’m Thomas Franklin. This is CeCe Mackenzie. We’re Barefoot Outlook, and we’re pleased as pickle juice to be here with y’all tonight!”

If the girl before us has stage presence, Thomas is the polished version of it. Since we first started performing together, I’ve been in awe of the way he wins the interest and attention of the crowd in front of us before he ever sings a note.

“If y’all came to Nashville to hear some country music,” he says, “then hold on, ‘cause here we go.”

Anyone who’s never seen Thomas perform with Holden wouldn’t realize that he’s different when they’re onstage together. But I do. The two of them had this rapport that translated into something I don’t think Thomas and I will ever have. Maybe it comes from having been best friends for so long and knowing pretty much all there is to know about a person. Like two people who’ve been married for decades and can guess what the other will order in a restaurant before they even open the menu. And like two people who fell in love and got married when they were really young, Thomas and Holden will always be each other’s first for writing music and performing. I have never been under any illusion that I am a replacement for Holden.

Holden. A year and a half since he’s been gone, and he still skitters through my thoughts at random points throughout every single day. He writes songs and sends them to Thomas on a regular basis, but he hasn’t returned to Nashville even once since the night he left to go back to Atlanta, back to Sarah.

Our first song tonight is “Country Boys Don’t Wear Thongs.” Holden sent it to Thomas a couple of weeks ago. It’s upbeat, twangy, and funny and immediately sets the mood for our performance. Thomas sells it like bottled water in the Sahara Desert. By the end of the last chorus, the crowd is fully hooked. It’s what we wait for when we’re onstage, and it’s like searching for the right key and knowing the sound when the lock clicks into place.

When Thomas and I first started playing together after Holden left Nashville, we were like two people on a blind date, unsure of what to say, both letting the other go first, the result being that a couple of our shows were pretty much a muddled mess.

The next is Holden’s as well, a duet called “Our Back Fence.” The third is “What You Took From Me,” the song Holden wrote about a man who lost his wife to a drunk driving accident. And the last song we perform is one I wrote called “Don’tcha Do That.” It brings the crowd back up, and at the end, Thomas thanks everyone for being here and lets them know we’ll be playing tomorrow night at the Rowdy Howdy.

Just before we leave the stage, he throws out, “Y’all come on down and let us show you a good time!”

The clapping follows us to the back of the room where Thomas gets my guitar case and hands it to me. We chat while I put my guitar away and discuss a couple of moments during the first song we think we could have handled better.

“Hey, there’s someone out here who wants to talk to you two.”

I look up to see the fifteen-year-old who performed before us smiling at me with the kind of smile that makes it clear life has not yet dealt her a single hard blow.

“Who is it?” Thomas asks.

She shrugs. “Some guy in a suit. Want me to tell him to come on back?”

“Sure,” Thomas says. “That’s fine.”

She turns to go and then swings around. “Hey, by the way, y’all were awesome up there. You write your own stuff?”

“CeCe wrote a couple of the songs. The rest were written by a friend of ours.”

“Wow, they’re really good,” she says. “I hope I can write like that some day.”

“Just keep at it,” Thomas says.

“I will. See y’all soon.” She waves once and is gone.

My phone vibrates. I glance at the text. It’s Beck, letting me know he’s running a little late to pick me up.

I text back. “NP. See you in a few.”

“K” is his reply.

“Beck?” Thomas asks.

“Yeah.”

“Where y’all headed tonight?”

“His dad’s having a thing,” I say.

“A thing at Case Phillips’s house is a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I guess I’m tired.”

“Of Beck?”

I look up quickly. “No. Why?”

“Just seems like you haven’t been seeing him as much as you were.”

“We’ve both been busy,” I hedge.

“Okay.”

“We have!” I insist.

“Okay,” Thomas says with a smile. “Me thinks she doth protest too much.”

“Stop,” I say. “And anyway, you’re the one who needs to get your love life out of drought status.”

“Ouch! Low blow.”

“You opened that can of worms.”

A knock sounds against the frame of the doorway. A man in a dark suit steps in and says, “I was told I could find you two back here.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas says. “What can we do for you?”

“I’m Andrew Seeger.” He walks forward and sticks his hand out to me. We shake, and he pumps Thomas’s hand as well. “I’m hoping I can do something for you.”

During our first months in town, this would have perked our ears up considerably. Fancy guy, fancy suit, do something for us. It’s certainly not the first time we’ve heard it. To date, not much of it has panned out.

“Yeah?” Thomas says. “What’s that?”

Andrew doesn’t appear put off by Thomas’s shortness. “The song you did tonight. “What You Took From Me.” Did one of you write it, or both of you?

Thomas shakes his head. “A buddy of ours wrote it.”

“Oh.” Andrew appears slightly disappointed. “Is he around?”

“Actually, no,” Thomas says. “He lives in Atlanta now.”

Andrew looks more disappointed.

“What exactly is this about?” Thomas asks.

“I’m Hart Holcomb’s manager.”

At the name, my eyes go wide, and I feel Thomas’s surprise as well.

“A friend told us about the song,” he says, his voice soft. “Hart snuck into a club downtown where you two were playing and listened for himself. Hart’s wife was killed in a drunk driving accident five years ago. The message is one he feels a need to put out there, and well, he loved it. He wants to record it.”

I glance at Thomas, see the look of stunned surprise on his face, and realize mine probably mirrors it exactly.

“Did you say Hart Holcomb?” Thomas asks.