Something I Need Chapter 1

 

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Chapter 1

‘What’s going on with your hair?’

Jonte stifled a grimace and looked up from the lasagne sheets she was rolling. Her mother was looking at her with that all too familiar displeased frown that she had perfected over the years. When she arrived home an hour ago, Jonte had changed out of her costume and removed the bright yellow face paint she’d been sporting, but she hadn’t fixed her hair. Well, she had pulled out the pipe cleaners that had allowed her piggy tail braids to jut out from her head unnaturally, but she hadn’t washed out the glitter or brushed out the piggy tails. It was silly, she knew better.

‘It was the sports carnival at school today,’ Jonte replied, a soft, placating, please-let’s-not-get-into-an-argument smile curving her lips upward. The students, especially the seniors, made a big deal of dressing up in their team colours. The younger teachers, like Jonte, generally joined in on the action, while the older ones, like her mother, did not. Jonte had dressed up as a flamboyant yellow fairy, complete with a crazy tutu and wings. Her mother would have had a fit if she’d seen her outfit.

‘Hmph,’ her mother grunted, crossing the kitchen and reaching up to the overhead cupboards, where she grabbed a wine glass.

Nothing Jonte ever did was right. Or good enough. But it didn’t matter anymore, because come tomorrow afternoon, Jonte would be gone. Not that her mother knew that. No one in her family did. Only Jonte’s best friend, Mimi, knew of her intentions. She felt guilty for not pre-warning her dad, but was worried that he might try to stop her.

And so tonight she was making his favourite. Lasagne made from scratch. It was a peace offering. An apology to her dad for what she was about to do. He just didn’t know it yet. Tomorrow night she would be leaving Melbourne on a Nashville bound plane. Well, a plane bound for LAX; the Nashville connection would come later.

Jonte had spent almost four years planning this trip. Saving the money she made from tutoring students, and overloading her course work at university and her teacher placements, so that she’d finish her double degree six months ahead of schedule. Music is not a career. That’s what her mother said, despite originally encouraging Jonte’s musical pursuits. And so, to placate her mother, she’d completed education and music degrees. Except teaching was a backup. Music was where she wanted to be. Yes, she could run away to Tamworth and try to make it there, in the country music capital of Australia. But Jonte wanted more. She dreamed of becoming the next Keith Urban, well, a female Keith Urban – another Aussie done good in the US.

And she refused be one of ‘those people’ – the ones who said they wanted something, but never did anything about it. She was going to chase her dream, because she refused to live a life wondering ‘what if’. Life was too short, and victorious or not, she was taking her shot.

48 hours later…

To say that things were not going to plan would be an understatement. Jonte had travelled 9,761 miles, not that she actually knew how far that was seeing as she was used to measuring distances in kilometres. And now here she was, apartment-less.

Jonte looked at the bar across the road, the one the cabbie from hell had pointed out only 20 minutes ago. It was a plain looking brown brick building but it had those fancy wooden accordion windows that you opened up in summer time, although they were pulled halfway closed tonight. Down a drink to take the edge off the panic that was threatening to engulf her and come up with a brilliant new plan. There, that’s what she’d do!

Throwing her duffle bag back over her shoulder, Jonte crossed the road as quickly as she could. Smoke assaulted her lungs as she opened the glass door and stepped inside. Guns’n’Roses Paradise City blared out from the jukebox in the corner. How very un-Nashville like she mused, but nonetheless toted her bags up to the long metal and wood-finished bar. Feeling anti-social and a little wounded from her run in with Misha – her supposed to be roommate – she plonked herself down on one of the scratched industrial-looking metal stools, far away from what looked to be the regulars sitting at the other end of the bar closer to the jukebox.

‘What‘ll it be?’

Jonte looked up and took in the unconventionally handsome bartender. First she noticed that he had the most ridiculously white teeth. These were offset by the dark, sexy stubble thing happening along his jawline and cheeks. Her eyes wandered up and stopped at his green eyes. Wow. Those were some eyes! Hypnotic. Deep. Eyes that would surely make women say yes to anything that he asked.

‘Beer,’ Jonte answered. Although, it definitely sounded like she was asking a question. Far out, three words from the ruggedly handsome bartender had her heart beat racing, humming like a canary on crack.

‘ID?’

‘You’re seriously carding me? I’m well over 18.’

The bartender let out a gruff chuckle and shook his head. ‘No doubt. Sweetheart, I gotta see that you’re over 21.’

‘Oh, right.’ Jonte blushed at her stupidity – you had to be 21 to drink in the US, not 18 like back home. She rifled through her handbag in search of her purse and quickly flashed her driver’s license.

He snatched it from her and held it up to the light.

‘It’s real,’ she huffed and shifted on the stool. Her fingers drummed the bar as she waited for her license to be returned, irritation now replacing infatuation.

‘Australian?’ he grinned and handed back the license.

‘Please don’t say throw another shrimp on the barbie.’

‘And why would I say that?’ the bartender drawled in his thick accent as he poured her beer.

Jonte thought back to the creepy cabbie that had been quick to throw that joke at her just before and had then had the audacity to hit on her. ‘Everyone in this country seems to say that,’ she replied, shaking her head.

‘Fair enough. So how do I say your name, sweetheart?’

‘Jonte. Like Bronte, but with a J.’

He chuckled again and then walked over to the customer sitting a few stools over.

One drink and then she’d be outta here. Besides, even if she wanted to, she couldn’t stick around. She didn’t want to risk a run-in with the cabbie who’d given her his number and promised to meet her here later, and she literally couldn’t afford to blow all of her money on booze seeing as she was now effectively homeless.

*

That blonde definitely was a piece of work, Cash thought as he returned his attention to his bread and butter regulars. It was weird cos he sure was keen to speak to her some more and that never happened. Having owned and worked the place for the past four years, he’d seen everything and everyone. Tons of women much hotter than the blonde down the other end of the bar. Not that she didn’t have a rocking body, she did, not too tall at what looked to be around 5’8 and kitted out with some deliciously round curves under those plain clothes. But that wasn’t what was drawing his attention, she had spectacular hazel eyes – with flecks of gold, they looked up at him with a smidgeon of fear, and a truckload of determination. And she wasn’t fawning over him, like women often did. That, in itself, was sexy.

‘That’s a nice piece of ass,’ Tommy slurred.

Cash nodded and topped up Tommy’s shot glass. Without fail, Tommy stopped by the bar after work every night for a half hour chat about nothing and four shots of whiskey. Not that Cash was judging. It was just a fact, plain and simple.

‘Too young for you,’ Cash replied.

‘Wasn’t saying it for me,’ Tommy said, shaking his head. ‘Now would ya look at that.’ Tommy nodded in blonde’s direction.

Cash glanced over his shoulder to look at the Aussie. He watched as she necked her beer and then slammed the glass back down on the bar.

‘Back in a few,’ he muttered to Tommy.

‘Can I get some fries?’ Cash called into the kitchen at Pete, and made his way back over to her. ‘Hard day?’

‘Could say that.’

‘Lemmegetcha another one,’ Cash said, grabbing her glass and refilling it.

‘I really shouldn’t,’ the blonde protested.

‘On the house.’ Cash smiled and handed back the glass. Shit! On the house? He never gave away freebies. What the hell was he thinking – first the fries and now a beer.

‘Thanks.’ She returned his smile and took a sip.

‘It was Jonte, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Spill.’

‘You really don’t want to hear.’

‘Sweetheart, it’s my job. Besides, you look like you could use someone to talk to.’

Jonte hesitated and then said, ‘I feel like I’ve stepped into a bad country song.’

Cash snorted and nodded for her to continue, despite his abhorrence for country songs.

‘I literally just got off the plane,’ she checked her watch, ‘like less than an hour ago. My phone won’t work in this country. Some sleaze-ball cabbie decided that it was in my best interests to take the scenic route here and then had the cheek to hit me up for my number. And to top it off, the room that I thought I had arranged to rent is no longer available. So I am now officially homeless.’

Cash leaned forward on the bar. ‘But on the plus side, your boyfriend didn’t leave you and your dog didn’t die.’

He watched in amusement as Jonte shook her head and scrunched up her face in what appeared to be annoyance. ‘And here I was thinking that you were a man who avoided clichés.’

‘It was the best I could do,’ he said with a smirk. ‘I don’t do country songs.’

‘That’s just weird.’

Surprised by her bluntness, Cash raised one of his dark eyebrows.

‘Sorry, that was kind of rude.’

No shit, he thought as he cocked his head to one side. ‘Sweetheart, did you bother to read the name of the bar on your way in?’

Jonte shook her head and then looked down from his face to the logo on his black shirt: Rock on Nashville. Cash turned around so that she could see the logo plastered across his shoulders: This ain’t no Country bar!

As Cash spun back around, he noticed that she was quick to look up. Was she just checking out his ass?

‘I am in Nashville, right?’

Cash rolled his eyes at her ridiculousness and nodded once.

‘Just checking that I didn’t manage to get myself on the wrong damn plane too,’ Jonte joked half-heartedly.

‘Fries are up!’ Pete yelled as he stuck his bald head out from the small window on the other side of the bar.

Cash held up his hand, signalling for Jonte to wait a minute, and rushed over to grab the basket. He checked that the regulars were fine and then returned to the crazy, blonde Aussie.

‘Here, you looked hungry.’ He pushed the basket of fries towards her.

‘Really, you shouldn’t have.’

Cash simply shrugged, knowing that he shouldn’t have. Either way it was done now.

‘Thanks,’ Jonte said and popped a fry into her mouth.

‘So, sweetheart, how’d you lose your place to stay? Didn’t you sign a lease agreement?’

‘It was an informal sublet arranged over the internet,’ she replied and grabbed for another fry. ‘I’d Skyped with my supposed roommate, Misha, and paid her a deposit but apparently her sister got dumped and moved into the room this morning. She claims she tried to call me, but I wouldn’t know,’ she added and wiggled her dead cell in the air.

Cash let out a nervous chuckle. ‘Right. Are you here to go to Vanderbilt?’ He knew he shouldn’t give a damn, but he prayed that her answer was yes. She seemed like a smart enough chick, and really there was only one other reason people came to Nashville. ‘Maybe the housing officer can help you out?’

Jonte shook her head. ‘Nope.’

Of course not, Cash thought as his head fell forward slightly. Disappointment engulfed the smidgeon of hope that had weaselled its way inside of him. ‘You want to be a country star?’

‘Am I that obvious?’

‘Actually, no.’

‘What does that mean?’ Jonte was quick to ask, sounding somewhat offended.

‘Well look at you, sweetheart.’ Cash gestured with his right hand at Jonte and took in her messy blonde hair, her simple white tank top, khaki coloured shorts and black flip flops. ‘Where are your cowboy boots, and more importantly, did someone steal your guitar? Cos if they did, you left it off your list of woes just a minute ago.’

‘I don’t play.’

That stopped Cash short. She didn’t play? Christ, how in the hell did she expect to make it in this town without a damn guitar slung over her shoulder. Maybe she wasn’t as smart and determined as he’d given her credit for just now.

Cash heard the wolf-whistles ring out over the El Camino song that was blasting out of the jukebox. He looked up to see his twin strolling towards him dressed in a short pink dress that appeared to have some kind of bow across her bust.

‘Hello, you,’ Cash said and smiled at his sister, Dolly, as she leaned over the bar and kissed him on the cheek. She shot him a questioning look before sliding onto the stool next to Jonte. Yes, he knew it was not like him to be stuck down this end of the bar chatting to some random chick, much to their Nannie’s disgust. Nannie, their 72 year old grandmother, was big on lectures. She thought he was in the perfect job to meet girls and couldn’t fathom that he didn’t want one.

‘Who’s your friend?’ Dolly nodded at Jonte and stole a fry.

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