Page 95 of Wildflowers & Whiskey

But the most important thing is, she’s smiling. Beaming, actually. Throwing in sassy little hand movements, walking the stage like she owns it.

A full country-girl moment for our city girl.

Then the chorus rolls in, and her eyes soften, drifting this way.

I tell myself it ain’t what I think. That she’s looking at the group; we’re all shoulder to shoulder, packed like sardines. Could be looking at any of us.

But then her gaze lands again. Same spot.

And I know it’s on me this time. Got to be.

“You look like you love me…” Her voice echoes through the bar, making something in my chest kick up, heart beating fast and reckless. Makes me wanna move, act, do something before this moment slips through my fingers.

But like a distant whisper, that other voice creeps in.

She doesn’t see you like that.

She’s leaving.

But people change their minds. Don’t they?

It’s been a month since she told me that. That’s enough time for things to shift. Grow. Turn into something more. Hell, it didn’t take me that long to start falling for her, and I barely knew her back then.

Now I know the way she laughs when she forgets herself. The way she hides her snacks when she thinks no one is looking. How she rubs her thumb in circles on her palm when she is bored or having to stay still for too long.

So maybe things have changed.

Before the other voice can talk any sense into me, my feet are moving. I pull away from Naomi’s side, heading straight for the stage.

Maeve’s eyes track me the whole way. Still singing away.

The karaoke lady pops up beside me, mic outstretched, knowing exactly what I am about to do. I take it without thinking. Convinced this is a great idea.

Now I ain’t no singer. Not even close. But I’ve got that low southern drawl that I am sure I can fake my way through, being confident I can get through Riley’s part.

The crowd gets louder for a second as I step on stage and start singing, then fades out till it’s just her and me in the noise. But when I look at her, her smile has shifted into something tight, almost forced. Not the one I replay in my head every day—the one that makes me feel a million times better just from the sight of it.

A drop hits my gut, hard.

Did I just make a damn mistake coming up here? Read into things that ain’t there, again?

She lifts her chin when it’s her turn again, and she keeps singing, hitting every word without missing a beat. We’re singing together, but it doesn’t feel like how I imagined this would go.

I lean into the mic, trying to hold it together, but inside I feel like I am dying. I need the song to end. Need to ask her what happened. Surely, I haven’t read that much into things despite all the warnings I’ve had. Why am I like this?

The last chorus comes and goes, and the bar erupts. Maeve’s got that big smile plastered on again.

We hand back the mics. The second we’re off the stage, she takes my wrist with a firm grip and pulls me off to the side, away from the crowd, the noise, all of it.

We stand there looking at each other for a moment, neither of us quite sure how to act.

I try first, breaking the unbearable silence. “Maeve… Everything ok?”

She looks somewhere between the floor and my face.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says quickly, but the tone of her voice says otherwise. “No. I just—” She stops. Starts again. “I think we need to talk again. And I hate that I have to say it again, I really do, but— I need to know you still understand. That I don'tsee you like—” She gestures vaguely, struggling with the shape of it. “Like that.”

Like that. Those two words hit harder than a full sentence.