Page 16 of What Would Dolly Do?

We ended up outside a tiny one-room cafe down a side street with ‘All Day Breakfast’ painted in wonky handwriting on the window. The tables were Formica and the chairs were mismatched but it was clean, the aroma of bacon was enticing and it was quiet.

‘I wasn’t sure this place would still be here,’ Tom glanced around at the brick walls and domed glass counter as he removed his cap and took a seat at the corner table, his back to the room.

We each made our selection from the breakfast items listed on the blackboard menu. ‘And toast please,’ Tom added.

The stocky guy behind the counter gave a quick nod of acknowledgement as he added that to the ticket but said nothing.

‘He knows you, doesn’t he?’ I said as he turned towards the hatch into the kitchen.

Tom smiled, ‘Yeah, I reckon he does, but in here I’m just another customer to him. I’m glad he’s still here, that this place is still open. So many things have changed since I was last in Edinburgh.’

That statement opened the floodgates; questions about why Tom was here in Edinburgh were begging to be asked.

What was going on with him? Something clearly was.

He had mentioned no gigs, had no entourage or PR commitments – none of the stuff I imagined stars grappled with – but I’d been worried he’d think I was interrogating him.

Or even worse, trying to conduct an interview.

I hadn’t wanted anything to burst the bubble.

But buoyed by the best Scottish breakfast I had ever eaten and endless refills of hot, strong coffee I asked and Tom talked. Really talked.

He told me how he felt he was at a crossroads, musically and in life.

He explained how the success that had been so hard to come by was even harder to hold onto.

‘In the end you’re only as good as your next hit song and that next hit is a long time in coming.

’ It sounded like a lot of pressure, especially when he went on to talk about all the other people who had to be kept happy – executives, producers, managers and publicity people.

He loved Nashville, he’d made a life there for years now and lived in a beautiful home on the outskirts, but said he missed Edinburgh.

He showed me a picture on his phone of a gorgeous white clapboard house with a pretty verandah overhanging a large front porch.

I almost giggled – it looked like a dream house from a fancy American property show on TV.

The charming home was surrounded by trees and abundant flowery bushes in such a picturesque setting it looked like it was straight out of a fairy tale.

‘Wow,’ I said.

He looked a bit embarrassed then. ‘I don’t have much to complain about, I know,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m the sort to complain my diamond shoes are too tight. It’s just …’

I reassured him that everyone has stuff going on nobody else knows about. I knew struggling to get somewhere in life was hard, but I could easily imagine that fighting to stay on top once you’d made it was just as stressful.

‘Once that spotlight hits, everyone has an opinion too,’ he said.

‘So you’ve come home to reboot? To see if being back where you started will rekindle the flame in some way?’

‘Something like that, yeah.’ He reached for my hand, ‘Though I wasn’t looking to start any other sort of fires while I was at it, but … here we are.’

He played with my fingers and I was tempted to climb across the table and crawl right into his lap but I resisted.

Our coffee was topped up once more and the conversation flowed too.

He wanted to know more about why I had been at the police station the first time we’d met and so I confessed how I suspected Guy Grayson had created the whole situation to get me into trouble.

The only thing I was still trying to figure out was why?

‘Did ya knock him back? Was he coming on too strong and his bruised ego couldn’t stand the rejection? Men can turn very aggressive if their pride is hurt … Some men that is,’ he quickly clarified.

The reality of Guy’s creepy manner wasn’t something I felt like discussing over breakfast with a man I’d just had incredible sex with.

Although I was flattered that Tom instantly assumed another man would find me so irresistible he was driven to trying to get me thrown in jail because I hadn’t fallen for his charms. I tried to end that topic of conversation by describing Guy’s glamorous American wife JoJo and said it was unlikely Guy would even register me as female next to an Uber-glamazon like JoJo.

Tom’s face twitched at that. ‘There’s thousands of JoJos,’ he said.

‘Y’all might think they look glossy and perfect but they all look the same to me now.

I think L.A. surgeons all use the exact same template for each one, y’know.

’ He took a swig of coffee from his mug.

‘It’s not real and it’s definitely not sexy. ’

‘Tell that to Dolly Parton,’ I countered.

‘Ahhh, she might have fake hair, fake nails, fake boobs and heaven knows what else … but Dolly Parton is the exception that proves the rule,’ Tom shot back. ‘Dolly’s the most real person there is.’

I couldn’t argue with that but where did that leave me?

Tom appeared to have little regard for the lip-plumped, cheek-sculpted pouting women that came off a plastic surgery production line.

I got that. It was quite clear I was not one of those women.

No Botox, lip-fillers or fake boobs to be found here.

Not when I wasn’t in my Dolly Parton costume anyway.

Was he trying to tell me he found a woman like me more attractive?

More sexy? Was I more his type than the movie stars he was used to?

Or was I just a novelty? I pushed the thought away.

Surely I didn’t really need more proof of his lust after last night and this morning and, anyway, I would also never ask such a loaded, compliment seeking question.

I didn’t need him to feed my ego in that way but there was an elephant in the room.

A very beautiful, slender, drop dead gorgeous elephant by the name of Juliana Ripon.

My stomach did a little flip as I recalled the images I’d found online of Tom and Juliana snapped on red carpets or rushing into exclusive restaurants or theatre first nights.

In the heat of passion, I’d pushed all thoughts of Tom’s relationship with a Hollywood starlet right out of my mind.

But now I’d let the thought back in all the pictures I’d ever seen began to flick across my memory bank one by one.

Each image had Tom and Juliana hand in hand, entwined around each other or gazing into one another’s eyes adoringly.

I didn’t like the way the remembered images made me feel.

I weighed up my options. Asking too direct a question about the status of his relationship with Juliana could mark me as some sort of stalker poring over titbits about his love life on online gossip sites.

Not ideal. I’ve always considered jealousy to be a most unattractive trait and had absolutely no desire to give Tom the impression I was eaten up with the most corrosive of emotions.

I may have naturally green eyes but I had no intention of becoming a green-eyed monster.

No, I was a big girl. Whatever was going on here we were two adults, neither of us married, and I wasn’t expecting this to be anything other than what it was – an unexpected few hours, maybe at best a couple of days of sexy fun. Nothing more. No harm done.

So I decided to skip the Juliana question, whatever that question was. Instead I picked up on the comment he’d just made about Dolly. He’d said it with such assurance and warmth it triggered an unexpected thought.

‘Wait a minute … have you met Dolly Parton?’ I said. ‘Do you know her?’

Tom pushed away his empty plate, leaned back in his chair and grinned .