Graceless (Grace Notes #2)

Finally, they went back indoors to the main house. They found Cassidy, eventually, hiding out in the music room, a book in her hand.

“What are you reading?” they asked, by way of greeting. She looked up, her blue eyes distant and dreamy.

“Brandi Carlile’s memoir,” she told them. “She’s a crazy genius.”

“Nice person, too,” Lane said. “Always super kind to everyone.”

Cassidy stared at them.

“You’ve met her.”

“Of course.” Being around Savannah meant they’d met everyone. Cassidy pretended to faint.

“How are you so calm about it?” she demanded. “Do you literally not care about meeting famous people? Are you just too cool for all of that?”

“Totally,” Lane agreed. “Except when I met Dolly. I may have peed a little bit.”

Cassidy burst into laughter. Then her eyes went wide.

“You really met her?” she whispered. Lane nodded.

“She loves kids. She came to say hi to Tucker backstage at the CMAs. He wasn’t quite three, so he gave not one single shit. I held onto him as bait and just tried my hardest not to cry.”

Cassidy laughed again.

“I wouldn’t have picked you as a Dolly fan.”

“I’m from Tennessee, aren’t I?” Lane leaned against the door frame.

“You grew up here?”

“Nashville born and bred,” they agreed.

“City kid.” Cassidy looked thoughtful. “Explains why you’re so bad with horses.”

“I’m not bad with horses.” Lane frowned. “I just happened to be slightly stressed the one time you saw me trying to catch one.”

Cassidy searched their face, before smiling a little.

“I guess you were.”

“Do you want to go for a ride with me?” They came to the real point. Cassidy’s eyes lit up.

“Now?” She dropped the book on her lap.

“Sure.” They shrugged.

“Let me get dressed!” She was wearing some kind of cute denim pinafore thing over a very tiny tight t-shirt and Lane valiantly tried not to watch her bare legs as she left.

It wasn’t necessarily better, watching her mount a horse in a well-fitted pair of jeans and the same damn distracting t-shirt, but Lane at least climbed astride Misty without any major mishap and they headed side-by-side up the Northern track, the one that skirted the top paddocks and off into the trees. Lane liked horses well enough. They’d learned on ponies as a kid, then picked it up again living here. But Cassidy was more of a natural. She barely seemed to nudge Jasper and he moved wherever she wanted, never dropping his head to eat grass the way Misty kept doing.

“What are you studying?” Cassidy asked them as they practically had to prise Misty’s jaws from the grass. Lane looked sideways at her. She’d been mostly pretty quiet so far, saving her full attention for her BFF the horse, only breaking it to tease Lane for their minor missteps in saddling up Misty.

“Teaching,” they told her. “Early childhood. It’s my last semester, actually.”

“Oh. So you’re going to work as a teacher soon? A kindergarten teacher?” she asked, her eyes getting bright.

“I mean, no.” Lane fumbled for words, Cassidy having somehow hit immediately on the biggest dilemma in their life. “Savannah’s about to have another baby. I’m not going to just quit on them now.”