CHAPTER 1
Olivia
This house, I thought, was way too lonely when I was living here by myself.
I mean yeah, in theory I should have been beyond excited about having the whole place to myself. A big old Victorian with three full bedrooms and just as many bathrooms and I was the only one living there. Sounds like a dream, right? All that space to myself? And after growing up hating that I had to share a bedroom with my little sister, you would have thought I’d be all about it.
Except that I wasn’t. I’d moved to Nashville with my best friend in the world and made another best friend once we got here, all of us thrown together under the heading of ‘newbies to the industry’ and being taken care of by Drive In Records. And the thing about best friends was that once they were in your life, it became impossible to imagine your reality without them.
Avery Dawson and Parker Pelton had been my partners in crime from the moment we teamed up, and without them, life just...
“Sucks,” I muttered to myself. I threw my bag of shopping on the floor and stalked into the kitchen, wondering what the hell I was going to do with myself tonight. What I was going to cook for my lonely dinner and how I was going to spend my lonely night.
Look, I wasn’t bitter. Avery had married Jackson, the guy she fell in love with while overstaying her welcome at his house, and Parker was in the midst of setting up her dude-ranch-slash-bed-and-breakfast with the love of her life, Dev Hawthorne, back in Arberry. And I loved that they were both so happy and had found their places in life. I loved that they’d found men who loved them nearly as much as I did.
Seriously.
I just didn’t love that it had taken them away from me. It was hard for a girl who’d always found herself at the center of attention to suddenly find herself on her own.
And bored.
I mean it wasn’t like I didn’t have any friends here in Nashville other than Avery and Parker. My agent and I’d been spending more time together than apart lately, and I loved her to death. It was just...
She was no Avery, and she definitely wasn’t anything like Parker.
I missed my girls. And I needed their advice right now.
I looked down at the list in my hand—the one I’d found in the mailbox when I got home—and sighed. The list was from Taylor, my agent, and though it should have made me feel more excited than anything else, it just made me feel stuck. What was it, you ask? Why, a list of the local clubs and bars I’d be playing in the coming months. A show every other night, more or less, with expectations of new music being recorded at the same time.
I was getting tired just looking at it, honestly, and not only because it was an insane schedule. It was more what it represented. I’d been home at Christmas to recover from a breakup and had accidentally-on-purpose found myself involved in the annual music contest that happened in town every year. The contest itself: Come up with a brand new song and perform it in front of the biggest crowd Arberry could put together. The prize: A record contract with whatever studio was sponsoring the contest that year.
I hadn’t really gone home with the intent of taking part, but rather to hide from my jackass ex-boyfriend who’d been trying to ruin my reputation and steal the record contract I already had. When he succeeded in stealing that contract though, and I found myself in Arberry right in time for the contest...
Well, it had been a no-brainer.
The thing that hadn’t been a no-brainer: Getting Connor Wheating, the guy I’d had a crush on all through high school, to loan me his recording studio for some good old-fashioned song writing. And that had gone sideways right from the start, the way I should have known it would. Connor and I had made a great team, but only until he decided to start ignoring me again. Sure, he’d had his reasons—his dad was dying from cancer and he was only home to help save the family farm—but that hadn’t excused his behavior.
Namely, starting to ignore me halfway through the week we had to get a song ready.
Of course he’d hurt himself just as bad, and hadn’t managed to come up with anything for the contest aside from the song we wrote together. And when he’d tried to perform it by himself, I’d come to the rescue and helped him win the contract.
And in the process, I’d won a contract myself. And slept with Connor. Then left without saying goodbye.
I pulled myself off the wall and shoved that thought back into the closet where I generally kept it. No good ever came of thinking about it. I’d cared for Connor too much in high school and evidently growing up hadn’t made me any smarter. So yeah, I’d fallen for him. And he’d turned his back on me and then slept with me anyhow.
The minute Taylor had texted me and said that Atomic Records wanted to give me a contract if I got my butt back to Nashville and started hustling, I’d done exactly that. Because Connor had his contract and he was good. He needed to go be a big rock star and make his career. He didn’t need me for that.
As far as I was concerned, I was free to go.
Which all led to me being back in Nashville, Atomic still dangling that contract in front of my nose and telling me that if I played enough shows, if I wrote enough new music, they’d be ready for me.
I wanted that contract. I’d wanted it for as long as I could remember, from when I first picked up a guitar and started to figure out how to put chords together to make music. I’d been dreaming of making that career and getting myself out of Arberry from the moment I met Parker and realized that I needed to get her out of town even worse than I needed to get myself out. We’d run for Nashville as soon as we graduated, away from Parker’s dad and her ex and the fists they used too freely, and away from the small-town corner I’d always found myself in.
Honestly, I didn’t feel like I’d come that far since then. Parker was a successful music manager—mine, actually—and Avery had a multi-record deal and was the new pop princess of country music. They both had men who would sell their souls to make them happy and homes to call their own.
And I was still in this rental in Nashville, hustling my butt off and trying to win my contract.
I’d never been a look-on-the-bright-side sort of girl, and I was starting to think this wasn’t going to work the way I wanted it to. Because with Parker and her ability to strong-arm any exec she came across out of town, I wasn’t sure how much more I could do.
I was just about to dig into the freezer and get my emergency carton of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream out when my phone started ringing. I grabbed for it, shocked at all the noise, and glanced at the screen to see who was calling.
Taylor James, not-so-secret witch, the caller ID read.
I smirked, the same way I always did. Taylor was one of the most serious people I’d ever met, and would never ever consider doing anything like witchcraft in real life. But she was such a miracle worker that I’d started asking her what sort of spells she was casting and she’d fallen right into it like she was already in on the joke.
I hoped she was calling me to tell me about her latest and greatest spell crafting, because I needed some good news.
“Tell me you’ve performed some miracles,” I said, instead of using the tried-and-true greeting of ‘hello.’
She snorted. “Girl, you only wish you could do spells like me.”