Sing You Home by Ava Hunter
HERE’S A SPECIAL SNEAK PEEK AT FIND YOU AGAIN, THE SECOND BOOK IN THE NASHVILLE STAR SERIES!
“Order up!”
Alabama Forester winces at the shrill screech coming out of the kitchen. Mindlessly, she fills large tumblers full of ice and Coca-Cola, the sticky liquid splattering the front of her apron. Her gaze swivels across the room. A group of truck drivers crammed into a booth. Two young mothers bouncing babies at a small table. Hot pink graffiti scrawled across the front window: To mess with Texas or not to mess with Texas, that is the question.
She sighs. Great. Now her shift just got longer, thanks to some dickweed who thinks he’s Shakespeare.
If anyone from Nashville could see her now, they wouldn’t believe it. Smelling like fried grease, sloshing beer, schlepping food for the locals. It would mortify her teenage self beyond belief that she was back here. Hell, she can’t believe she’s back here. Back in her hometown of Clover, Texas, population 3,500, working at the local dive, Mill’s Tavern, wearing a scratchy apron that could double as kindling.
Alabama’s five hundred miles from Nashville, lying low like the trifling coward she is. Hoping, wishing, and praying that the last four months blow over.
Though she ain’t too happy about the reasons that brought her home, she loves Clover. It’s the town that raised her, Mill’s Tavern the spot that kicked off her musical path. If only she knew how steep that path descended, right down into a fiery pit of what-the-fuck-did-I-do?, she might have rethought her next steps.
She might have rethought her life.
“We got burgers so rare the cow’s still mooin’ in the field.”
The bubbly voice jars Alabama from her thoughts, and she glances up at the kitchen window. Her best friend, Holly—the fry cook, the manager, the emcee, and everything else under the sun—sets a plate stacked with a greasy hamburger in the window.
Alabama makes a face at the blood pooling on the plate. “Remind me to never let you write the menu.”
“That’s an insult to the chef,” Holly replies, adjusting the red bandanna around her brow.
Alabama, suddenly feeling eyes on her, glances over her shoulder at the table of Carhartt-wearing truckers. One man’s staring at her with wary concentration.
“They know me,” Alabama says as she balances another Coke on the tray.
Holly sticks her head out of the kitchen window for a better look, her neon pink lipstick making Alabama wish she had on a pair of shades. “Of course they know you. You’re Clover’s claim to fame.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Look at them.”
“They just want an autograph from our pop-country princess.”
“Bullshit. They’re leerin’, Holly.” Alabama sighs, adding the last plate of food to her already-full tray.
Holly grins. “Speaking of leerin’ . . .” Her curly blond head disappears. Then she’s back, her phone in her hands, the Nashville Star website called up on the screen. “Did you see Broody McBroodster made the Star today?”
Alabama scoffs at the headline. Country Music Star Griff Greyson Arrested on Disorderly Conduct Charge in Nashville.
In the picture, Griff, being escorted out of Robert’s Western World, looks worse for wear. Like something rough and bitter scraped off the grill for the first time in two years.
Holly swipes to the next photo. “I think he’s punchin’ something here. Or maybe he’s holdin’ a beer.”
Alabama forces a half-hearted shrug. Griff doesn’t deserve an ounce of her sympathy. “And everyone’ll still love him,” she says in a dry drawl. “It’s the name of the boy’s game.”
With a groan, she hefts the tray. While she can tool around with her old six-string any day of the week, a tray of food and Cokes is nearly besting her. “Remind me why I’m doin’ this again?”
“Money. Cold hard cash, Al.”
Money. She needs it. All because of one terrible mistake. Is this what she’s going to be for the rest of her life? A waitress in her dusty hometown? She should be steaming her face in a sauna, not steaming her face on the grill.
“Yeah. Don’t I know it,” Alabama mutters.
“I know you hate it. But you gotta go out there. Fluff your hair. Put a smile on your face.”
She evaluates the men in the booth. “It ain’t the stage, Hol.”
Holly wiggles her eyebrows. “It used to be.”
The sizzle of the grill has her looking up.
Alabama lifts a finger at the black smoke that’s churning out of the window. “Your buns are burnin’, baby.”
“Shit.” Holly disappears, a storm of curse words and expletives filling the kitchen.
Drawing her shoulders back, Alabama starts toward the table with the tray. These beer-bellied clowns ain’t scaring her. As she crosses the restaurant, she bangs her heel against the jukebox, de-sticking the Waylon Jennings song that’s been playing on repeat for the last ten minutes.
She stops next to the booth, dropping first the Cokes, then the food with surly attitude. This is Mill’s Tavern; they didn’t come here for the service. “We got a buffalo chicken sandwich with extra sauce and three burgers with everything.”
Ignoring his food, a trucker with a Bettie Page bicep tattoo says, “You’re that girl.”
Her heart’s a ticking bomb in her chest. She can’t escape it. The past. It’s coming in hot.
Alabama forces a smile, wanting the floor to open and swallow her down. “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific than that, buddy.” She swivels her eyes around the table. “Can I get y’all anything else? Fry sauce? Ranch?” A cyanide tablet?
The trucker waves a meaty paw. “No, no, no. I know you. You’re the singer from the papers.” A wicked grin spreads across his face. “The singer who likes to suck—”
She snatches up a dinner fork. Fast.
Then, Alabama’s jabbing it under his chin, the tines lightly piercing his fat jowls. “You finish that sentence, there’s no tellin’ what I’ll do with this little ol’ fork here.”
The trucker gulps, nods.
She lowers the fork, swings it at the rest of the table. “Y’all hear me?”
Nods all around. Eyes on their food, the truckers quietly dig in, only glancing up at the chime of the door. The men straighten up, tipping hats. “Sheriff,” one of them murmurs, giving a dirty side-eye to the fork Alabama now holds at her side.
The town sheriff stands there, hands on his straining belt buckle. His red, weathered face creases as he scans the table. “Howdy, folks. How’s life treatin’ y’all?”
Alabama flashes a bright smile. “Goin’ fine, sir. These kind gentlemen were just sayin’ how great the food is.” She sets the fork back down on the wood table with a clatter. “Your usual?”
He tips his hat. “Yes, ma’am.”
They head to the counter, Alabama stepping behind it to pull a tray of donuts from the glass case.
The sheriff, resting his forearms on the countertop, says, “You givin’ those men hell, Bama?”
She grins at her father. “Learned from the best.”
A grunt.
As the town sheriff for the last thirty years, Newton Forester always has been a stickler for the rules, not to mention a man of few words.
Alabama pauses as she sticks a French cruller into the bag. “Lord, Daddy, is this good for your diet? What would Doc Harper say about this?”
“You just worry about yourself, Alabama.” The soft admonishment has her smile dying a slow death. The few seconds of thin camaraderie they shared already down the drain. “Which reminds me . . .” Her father pats his back pockets with gusto. “You got some mail today.”
She blanches. Her stomach takes a nosedive. “What kind of mail?”
Her father slides an envelope across the counter and Alabama’s heart drops when she sees who it’s from. She doesn’t have to open it to know what it contains. Threats. Humiliation. Reminders of every single one of her mistakes.
“Thanks.” Shame burns her cheeks as she trades him the sack of donuts for the letter.
Her father nods. Cordial.
He can barely meet her eyes as he turns to leave.
Hell, she can barely meet his.
She’ll never shake the look on her father’s face when she showed up on his porch after the scandal hit the papers. He knew what she had done—tried to do—to get ahead. He heard the names the paper was calling her. But he wasn’t angry. He was ashamed, embarrassed. To Alabama, that was worse than anger any day.
Still, he let her stay with him, and after a few months they settled into an uneasy routine. Fractured, but Alabama hoped they’d make it back to each other. They had to. He was her father, the one who put the guitar in her hands, who had raised her up after her mother had run off to California when she was a baby, who always did the right thing by her. He learned her honest and true, and though she had her share of screw-ups in her teenage years, they never reached this status of epic failure. They never ended up breaking his heart like this.
She guesses it’s about time her father realized she’s not his perfect little girl. That she ruins everything she touches.
At the thought, tears fill her eyes.
She needs a breather. Quick. Before she turns into a weeping puddle.
“Cover my table, will ya, Holly?”
Holly waves a spatula to show she understands, and Alabama escapes out the back door to the alley.
She glances down at the letter held in her shaky hands. She exhales a long breath, trying to work up the nerve to open it.
Four months.
Four months since her life blew up. Four months and she’s still living with the fallout of that damn photo.
It was her fault. Her fault for trusting Mort, her ex-manager, who came to her like some shady savior when she was hustling nights at the Bluebird Café.
After years of waitressing days, of singing nights to get her music out there, Mort was a light at the end of a dead-end tunnel. She saw what he had done for the Brothers Kincaid and other artists. She had been in Nashville for nearly ten years and all she had to show for her sweat was an album of her own songs, put out years ago by some two-bit label. Wild Wonder barely made a dent, never got airplay. Mort promised to reinvent her, promised her a new album, promised she’d finally have a number one song.
And he did. He did it all—all for a price.
Alabama was with Mort for three years. Three years of swinging her hips and her hair and then being billed as Nashville’s pop-country princess before he cashed in on his favor.
What Mort wanted was for her to frame Luke Kincaid after their recording session. It killed two birds with one stone—Alabama got her hit song and Mort kept the Brothers Kincaid on as a client.
So she did. She kissed Luke. A reporter Mort hired from the Nashville Star snapped a photograph of the kiss. The plan was to send it to Luke’s wife—Mort would squash the brewing scandal, and the Brothers Kincaid would stay on as a client. But the plan went to hell when Luke’s wife crashed her car after receiving the photo. Her car accident spun Mort’s entire plan in an entirely different direction.
Four months ago, the truth finally came out. The Brothers Kincaid fired Mort’s scheming ass, and in retaliation, Mort released the photo to the world.
The photo billed Luke and Alabama as cheaters. Luke, wanting to protect his wife and preserve his marriage, released the incriminating texts that outed Mort and his scheme. Which meant they outed Alabama.
She never blamed Luke for that. He did what he had to do. And Alabama came out and admitted to the world that she was Mort Stein’s lackey. Luke stuck up for her at a press conference; even his wife, Sal, came to her defense. But even that wasn’t enough to get her back in the good graces of Nashville.
Harlot. Whore. Homewrecker. Those were just some of the names she was branded with after the scandal. As always, the tabloids twisted the truth. The things they said about what she did to get ahead with Mort churned her stomach and tore out her heart. None of it was true, but in Nashville, it didn’t matter. She’s taken full responsibility, owned her mistakes, but she’s still getting billed as the bad girl of country music, still getting called trash in the papers, especially by the Nashville Star.
It’s bullshit is what it is. She’s had her entire career and reputation derailed, while Mort quietly fucked off and is working as an agent in New York City.
She was a fool for trusting someone as much as she did. People let you down. People lie. And you get fucked over.
Case in point: Exhibit A.
Huffing a lock of red hair out of her face, Alabama steels her courage. She slides a finger under the envelope flap and tears it open. Dread curdles her stomach as she unfurls the letter. She reads fast, skimming the legal bullshit, the lawsuit.
As if the disastrous press wasn’t bad enough, Six String Records dropped her from their label and then promptly sued her for damages for participating in what they called a series of “unethical decisions.”
And of course, the judge ruled in their favor.
Alabama’s eyes blur as she reads, dizzy from the debt. It’s more than she expected. More than she has. Christ, she’ll have to wait a thousand tables to recoup beaucoup bucks.
She sticks one hand in the pocket of her apron, running a thumb over the old copper penny that lives there. It’s supposed to bring her good luck. Fat chance of that.
Once again, Alabama’s eyes focus on the letter’s parting words: Failure to pay the enclosed bill within thirty days will result in us filing an attorney’s lien on your properties and wages . . .
Lord, what else could go wrong?