Meg stood at the end of the kitchen island, tapping her peach nails on the counter. “Come on, Hannah Banana,” she whined.

I stopped wiping the counter and shot a death glare in her direction. She knew I hated when she called me that.

“Look, I”– she thumbed at her chest—“can call you that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“As the person who punched Billy Coker in the face for pulling your pigtails while singing ‘Hannah Banana is a sissy, prissy girl,’ I inherited rights to the nickname.”

“I swear, you have the maturity of a twelve-year-old.”

“Life’s more fun that way.” She grinned and grabbed the dishtowel from me, tossing it in the sink. “Come on. It’ll be good for you to get out.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ve been your best friend since second grade, I know when you’re fine and when you’re pretending you’re fine.”

I exhaled. She was right, but I’d be damned if I’d let her know she was. “You know I hate going to bars.”

“Tipsy’s isn’t a bar, it’s a… gathering place.”

I picked up the dishtowel and went back to scrubbing the baked-on cheese from the stovetop. “You’re right, it’s a full-blown honky-tonk.”

“Tomato, tomoto. Whatever. You need something normal. Outside of this house and outside of work.”

“Fine,” I huffed. “We can go to an art class.”

“This is Rockford, Alabama. There are no art classes. Plus, you suck at painting.”

She was right. Again. I kept scouring the cheese, picking at it with my nail. Meg rested her hand over mine. “Hannah.” Her voice was soft, soothing. “Staying here won’t change anything.”

“I know that, Meg!” I wanted to cry, but instead, I sucked in a breath and walked to the sink. How the hell was I supposed to go to a bar when my mother had cancer? I felt bad anytime I laughed at work, anytime I allowed myself to forget for a moment that she was sick. Her world was ending—so why shouldn’t mine?

“Going on with your life doesn’t make you a bad person, Hannah.”

I swallowed.

“You have to take care of yourself to take care of them.”

My chin dropped to my chest.

“It’s just a band. Just an hour out of this house for fresh air.”

“You should go.” My daddy’s voice came from the doorway leading into the hall. When I turned around, he was staring at me with his lips flat across his face. “Go do something for you, baby girl.”

I nodded even though I didn’t really want to go. I guess I just want to seem strong even though I’m falling apart.

The cliché neon sign flickered: Tipsy’s. Next to the name of the bar, the outline of a yellow beer mug tipping forward and backward flashed. That bar had been around since the prohibition ended, and that sign had stood proudly since 1983 like a beacon in the night calling to all the locals. Half of the tiny brick building had been painted white years ago, but the rest had been left red. Meg was right, it wasn’t a bar. It was one-hundred and ten percent the epitome of a honky tonk.

I slapped a mosquito away from my arm as we made our way across the gravel lot toward the back entrance. There was a short line of people huddled around the door, waiting to get in.

Meg rummaged around in her purse, digging out a tube of lipstick and applying a fresh coat of shiny pink gloss. She wobbled on her heels. “Thank you for coming.” She smiled, batting her long lashes.

“Yep.”

The bouncer by the door leaned over a wooden stool, flirting with a group of giggling girls. They looked young enough to still be in high school, but he ushered them in without checking their IDs. When he turned to look at us, Meg groaned.

“It would be him, wouldn’t it?”

Brian Jones, one of her exes… or ex-sex partners— I’m not sure what actually qualified as an ex with her.

Meg attempted to breeze past him, but he blocked the entrance, crossing his arms over his chest. “Well, well, well.” His thin lips drew into a smug smile. “Meg and Hannah. Just like the good ole days.”

“Shut it, Brian,” Meg said, attempting to step around him, but he didn’t budge.

His eyes narrowed. “Imma need to see some ID.”

“Really?” Meg snatched her purse from her shoulder, pulling out her license and handing it to him. I grabbed mine from my wallet while he inspected hers. “Ten dollars,” he said, the smile evident in his tone as he took her hand and drew a massive black “X” over it.

“Since when has Tipsy’s had a cover?”

He was trying to wind her up, which, in all honesty, wasn’t hard to do. She was already tapping the toe of her high heel over the gravel. And I’m sure if I could have seen her face her nostrils would have been flaring like a bull.

“Hi, Brian,” I said sweetly, giving him my license.

“Hannah.” He winked before giving my ID a flippant glance then handing it back to me. He marked a microscopic “X” on my hand and waved us through the door.

“He’s such an asshole,” Meg grumbled as we stepped over the threshold onto the uneven linoleum floor. “I hate that he’s seen me naked.”

She slept with every guy she could, and like I said, she looked like a pageant queen, so there was never a shortage of boys. People used to think I hung out with her in an effort to bring her to Jesus. They were wrong. I hung out with her because I liked her. “Meg, honestly, who hasn’t seen you naked?”

“Well, I wish he hadn’t.”

The inside of the bar was already packed. A thin haze of smoke swirled through the air, and the aroma of stale beer and body odor nearly knocked my feet out from underneath me. “Oh my God...” I coughed.

“You forgot how awesome this place was, huh?” Meg grinned before running her hand over the wall plastered with crumpled dollar bills and chewed gum.

“Oh yes, so amazing.”

The speakers in the corner of the room popped and crackled. The shrill feedback that followed pierced my eardrums and I quickly covered my ears. When the noise faded, it was replaced by a throaty laugh. “Sorry ‘bout that.” The soothing southern drawl of a guy’s voice came through the speakers followed by the lazy rhythm of a guitar.

We shouldered our way through the tiny room toward the bar. Benji Martin stood behind the tiny bar pouring drinks with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He was the star quarterback at Rockford High, he had a scholarship to Alabama but the spring before graduation he was in a hunting accident. Benji wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, bless him, rested the shotgun right on his boot and accidentally pulled the trigger. Blew his toe clean off, then gangrene set in and, well, losing a foot didn’t bode well for his football career.

“Hey, Benji!” Meg whistled at him.

“Meg, you have a huge ‘X’ on your hand.”

She rolled one shoulder. “Like Benji cares.” He walked over with his slight limp and leaned against the counter.

“McKinney, you’re gonna be an alchy before you’re legal to drink.”

“Pssh, please. Give me a Fireball and…” She turned to look at me. “Want a drink?”

“Coke.”

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes and turned back to Bub. “A Fireball and a Coke.”

While I waited, the guy next to me made a catcall. I ignored him, and he called me a bitch under his breath before walking off and hitting on another girl. Whatever line he threw at her must have worked, because she smiled, playfully curling the end of her hair around her finger. Some girls go for cheap flirtation, I guess, and most guys go for girls who go for that…

“Mmmm.” The soft hum of his voice poured through the speaker, mixing perfectly with the sullen notes of the guitar. “You can’t blame it on that woman,” he sung, and chills raced down my arm. I had a visceral reaction to the torment laced within that guy’s voice and I soaked it up. “Please don’t blame it on your lies…”

“Damn,” Meg said beside me. When I opened my eyes, she was holding out my drink. “That guy can sing.”

“Yeah.” I took my glass while she handed Bub her debit card. “It’s amazing.”

“His voice sounds like sex—not that you understand what I’m saying,” she laughed, but I didn’t laugh back. “Oh come on, Hannah.” She shoved me. “I’m just giving you shit for saving yourself, or whatever it is your doing to your poor vagina.”

My poor vagina? Some random guy beside her chuckled, swaying on his stool. I glared at her. “I’m picky.”

She snort-laughed. “That’s one way to put it.” She couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why I hadn’t slept with someone.

“It’s okay, your dad’s a preacher. I get it.” She nodded toward the door that led into the room the bands played in.

I just shook my head. I didn’t save myself because of a moral conflict. I almost had sex with Max Summers when I was sixteen and he told me he loved me. I mean, that’s what you do, right? Give your virginity to someone you love, someone who means something to you? Well, he may have meant something to me, but I absolutely meant nothing to him. He screwed every girl he could get his hands on while we were dating, and he tried to use my hesitation to sleep with him as his excuse. But I was never that dumb, not even at sixteen. That’s when I decided boys just weren’t worth it. I stuck to my studies, to the piano and softball, and then, at some point, it became the principle of it. That, and I was afraid of the letdown, the heartache that I was certain would follow when things inevitably ended.

“Let’s see if his face is as pretty as that voice,” Meg said, and grabbed my hand, dragging me into the room.

The stage was nothing more than a small platform built out of old soda crates, so unless you were at the front of the room, you couldn’t see anything but the top of the person’s head. We shouldered our way through the crowd. The heat from the tightly packed bodies made me claustrophobic. A man in front of me swayed and staggered and I placed my palms against his back to keep him from falling on top of me. His friend lifted his beer in the air. “Woo-hoo,” he slurred. “Sing Sweet Home Alabama!”

I rolled my eyes. Everyone knew they reserved that song for last call. When we stepped around them, Meg took one look at the stage, and her eyes fluttered shut on a groan. “Oh, hell no!”

My eyes landed on the stage—rather on the guy in his tight, black top and combat boots on stage. I found myself biting my lip a little. There was an edge to the guy. Maybe it was the ripped jeans, the sleeve of colorful tattoos that covered his arm. Maybe it was the confidence that seemed to radiate from him like some nuclear detonator. Whatever it was, it left him just rough enough to maintain that pretty face, and pretty enough that you’d believe all his lies.

He laughed into the mic, his dimples popping as he dragged a hand through his thick, dark hair. “Aw, now y’all aren’t drunk enough for that shit.”

“Wow,” I mumbled.

“Again,” Meg sighed. “Hell no.”

“Why?” I asked, still staring at him. Even from there, I couldn’t help but notice how blue his eyes were.

“That’s Noah Greyson, and he is bad news. Absolutely bad news.” She elbowed me. “I see the way you’re looking at him, and let me tell you, he is not a boy you even want to introduce yourself to, Hannah. Trust me.”

Rockford was a small town where you knew everyone and their momma and their uncle’s third cousin—I didn’t know who he was, so what I wanted to know was how Meg knew who he was.

I turned to face her with an accusing glare. “How do you know him?”

“I met him a month or so ago, right before you moved back. One of those times I got all weak and called Trevor and—”

I looked away from the stage and arched a brow. “You slept with Trevor? Again?” I couldn’t understand her. She cried for two months straight when he dumped her, so why she continued to throw herself on the altar was beyond me.

Huffing, Meg rolled her eyes. “Don’t judge me, and this isn’t about Trevor—”

“He’s a delinquent.”

“I know he is, but he’s…” A smile danced over her lips and her cheeks blushed. She was in love with him, even though she refused to admit it. And I must say, sometimes the only way you can live with things is by denying the truth. “Anyway,” she says. “They’re friends and I can promise you, Noah Greyson is just a dirty little player. Nice to look at, stupid to get involved with.”

“Like Trevor...”

“Yes”—she rolled her eyes again on a huff—“like Trevor.”

I glanced back at the stage, watching the ring on his thumb glint in the light. “He could be the nicest guy in the world.”

“I promise you he’s not, but suit yourself. Just remember he’s a whore, a player. Another Max Summers...” Meg sang beside my ear.

That should have been enough to make me stop watching, to make the anxious knot in my stomach turn to one of disgust. But it wasn’t. I don’t know if anything would have been.

Smiling, Noah stared out at the girls hoarding the stage, and then his eyes honed in on me. He smirked. My heart did that stupid flip-flop thing you always read about in romance novels, and as foolish as I felt for it, I couldn’t make it stop. It kept going. Pound. Pound... pound. Pound. Pound… pound.

“Yep,” Meg said. “Pretty voice. Pretty face. Pretty, pretty lies.”

“Noted,” I whispered. “Stay away from the guy with the pretty voice.”

I was like a deer in headlights. Frozen. Unable to look away from the guy I was told I should stay away from. There was heartbreak written all over his smile, but, at that moment, I swear it felt like no one else existed in that crowded bar aside from he and I.

Stay away from the guy with the pretty voice…