Prologue
“Stay with me.”
Jordan spun to face him.
“What?”
Fletcher sucked in a breath. He was putting it all on the line.
Jordan Benoit was his best friend. She had been since they were six.
But she was more than that now.
He couldn’t lose her.
Again.
Two years ago, she’d moved to Nashville with her boyfriend Jason. Fletcher had wanted to ask her to stay then, but he hadn’t. She and Jason had been together for nine years at that point. He was going to Nashville to pursue a music career and Jordan was his cheerleader and his biggest fan. Of course she was going along.
Besides, Jordan knew that Fletcher wanted more. If she’d wanted Fletcher, she knew she could have him.
A year before that, in Galveston, things had changed between them. Fletcher had kissed her.
He shouldn’t have, of course, but being stuck together, just the two of them, in a roadside motel in the middle of a tropical storm, he hadn’t been able to hold back.
And she’d kissed him back. At first anyway.
But eventually, she pushed him away and told him that she couldn’t do it, because of Jason.
So when she told him she was moving to Nashville with Jason six months later, Fletcher bit his tongue.
Not this time.
“Don’t go with Jason. Stay here. With me.”
She stared at him. They were standing outside behind his grandmother’s bar. Inside was the wedding reception for three of his cousins who had just gotten married to the loves of their lives.
He didn’t know if it was the general love-is-in-the-air feel surrounding the weddings or the fact that this girl—who, at one time, he’d truly believed he could never lose—had actually, essentially, left him twice already, but hearing her say that she was joining Jason on his debut world tour as an opening act for country music star Brett Eldredge had made Fletcher’s gut tighten and he knew he had no hope of keeping the request inside.
“I can’t stay here. What are you talking about? I have to go with him.”
“No, you don’t. You know you have a choice. This tour isn’t about you. You’re really willing to quit your job, quit teaching—the thing you love more than anything—to follow him around? You’re the girl who would rather curl up in her pajamas at eight o’clock on a Saturday night and watch movies with sub sandwiches than go out even to a local bar where you know everyone. What are you going to do on red carpets and at after-parties and hanging out backstage at country music concerts? That isn’t who you are.”
“But if it’s Jason, then it has to be me.”
Fletcher stepped forward. He’d known this girl her entire life. He knew things about her that she probably didn’t even know. She was fierce, brave, funny, loyal, and loving.
It was that those last couple things that were screwing him here.
She’d been with Jason for so long, she felt obligated.
Even though Jason’s life was going in a totally different direction than she’d planned, even though there was nothing about what Jason wanted that matched up with her dreams, she felt that she had to go now.
She was a small-town girl from Louisiana. Her family meant the world to her. She was passionate about teaching.
None of that matched up with what Jason was asking.
“If he cared about you, he wouldn’t ask you to do this,” Fletcher said.
She pressed her lips together and her frown looked a lot more scared than angry. “You’re wrong. He shouldn’t have to give up his dreams just because I don’t want to live in a big city.”
“Isn’t a relationship supposed to be about both people?” Fletcher pressed. “What about you? Why do you have to give your dreams up for his?”
“I love him.”
You just don’t know any different. But Fletcher kept those words inside.
Jordan and Jason had met when they were fifteen. Jason had been her first… everything. He’d asked her to the Valentine’s Day dance when they were freshmen in high school. And here they were eleven years later, and she was still with him. No one else had even had a chance.
Fletcher hadn’t had a chance.
Hell, it had taken eight years for him to realize he even wanted a chance.
Well, maybe she needed to be reminded that she had options. Really fucking good options.
Fletcher reached for her, wrapping one arm around her waist, and the other hand cupping the back of her head. He tipped her head back and leaned in to kiss her.
But this time she didn’t melt into him the way she had in Galveston.
Maybe she hadn’t had enough tequila.
Maybe she’d been expecting it this time.
Maybe she really had chalked that all up to one crazy, stormy night, far from home.
Her hands came up to his chest and she pushed.
He stopped, just inches from her lips.
“Knock it off.” Her voice sounded choked.
He straightened immediately, letting go of her but not stepping back.
“Jordan—” he started. But his breath lodged in his throat. She was crying.
Fuck.
He’d seen Jordan cry before, but he’d never been the cause of it.
He shoved a hand through his hair, then tucked his hands into his back pockets. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you? For which part? For telling me that I shouldn’t go with Jason? For being angry with me for quitting teaching? Or for kissing me when I’m with someone else? Again?”
Fletcher swallowed. He should say that he was sorry for all of that. The truth was, he wasn’t sorry for any of it.
“For making you cry.”
She reached up and brushed the tears away. She sniffed, then blew out a breath.
“Tell your grandma I will send her that signed poster from Jason when I get back to Nashville.”
Fletcher sighed. It was bad enough that he was losing this woman to another man. But of course, it had to be a famous other man. And, of course, his grandmother had to be the president of the Autre branch of the Jason Young Fan Club. Literally. They met at her bar once a month and watched any interviews or acoustic performances he’d done in the past month on her laptop while eating loaded chili fries—Jason’s favorite thing at the bar and something Fletcher’s grandmother told everyone and even printed on her menu.
“I’ll tell her,” Fletcher finally said to Jordan.
“I’ll…call you.”
That long pause was telling. He and Jordan talked and texted all the time.
But would he be able to handle hearing about her life on the road with Jason?
If she was happy, and he was a good friend, he’d be happy for her. But he was starting to think that maybe he wasn’t as good a friend as he’d thought.
Because the idea of her being deliriously happy with Jason Young while giving up all of the things she’d ever wanted made Fletcher want to punch something. And if he heard about how miserable she was on the road with Jason, that would also make him want to punch something.
But finally, he nodded. “You better,” he said.
Because, at the end of the day, no matter how painful it was, not hearing from Jordan Benoit would be much worse.
He was just gonna have to find something to punch.
One of his brothers would surely piss him off soon enough.