Page 7

Chapter 7

Change of Plans

Delilah

W e step out of our little slice of heartbreak like we own the damn block which, to be clear, is ninety percent attitude, ten percent thrifted brilliance, and maybe two percent delusion.

“If you meet him, not one word about a hot dog,” I warn as Rae and I look for the Uber.

She throws her head back in laughter.

We’re both wearing Damien’s jerseys, same last name across the back, but absolutely not styled the same way.

Rae’s is cropped, knotted just below her ribs, sleeves rolled high enough to show off the gold jewelry stacked up her arm. Wide-leg jeans, Air-farces—because we don’t have money for Forces—and these tiny, gold sunglasses. Her locs are half-up, half-down, all those soft, black curls spilling over one shoulder like she’s walking out of a music video, not a busted, walk-up apartment.

Me? I left mine oversized, falling off one shoulder, tucked messily into cutoff shorts that should probably be illegal and boots that I found thrifting and never had a place to wear. My hair is braided back, loose and low, hoops in, lip gloss on. B ackyard meets baseball energy.

Different flavors. Same plate.

I hear a loud whistle and turn toward the sound.

Leaning back against a blacked-out SUV is a hot man. Tall. Built like an ex-hooper who still hits the gym at six a.m. Jet black hair, clean fade, tattoos peeking just past his sleeves, and this easy grin, like he knows exactly who we are before we even get close.

Asian hottie with just enough menace behind his eyes to make him even hotter.

“You must be Delilah and Rae,” he says.

Rae damn-near walks into me as she gawks at him.

“And you are?” I ask, not rude, just … cautious.

“Tyler. But everyone calls me Ty,” he says, pushing off the car like a man with places to be but nowhere better to go. “I work with Damien.” He jerks his thumb toward the SUV. “And I’m also a way better option for a ride than whatever Uber you ordered that’s charging double because it’s a game day.”

Rae glances at me like, We cancelling this ride or what?

We cancel. Easily.

He opens the back passenger door, waves us in, and then climbs into the front passenger seat. He has a driver.

He turns and smiles back at us. “You ladies look stunning.”

“We do, don’t we?” Rae asks, rolling down the window as we pull away from curb, waving at the owner of our building.

“Jesus, don’t draw attention. He’ll think we’ve made it and raise our rent.”

“Dammit,” she groans. “You’re right.”

Then Ty curses under his breath. “Shit, are you kidding me?”

He answers a call, but it’s half-mumbled. He ends it with a sigh.

Then he turns and asks, “You sing the anthem in front of thirty-four thousand people before?”

I blink. “Uh, not exactly?”

He’s already texting again. “The person booked for tonight just bailed. I can get you a thousand to do it.”

A thousand . For like … two minutes of music.

I glance at Rae.

She grins. “Girl, don’t be stupid.”

“I … I’d have to ask my agent?—”

“You just did,” he says, still tapping his phone, already too pleased with himself.

The voice that comes out of the speakers next makes me jump.

“Delilah Monroe,” comes a familiar, smooth and polished voice, “this is Sutton Steel. Consider this me saying hell yes and we wish we could be there.”

I groan.

Rae cackles. “She’s got me.”

“Who’s me?” Sutton asks.

“Her best friend and biggest fan, “ she answers proudly then grabs my shoulders and shakes me. “And the girl who’s now going with you to Jersey to watch you sing there, too. We can even afford to get Harlan there from Connecticut.”

“Don’t buy a damn bus ticket,” Sutton huffs. “Send me your info, and I’ll book you on the flight we have Delilah booked on.”

“What?” I ask, confused.

“Check your email, Delilah. Respond with Rae and Harlan’s information.”

“But—”

“We’re all Team Delilah,” Sutton says sweetly.

“Break a leg, Delilah,” Patrick says in the background, and then the call ends.

Ty just grins like the devil got his paperwork filed early tonight. “Congrats,” he says. “You’re singing for your supper.”

I lean back into the soft leather and close my eyes. “I feel like I’m going to puke.”

I barely get in the tunnel before Rae’s on me like a whole damn pit crew.

“Okay, stand still. You’re cute, but you’re crowd cute. I need stadium cute.”

Before I can blink, she’s got both hands in my hair, pulling the braid loose from where it’s been sitting, all sweet and functional, down my back.

“Nah, we’re going full I didn’t try, but I definitely did. ” She rakes her fingers through it, fluffing it out, loosening strands to frame my face—soft, messy, sexy in that oops-I-woke-up-like-this way that absolutely never freaking happens naturally. Then she tugs at the knot I half-assed in Damien’s jersey, tightening it higher at my waist until it hits just right—cropped enough to flash a sliver of skin, casual enough to still feel like me.

“And these …” Rae drops to a crouch and folds down the tops of my beat-up boots, making them look less bartender on break and more country rockstar about to steal your boyfriend. Then she steps back, head tilted. “Okay, now you look like a problem.”

I snort. “Was I not a problem before?”

“You were a vibe before,” she says, reaching into her bag like the over-prepared menace she is. “Now you’re a headline.” She pulls out lip gloss—cinnamon, shiny, a little disrespectful. “Say ah .”

I roll my eyes but let her swipe it on because Rae’s the kind of friend you don’t argue with when she’s in styling beast mode.

“There,” she says, like she just completed a masterpiece. “Now go sing like you already got a record deal, a line of men crying in your DMs, and a prenup waiting on first base.”

When she turns to leave, I panic. “Wait—where are you going?”

She gives me a fierce look and holds out her hand for my coat. “I’m going to get the best video I can for my girl’s resurrection into a stolen spotlight.”

“You want me to stay?” Ty asks sweetly.

I shake my head. “Catch up to her; tell her not to go live?”

“You got it.”

When they’re out of sight, I sag against the wall. The tunnel feels colder than it should on an unseasonably hot day. Maybe it’s the concrete. Or maybe it’s the nerves crawling down my spine like ice water.

I grip the mic tighter, pressing my thumb into the grooves like I can root myself there. My hands are sweating, my knees feel like wet paper, and every so often, my stomach flips like it wants to turn me around and march me straight out the way I came in.

Up ahead, just past the tunnel’s edge, the sunlight spills over the field like something holy. The noise from the stadium rolls over me in waves. People cheering, laughing, clapping … living. And I’m still back here, stuck between shadows and spotlight.

I close my eyes and picture Mom, repeating her words inside my head, “Sing it simple, sing it true. They can’t take the truth outta your voice.” She used to say that before every audition, every talent show, every time I doubted I belonged. She’d say it slow and soft while braiding my hair or pinning my dress. Like a spell. “Sing it simple, sing it true.”

The announcer’s voice booms …

“ Performing the national anthem, please welcome Nashville’s very own … Delilah Monroe! ”

I step forward. It’s just steps, just space, but I feel the gravity shift with each one. Out of the tunnel and into the sun.

The heat hits me first. Then the color—people packed like pixels, flags waving, phones pointed. I blink hard, trying not to cry because the last thing I need is to sniffle through “ the land of the free. ”

I take my spot where the woman—how rude I don’t remember her name—directs me.

The hush comes over the crowd as the music starts. Then I sing. And the moment I do, the rest of the world falls away. It’s just me and the melody.

My voice rises slow—controlled but full, warm and weathered. A little crack on the second line, but I lean into it. Let them hear it. Let them hear me. The hurt. The hunger. The hard damn road here.

I don’t perform it pretty. I tell it honest . Every word is a step forward through years of silence, shame, and people calling me too much or too loud or too complicated to deal with.

I close my eyes when I hit the high note and see my mama’s face in the back of my mind. I see Harlan at that college in Connecticut, probably crying on her bed while watching the livestream.

The last line comes …

“ …and the home of the brave. ” I hold it steady, and when I finish, everything is still. Silent.

I look down and exhale. I should have expected this. They’ll never accept me back.

And that’s when I hear that voice.

“Let’s hear it for my little songbird.”

I look up and see Damien jogging toward me. Then the stadium does what he instructed them to—it explodes. A roar so loud it rattles my ribs. People are standing, clapping, screaming, cheering like I just hit the game-winning home run instead of singing a song.

I’m not smiling.

He takes the mic, turns it off, and then shoves it somewhere as he leans in and kisses my forehead—my fucking forehead—whispering, “I’m gonna walk you off.”

“My feet feel like cement.”

He wraps his arm around me and lifts me. My hands go to his shoulders, and that … well, let’s just say he has strong, hard statues that momentarily render me stupid. Then he whirls me in a circle.

“Cement’s gone now, yeah?”

The crowd is going crazy.

“Yeah,” I say, fighting back tears as I hug him tight and bury my face in his shoulder. “Thank you, major league.”

At the mouth of the tunnel, he sets me on my feet and steps back, giving my hip a squeeze. “You were incredible, little songbird.”

My chest tightens as he steps back. “They didn’t even react until you?—”

“You may not know this, but you have an innate ability to make the world stop turning.” He smirks. “And you in that jersey, hanging on you like that, and those boots”—he winks—“you’re going to catch the world on fire.”

I open and close my mouth. Then he turns and … baseball ass.

Tears burn my eyes, and not from the burn his ass in baseball pants has left, but because I’m still trying to believe that what I just did really happened, that it’s real.

But I feel it’s truth from somewhere deep in my chest, under all the bruises and doubts. Something is blooming.

Maybe the headlines don’t matter. Maybe they actually heard me.

Sing it simple. Sing it true.

“Mama, I did. I did it for us. For you, for me, for Harlan, and for Rae.”

“Player guest seats this way, ma’am.”

Ma’am? I’m not that damn old.

But even that doesn’t set me off.

I follow, heart doing double-time in my chest, as I move up through the stadium. Every step feels like walking back toward the life we’ve been dreaming up. And then I see her.

Rae. She’s beaming as if my win was hers, and it was.

Sitting in the front row of the player guest section, elbows on her knees, she is grinning like the absolute bestie/menace she is.

“You!” She stands as I reach her, hands on hips, all mock-drama. “You little anthem-singing, crowd-slaying, first-baseman-stealing demon woman. ”

I snort, cheeks still flushed, heart still … not okay.

“You saw that?” I shrug as if the biggest performance of my life didn’t just happen.

“Girl.” Rae fans herself. “Saw it? Babe, I lived it. You were up there, looking like Nashville’s best-kept secret in that jersey … and then Bat Daddy shows up and carries you off like he’s auditioning for your future wedding video.”

I drop down beside her, burying my face in my hands. “He twirled me.”

“Uh-huh,” Rae says, popping a gummy worm in her mouth. “But first, it was a forehead kiss, and then— then —he hit you with the hip squeeze heard round the world. You know how many women in this stadium just decided to start praying for your downfall?”

I peek through my fingers.

She’s not wrong.

The scoreboard screen lights up with a full replay of Damien spinning me around like I weighed nothing but a little bit of trouble, his mouth real low against my ear like we were whispering sweet nothings when he was really holding me together.

“You’re in so much trouble,” Rae says, shaking her head like she’s absolutely delighted about that. “That man looks at you like he wants to ruin your life and then pay your rent while he does it.”

I groan.

“Holy baseball ass,” she adds, not even pretending to be subtle. “Gotta respect the game.”

I’m afraid to look around at the mix of wives, girlfriends, moms, sisters, not wanting to see that look.

The oh-you’re- her look.

But that’s not what I get.

“You killed it out there, honey.”

“That was beautiful.”

“Chills. Actual chills.”

“I cried, and I don’t even like the anthem.”

Every compliment lands like a soft punch to the chest because … what the hell is my life right now?

I’m awkwardly thanking them, all polite smiles and Oh my God, thank you so much, while trying not to crawl directly under my seat.

Meanwhile, Rae? Rae is perched beside me, smiling from ear-to-ear, soaking it all in, because it’s for her, too. She didn’t come out of that house beside me unscathed.

We hold hands as the game starts. And that’s when I lose all chill, because there he is, Damien Donovan. Big. Broad. Loose-hipped swagger, walking to first base like God hit random on His finest parts bin, and then said, “Make him better.”

I feel Rae watching me watch him. And, in true Rae fashion … she says nothing for a full beat. Then, real casual, like she’s commenting on the weather, “Girl …” Long pause. “You might as well go ahead and hand over your whole soul. That man’s out here, playing like he could break up a double play and your whole damn life.”

I choke on my spit.

“Him adjusting that hat is a form of foreplay,” she adds.

“Rae!”

She shrugs, unbothered. “Just calling balls and strikes, babe.”

And I swear to God, right then, Damien glances over. Glove at his hip. Hat backward. Eyes sharp and pointed in our direction, like he knows exactly who’s talking about him.

Spoiler alert: it’s us.