“Excuse me?”

Mandy flicks her hand beside her forehead. “That hat. Lose it. You can’t wear it for the show.”

I stare at her for several seconds in an attempt to determine if she’s serious. She is.

“And why’s that?”

Huffing out an impatient breath as if I’m the one making ridiculous requests, she snatches my hat off my head.

“What the—”

“Because. Jase Wade wears a cowboy hat. It’s his thing. He throws it to a fan at the end of the show and it’s a huge deal. Here. Just throw on one of the ball caps from the sponsor. They sent a box of them over.”

She tosses my hat onto a stack of empty crates and retrieves a black Midnight Bay trucker hat with neon blue writing on it. I frown when she hands it to me.

“You’re serious about this?”

She nods as I place the hat on my head and adjust the bill. “I am. This isn’t a game, Dallas. You want to stay on this tour? You don’t get in his way, don’t steal his thunder, and do not encroach on his territory.”

Right. I’ll have no problem keeping my distance from his “territory.”

As long as understands Robyn isn’t a part of it.

“How the hell are you, Denver?”

The amphitheater isn’t packed yet, but it’s filling up quickly. I adjust my in ears and I wave an arm as Ty lets loose a riff on his guitar. Lex pounds the drums hard enough that I have to shout into the mic. We’ve found a rhythm for the most part, touring together for the past couple of months. But Lexington Wilks doesn’t have half the skill that Gavin Garrison does and yet he wants twice the attention.

“I’m Dallas Walker and we’re gonna play some music for y’all tonight. We hope you like it.”

I’m Dallas Lark and I have no idea who the fuck I’m trying to kid.

My family surname mocks me from my inner right forearm when I let the first few chords of “Better to Burn” rip.

Fake, it says. Traitor. Liar.

The label thought the name Dallas Walker had a nicer ring to it so after the unsigned artists tour, they dropped my last name as if were an unwanted appendage that could be hacked off.

I belt out a song my sister wrote and try to engage the audience. I don’t think about how much I wish I could glance over and see her playing her fiddle next to me. And I don’t nod to the drummer who I know always has my back. My sister and that drummer aren’t here.

Trying my best not to pay attention to the fact that I haven’t written a complete song in nearly three years, I make eye contact with a few women in the front row. One gives me a huge smile and holds up her phone so I wink.

With every song, the seats continue to fill and all I can think is Holy shit. This is my life.

It’s surreal, the way the lights glow against the jagged outcrops. The crowd is rising up in front of me and it’s as if the amphitheater itself just appeared in the middle of the rocks.

It feels . . . bigger than me.

Singing my sister’s lyrics in this setting brings my past into my present. I can almost feel her here onstage with me, just as I can sometimes feel my parents and my grandparents even though they’re gone. They live on in me—this gift they gave me allowing me to live my dream keeps them alive as long as I’m playing.

No matter how confident I seem on the outside, on the inside there was always this fear—this voice of self-doubt that said I’d never make it and that I should’ve just settled down in Amarillo and gotten a regular job like the rest of the world. But when I hear a few girls in the front singing along with some of my songs, and the stubborn spirit of the men who raised me fills my soul, the music takes over. The energy from the audience and the amphitheater is alive, fueling the show I put on. By the time I finish my set to a stadium full of applause, I can’t hear that voice of self-doubt anymore.

8 | Robyn

THERE SHOULD BE A RULE ABOUT EX-BOYFRIENDS. THEY SHOULD have to get fat. Or bald. Or just . . . boring. Something.

They should not be allowed to become sexy country music singers who put their perfect bodies on display while singing seductive ballads on stage night after night.

Seriously.

His voice booms through the amphitheater like a seductive lightning show. Crew members chat around me, equipment is moved from one place to another, vendors bring in more booze, but all I hear is him. The man who used to sing just for me. The one who let me belt out my favorite songs in the car as loud as my heart desired.

The hypnotic sound of his voice lures me toward the stage, where I stand captivated through the first half of his set.

After Dallas’s first few songs, I do my best to shake off the dreamlike reverie his singing caused and return to the Midnight Bay display to make sure fans are still getting pictures with the Jase Wade cutout and the lit-up bottles. They made one for Dallas, too; it’s to the right of the display and while there aren’t as many people stopping to take a photo with it, the ones who do are female. And gorgeous. And making entirely audible comments about his ass in those jeans and how sexy and intense his eyes are.

After roughly the fifteenth comment about Dallas, I can’t take much more.

“What do you say we just pack it up?” I smile at Katie and Drew. “I think we’re good for tonight.”

Katie gives me a knowing half smile. I’d never said much about my personal life, but one drunken night in my office a few days ago I poured most of my heart right out. All over the place.

“How about Drew and I handle the tear-down? See you back at the room?”

I glance up at the stage, where Jase is performing his last number. I should stay. I should stay and schmooze because it’s my job. But I just . . . can’t.

I haven’t told Katie about Dallas’s enticing pancake offer and I’m not going to. Because I’m not meeting up with him tonight.

“Are you sure?”

Katie nods and shoos me with her hand. “Get out of here. Drew and I have everything under control.”

“You’re positive?”

“We are.” She nods at me again. “Pinky swear. We’re going to check out what Denver nightlife has to offer anyways. Don’t wait up.”

“Don’t forget we have an early flight tomorrow. I’ll take a cab and y’all can have the rental car to haul the display in.”

“Got it,” Katie says. “Now, go, before Wade struts out here and tries to lure you onto his bus of dirty debauchery.”

I giggle as I leave, but the sad truth is, I can’t even remember what dirty debauchery looks like. My mom got sick while I was in college and taking care of her plus landing the internship at Midnight Bay took up a lot of my time. Even once my mom was healthy, I was hired full-time at the distillery so I threw myself into my job—attending every event, catering to the needs of every potential celebrity endorser, and sitting in on strategy meetings that ran well past the hour the company was named for. I haven’t had a lot of time for dating, much less debauchery.

It will all be worth it one day. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. Sacrificing my social life for my career will pay off eventually. Once I’m settled into my plush corner office, I will find time to get a life if it kills me.

As I ride back to my hotel in a cab, I hear my mom’s voice in my head.

“Robyn, have you eaten? Are you getting enough rest? Have you lost weight?”

I take decent care of myself. I jog three miles every morning. I make healthy food choices. I get as much sleep as my job allows, which, okay, isn’t a ton. Surely I’ll live long enough to see the fruits of my labor. Despite my mother’s constant concerns.

But then there’s another voice in my head.

My dad’s.

Before an accident on the oil rig where he worked took him from us my senior year of high school, he had these little sayings. He loved Yogi Berra, used to quote him all the time. I didn’t know much about Yogi except that he played for the Yankees. But after my dad died, I online-searched him. Like my dad, he had this charmingly innocuous way of giving advice.