Matched, p.28
Matched, page 28
“Not always,” she whispered. “But thank you.”
She dabbed at the corners of her eyes and glanced at the clock. She had to go to get to the Battle of the Boyfriends on time.
And she needed to be there.
Not as a judge. Not to see Will. But to see how it felt to go as herself.
As the woman she’d been born to be, with the gifts she’d been given, Lindsey had to go.
Some of those couples might need encouragement. And that was a skill Lindsey needed to work on, no matter what it ultimately meant for her career as a divorce lawyer.
“You going tonight?” Dad asked.
She nodded. “It’s time to see if I can find where I truly fit.”
“That what you want?” Dad said.
It wasn’t what she’d wanted most of her life. But it was part of who she was, and she’d be happier embracing it than denying it. “I want to put more happy in the world.”
“Always have, hon.” Dad heaved a Dad-sigh. “And there wouldn’t be a song about your underwear floating around the radio if you hadn’t.”
Lindsey swiped her eyes again, this time over a laugh. She fixed a tray of fruit, cheese, carrots, and crackers for them, then she left Dad with official Noah duties and went to see about her own life duties.
WILL HADN’T ever found his team suffocating before, but all the meetings about the tour and the next album and this problem and that problem and this other problem were enough to make him want to gouge out his eyeballs this past week.
And now he was in Bliss when he wanted to be anywhere but here, lingering backstage with the other judges for the Battle of the Boyfriends. His crew was out in the Bliss Civic Center’s theater, capturing footage of the crowd as he’d promised the crazy Bliss lady they would. He had left Wrigley at the hotel with Cassidy, who was wrangling a few business details for him, and then put on his biggest, brightest Billy face to get through tonight. He’d done his own shots with the BillyVision crew, schmoozed with his fellow judges, answered questions for a couple of local reporters.
And now he wanted to get this over with and get gone.
Someone slapped him on the shoulder. “Doing okay, man?” Mikey said quietly.
“Yep.”
“How’s Jessie?”
“Real good.” Will should’ve been spending his last weekend off in Pickleberry Springs with his family. Truth, though, was that he didn’t want to be there any more than he wanted to be here. “Donnie saw a doctor this week who said they caught it early enough. And Mari Belle said Sacha had a vision that Donnie’s fixin’ to kick cancer’s ass, and it won’t come back.”
“Good sign,” Mikey said.
Will shoved his fists into his pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to deck his buddy. Mikey never took Sacha’s side, but he hadn’t said a bad thing about her since Sacha gave Lindsey a getaway car.
Mikey hitched a shoulder, his casual act almost the right shade of innocent to be convincing. “Sacha’s nuts, but she’s still good people. Not like it would help right now if she said he was gonna kick the bucket.”
Will grunted.
Mikey tilted a look at him, then heaved an admirable impression of a Mari Belle sigh. “Gotta hand it to you, buckaroo. Doin’ better this time than you did the last time she did you in. Still here. Still walking, talking, and getting shit done.”
Will clenched his jaw so hard his teeth should’ve cracked. He didn’t give a damn about getting shit done. He wanted—
He wanted his girl.
No. He wanted the woman he thought was his girl to want to be his girl.
“But funny thing.” Mikey said. “Last time, you couldn’t quit writing. This time you just quit.”
Will reached for Vera’s strap.
Mikey was right. Will had quit. He was showing up for meetings, doing what needed doing as Billy, but the music—
The music was gone.
Vanished. Poof.
Dead.
He’d written four good songs in Bliss, plus three more he and Mikey had done together, and he had the bones for at least fourteen more. But those fourteen?
He’d handed them to one of his favorite songwriters in Nashville before he left town yesterday. Told him to make them into something decent, because Will couldn’t do it.
He didn’t want to.
“Never thought I’d say this,” Mikey said, “but the girl made you happy. Being Billy ain’t everything. The band and crew—they’re good at what they do. They’d find other work if you wanted to hang it up.”
“Dahlia putting happy heart sprinkles in your Cheerios too?”
Mikey grinned. “Nah, it’s all the ice cream.” He tucked his hands in his pockets. “Seriously, Will, don’t let being Billy be your whole life if there’s something else you want.”
Not the advice Will ever would’ve expected out of Mikey. Being in love had addled the boy’s brain.
“Oh, hey, Billy.” A slender dude in his mid-thirties hitched his brown dress pants, then stuck his hand out. “Lou Lovely. WEDD radio. Great to see you again. Didn’t get to talk much at karaoke after Nat’s wedding, but I’ve been playing your songs since ‘Weekend Cowboy’ landed. Love your music.”
Will dug deep for his Billy mask and shook the deejay’s hand. “Thanks, man.”
Mikey shifted away. “Now, Billy-boy, don’t go giving me the good scores because we’re friends,” he said louder.
“Don’t think you have anything to worry about, Mikey.”
Annoying as Mikey could be, Will would miss him when he finally found the right new drummer. Mikey knew when Will was Will, and when Will needed to be Billy. A new drummer wouldn’t even know Will existed.
Seemed to be fewer and fewer people in the world who did. Will wasn’t even sure he wanted to exist anymore.
Why not just be Billy? When he was Billy, people talked to him. When he was Billy, people loved him.
When he was Billy, people didn’t send his phone calls straight to voicemail or tell their assistants that they were unavailable to talk to him.
Not like Lindsey had.
But when he was Billy, he had to write songs. And those songs had dried up.
“You staying with Lindsey again this weekend?” Lou Lovely said.
Will’s head jerked up.
The deejay chuckled. “Would’ve liked to have been a fly on the wall when you brought a dog into her house. Bet that was a sight.”
“Who—” Will started.
“Oh, hey, there, Billy.” Pepper Blue slid between them, all gussied up in dress pants, heels, a silky-looking blouse and chunky green jewelry. “Lou, Marilyn needs a word. Mikey, get out. No socializing with the judges or you’re disqualified and I won’t let you onstage, and we don’t want to disappoint Dahlia, now do we?” Pepper latched on to Will’s arm and steered him away from the two other men. “CJ’s been interviewing for a new cook at Suckers, and this crazy thing happened. He found a former army cook who supposedly knows how to fry okra. Who knew? Anyway, we had him whip up a batch for tonight for the judges to try. Have you seen the food table yet?”
“Not hungry, but thanks,” Will bit off.
She squeezed his arm tighter. “It means the world to Bliss that you’re here. I’m new to all this, but everyone keeps saying there hasn’t been a crowd so big for the Battle of the Boyfriends since they almost got Adam Sandler to come judge the year after The Wedding Singer was in theaters.” Her phone dinged. She whipped it out, and Will’s gut went tight at the name on the readout.
Lindsey.
Pepper angled the phone away from his view. “But you’re way better than Adam Sandler,” she said.
Will nodded at the phone. “She here?”
Pepper got one of those pained looks that Mari Belle usually paired with a sigh. “Do you want her to be?”
His pulse kicked it into high tempo, making his temples ache. “What I’ve learned, doesn’t much matter what I want there.” He turned to the table. “Fried okra, you said?”
“And sweet tea,” Pepper said. “Mikey stole some earlier and said it was almost as good as his momma’s.”
“Huh.”
Pepper took two slow steps backward and tapped the name tag on her lapel. “I need to go get the contestants in order. If you need anything at all, holler at any of us wearing one of these. And thank you again for being here. It’s really, really nice of you.”
She didn’t say why, but Will knew. There was half a chance he’d run into Lindsey tonight. And in that half a chance, there was all of a chance she’d pretend she didn’t know him.
Like she had a month ago.
If he could’ve been regular ol’ Will Truitt, he would’ve turned around, walked out that door into the frigid February weather, and kept on walking until he lost himself.
But he had a dog, he had his family, and he had a crew counting on him. So Billy Brenton was staying in the building.
And he’d be every bit of the superstar they expected to see tonight.
Because that was who he had to be.
LINDSEY ARRIVED at the large theater in the Bliss Civic Center for the Battle of the Boyfriends shortly before curtain time. There were sixteen boyfriends, fiancée-wannabes, or boyfriends-to-be performing in this year’s talent show.
Usually the performers were in their late teens or early twenties, all men who wanted to publicly declare for their women.
Only in Bliss.
Profits from entry fees and ticket sales went to local charities, and inevitably someone Dad’s age would enter, or someone would completely embarrass himself, or someone would totally surprise the girl he had his sights on by going up there alone, not in a relationship, and dedicate his performance to the woman he wanted to date.
Small-town drama at its best, and it was romantic and sweet and perfect, even during the train-wreck moments.
Lindsey didn’t want the distraction of the crowd, so she texted Pepper and asked for a key to one of the box seats. Unfortunately, the box gave Lindsey a clear view of the judges’ table. But fortunately, she could hide among the curtains and watch.
The theater was rapidly filling. The battle was due to start in five minutes. Lou Lovely, a local deejay that Lindsey had dated a lifetime ago, was already at the judging table. So was a favorite local TV anchor lady. Mr. and Mrs. Hart, Bliss’s gourmet chocolatiers, were the official judges from The Aisle this year. One seat was still empty at the table.
Will’s—no, Billy’s seat.
Lindsey couldn’t afford to think of him as Will. Nor did she have the right.
The door opened, and Kimmie slid into the box with Lindsey. “I so do not want to be here.”
“Fortune cookie?”
“I ate an entire coconut cream pie last night.”
Lindsey turned to stare at her friend. “An entire pie? Before or after the slices at Suckers?”
“After. With a full-strength Kimmie colada chaser.”
“Oh, Kimmie. Were the dreams bad?”
“Let’s just say I didn’t know owls had testicles, and they should never sing.”
Lindsey didn’t want to ask. She didn’t want to know. Still—“Owls?”
Kimmie grimaced. “Some things, you can’t un-dream or un-remember.”
“Or un-hear,” Lindsey agreed. “How’s your mother?”
“Did you know there’s a level past Queen General? It’s Her Majesty, the Supreme Grumpy Eminence, and she passed that about six hours ago. I’d ask you to tell her I tried to talk you into using your woo-woo powers tonight, but she’d know we were lying, and I’m not sure Bliss is ready to deal with that level of her displeasure.”
“Perhaps the sheer force of her personality will finally chase off her silent partner at the bakery.”
Kimmie gave a wide-eyed head-shake no. “He came by this morning,” she whispered. “I thought she was going to castrate him with a frosting spreader.”
“Instead of using her psychic powers?” Lindsey deadpanned.
Because this was normal. And normal was good.
“Well, with her telekinesis. The spreaders were all the way across the kitchen.” Kimmie visibly shivered. “And you know what’s weird? I think he liked making her mad. I think every time she gets mad, he gets more determined to not give her what she wants. Any of what she wants.”
“You truly should consider moving.”
“But where will I find another you?”
Unexpected tears stung Lindsey’s eyes. She squeezed Kimmie in a hug. “We could move together.”
Go. Somewhere. Anywhere. A beach, maybe.
Will liked the beach. He’d said he used to find one when he needed to write songs.
“Possibly to Alaska,” Lindsey said.
“Siberia, I was thinking.”
A rumble went up in the crowd, and Lindsey’s raw heart went on an off-key, off-tempo drum solo.
Will was here. There. Walking across the stage to the judges’ table, waving to the crowd, smiling his killer Billy Brenton smile for the crowd.
“I’m fine,” Lindsey said before Kimmie could ask.
She wasn’t fine. She was missing something, but she didn’t know if it was something she’d ever been meant to have.
She simply knew that after Will, she would never be the same.
She hated herself for walking away—for running away from him, but she’d had to. Even while embracing who she was, she was still a mess. And he—he deserved a good match.
Not chaos. Not uncertainty. Not fear.
A good match.
Fearlessness would suit you, Sacha had said.
Lindsey shivered.
Will took a seat next to the news lady. The flashy blonde was a terrible match for him. A thunderstorm after a tsunami.
The lights dimmed, and Lindsey turned her attention to the stage, where a spotlight lit Marilyn stalking to the microphone. She introduced the emcees, who introduced the first performer, and the battle began.
Lindsey hadn’t been to a Battle of the Boyfriends in years. Some of the performers were pretty great. And some of the matches were great too. Lindsey saw awkward where others wouldn’t have—when the third performer brushed past the second performer’s girlfriend, Lindsey realized who the better match would’ve been, but she’d take care of that later.
But then a guy brought a guitar onstage instead of using the karaoke music, and she braced herself.
She looked at the judges’ table. Will leaned his cheek on his palm, his attention focused on the stage. His free hand picked at the middle button on his omnipresent plaid overshirt, and her heart panged again.
He was still reaching for Vera.
Mrs. Hart leaned into him, and he turned to her with a smile and replied. Lindsey suppressed an eye roll. He was a drought with the older lady. Not that she’d go after Billy Brenton—she and Mr. Hart were well-matched and old enough to be his parents—but Lindsey still looked.
An hour into the show, there had been one surprised girl—she’d gone running up the aisle to hug her new boyfriend, a twenty-something bank teller, and Lindsey had felt a spring rain shower.
Her heart had let out a sob.
So had the smileys on her panties.
She and Will had been a spring rain shower, once upon a time.
Four performances later, Mikey walked onto the stage.
And he was carrying a guitar.
Lindsey suppressed a shiver and swallowed the rock in her throat. Her eyes stung.
This wasn’t getting easier.
She missed Will. She missed him sitting in her sunroom. She missed his smile over the dining room table. She missed his teasing, she missed his pushing her, she missed his loving her.
And now his best friend was here, a guy no one expected to ever settle down, to sing a love song to a girl who was a good match for him.
Why couldn’t Will have been Lindsey’s match?
Had she felt everything because she wasn’t supposed to use her sixth sense when it came to her own relationships? Had she felt everything because she was so afraid she would mess up, even if they were a good match, that she’d mixed the bad signs in with the good? Or had she felt everything because she wanted him so badly, she willed the good into being there along with the bad?
Mikey settled onto a stool onstage and adjusted the microphone. “Evenin’, y’all,” he said. “I’m new here to Bliss, and it’s been a crazy month, but coming here is the best decision I ever made in my life. Dahlia, sweet pea, I love you.”
“You did good with that one,” Kimmie whispered.
“I didn’t do anything with that one.”
“You do more than you know, Lindsey.”
Lindsey didn’t answer, but she did reach over and squeeze Kimmie’s hand.
Mikey’s fingers hit the guitar strings, and the sound took Lindsey back to her sunroom, to a day not all that long ago when she’d come home to find Mikey visiting Will, the two of them working on a song together. Joking, playing, starting and stopping.
Tears blurred her vision.
He’d been happy that day. Will had been happy. She had too. Then Dahlia had arrived with ice cream, and they’d all been happy together.
Mikey leaned into the top microphone and sang. His voice was shaky, not as deep as Will’s, not as right as Will’s. But that cocky smile he flashed to the audience said he knew he wasn’t a singing sensation, and he didn’t care, because he had his own talents, and he had his girl.
Lindsey didn’t hear the words. She didn’t want to hear the words. She wanted to bolt.
To leave the theater, to leave the Civic Center, to leave Bliss.
