My voice trailed off, and I smiled and shook my head as my emotions overcame me. The crowd went wild.
I skipped the rest of the chorus and went to the bridge.
“The feel of your lips was a balm to my soul
It soothed the storm that brewed
The smell of your skin still lingers on, so I keep…
Walking…walking down memory lane
Shit, it’s painful and it hurts
The thought of never having had you, darlin’, is worse
I’d rather hurt a thousand years than to have never known your touch
You’re seared into my heart forever
This I know as much
Walking down memory lane
I’ll never leave…memory lane”
I took the guitar off, placed it on the stand, and then lifted my hand and leaned over the mic.
“Thanks, y’all. Have a good night.”
The moment I set foot offstage, Robert was in my face.
“What in the hell was that?”
“That was called singing from the heart, Robert. Something I used to do.”
He followed me as I made my way past all the stagehands. They didn’t have to break down the set tonight since I had two more shows here. But they did cover all the instruments and clean off the stage to get ready for sound check tomorrow.
“You do sing from the heart, Anson. Every fucking time you get on that stage.”
Lanny walked next to me, not uttering a word.
“I rather liked it,” Bob McAllen said as he walked along with us. Bob worked for the record company. “I liked how you went back to your roots. I liked that I heard the hurt in your voice. I also liked that you didn’t give them the whole song.”
That made me smile and roll my eyes. Leave it the record executive to think along those lines.
I got to my dressing room and paused. “I’m closing out the rest of the tour with that song, exactly how I sang it.”
Robert and Bob exchanged a look.
“Can you sing it with that same emotion again?” Bob asked.
With a hard stare, I replied, “Considering I wrote the fucking thing, I think I can.” Plus, all I had to do was think of Bristol the moment I started to strum that guitar.
I walked into the room, Lanny right behind me. I turned and looked at Robert and Bob and smiled—then shut the door in their faces.
Lanny stared at me, a confused look on her face.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked.
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t see how she hasn’t forgiven you with songs like that. Does she even listen to your music? To the words?”
I sat down on the sofa. “No.”
“How do you know?”
“My grandmother and Mother have told me she doesn’t.”
“Hmm.”
I gave her a hard stare. “What does that mean?”
With a half-hearted shrug, she frowned a bit. “I’m trying to figure out a way to get her to listen. That girl needs to know how much you’re still in love with her, Anson, since you won’t tell her yourself.”
“Nah, she’s moved on, Lanny.”
“Has she?”
Lanny pulled out her phone and looked through something. When she turned, I saw an Instagram post Bristol had done late last night.
It was a picture of a book, a cup of tea sitting on it, and a vase of flowers next to it.
“Look at the book title, Anson.”
Leaning in, I read it. Learning How to Heal a Broken Heart.
Lanny went on. “The caption says…” she turned the phone to read it. “I’m passing this book down to a friend who needs it. It didn’t do shit for me, here’s hoping it helps her.”
My eyes looked up to see Lanny had one perfectly arched brow nearly hitting her damn hairline.
“I wonder who the friend is?” I asked.
Lanny sighed. “Ugh, men. I swear to God. I can’t with you. I just can’t.”
Laughing, I pulled her to me and hugged her. “Maybe what you need is a raise?”
“Ha. When you go on that little vacation of yours, I’m going on one as well. Across the world from wherever you are, and I won’t have my cell phone or laptop with me. I will, however, have my Kindle.”
It was my turn to raise my brows. “Are you a self-help kind of reader?”
She huffed. “Romance, Anson. I’m a lover of a really good HEA. Where men are perfect and romantic and say all the right things.”
“And on that cue, I’m leaving.”
I grabbed my guitar case, shoved my phone into my back pocket, and made my way out of the dressing room and down the long hall that would lead to the limo that waited to take me home.
As I stepped out of the building and glanced over to the crowd, I immediately saw him.
Mack Miller stood off to the side, talking to Robert. If I had been smart, I would have kept walking straight to the limo. But then the fucker looked at me and smirked. He fucking smirked. I stopped dead in my tracks. There was a young girl standing next to him. She was snapping pictures of me.