“No, I mean he looks kind of…sick. Ashen.”
Fabulous. Chance felt his gut clench. The old bird was a selfish bastard, but he was Chance’s grandfather, and he did love him. Unlike Chance’s father, Buddy was always there for him in his own strange way. “Really? Okay, thanks for letting me know.” It had been a month since he’d seen his grandfather. That wasn’t good enough, considering Buddy was seventy-three. Chance needed to make the time to check in more often.
That was when he heard the sound of crashing from the house. “Gotta go.” This couldn’t be good. He might be getting his girl fight after all.
He was a sick bastard for feeling mildly excited.
No. Alarmed. He was alarmed.
Which was precisely why he had a boner. He really was a bastard.
At least he’d come by it honestly.
—
Jolene had turned when she heard the door open, expecting to see Chance following her, though she wasn’t sure anything he could say would get him out of the deep pile of shit he had stepped in. She’d be damned if she would give him a hand and help haul him out. He could climb out all on his own, slipping and sliding in his own mess. What a complete moron.
A flirty moron, apparently. When had he had time to nail three different chicks since they’d broken up? Then she realized that was a stupid question. He’d probably turned down four for every one he’d banged. There was no shortage of eager girls in Nashville.
But instead of Chance, she found herself facing Tennyson. Well, she was an eager girl, wasn’t she? Jolene hated her. She hated her because she was playing the same game Jolene was playing, only better. She had come to Nashville to make her way in this business, and she was succeeding, not crying and losing her shit the way Jolene had just done.
“You okay?” Tennyson asked. Her tone was sympathetic.
Well, fuck that. “No. Actually, I’m not. I’m not sure what in the hell that was supposed to prove, but now I have details about our breakup that I would have been just fine never knowing.”
“Oh, come on, you had to know he would sleep around the second y’all split up.”
Jolene was spitting mad. “Of course I did, but I don’t want to hear about it. And for God’s sake, stop saying ‘y’all.’ You are from Chicago.” It sounded ridiculous in Tennyson’s flat accent.
“I wasn’t born in Chicago. I lived in Mobile until I was twelve.”
“Oh.” Jolene sat down at the kitchen table. “Sorry.” There was a bagel left over from Chance’s breakfast sitting on a plate growing stale, and she picked it up and bit into it. “This is a bad idea, you know. All the way around. Chance and I aren’t used to working with someone else.”
“Sometimes when you shake things up, you get the best results. I know I was pushing you, but that’s how you cut through to the real guts of emotion, to honest songs. I mean, don’t you want to write a song about the power of three? About picturing what they looked like? Was it a blonde, a brunette, a redhead? The opposite of you? Every fantasy he had and every fear you had coming to life in dark stolen moments right here in this house?”
Yeah. It was something like that. Jolene took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then she picked up the plate and hurled it against the wall. It crashed and split in multiple pieces and dropped onto the hardwood floor. She smoothed down the front of her shirt and tossed her hair back. “Oops. That was an accident.”
“Clearly.”
Any sane woman would go home. Not Tennyson. She pulled up a chair and dropped her infernal notepad on the table and started writing away, humming to herself.
Chance came into the kitchen. He walked tentatively. “Is everything in here okay?”
“Go away,” Jolene told him. She really didn’t feel like talking to him.
“Actually, yes, go away,” Tennyson echoed. “Jolene and I are working on something.”
Well, that was news to her, unless working out her rage qualified.
Chance hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Go walk the dog.” Jolene didn’t even feel like breathing the same air as Chance at the moment. She needed a minute. Or seventy-two. There wasn’t anything to be mad about, exactly, given that he was well within his rights to sleep around when they were broken up. There hadn’t even been any hint that they would reconcile, so there was no violation or misunderstanding. But when she’d told him to zip it, that she did not want to hear about it, he should have had the sense to follow her wishes.
There was a code, damn it. Leave well enough alone.
“I really think we should talk.”