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women like her. Hardworking single moms who did everything they could to provide for their kids but had to sacrifice time with them to make ends meet. She jotted a few phrases from conversations they’d had and tried to wrap them into a chorus. After she had that part worked out, everything else just started to flow. She needed her guitar. She hopped up to get it, startling when she saw Trace staring at her from behind the sports section of a newspaper.
    “Can I help you, Mr. Corbin?” she asked politely, making a conscious effort not to grit her teeth together.
    “You gotta stop calling me that. It’s Trace. Or my friends call me Tray.”
    “Trace it is then,” she clipped as she headed back to retrieve her guitar. As soon as she stepped back into the little kitchen, her heart stuttered and her blood froze in her veins. He was leaning over her notebook.
    “Jesus, what’s with you?” she asked, snatching her songbook back from him.
    He didn’t appear to be apologetic for invading her privacy. “Kylie, you’ve got some decent stuff there, seriously,” he told her.
    “Surprised?” she asked, responding to his tone more than his words.
    “Well, yeah. I mean, what are you? Eighteen, nineteen?”
    She didn’t see what her age had to do with anything. “Your point?”
    “My point is, for a few more weeks, you’re on tour with someone who knows this business. If you ever wanted to run stuff by me, I’d be open to it.”
    “Noted,” she told him, returning to her lyrics.
    “I’ll leave you to it then,” he said as he slid out of the booth.
    T hey were performing at some place called The Texas Player’s Club, which given the recent nightmare that was Dallas, Kylie was feeling pretty nervous about. She supposed it was a good thing that Trace was on his Back to My Roots tour when she joined since the venues were relatively small.
    After hair and makeup had transformed her into Kylie Ryans , she got off the bus, heading towards the bar to rehearse. When the two-story wood-slatted building came into view, she nearly tripped over her own two feet. “Pauly, what the hell?” she demanded at the band manager she hoped would be hers one day. She tried her best to keep her voice down but she was a panicking mess on the inside.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked, stroking his graying goatee and stepping away from the band members heading into the bar in front of them.
    “Um, this place is freaking huge. Thought this was a small venue tour, intimate settings and all that?” She thought that because that’s what she’d been promised.
    “Yeah, this one’s a little larger. But it’s nothing to worry about. It’s a fun crowd, mostly college kids. You’ll be fine.”
    Right, more people to throw beer bottles at my head. Kylie sincerely hoped none of the local college’s baseball players would be in attendance.
    After she finished with sound check, Kylie found Pauly on his phone outside by the bus. She’d seen Trace watching her on stage, so she knew he’d at least shown up for rehearsal and sound check this time. Not that he couldn’t still disappear in the next two hours.
    She waited quietly while Pauly finished up his conversation.
    “Okay, yeah, I know. We’ve discussed it. He wasn’t interested until today but I think it’s gonna happen.” He smiled at Kylie and gave her a hang-on-a-sec gesture with his hand. She nodded.
    “On whose album though?” There was a long pause and then he nodded, as if the person on the other end could see him. “Yeah, okay. That’s what I thought too.”
    Kylie examined her manicure.
    “There will have to be some major thawing out, but progress is progress. I’ll update you as we go. I’ll be in touch.” Pauly ended his call and turned his attention to her. “What can I do for you, Kylie?”
    “I just wanted to tell you that tonight, when my set is over, I’m getting off the stage. If your boy is a no-show, you can go out there and apologize for him and they can