Page 76 of The Brave and the Reckless

“I’m sure Lucas would volunteer if you mentioned it in front of him,” I said as I accepted the plate that she must have been holding out in front of me for a while.

“I’ve known Lucas since he wet his pants in kindergarten. He was the one who pointed out that I had a massive stain on my jeans when I first got my period on a class trip. There is no universe in which I could forget those things long enough to let him in my pants.” Adriana faked a shudder and sat down at the small dining table with four mismatched chairs around it. “Besides, brain-scrambling sex requires more than just sex.”

“Please enlighten me,” I laughed.

“You need someone you trust enough to take you right to the edge of your comfort zone. That’s where your brains get scrambled.” She narrowed her eyes at me and I could practically hear the cogs turning inside her mind. “It’s not Daddy Mayor, is it? You know Richard’s married, right?”

“Ew, Adriana,” I moaned around a forkful of delicious risotto.

“What? He’s hot, you work with him every day and you both have a hard-on for trivia. It was a valid assumption.”

“He’s like twice our age.”

“Yeah, but he parties like he’s in his twenties. And he’s hot. Don’t pretend he isn’t.”

“Ew,” I repeated and scrunched my nose up at her. “At least now we know the real reason you won’t ever hook up with Lucas. You have daddy issues.”

“Can’t have daddy issues if you don’t have a dad.” She rolled her eyes at me as if I was ridiculous– and clearly to cover up the little layer she’d just peeled back for me. “Fine. I’ll stop guessing. As long as you promise me he isn’t married.”

“He isn’t married.”

“Hmm.” She chewed and tipped her head from side to side. “Big dick?”

“Yes,” I laughed.

“Good for you.”

“We should sign you up for a dating app.” I reached across the table to grab her phone, but she snatched it away.

“Hell, no. I don’t need all the tourists passing through the saloon to see my bikini thirst traps when they open Tinder. I’ll just live vicariously through you until some hot older man from out of town comes around and whisks me off my feet.”

After dinner, we spread out on the thick carpets on her living room floor. Adriana had one of those record players that looked like a little suitcase, and she played me her favorite country albums, musing about lyrics and chords and musical influences. I followed some of her explanations, but I mostly let my mind wander while my eyes roamed the pictures on the wall, of her on various stages and with various musicians. She was so young in some of those pictures, cheeks still round and her curly mane much shorter.

“Do you have a plan?” I asked, interrupting her monologue about Dolly Parton.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you give up on music? On all this?” I gestured at the wall of pictures. “Or are you just taking a break?”

Adriana’s shoulders tightened and her lips flattened into a thin line. I thought she wouldn’t answer, keeping all those layers wrapped tightly around herself, but she heaved a deep sigh instead. “Making music always felt right. It made mefeel safe. And then it didn’t anymore.” She vaguely nodded toward the guitar stashed in the corner of the room, wedged between the sofa and the wall. “I can’t touch it.”

“Do you want to?”

“Not right now.” She smoothed her hand over the vinyl sleeve in her lap. “But I know that I don’t want to be a small-town music teacher who plays the open mic night circuit. Maybe it’s juvenile not to settle, but I loved touring and playing for big crowds and working with insanely talented people.”

“No, I get that.” I nodded. “I don’t want to work for big pharma just to sort of be in the medical field.”

“If I never touch my own guitar again, I might become a sound tech. Or a producer. Or something else that tickles the same spot for me. I just don’t want my hometown to still hate me when I do.”

“I think people are warming up to you.”

“One drink at a time,” she agreed and tipped her glass at me. She took a long sip before she launched back into her declaration of love for Dolly Parton. Apparently, this was all the heartfelt conversation I’d get out of her tonight.

After another glass of wine and a deep dive into musicians who started out by playing in honky-tonks, Adriana produced a variety of long fruits and vegetables from the kitchen, trying to get me to find the closest size-match to Noah. I ate the banana and questioned how on earth a butternut squash was supposed to fit. She just laughed and ended up carrying the squash around for the rest of the night. She didn’t get an actual answer from me though.

The rest of the night passed in a happy blur, but my thoughts kept circling back to her words. She could seeherself doing something thattickled the same spotas making music.

Playing Annie Lou was fun. It even came with its own sense of fulfillment, but it didn’t give me the same purpose that medicine had. There were some parallels when I boiled it down to making a person feel better, whether that was a patient or a park visitor, but I wanted more than that. I wanted to make a real difference in people’s lives.

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