I tried again to force my foot into the unyielding leather of the cowboy boot, still so new, nowhere near broken in. Maybe these had been such a steal because they were going to be insanely uncomfortable. Maybe I'd end up leaving them in an alley and prowling the streets of Nashville in my bare feet.

Finally one boot on, then the other. I regarded myself in the mirror. I was wearing that rarely-worn, girlish red sundress, with ruffles at the knee-length hem and at the strapless bodice. I had bought a cheap black leather belt at the same store downstairs where I'd found the black cowboy boots, with their loud turquoise stitching, and cinched the waist of the dress with it, the better to look like I might in fact have an hourglass figure. With any luck, the rest of the dress would be a distraction from my knee, which the dress just skimmed, and which was starting to turn green. The boots made me look about as Nashville as I was going to get. From the neck up, I was some kind of disco refugee, all wild brown curls and alluring black eyeliner.

On a different night, I might have felt self-conscious. On a different night, Christine's tirade would have been echoing in my head, and I might not have gone out at all, the better to avoid being a further distraction. On a different night, I might not have opened up the mini-bar while I was doing my makeup. As it was, I looked in the mirror, two mini-whiskeys in, and I thought I cleaned up pretty damn well.

"Self, you ate a whole bowl of sexy for breakfast," I told my reflection.

It was past 11, and we were just heading out. I felt like a college girl again, pregaming before a late night full of mystery. The guys were leaving in less than seven hours; I had a strong suspicion we'd be pulling an all-nighter.

A thought occurred to me too late: I had absolutely no pockets, nor did I have a purse that was in any way suited to a night out. Into the bra went my phone, my ID, my debit card, my room key, my strawberry Chapstick. I was just rearranging the native contents of my bra, glad I'd thought to pack the supremely uncomfortable one with the convertible straps, when a knock came at the door.

"Housekeeping!" came a high-pitched voice.

"Gah!" I jumped, my hand still down my dress. I hardly needed to be feeling myself up when Brian was around.

I pulled myself together and opened the door. "Oh, it's you."

A.J. stood outside with a woman I took to be his fiancée, a vivacious-looking woman a couple years younger than me with Snow White coloring and a prominent nose. Neither one of them looked dressed for a night of honky-tonking - more like a night of clubbing, jeans and tattoo-revealing black T-shirt for him, short and curve-hugging black dress for her. Then again, she was sporting bright blue cowboy boots.

"Well, I'm just thrilled to see you too, Miz Michaels," A.J. said sarcastically. "You n' your Nancy Sinatra boots."

"Ignore him, he's cranky," Snow White said, flashing white teeth with an appealing little gap between the front two. She stuck out her right hand, although from here I could see the thumbnail-sized diamond on her left hand. "I'm Rochelle, soon to be Mrs. Cranky. You must be the infamous journalist."

I shook her hand. "Meg Michaels, Rolling Stone. Journalist by day, stuck with these goons for the last week by night."

"And goons they are," she agreed with a wink. She looked around. "My friend's around here some- Lindie!" she called down the hall. "Quit flirting with the bodyguard!"

"Oh, bite mah ass!" a thick Southern drawl came back. I was suddenly glad we had an entire floor to ourselves.

As I stepped out into the hall, a statuesque blonde girl walked away not from the bodyguard, but from Nick, who followed with a leer on his face. My desire to punch him in the back of the head returned, and then some.

Blondie, or Lindie, as Rochelle had called her, was wearing a slightly different black dress and hot pink cowboy boots. The two of them looked like something out of a Tobey Keith video. Lindie was also nearly a foot taller than me. She looked down with a cheerful smile, if a slightly insincere one.

"My best friend, Lindie," Rochelle said. She beamed. "She's come out with us a time or two, though this is a new adventure for us both."

"You're tellin' me," Brian said as he came out of his room two doors down from mine. He was wearing a dark blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up - God, there was just something about rolled-up sleeves on a good-looking man - and jeans that looked as soft as the sheets on the hotel bed. He lifted up one leg to reveal his own cowboy boots. "I don't know how real cowboys actually work on the ranch in these mothers."

"They probably don't buy the cheap ones in the hotel lobby," I pointed out helpfully, lifting a foot to compare notes.

Brian's eyes went to my boots. Then traveled upward. And widened slightly. Half his mouth lifted in a sly smile. He didn't say anything, but the look in his eyes spoke volumes.

Mission. Fucking. Accomplished.

A.J. rolled his eyes. "Good God, man, undress the nice lady with your eyes much?"

 "I was just gonna say. Meg, you're a laaaady!" Nick crowed. "You wouldn't punch me in the face if I wolf-whistled, would you?"

I rolled my eyes. If anything, it would be totally disingenuous. He was attempting to break a fundamental law of physics by standing almost on top of Lindie, attempting to occupy the exact same space. The look on her face indicated she didn't much mind.

A.J. looked around. "All right, are we goin' or are we goin'? Where's Howie? HOWIE D.!" he bellowed. "ONE HOUR IS MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR ANY REASONABLE MAN TO SHIT, SHOWER AND SHAVE!"

I facepalmed. Again I was glad we had an entire floor to ourselves. The guys had made me promise tonight would be off the record. I was somewhat regretting agreeing to that demand.

A door slammed down the hall, and Howie appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "I just want y'all to know I am not stoked not to have a date tonight," he remarked as we all shuffled toward the elevator, Bob bringing up the rear. "Maybe I should have flown the wife up."

 "You can dance with Bob." Brian grinned as we all squeezed into the elevator.

"Oh, what, you claiming Meg?" Howie smirked at Brian, then shot me a teasing wink.

"I didn't say that," Brian muttered at the floor. But as he caught my eye, his eyes said exactly that.

Our conversation before sound check felt forgotten. We were playing with fire, and my already-tipsy brain couldn't muster anything but excitement in response.

"Limo's out front," Rochelle said as we descended.

"Limo?" A.J. said. He put an arm around her and kissed her forehead. "Well, you're just full of surprises, sugar."

It was less a limo that awaited us outside than a motorized overcompensating mechanism, I reflected as we laid eyes on the white stretch Hummer.

"Well, that's a nice, inconspicuous vehicle," Howie said sarcastically.

Nick glowered down at him. "If you'd like to go get in your jammies and watch Jimmy Fallon, by all means, bro."

We piled into the limo, which was lit softly with twinkle lights along the ceiling, upholstered in white leather, big enough for 15 people and almost tall enough to stand up in. Lindie rummaged in her clutch and pulled out a CD in a white envelope. I glimpsed the words "Get Psyched Mix" written on the CD - a How I Met Your Mother reference? maybe she could stay - as she slipped it into a small ceiling-mounted stereo. Soon Usher was singing: Thank God the week is done, I feel like a zombie come back to life, back-back to life...

 "So, uh, I told the limo driver to take us where all the good bars are," Rochelle announced. She shrugged. "So I guess we're going down to Broadway."

"By ‘all the good bars,' do you mean ‘all the places with line dancing and people who are even whiter than us'?" Nick deadpanned.

"I didn't know there was anything else in Nashvegas," Brian quipped. "Hence the cowboy boots that all the smart people wore."

"Thank you." Lindie gestured triumphantly at her pink boots. "I knew I made the right move haulin' these bad boys out here with me."

Nick leered at the boots and the expanse of leg between them and Lindie's skirt. She caught his eye and winked.

Brian side-eyed me, trying to smother a smile. "Getaroom," we coughed more or less in unison.

Nick cleared his throat. "Heykettleyoureblack," he harrumphed.

I laughed and sank further into the soft leather. I was warm with whiskey, the limo was lively with laughter and friends, and on the stereo, Usher was singing: So dance, dance like it's the last, last night of your life, life...

Presently, the lights of downtown Nashville surrounded us, and we were crawling down Broadway, clubs lining both sides of the street. Someone rolled down a window, and a mosaic of lively country songs filled the limo.

As we halted, A.J. peeked outside, then looked around the limo. Doubt shadowed his face.

"What is it, babes?" Rochelle asked.

He looked outside again. "This...may not be our scene."

"Bullshit. We got our boots on. Let's go." Lindie opened the door and jumped out. Nick scrambled out after her, Bob after him, and the rest of us followed suit.

Nashville by night was an explosion of twangy music and neon color and people in fringes and energy, so much energy, all hanging in the muggy August air. We were in the South, no doubt about it, but the South was alive and the music was pulsing like the very heart of downtown. A smile spread across my face. Forget being a country fan - this was a good place to be a music fan.

The line moved fast outside a place called the Wildhorse Saloon - no jumping in line on our names for us, the guys insisted. We found ourselves inside a cavernous space full of colorful lights, wooden floors and line dancers, everywhere line dancers, kicking up their boots in intricate patterns to loud, twangy, fast-paced songs the likes of which I hadn't listened to since I left Illinois 13 years ago.

The guys all looked vaguely alarmed. "Uh..."

Rochelle and Lindie looked like it was Christmas morning. Grinning, they darted into the crowd, pulling A.J. and Nick behind them. The last we saw of A.J. was a look of panic.

Bob threw up his hands in despair. "How's a guy supposed to do his job?" I thought I saw him mouth.

"Come on, we'll get a drink," Brian half-shouted in my ear. He grabbed my hand, I grabbed Howie's, and the three of us took off toward the bar.

"So, Meg, since Brian and I are both theoretically dateless, you're gonna save me the waltz, right?" I glanced back at Howie, and he winked at me.

"You'll have to arm-wrestle me for it," Brian said cheerfully, tucking my hand into the crook of his arm.

I tried not to let my pleasure show on my face. "Boys, boys," I said lightly, feeling for all the world like a heroine in an old screwball comedy.

Brian elbowed his way up to the bar, plastic in his hand. He glanced down at me, then over his shoulder at Howie, and shouted at the bartender, "One Blue Moon with an orange and two Manhattans."

The bartender, who sported a resplendent black Fu Manchu mustache and an undersized brown suede vest, stared blankly at Brian as he cracked open a Blue Moon bottle, jammed an orange slice into the neck and passed it to Howie by way of me. "The hell's a Manhattan?" I barely heard him ask.

Brian rubbed his forehead. "OK. Uh...two Knob Creeks on the rocks."

The bartender's response was to grab the Knob Creek, slosh it into two large shotglasses and wordlessly push them toward us. Brian shrugged at me, handed the guy his card and picked up the shots.

"So, uh, shots!" he said, too brightly.            

I held mine up and offered the first toast that came to mind. "To friends!"

Brian winked at me. It was not a strictly friendly wink, I noted. "To friends."

We belted back the shots. I half-shrieked with excitement, newly alive, as the familiar honey, wood and fire slid down my throat. What was it about shots that brought out the woo girl in a grown woman?

Brian scrunched up his face. "Wow. Not used to that." He looked at me curiously. "Thought you were a cheap date."

I grinned, my face flushing. "I opened up the mini-bar before we left."

He stared down at me, shaking his head in amusement. "You are somethin' else, Meg."

Two awkward beats. We both dissolved into laughter. I squeezed Brian's arm in thanks and took off for the dance floor before it could get any worse.

Anyone who looked at me standing on the sidelines would have thought I'd fit right in, with my red dress and loud boots, but venturing onto the floor quickly outed me as an unabashed Yankee. I didn't recognize most of the songs, which all dealt with honky-tonks and patriotism and women in white cotton dresses and other things we didn't get much of in New York. You had to have a healthy sense of irony to listen to them, and I was sure my snickering was doing as much to blow my cover as anything.

I felt like a glorious fool, watching the floor, trying to mimic the other boots flying around me. But it was Nashville, and what else were we going to do with our night?

It wasn't until about five songs in that I looked up to see Rochelle on one side and Brian on the other, gamely stumbling through the songs along with me.

"Alex was right. This might have been a mistake," Rochelle giggled, catching herself on my shoulder as she kicked up a foot behind her.

It took me a full five seconds to realize she was talking about A.J., who was nowhere to be seen. I caught a glimpse of him near the door. He caught my eye and cut across his throat with his hand, a panicked look on his face. I snickered out loud.

"Somewhere our choreographer is laughing at me," Brian said as he watched the feet of the guy in front of him, awkwardly trying to mimic him.

"First time for everything." I executed a wobbly twirl on my heel, following the lead of the woman in front of me as Rascal Flatts crooned about a little brick house on the Oklahoma-Texas line.

The fast-paced ditty faded into a sweet, achingly sad steel guitar. I recognized the melody instantly: "Tequila Sunrise."

The dancers cleared out or coupled off. Brian held out a hand to me. "May I have this dance, Miz Michaels?" he asked formally, gallantly, although he couldn't quite squelch a playful smile.

My head was swimming with dance steps and whiskey shots, and this seemed like no worse an idea than anything else tonight. I kicked one foot back and bent my knees in an ironic little curtsy as I placed my hand in his. "Why, Mr. Littrell, I do declare," I drawled.

He twirled me around and pulled me in close, one hand holding mine, the other on my hip. A wicked grin down at me. "Hello again, short stack."

"You're a real pain in the ass, Littrell," I said sweetly.

He laced our fingers together, and we swayed in a small circle on the scuffed wooden floor as Glenn Frey sang the Eagles' melancholy ballad of a hired hand working on the dreams he planned to try. All around us, couples in leather and boots circled the floor in quick, graceful, complicated steps. Even a slow song was a production for these people.

As for me, I barely heard the words, barely felt my feet, and it wasn't the alcohol. I remembered the lovely feel of my dance partner's hands, the reassuring solidness of his arms, but being so close to him like this made me swoon on the inside. I was twirling on a dance floor well after midnight with a handsome man who excited me beyond caring how much he confused me. I felt like a teenager. I felt better than I ever had as a teenager.

In 12 hours I'd be on a plane back to New York, returning to a reality in which he had no place, and I couldn't have given less of a damn. Damn the timing, damn the story, damn the torpedoes: full speed ahead. Dr. Thompson would have been proud.

"So...last night on the tour," Brian said, leaning in to be heard over the loud music enveloping us. "Didja think you'd be late-nighting in a honky tonk in Nashvegas?"

"Oh, this whole week's been full of surprises." I smiled up at him, taking care to keep my voice light even though it almost hurt to look at him. I couldn't resist adding, "Wouldn't you agree?"

He just gave me that funny, private little smile, eyes thoughtful but sparkling as the Eagles spun the tale: She wasn't just another woman, and I couldn't keep from comin' on...

And I saw it: the same joyful confusion I felt, the same affection, the same sense of...falling.

Falling. I hadn't even known what word to give it until now, but at once it clicked: of course. The realization cut straight through my heart. I felt like jumping up and down and squealing like a schoolgirl, because he felt it too -- he'd made that clear. I felt like jumping out a window and hailing the first cab to the airport, because neither one of us ought to have felt anything. Our conversation before sound check might as well have never happened.

"I thought we were gonna be friends." The words slipped out, unapologetically. I shook my head, a sheepish smile curving my lips.

Brian scoffed as overhead, Glenn Frey went on: Oh, and it's a hollow feelin', when it comes down to dealin' friends..."Pfft. Friends slow-dance to old Eagles songs. Ask Nick about some of our man-dates last tour."

I rolled my eyes. "Shut up."

He laughed and gathered me in closer, his hand at the small of my back, as the prettiest guitar part began. I was close enough to bury my nose in his shoulder, almost close enough not to have a choice, and his scent made my knees just a little weak as, not for the first time this week, something long-dormant, as old as man and woman themselves, began to awaken deep inside me.

That was not the intended effect, I thought. At any rate, it was not what I'd intended. Neither was the crazy beat of my heart, which I was sure he could feel against his chest, as close as we were.

I felt his thumb move on my back. He laid his cheek against my hair, and I could hear his voice in my ear, singing along. He'd do well to record this song, it went so perfectly with his just-barely-not-twangy voice, not so dissimilar from the Eagles'. Didn't steady my knees any, this little show for one.

"Take another shot of courage," he murmured, "wonder why the right words never come..."

I squeezed my eyes shut against a wave of emotion, my fingers curling involuntarily into his shoulder. No, I could never be this man's friend. I was totally screwed.