Feels Like Home (Southern Bride 5)

When I didn’t answer, she threw her hands up in the air and sighed. “I can’t do this anymore tonight. We both need sleep and need to start over again in the morning. We’ll work something out. Maybe you can leave tomorrow, and I can come a week later or something.”

I didn’t reply as I pulled up to the front of her house. I glanced down at the business card sitting there.

Robert Hanley. Big Music Management. CEO/Owner

Bristol opened the door of my old Ford truck and said, “Promise me you’ll stop by in the morning and we’ll talk more about this?

“Anson?”

I looked up from the business card, the words Mr. Hanley had said to me still replaying in my head.

“I was told about an up-and-coming country singer from Comfort. Recognized the name on the billboard outside. You’ve got the voice, not to mention the looks, to be the next big thing. I’m the man that can make it happen.”

I had immediately googled the guy and saw he represented some of today’s top country acts. He wasn’t some random guy. He was the guy. I’d shared that with Bristol, but she’d basically ignored that part of the conversation. Anger built up inside of me; I couldn’t figure out why Bristol was so hell-bent on waiting.

I smiled at her and said, “Goodnight, Bri.”

Bristol looked down where I had been staring. When she looked back up at me, her eyes were so sad. As if she could read my thoughts. She knew what my decision was, what it had to be.

“You and me?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Always, Bri.” My voice sounded foreign, even to me.

“You’ve already made up your mind, haven’t you?”

I looked away, and then turned back to her. How could I make her understand that I knew in my gut this was going to work?

Before I could say anything, she stepped back and shut the door. I watched as she walked down the gravel path toward her folks’ house.

Little did I know that I would spend the next six years regretting not going after her. Regretting that I hadn’t driven home that night, but instead, headed back to Austin.

Then on to Nashville.

Anson – Six years later

“THAT BRIDGE IS burned, and there’s no going back.

Let it burn. Let it burn. Let it burn.”

The crowd went wild as I sang the last lines to the song that had made me who I was. One of the world’s top country singers. Six Grammys, four male Country Artist of the Year awards, two Entertainer of the Year awards, and countless other CMA’s and AMA’s under my belt.

I had the life I always dreamed of.

And I was miserable as fuck.

As I waved my hand and tipped my hat, I walked off the stage. The applause and chants of more, more, more surrounded me.

I always saved “Let It Burn” for last. People asked me why I ended every concert with that song, and I told them it was because it was the song that started my career. And besides, my manager told me to.

I hated that fucking song so much, I had to fight the bile down every time I sang it. It was a song I wrote in less than ten minutes. A song I wrote born of anger, sitting in the middle of a hotel room in Nashville. A song that sealed my fate, if I was honest with myself.

As I walked off stage, three people stood there and waited on me.

Lanny, my assistant. Jennifer, the dog nanny for my chocolate lab, Zeus. Don’t judge. I love that damn dog; he came out on the road with me and we went everywhere together.

And, last but not least.

Robert, my manager and best friend. Well, best friend when I wasn’t pissed at him. He had, in a way, simultaneously made me and destroyed me.

Jenny smiled and handed me Zeus’s lead. “He missed you tonight.”

I dropped down to one knee and gave my 2-year-old lab some much-deserved attention.

“Hey, baby boy. You were a good boy for Jenny, weren’t you?”

Jenny nodded and then looked at her watch. “Okay, I’m out of here. Jake wants to hit some bar he heard about.”

“Thanks so much, Jen!” I called out as she rushed off, throwing me a quick wave over her shoulder. Lanny had suggested Jenny when I said I wanted to hire someone to watch over Zeus while I was on tour. Which was all the fucking time now. I loved my fans, but I was exhausted from all the touring. Burned out wasn’t even a strong enough expression to capture the last few years.

Jenny, who was Lanny’s sister, worked out great. Her husband worked a job where he could travel with us, and she was the best dog nanny around. I would have preferred to call her a pet sitter, but she came up with the freaking dog nanny title. Said it looked better on her resume.