I reached across the table and clicked the recorder back on.
14 years ago
My stomach churned as Beau took my hand, leading me into the big white farmhouse the Mason family called home a couple weeks later.
Please like me.
“Mama,” he called out toward the kitchen. “I want you to meet someone.”
He gave my hand a squeeze and pulled me to where a middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair and a permanent scowl stood stirring a pot on the stove. She wiped her hands and spun around, her face falling the second she saw me.
My stomach dropped clear to the floor, and my free hand flew to my long hair, spinning a strand around my finger out of nervousness. Beau nudged me, and I immediately extended my right hand. “I’m Dakota Andrews, Mrs. Mason. Very lovely to meet you.”
She shook my hand, eyeing me, studying me. “Will you be joining us for dinner?”
Her question was more along the lines of “I need to know so I know how much food to cook” as opposed to “We’d love to have you join us for dinner.”
I glanced over at Beau, lifting my eyebrows. We’d gone on a few dates but things had been picking up in intensity lately, and he’d been dying to bring me around the house so his parents knew who he was running off and spending time with after chores each afternoon.
He squeezed my hand again and nodded. “She sure is.”
I endured a long dinner, fielding pointed questions from his judging mother, stares from his PMSing older sister, Calista, and teasing from his lighthearted father. Beau, his father, and his younger sister, Ivy, warmed up to me, but it was as if the judgmental stares and disapproving looks from the other two overrode everything good about that dinner.
“May I help you clean up?” I offered as everyone began piling the dishes together after finishing up their strawberry shortcake desserts.
“No, Dakota,” his mom said with a bit of bark in her tone. She spoke to me as if I were a burden, as if she resented the fact that I just popped in and took a seat at their family table. “You’re company. Company don’t clean up in our house.”
I smiled, blinking away my overly sensitive tears as Beau led me outside. I’d tried to be on my best behavior. I tried to present myself in a good light. I tried to be the kind of person I’d want my son to be with, but it all seemed for naught.
“She hates me,” I whined as soon as we were a good distance from the house. The sounds of clinking dishes and running water floated from the open kitchen window.
“Aw, that’s not true,” Beau said when we rounded the barn. He pulled me into him. “No one could possibly hate you. You’re sweet perfection, Kota.”
I rolled my eyes. “Did you see how they looked at me? Your mom and Calista.”
“They don’t much like anyone. Sometimes I don’t even think they like themselves.” He grabbed my hands and deposited them on his shoulders before leaning in and kissing me.
I pulled away, dissatisfied with his excuse. After just a couple weeks with that boy, I already knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. It was important that his family liked me. I was going to be with him a lot. I was going to have to see them a lot. I didn’t want to be filled to the brim with dread every time I’d have to go to his house.
The look his older sister gave me reminded me of the way some of the snottier girls at school looked at me. Maybe my hair was due for a cut or was too thin, or maybe I didn’t do my eyeliner perfectly, or maybe I wore too much blush. My clothes weren’t name brand, but I thought I’d honed a style all my own. It always seemed the more I tried to fit in, the more I stood out, and never in a good way. I guessed the same rule applied when trying to fit into Beau’s family.
“It’s one dinner,” he said, dragging his lips across mine. “There will be hundreds more, maybe even thousands.”
My heart fluttered and sputtered before skipping a beat as I mentally did the math.
Thousands?
“Besides,” he said. “I’ve never cared what other people think anyway. If I want to be with you, there isn’t any man or woman on God’s green earth who can change my mind.”
I was going to have a lot of explaining to do once I got home. Harrison was going to wonder why I never told him about my history with Beau, and I wasn’t going to have a good enough answer for him. Or at least an answer that didn’t dig so deep into my past I’d need a shovel and a whole host of mining equipment to get to it.
“You want me to be vague?” Beau asked, covering the microphone of the recorder with his hand as we sat at his kitchen table. “I can be vague.”
I leaned back in my chair, watching as his entire demeanor shifted. He had a way of being magnetic yet detached. Warm yet mysterious. Words unspoken hid behind his stare, and the weight of them nearly drowned me.
“I was in love with this girl. I wrote some songs about her. I performed them at the county fair. Someone discovered me. I signed a recording contract. Got bought out by one of the Big Three a year after that.” He rested his hands behind his head, leaning back in his creaky wooden chair.
I mouthed thank you from across the table, ignoring his brief delivery and facetious tone for the sake of getting some halfway useable quotes on record.
“Tell me what it was like for you,” I said, forcing myself to look at him as a musician and not my ex. “On the road all those years. Touring. Performing. Recording.”
Beau leaned back in his chair and scratched the underside of his chin as his eyes found their way into mine. “Lonely.”