Friday, 8/5: Nashville

Nashville sparkled against the lightening sky as I stared out my window at the Opryland Hotel. My last day on the tour was dawning.

It had snuck up on me out of nowhere. Through my haze of work and confusion, the week had managed to fly by.

From a professional standpoint, it had been productive, I thought as I watched the city glisten over the treetops. I felt ready to leave, ready to get back and start putting a decent story together.

From a strictly personal standpoint, I was a wreck. After yesterday's near-miss, or near-kiss, with Brian during our unscheduled pit stop, I had given him a wide berth. I couldn't risk something else happening with him, as badly as I wanted it. Alicia was right: I had to keep him at arm's length at least until the story ran. Maybe forever.

He seemed to get it, too. No more sitting next to me. No more little smiles, winks, jokes. Whatever conversations we had felt forced, stilted. But more than once, when I'd look up at him, hoping he wasn't looking, I'd caught him looking at me, that same sort of helplessness in his eyes. And every time, we'd both looked away in a hurry.

It had been a miserable ride. And 24 hours from now, I'd be getting ready to head to the airport. I had taken my last ride with the boys on the bus, and it had completely sucked. What a crappy end to a surprisingly decent week.

I turned back to my room. My laptop was sitting closed on the bed, where I'd left it when I finally tried to get some sleep last night, after attempting to work myself tired by transcribing interviews. It hadn't worked. The only one I had left to transcribe was Brian's, and I couldn't stand to listen to his voice. It had echoed in my ears as I'd tried to sleep.

My nightstand phone rang. I picked it up, and a front desk clerk's voice rang in my ear, reminding me it was time to wake up. In my failure to sleep, I'd beaten the alarm out of bed.

I showered, dressed, tried to make some sense of my bag. I wandered down to the vast, lushly green lobby, freshly renovated after last year's disastrous floods, and bought a Diet Coke and a granola bar from the sort of bland lobby convenience store you usually saw in casinos. I found a place to sit and stared up at the glass ceiling, trying to collect my thoughts.

A tinkling piano in my pocket broke through my reverie. It could only be one person. My heart jumped into my throat as I answered the phone. "What?"

"Well, good morning, sunshine," came Thomas' sarcastic reply from the other end. "Don't sound so thrilled to be talking to the guy keeping you out of the bread line."

I rubbed my forehead. "Don't try me, Thomas. I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon stranded in God's country. And I got a horrible night's sleep."

"Well, surely that's from excitement over coming back to this city of cynics. How's it going?"

"Pretty well. I think I'm in a good place as far as what I need to write the story. Just need to get through this last day." I propped up my feet. "Should get some good material from their playing the Grand Ole Opry tonight. It's a pretty different kind of show."

"They're preschoolers standing in the footsteps of giants, if you ask me, but more power to them," my boss said dryly. "All your social media stuff has been fine. Good job on the videos, too. Lot of activity on the one from the sound check."

I nodded. "Thanks. I'll try and do at least one more video today. Maybe kind of a retrospective with the guys."

"Sounds good. And, ah, how are things going with the guys? I take it you got all the interviews you needed."

"Yep. Except Christine declined to talk on the record." Or she would have if I had bothered asking her, of that I was sure. As far as I was concerned, this story had nothing to do with her, and I wanted to operate the same way.

An annoyed sigh. "I've got her cellphone number. I'll tell her to quit givin' you shit. "

I should have known he would call my bluff. "I wish you wouldn't," I said, not too quickly. "I don't think that's going to help my cause very much."

"Fine. It's your funeral. And the, ah, uncooperative band member?"

My chest tightened, and I realized I was trying to talk and hold my breath at the same time. "Everything's fine. Got the interview. He's been a lot more cooperative." Too cooperative.

"Good." Thomas was silent a moment. He must have known I was hiding something, or maybe I was just projecting. Yeah. Projecting.

"Well, I can't think of anything else," he went on, a little awkwardly. Thomas, awkward: a startling new concept. "Just wanted to make sure things were going as well as your emails made them sound."

I squeezed my eyes shut. I was tired of talking to Thomas. There was so much below the surface of those emails that my boss needed to never, ever know. "Yep. Looking forward to getting back to the office."

"Looking forward to having you back. The crazy hair quotient and self-righteous Thompson-quoting differential have been shamefully low this week." The sarcasm was back.

"I really hate you sometimes."

"That's what I like to hear from my writers. See you Monday."

The line went dead. I exhaled.

**

The Grand Ole Opry was smaller than it had looked on TV when I was a kid watching all my mom's favorite country singers on TNN. For all the history it had seen, it felt a little anticlimactic. Only that wooden circle on the stage, scuffed by so many famous boots, rescued intact from beneath muddy waters, seemed to hold any hint of the magic in this place.

I sat in the middle of the auditorium, watching the band wrap up their sound check. The roadies had been careful to avoid that wooden circle, even laying a cord around its perimeter so the guys would know not to approach it. It seemed like a nice touch.

It was early afternoon, and the guys were still at lunch. I had bowed out, despite their protests. I didn't want anything to do with them today, didn't want another opportunity to awkwardly try not to stare at or converse with Brian. I hated them for making me put myself through this.

You're the only one making yourself do anything, a voice inside hatefully reminded me. This is all your doing. You could have avoided him altogether.

But I really couldn't have. I had brought this on myself only by doing what I was sent here to do. Maybe it really was all his fault. That only made me hate him more, with a sweet kind of pain that clenched around my chest like a fist.

A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned to see Brian making his way down the aisle toward me.

I rubbed my face. Damn it all to hell. I wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted him to never leave me.

He sat down a couple seats away from me, kicking his feet up on the back of the seat in front of him. "So this is what was more important than having one last lunch with us."

The joke sounded a little forced, but so did my own lighthearted reply. "You expect a music writer not to grab a chance to just sit in the Grand Ole Opry and soak it up?"

"Guess not." He leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling. "Awesome venue. Every freakin' kid in the South dreams of playing here sometime."

The silence between us was as thick as soup. He cleared his throat, still looking at the ceiling. "So, um, yesterday."

I blew out a breath. My heart was pounding. "You really want to talk about this?"

"Yeah. I do. I've been thinking about it ever since we walked out of that church."

"I-" He turned to me, and the serious look in those blue eyes shut me up on the spot.

"I meant every single thing I said," he began quietly. "I just want you to know that. But I hate how awkward it's been since I said those things."

A humorless laugh escaped me. "You don't want things to be awkward with a woman you know professionally, who you will never see again, over things you said to her that came from somewhere you know full well she cannot go with you because you know her professionally. Yeah. OK, Brian."

"Fair enough." He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. The words seemed to come spilling out, barely a pause for a breath. "And yeah, you're beautiful, and there's something about you that just sucks me in, and that's totally the elephant in the room. But it's so much bigger than that. You and I have a connection, yeah? And I'm thankful for that. I've been doing nothing but steer clear of women, even as friends, for the last two years. I never thought I'd open up to you like I have. You're so easy to talk to. You're an amazing listener. You make me feel so comfortable, and I bet you don't even know how you do it. And you're so much fun, and such an interesting woman..." He trailed off. "I never thought I'd call a journalist a friend, but here we are."

A friend, huh? I didn't know what to say. I didn't know if it felt like a kiss-off or a come-on. It sounded like he was trying to persuade not just me, but himself that I was a friend, not someone he'd called beautiful and tried to kiss in an abandoned church 24 hours earlier. I had a sudden, overwhelming urge to hide my face in my hands and cry.

 "You said you don't make a lot of friends in your work," Brian was saying. "You said you were glad to make a friend in me. Did you mean that?"

"Well, yeah." I took a deep breath, looking at the back of the seat between us. Here went my attempt to verbalize everything that had been bothering me about this week. "I don't make friends with sources very often. I feel like there's this line of impartiality I'm not supposed to cross. If I'm friends with someone I'm writing about, I'm not impartial. That's why this week has been so strange for me - spending time with you guys as something more than just a silent observer, getting to know you guys as friends. I'm not used to that at all. If I'm in any way involved in the story, I'm not impartial." I looked him in the eye, trying to say my next words meaningfully. "So, you know, if I'm more than friends with someone in the story, that whole impartial thing is totally shot. The story runs a month from today. Until then, I can't be anything but impartial."

There it was, out in the open. It wasn't me. It wasn't him. It was my work. He knew how that went better than anyone. He could take that statement anywhere. Dear God, don't let him take it back to where it ended yesterday. I couldn't bear to hear him say those words again. This kind of heartache was so very, very bad for business.

He held my gaze, silent for a moment. I saw a million questions in his eyes. Finally, he said, "And yet here you are. Friends with me. Can we at least agree on that? Forget the rest, try to be less awkward, and at least part as friends? Someone the other can call and have a drink and a laugh when I'm in New York or you're in Kentucky?"

I nearly sighed with relief at the direction of the conversation, but the idea of being just friends with him lodged in my soul like a knife and twisted. As far as I was concerned, being just friends, long-distance friends, the sort of person you stop bothering to send a Christmas card after a couple years, was a difficult, horrifying notion. I wanted so much more. I wanted to hear him say I was beautiful in that sweet Southern drawl every day. I wanted his hands...

Right. Friends.

I pasted a smile on my face. "Yes. I think I can do that. Friends?" I held out my hand, an echo of the handshake he had extended me at the end of my second day with them. It seemed like a lifetime ago, especially when I considered what I'd been through with him.

He reached over and shook it, mock-solemnly. "OK, then. Friends." He offered me a cautious smile.

I didn't want to contemplate it any further. I released his hand and looked around. "Where the heck is everyone else?"

Brian looked at his phone. "They ought to be along anytime. I escaped while they were freaking out about A.J.'s fiancée and her friend flying out here today."

"What?" My eyebrows went up. "Wow. Where do they live?"

Brian looked bemused. "Uh, LA. She does this sometimes. So does Howie's wife. But we usually get more than a few hours' notice, so yeah, freaking out."

"Good freaking out? Bad freaking out?"

 "‘They want to go out after the show' freaking out." He grinned. "And you're going with us."

I facepalmed in mock dismay. "Out? We're in friggin' Nashville. Am I going to need cowboy boots for this?"

His grin broadened as, over his shoulder, I saw the others walk down the aisle. "Probably."

"LITTRELL!" Nick hollered across the auditorium. "Stage! Sound check!" Brian flashed me a smile and jumped up from his seat, heading for the stage.

I slouched in my seat, a little deflated. So much food for thought, and so little time to digest it.

The guys appeared onstage. Howie was dragging an extra stool, which he plunked down at the front of the stage. Well, now what was that about?

They went through their usual warm-up with the exasperated sound tech, who walked them through the headsets and the cordless mics. The whole process felt so much different from the arenas. They seem aware already that they're on hallowed ground, I wrote on my notepad.

Thomas' words echoed in my head: preschoolers in the footsteps of giants. It was ambitious, if nothing else.

A.J. cleared his throat into his mic. "Would Meg Michaels please report to the stage," he rumbled.

Every set of eyes in the auditorium was on me. I nearly swallowed my tongue in surprise.

"There should be some stairs here at the front," Brian added.

I clambered to my feet, stumbled out of my row on rubbery legs, found the stairs they mentioned. I climbed to the stage. The lights were on, blinding, but I could see beyond them into an empty auditorium filled with history. In my childhood, it had been filled with people screaming for Johnny and June; in a few hours, it would be filled with women screaming for my friends, the Backstreet Boys. The entire thing was surreal as hell.

And then my eyes landed on the fifth stool - sitting in the center of the old wooden circle, less than 10 feet in front of the guys. I didn't even have to look at them to know it was mine.

A lump swelled in my throat. Damn it all. Seriously?

"This tour has been an unprecedented one for us," Nick began, speaking to an unseen crowd as I sat shakily on the stool, in the middle of the circle unbroken. "We've had journalists bother us before, but not for six days in a row." He grinned. "And none so pretty and so much fun as Rolling Stone's finest, Miss Meg Michaels. This lady needs a round of applause just for putting up with us."

The guys offered a golf clap, their eyes twinkling with restrained glee.

"And I believe this is the first time we've ever had a fan travel with us," Howie added, smirking.

I finally found my voice. "Oh, come on."

A.J. hopped up from his stool, pacing back and forth as he spoke in grandstanding tones, the others punctuating his speech with verbal nods that made me feel like I was in church.

"Now, Miz Michaels, Brother Carter here speaks the truth. You've put up with a lot of crap from us this week." ("Mm-hmm!") "We've laughed at your expense, and you at ours. We've farted in your general direction more times than I myself care to admit." ("Preach it!") "We've run you around a little bit on the good work you were sent here to do. We even stranded you on the side of the road in Cousin Country, Tennessee." ("Amen!") "But you never gave up on your story, never gave up on us."

A.J. stopped in front of me, grinning. "And we've gained a hell of a friend in you, lady. And I hope you know you've got friends in us, just by being the bigger person."

"Which is ironic, because you're, like, the lost munchkin." Nick winked at me.

I was about to come back with a sarcastic retort when I suddenly saw Brian hop back onto his stool, holding an acoustic guitar. I didn't know he'd even gotten up. He must have snuck off while A.J. was channeling Al Sharpton. Now what was this all about? Since when did he even play the guitar?

As A.J. returned to his seat, Brian started strumming the guitar. And then he was singing, looking me right in the eye.

First off, I can't keep a promise

"Oh, Jesus." My burning face dropped into my hands.

Brian kept singing, a laugh creeping into his voice, and his eyes were still on me when I looked up, sparkling with joy and affection and I refused to contemplate what else.

I'm no one to count on at all

Add on that I'm a coward

Too scared to return your calls

The other three joined in:

But you don't care
You keep stickin' around
While I'm actin' a clown
You're bigger
La la la la la la, la la la la la la
'Cause you're still here
Your feet stuck to the ground
Despite how silly it sounds
You're bigger than me

La la la la la la, la la la la la la

A.J. picked it up:

It's known that I'm a liar

Often they're blacker than white

Add on my uncanny ego

No one's less humble than I

And then it was back to the chorus, my four friends - yes, friends, there was nothing else to call them - singing to me as I sat in one of the most iconic spots in the history of music. You couldn't make it up. My hands flew to my face again, covering everything below my eyes, which ached in the corners from smiling so hard. Howie pulled out his phone, and I thought I saw him take a picture.

I thought of all the insanity that had transpired this week, all the fun we'd had in spite of all the dread I'd carried with me to Miami. All the great conversations. All the good pictures I'd taken, the good stories I'd spun in my head, all about these guys I'd never even expected to meet when I'd been swooning to their music 12, 13 years ago.

All the ways these guys had surprised me, and I myself.

Back to just Brian, who looked me in the eye again, so impassioned that my heart clenched as he sang:

All the messed-up things I do
Yeah, I swear I'll make 'em up to you
Before you go and have enough
Just let me get better
I'll try and measure up
I'll try and measure up to you...

That could mean anything, I told myself. He had said whatever connection we had - and I could not deny we had one, it would be stupid to try - was bigger than attraction, bigger than awkwardness, bigger than our own bullheadedness. Friends or more, maybe he had a point.

And now we were back to the chorus, all the guys finishing strong, eyes shut, totally into it, Brian strumming away like his life depended on it. I'd seen the same looks on their faces for the crowds of thousands screaming for them every night. The only crowd here today was me.

They looked at me expectantly. I clapped hard all by myself, giving them a genuine smile powered by a wave of real fondness for them.

"Well, that was a very nice treat, gentlemen." My own voice sounded odd to me, rough, unnervingly close to tears, and I cleared my throat. I held up my fingers, just a tiny pinch apart. "You've moved a grown woman thiiiiiis much closer to tears."

Nick winked at me. "Wouldn't be the first time."

I laughed, and then it all hit me in a tidal wave. I hopped down from the stool and stumbled offstage without another word. I walked straight out of the auditorium, not even bothering to collect my stuff. I needed some air. Jesus. This was all getting to be too much.

No sooner had I walked into the lobby than I heard heels clicking behind me.

"Meg." Christine crossed her arms over her chest, towering over me as I hunched over, hands on my knees, catching my breath. Her tone was glacial. "I've had a sneaky feeling about you all week, and now I have proof."

Oh, here we go. I straightened up and matched her stance, arms crossed. It was hopeless, I knew. I could never be as intimidating as this harpy. I could never be as intimidating as a sea lion, for that matter.

"Proof?" I echoed coolly.

She sighed. "I told you not to be a distraction. I assumed you were professional enough not to be." Her voice hardened even further. If it had been ice before, now it was diamond. "I'd say a serenade is a bit of a distraction."

I exhaled my sigh slowly through my nose. OK. I could handle this. I would be the bigger person the guys seemed to think I was.

"Christine, when I do what I do best, I get to know people," I said evenly. "If they consider me a friend, I have no control over that."

Her eyes were on the box office behind me, her jaw set. "Fair enough." She looked at me again, her blue eyes angry. "The way Brian looked at you just now. That's a distraction."

I kept my face carefully blank. "I can't control that, either." Didn't she know that I would have if only I could?

She took a step closer, pointing a finger at me. If I had been a few inches taller, we would have been nose to nose.

"Now you listen here," she snarled, her voice barely above a whisper. "It is my job to control every aspect of this tour. If one of those guys breathes funny, my job is in jeopardy. So a strange woman with big hair and a big mouth coming in here and disrupting all that was never going to be my best friend in the first place. But now," and here she poked my shoulder, "now you've become a distraction, whether you meant to or not."

Her voice was cold, but the very fires of hell seemed to burn in her eyes. "It doesn't matter if you can't control yourself or what you create. What matters is that because of you, I can't control this week."

The lecture was bad enough, but the poke threatened my basic self-control. I dug my fingernails into my upper arm to keep from punching her in the face. Would it be so very bad to punch her, though? For a brief moment, I thought about us wrestling on this marble floor, slapping, pulling hair, beating the living piss out of each other, a cat meowing off in the distance somewhere. I thought about showing her what chicks from Staten Island did to bitches who poked them in the shoulder and called them names. I thought about calling her every single one of George Carlin's seven words you can't say on TV, and plenty more you could.

I thought about all that, and instead I stood my ground and said, "Are we done here?"

She didn't respond. Her eyes narrowed just a hair.

"Because in case you've lost track of time, I am," I continued. I strode back into the auditorium, fists clenched, every step an effort.