“Name’s J. T. Tucker.”
“For fuck’s sake, please tell me that’s made up.”
“People used to say the same thing about you.”
Colton flipped him off. Duff was right, though. A lot of people assumed Colton Wheeler wasn’t his real name. It was too perfect for a country star to be anything but a stage name, but it was real. He was named after his great-grandfather.
“How was the meeting today?” Duff suddenly asked.
Colton spit-choked. “How the hell do you know about that?”
“I know everyone and everything in this town.”
“It was fine. Super.”
“Bullshit. They told you to get your shit together or get the fuck out.”
Colton pointed with indignation. “That is not what they said.”
Duff shook his head. “Keep telling yourself that.”
On the stage, the kid adjusted the microphone and winced at the screechy feedback. Eager to get the attention off his own career woes, Colton nodded toward the stage. “He got any talent?”
“None. I just let any old idiot with a guitar wander in off the street.”
“Where’d you find him?”
Duff actually answered without sarcasm for once. “He found me. Sent me a demo and asked if he could play.”
J. T. shifted nervously in his chair and then spoke to his nonexistent audience. “This is, uh, this is something I wrote myself.”
Those words might normally have made Colton cringe, but if Duff had cleared him, the kid had to have something worth listening to. Within seconds, his assumption was confirmed. The quiet voice that had spoken into the microphone unfurled into a deep, clear tenor, and he used it to convey the kind of emotion that normally took performers years to perfect. Colton couldn’t help it. He breathed out a slow Damn and leaned on the bar.
The kid was pure, raw talent. Colton looked back at Duff. “How old is he?”
“Eighteen.”
A year younger than Colton was when he had started playing in bars around Nashville. It took three years of paying his dues, working his way up to bigger and bigger gigs, before he finally got noticed by the right people. Something told him it wouldn’t take that long for J. T. “Who’s his manager?”
“Doesn’t have one. He’s not sure he wants to go that route.”
“He’s thinking of staying indie?” More and more artists were abandoning record labels in favor of producing and selling their own music. They could maintain creative control and earn more profits without having to first earn out an advance from a label. It was the dirty little secret of the music industry. Artists were paid an advance on an album, and few ever sold enough to pay off the advance in order to start earning royalties. So it made indie seem great.
The downside was that you were also responsible for all the up-front costs. The production. The distribution. All costs associated with gigs. Hell, even the album artwork. Few artists got rich anymore from the sale of their songs. The money came from touring, endorsement deals, and all the other extras of being a rock star. Most indie musicians never got big enough for that. But not every artist wanted that either. Some were content to just make music. Nashville was full of singers and songwriters whose work ended up being performed by someone else.
But this kid?
This kid could go places.
“Reminds me of you at that age.”
Colton tore his gaze from the stage to stare in shock at Duff. “Was that a compliment?”
“Don’t let it go to your head. I know talent. He has it like you once did.”
“I’m still talented.”
“Lotta good it does you anymore.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
The door creaked open to the right of the bar, and Colton would’ve paid no attention to it if not for the surprised look on Duff’s face. “Now that’s something you don’t see in here very often.”
Colton glanced over his shoulder. And fumbled his beer. It landed on the bar with a dull thud and then tipped on its side. Beer sloshed onto his jeans, and he jumped back with a yelp. Duff wheezed out a laugh and tossed a rag at him. “Never thought I’d see you flustered over a woman.”
“Fuck off,” Colton said under his breath, but Duff was right. He was flustered. Because standing just inside the door, looking as out of place as a metalhead at a Luke Bryan concert, was Gretchen Winthrop. The only woman who’d ever flustered him this much.
Her eyes were pinched at the corners, as if they were adjusting to the darkness. She wore a black wool coat over a sensible black suit, and she carried a scuffed leather messenger bag on one shoulder. He had the split-second thought that maybe she was lost and had wandered in by sheer coincidence to ask for directions. But then she turned her gaze directly on him, and he realized she was here on purpose. She was here for him. Colton’s heart became a snare drum.