Hell Bent (Rock Bottom #1) (7 page)

“Are you gonna tell me where you’re taking me?”

She shakes her head and continues to drive in silence. It doesn’t take much longer for me to
think
I have it figured out, but I’m not positive until she’s pulling into the parking lot of the Grand Ole Opry. 

After shutting the truck off, Izzy slides out and waits for me to get around to her. She looks up at me, grinning.

“What are we doing here?” I ask, turning to admire the place I’ve always dreamed about playing.

“You said you’ve always dreamt of playing here. So I figured maybe being here while we tried to write would help.” She shrugs, leaning back against the fender as she takes a sip of her coffee.

“So we’re going to sit in the parking lot and write songs?”

She rolls her eyes in amusement. “Not quite.” Pushing off the truck, she heads toward the door and bangs the side of her fist against it.

“No fucking way.”

There is no way that she actually managed to get them to open this place up in the middle of the night so we could write here. I know she has some pull in this town, but no fucking way this is happening right now. I’m stunned, watching in awe as the door opens. In all the years I’ve been in this business, no one has ever worked with me the way she is. It’s always been assholes and bad attitudes until her.

“Hey, pretty girl.” The security guard holds the door open with his body so he can pull Izzy against him. Something inside me sparks when he touches her, but I don’t know if it’s jealousy or something different. He squeezes her tightly, but there doesn’t seem to be anything sexual about it. They talk quietly, but I can’t hear anything they’re saying so I stand awkwardly in silence behind them.

When she finally pulls away, she smiles up at him. “Thank you so much for this, Peter.”

Peter shrugs off what she says and waves her through. “It’s nothing, really. You know you’re welcome here whenever.”

“Just you tonight?”

“No, but they know you guys are coming so they won’t bother you.” He cocks his head to the side and studies her for a minute before asking the question I asked earlier. I’m glad it isn’t just me that finds the way she’s acting odd. “You OK?”

“Yeah.” She reassures him by squeezing his arm. “Long hours and little sleep is all.”

Before he has a chance to say anything, she lifts onto her toes and kisses his cheek before looking back at me. I was actually starting to wonder if she had forgotten that I was with her. Tipping her head to the side, she smiles.

“You coming in, or are you gonna stay on the stairs while I write these songs for you?”

“Are you being serious right now, because I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you if you’re fuckin’ with me.”

She smiles, and it’s fucking brighter than I’ve ever seen it before. It’s not forced, and it lights up her face, making me wonder if she’s ever been truly happy in the time that I’ve been with her since I’ve never seen her smile like this. Reaching her hand out for me, she waits until I take it before pulling me behind her with our hands resting on her shoulder.

“How do you know the security guard?” I ask, trying hard not to sound like I’m prying.

“He went to school with my dad.”

I hum to let her know I heard her, but I don’t say anything else. I’m too busy trying to ignore the fact that I’m touching her and take in everything as we make our way through the halls, but there is no way to absorb everything I want to. Not right now, anyway. I’ll have to come back when we aren’t on a mission to get things done.

When we finally reach the edge of the stage, Izzy squeezes my hand before letting go. My feet feel stuck, almost like someone glued my shoes to the floor when I wasn’t looking.
I
might be stuck, but Izzy continues to the middle of the stage like she was born to be on it. Turning back, her eyebrows draw together when she sees that I’m not right behind her anymore.

“What’s wrong?”

My eyes drop to my feet before shifting back to her. “I don’t know.” I’ve never had an issue walking out onto a stage before and normally it’s in front of thousands of people. So why the hell am I having an issue walking onto one surrounded by empty seats?

“We have about seven hours before they start letting people in to do tours, but less before staff start showing up.” I nod, letting her know that I heard what she said, but I still can’t seem to move. Laughing, she jogs back to me and pulls me to center stage with her. Thankfully, the second she grabbed my hand my feet decided to work with me so I didn’t end up flat on my face.

My mind spins, thinking about everyone that has ever stood in this exact spot and played. I imagine people sitting in the seats, filling every last one of them as they listen to their favorite artists, and my stomach plummets when all the doubt I’ve been feeling these past few weeks seeps back in.

“Forty-four-hundred seats,” she tells me, turning to watch my reaction. “Forty-four-hundred
empty
seats. You’ve played sold out venues that hold more than seventy thousand.”

“Your point?” I whisper, my eyes locked onto the circle of historic stage we’re standing on.

“My point is that you’re hesitating in an empty house. Same way you’re hesitating when you’re trying to write.”

“I’m not hesitating when I’m writing,” I argue. “I just can’t seem to write anything good now that I have the chance.”

She stays quiet for a minute, pondering what I said, but she stops staring at me. The silence around us is comforting, but at the same time it is deafening and scares the hell out of me. Before I can stop and think about what I’m saying, I open my mouth and words come pouring out.

“What happens if we do all this work and fill a house and when the show is over it’s dead quiet like this?”

“That’s always a possibility,” she tells me honestly with a shrug.

I bark out a humorless laugh. “You don’t sugarcoat things, do you?”

“You’re in Nashville, baby. If you’re looking for some sweet sugarcoating, you’re in the wrong town.” Stepping forward, she lets her fingers drift over the microphone. It may be the fact that I’m sleep deprived and practically dead on my feet, but despite what she said the about not wanting the spotlight, it almost seems like she wants this part of her world too. “Let me ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Who are you doing this for?”

When I finally manage to look at her, she’s already watching me again. “I already told you I was doing this for me.”

“OK.” She nods. “So why are you worried about a silent crowd?”

“I—” I start to answer her but nothing seems right, so when she continues to talk, I don’t stop her.

“Why are you hesitating to come out onto an empty stage?”

Luckily, I think I finally have the answer for this question. I point at the stage beneath our feet. “Despite how long standing on this stage has been my dream, it’s intimidating. I’m more than fuckin’ scared, Izzy. I’m petrified. What if I tank and never get the chance to play here for real? Or worse, what if I actually get to play here and tank and taint the stage? You’re putting all this faith into me, and what if I don’t do shit? What if I let you down?”

Here I am twenty-eight years old and I’m worried about letting down someone that is barely legal. No matter how much I deny myself, I know that I’m not only worried about it because of who she is, but because of how she is starting to make me feel.

Pursing her lips, she rests her arm on top of my guitar case. Moving closer to me than she’s been in weeks, she closes her eyes and sighs. “I only care that you try hard for yourself. If you put all your energy into this and do your best, then I’m happy. But I do have one more question.” I nod, she continues. “The songs you’ve been trying to force out, what are you trying to accomplish by writing those?”

“I’m trying to write something that people are going to like. Something they’re going to want to listen to over and over again. I want to write something that makes
you
realize you made a good choice by taking this risk with me—on
me
.”

Pulling the case out of my hands, I watch carefully as she lays it down on the stage and pulls my guitar out. She cradles it gently in her hands as she steps back toward me and hands it over. My fingers wrap around the neck, holding hers in place for a second. I need to feel her skin against mine for some reason, even if it is only for a few seconds.

“While they’re all great reasons, if you’re doing this for cheering crowds, an iconic stage, and a repeat button, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. You’re struggling to write because you’re trying to do it for everyone but the person that matters.” Finally pulling her fingers out from under mine, Izzy bites the corner of her mouth to keep from grinning. She turns, setting her phone to record, and places it on the stage in front of me. Taking a few steps away, she crosses her arms and looks me square in the eye. “Stop trying to impress the world and stop trying to impress me. If I wasn’t already impressed, I wouldn’t have signed you. All I want is for you to do what you keep telling me you’re trying to do. Play for you. Something
you
want, something that resonates inside
you
and hits
your
soul. Because I guarantee if you can do that you won’t have to worry about anything else that you rattled off.”

I spin her words through my head a few times as I slip my strap over my head and get situated. It takes a few times of her telling me to start over and reminding me that I’m not in L.A. anymore. As her words sink in, I gravitate toward the microphone. Even though it is off, it brings me closer to Izzy which may have been what my body needed because the nerves begin to settle. Clearing my mind, I close my eyes, and without thinking about it, my fingers go to where they need to be, and it isn’t long before my soul is flying out of me. For the first time since I got into this business, I feel like I fit with the music. It isn’t me forcing myself to fit what is expected of me. It’s as if Izzy’s words and approval to be myself set me free. Unlike every other time I’ve tried to write, my brain doesn’t feel like it’s fogged over, and the words don’t feel forced. This moment right here is one that I never want to end, and I know if I could, I would write my entire album in this exact spot. I’m finally where I belong.

Everything I’ve kept pent up for years while playing music I didn’t believe in comes out, and it isn’t until the words "all the right reasons" float out of my mouth that I realize exactly how right she is. 

I swallow around the lump that formed in my throat a few minutes ago as I strum the last chord. Things I didn’t even realize I still thought about came out of my mouth, and while part of me is worried that people will judge me based on what I let out in this song, I know it is exactly what I need it to be.

“I’ll find you someday soon, prove to you that you were wrong, when I’m done doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons,” Izzy repeats my words, pulling me from my thoughts. 

We’re not so different
, I tell myself. “I haven’t let myself think about that shit in years.”

Stepping forward, she runs her hand along my arm and fuck if I don’t want her to keep doing it. “Wanna know what happens when you let your demons out like you just did?”

The arm she isn’t currently running her fingers along rests on the body of my guitar while I keep my eyes closed. “Yeah, I do.”

“You bring down the house.”

“All I hear is silence around me even though my head is screaming.”

I feel her shuffle even closer to me, and I jump when her fingers touch my jaw, her other hand never leaving my arm. “It’s not always the noise that matters.”

When I finally force myself to open my eyes and look at her, I find her staring up at me through wet lashes and glistening, ice-blue eyes. The tip of her nose is a light shade of red, and her bottom lip is quivering. I know she’s talking business here, but all I can think about in this very moment is kissing that deep-red lipstick off of her and taking away all the pain I know she’s been through in her life and I don’t even know everything. For the first time ever I don’t care about the way I feel, but I don’t want her to hurt.

“If you can make people feel your pain simply by listening to the words you are saying, you’ll be fine. Country music isn’t all about drinking and guns. You don’t have to sing about dogs and ex-wives to make people happy. It doesn’t matter if you want to write about your demons that haunt your life or wrecking a house while having sex, as long as you’re true to yourself and people can feel the emotion in the song.”

“That was way too easy,” I say, doing anything I can to take my mind off the fact that she just said something about sex. 

“Think you’ve got a few more in you tonight?”

“I think now that I know what I’ve been doing wrong I won’t be able to stop.” The book I use to write in burns in my back pocket, and I know now that she opened me up, I can probably finish up the ones that actually mean something to me. Izzy’s hand gravitates toward the microphone again, and I’m not even sure she knows that she’s touching it. “Have you ever wanted to play here?”

“I don’t want to be in the spotlight, I already told you that.”

I laugh, making her roll those gorgeous blue eyes. “That isn’t what I asked. I asked if you ever wanted to
play
here.”

Thinking about it for a second, she finally opens up and tells me the truth. “Probably every day of my entire life, but who knows.” Her words are so soft that I can barely hear her, and I wonder if she’s scared to admit it to herself.

“Look at that. I think I finally got some honesty out of you too.” She rolls her eyes again but doesn’t take her hand away. “So why don’t you?”

“I’m more comfortable behind the scenes.”

Lies, more lies.

“Did you miss the show you put on in Chicago? Or do you only perform like that when you’re trying to piss me off?”

She shrugs but I finally see a smile tugging at her lips again. “Pissing you off was a pretty good incentive.”

“You’re not the only person to think like that.” 

Leaving her where she is in the center of the stage, I grab one of the guitars from the house-band section and hand it off to her. “We’ll get this done a lot faster if you help me.”