The dry grass crunches as she sidles closer to him. The closest she’s been all night. So close Griff can smell her perfume—coconut and vanilla. Her scent makes him heady. She braces her back against the railing so they’re side by side, staring out into the illuminated dark. “Plus, I want this too,” she says, her drawl soft and serious. “I need it. Bad.”
He frowns, unsettled by the tone in her voice. “What’s goin’ on, Al?” He turns toward her, leaning against the porch column.
“It ain’t been so easy lately.” Before he can ask, she sighs. “I’m broke, Griff. I got a mountain of legal fees from tryin’ to break from Six String. If I don’t pay ’em in thirty days, they’re gonna turn me over to collections.”
The admission hits him like a stack of bricks. His stomach twists. He was right—she wasn’t working at the tavern for shits and giggles. Al’s in trouble. He sees it in her face, in those sad lines of stress around her mouth that she shouldn’t have yet.
His jaw flexes. “You should have called me.”
She laughs. “Please. We ain’t seen each other in twelve years.”
That’s not entirely true, although he’d never tell her that. He always kept tabs on Alabama. He knew when she first arrived in Nashville that she was busting her ass waitressing at the Hungry Cow. He’d show up when she was on break, slip some extra cash into her tip jar. At parties, when he knew she’d be there, he’d leave first so she didn’t have to worry about running into him.
He wanted to make it easy on her, but he knew what he was really doing—trying to make it easy on him, his guilt.
She looks at him. “So what do you say? We gonna do this or what?”
“We’re on,” he says. “We’ll get you a contract tomorrow.”
A little grin lights up her face, the change in her expression so startling it has Griff seeing the lanky, goofy girl from years ago. “So you’re making contract negotiations now?”
His mouth kicks up at the corners. “Might as well.”
“Well, in that case, I have some demands ...”
“Oh, I’m all about the demands.”
Alabama’s lower lip pushes out as she thinks on it. Then, she says, “I get to sing my own songs.” She juts her chin like he’ll say no. “Three every show.”
He blinks. “That was an option?”
Her face loses its lovely smile. “Everything was an option with Six String.”
“You’ll get that,” he promises. His chest swells; he wants to give her everything she asks for and then some. Wants to beat the absolute shit out of everyone who took away that fiery spark in her eye. “And that’s a promise.”
She makes a little noise of disbelief and steps away from him. “If it’s a Griff Greyson promise, I won’t hold my breath.”
The coldhearted jab punches him in the stomach. Because she’s right. It’s what he does: push everything and everyone away. Love the wrong way because the right way costs too much.
But he keeps his face stoic, his only dead giveaway the muscle clenching tight in his jaw.
The moonlight illuminates her hourglass figure as she walks away from him, and Griff twists the horseshoe ring around and around on his finger.
He did his dirty deed for Freddie, and that’s it. They’ll do the tour. Alabama will get her money and he’ll keep his label.
All he’s gotta do is stay away from her. Stay drunk. Chase her away like he did before. That’s all he’s good at.