Page 10 of Once Upon a Boyband
“Honestly, my parents were so much easier to be around once theydiddivorce. We were all happier after. And they get along great now. I know it can cause a lot of scars for some kids, but once I got over the initial shock of all the change happening so fast, I mostly just felt relieved.” She turns onto the highway and shoots me a questioning look. “What about you? What brought you to Lawson Cove?”
“How do you know I didn’t grow up here?”
“Because Patty made sure we all knew about it when you moved in.”
“Patty from the front desk?”
Laney nods. “She worked at the high school for twenty-three years before Dad hired her. She knows every kid who has ever lived in Lawson Cove, and you aren’t on that list.”
A twinge of something close to regret—maybe more like wistfulness?—washes over me. I like the sound of living somewhere long enough to belong to a community like that. To have people immediately recognize you.Know you.I didn’t have that growing up.
Mom was on her own with Sarah and me, and we moved around a lot as she shifted from job to job, each one a little better than the last. We went to three different elementary schools and two middle schools before we finally landed somewhere that stuck—in a tiny town just outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. Mom had a steady paycheck, we lived on a nice street a couple of blocks from the high school, and we were only a few minutes away from where Mom had grown up, so even though her parents were both gone, I could tell she felt more settled than she ever had before.
I might have found that sense of community in high school. But then, the summer after my freshman year, I paid my neighbor, who was two years older than me and had a car, a hundred bucks of the money I’d made mowing lawns to drive me over to Nashville so I could audition for Midnight Rush. New Groove Records was on the hunt for a boyband and was holding open auditions to anyone fifteen to eighteen years old with a decent voice.
I had never, in all my fifteen years, thought about being in a boyband. Or being famous. Or singing anywhere but in my own shower.
But Mom had just gotten her cancer diagnosis. Followed by the statement from her insurance company detailing which treatments they would pay for, and which treatments they would not.
It was pretty black and white for me. If I made it, I’d have money. And Mom needed money.
My chest tightens at the familiar sense of sadness, and I look over at Laney if only to distract my brain from going down this same tired road. I can think about everything I’d do differently a million times. But it won’t change my reality, so what’s the point?
“Patty’s right,” I answer. “I grew up in Tennessee. It was the rescue that brought me here. Or the land, really. It had the outbuildings I was looking for and a house that was workable, so I bought it three years ago.”
“Three years? You’ve been here that long?”
“Not exactly. It took a year to make the house livable and get everything set up for the rescue. I spent my first night in the house two years ago tomorrow.”
“And you didn’t care that Lawson Cove is literally in the middle of nowhere?”
I shrug. “I like my privacy.”
“Do you like restaurants that close before eight PM? Or driving an hour to find the nearest Target? I mean, don’t get me wrong.Ilove it. But outsiders usually don’t.”
I grin. There’s a hint of Southern in her voice that I haven’t heard until now.
“Outsiders, huh?” I say with an intentional twang.
She smiles as she looks over at me. “Shut up. The accent tends to surface when I’m talking about Lawson Cove. Where’syouraccent? Tennessee is just as Southern as here.”
Mostly drilled out of me during Midnight Rush interview coaching, but I can’t give her that explanation, so I just shrug. “I had a slight accent as a kid, but it didn’t stick. And Idolike that Lawson Cove is so small. I do fine with the grocery store we’ve got in town, and I don’t mind the restaurants closing early because I like to cook.”
“Wow,” she says. “Maybe you’ll make it here after all. What about your social life, though? You don’t miss having friends? Dating?” She shoots me a quick glance. “Not that I’m assuming you aren’t dating. You totally could be. Just because my social life is nonexistent doesn’t mean that’s true for everyone here. You probably are dating. I mean, look atyou. Whowouldn’twant—you know what? I’m going to stop talking now.”
“You sure? You don’t want to add anything else? Because this is pretty entertaining for me.”
She purses her lips and scowls, but there’s a smile playing around her mouth that makes it clear she doesn’t mind my teasing.
“I’ve been pretty focused on the rescue,” I say, “so I haven’t worried too much about dating. You’re saying I shouldn’t get my hopes up?”
“Definitely not,” she says. “Not unless you—” Her words cut off, and I wonder how she would have finished that sentence, but we’re approaching the turnoff to the rescue, so I don’t have time to ask.
“Right here on the right,” I say as we approach the wooden sign, flanked on either side by stone pillars.
She slows the car and turns onto the winding, tree-lined drive that will take us up to Hope Acres. Twenty-five acres, to be exact, though most of them are wooded and steep. I’ve managed to cut a few miles of trails along the ridgeline so I can hike with the dogs, but we mostly stay in the five acres of pastureland that surround the house and barn.
I watch Laney as we approach the house, wondering what she thinks of the place. It’ll be more beautiful in a month or so, when summer shifts into fall and everything changes color, but even like this, it’s near perfect.
