With the weather being what it was, almost every guest had canceled their reservation for the weekend. There was a huge storm coming in, and while usually the hotel was accessible year-round, there had been some warnings and questions about whether or not it would be possible over the next couple of days. He didn’t mind. A little bit of quiet in his newest acquisition while he looked to the next one was fine by him.

And since there was only going to be one guest, he’d let the staff go as well. The guest had declined maid service, and there was enough food that all he would have to do was heat and deliver. And he didn’t mind that.

A little bit of manual labor didn’t bother him at all. In fact, he thought it was good. Another way to burn out that rage. He had to do it.

And as if just thinking had brought it all to him, he suddenly became aware of the fact that there was music playing in the lobby. And not just any music.

You were the cowboy my mama warned me about

And I thought I listened, I thought you were different

I gave you my heart, and you gave me good-luck charms

I gave you my body, and you kept my scarf

I gave you my body, and you kept my heart

For God’s sake. Was it destined to follow him everywhere? Even when he quite literally owned the damn place?

He growled and stalked toward the reception desk. The guy had told him how to control the music, but as his own personal level of hell played around him, he couldn’t quite remember how.

I gave you everything to the sound of crashing waves

You knew you were the first one

I wanted you to be the only one

It made him think of her.

The song always made him think of her.

The way she’d looked at him, like she was searching his eyes for the answers to all of her questions. Wordless questions he’d wished he hadn’t understood. Questions that still echoed inside him.

In the end, she’d said that he was right. She had said that they needed to finish the whole damned thing.

She was the one that had called it a fling.

She said she loved you too.

Yes. She had said that. And then she had taken it back. She had said that it was just because of the sex. And he’d been more than willing to believe it because hearing her say that she loved him had done things to him. Terrible, intense things that made him feel like his chest was being cut into.

He needed to find the volume. Or a sledgehammer.

Before the next part.

But then it was the next part, and it was in his head, his heart, his soul.

You took the clothes off my body

I gave you my yes and I love you

You took the skin off my bones

You gave me nothing at all

I prayed for our sin to disappear

But I didn’t mean for it to end in blood

He found the speaker right then. He found it just a lyric too late. He crouched down, reaching for the knob on the speaker behind the desk. And as he did, he heard the door to the lobby open. He hit the off button on the speaker just as the next part of the song started.

He couldn’t explain the way it made him feel.

He could remember where he was the first time he heard it. The first time he’d heard his ex-girlfriend—was she his ex-girlfriend? He’d never had a girlfriend in his life. And they weren’t supposed to be that, but he’d also never ended a physical relationship with someone and felt like their connection was still there. And yet.

The simple truth was, he’d gotten in deeper with her than he ever had been with anyone else. Much deeper than he’d intended to. And he wasn’t going to say he’d covered himself in glory at the end of all things. But she had seemed to accept it. He’d been up-front with her, from the beginning, about what they were, about what they could be.

So imagine his surprise the first time he’d heard that song. Documenting everything. The most personal, deep feelings he’d ever had in his whole life turned into a sing-along.

Even if no one else had ever heard it, it would have felt too raw and personal for him to listen to.

But people had heard it. So many people.

To make matters worse, her fame and his own niche notoriety in certain circles had made it so there were theories out there on the internet about who the song was about.

Her fans were nuts. They spent all day weaving together theories about what every lyric meant. And he knew that because he’d googled it, because he’d wanted to know what the lyrics meant too.

Dammit.

The terrible thing was, her fans made points. Points he didn’t like, but points nonetheless.

That would have been bad enough. But it didn’t stop there.

Strangers sometimes accosted him on the street and asked him how dare he break Tansey Martin’s heart? Country music’s sweetheart. Barrel-racer-turned-overnight-singing-sensation.

She was beautiful and beloved, and he was the expertly cast villain in her narrative. Set to music, which meant that people could hum his humiliation as a catchy tune.

He could remember clearly the way that she had looked up at him. The way that she had looked up at him when he’d said all those things. The awful sort of things that he’d warned her he would say. As everything had broken apart inside of him, the walls that he had erected around himself beginning to crumble, she had looked up at him, and she had said that he was right.

That he was right, and they shouldn’t be together. That he was right and they should forget everything.

Yeah. He knew that. Because he knew his limitations. And then... And then four months later, completely and totally blindsided by this song. And he’d known it was about them. That it was their story.

It was like she had crawled beneath his skin with those song lyrics. Like she had described his own pain. Like she’d dug into his soul and carved clear arrows to his own motives. To things he’d denied even to himself.

He’d pretended that he wasn’t hanging on to her scarf for any particular reason, and she had immortalized it in song and made it impossible for him to pretend.

But it was the pregnancy scare.