Chapter 2

Brighton Fairbrook wiped down the lacquered bar, glaring as that night's live musician crooned a twangy version of "Silver Bells" into the tiny stage's microphone. The singer wore a jean skirt and cowboy boots and had long strawberry-blond hair, her pale fingers plucking deftly at her Taylor guitar—a three-hundred series by the looks of it—while she sang about city sidewalks.

"She's not bad, huh?" Adele said, nudging Brighton's shoulder. Adele folded her brown arms, the sleeves of her button-up rolled to the elbow, a deep-green vest cutting the perfect fit, just like always. Her dark braids fell over her shoulders, black glasses perched on her nose as she listened to the act she herself had booked. Adele was Brighton's boss, owner of Ampersand—the bar where Brighton worked—and her only friend in this godforsaken city.

"Mesmerizing," Brighton said flatly, nodding at a customer lifting their empty gin-and-tonic glass for another.

"Oh, come on," Adele said. "She's good."

"And hot," Brighton said, grabbing a new bottle of Beefeater gin from the amber-lit shelves behind the bar.

Adele smirked. "Aren't they all?"

Brighton had to laugh. Adele, a passionate lesbian, had yet to meet a woman she didn't appreciate. Although, wisely, she never "slept with the talent," as she put it—the myriad singer-songwriters who came through here each month, searching for any stage that would have them and a willing audience. This was Nashville—stages abounded, as did audiences, but finding listeners who actually gave two shits…well, that was the real challenge. Everyone was a musician here, which meant everyone was good, everyone was competition, and no one was ever, ever impressed.

Brighton placed a fresh gin and tonic in front of her customer, telling herself she was glad to be free of Nashville's hamster wheel. She was glad to have steady work and decent tips at Ampersand. She was glad she didn't have to constantly restring her guitar, worry about humidity and the wood of her own Taylor getting warped. Didn't have to chase gigs, email bookers who would never email her back, and spend hours every night pouring out her heart and soul and blood into her songwriting notebook, only to be told she wasn't good enough, didn't have what it took, and face betrayal by the very fuckers she'd brought together as a band in the first place.

"You've got that look on your face again," Adele said. She was now sitting on a stool at the corner of the bar, the light from her iPad a blue glow reflecting on her glasses.

"What look?" Brighton said, slapping down a towel and wiping at a spot that wasn't even dirty.

"That look that means you don't give a shit about tips."

Brighton lifted a brow. "Are you telling me to smile ?"

"I would never. But maybe, you know, try to at least look like you're not out for blood."

Adele had a point. Brighton was just barely making ends meet with her tips as it was—she couldn't afford to be grumpy. Her roommate, Leah, had been pretty flexible on the rent lately, but it came with caveats. Last week, Brighton had found herself at an ornament exchange party for the singles group at Leah's church. After being late with the rent three months in a row, Brighton hadn't felt like she could say no to the invite, so she'd ended up with a plastic Christmas pickle ornament and fake smiling for an hour at a guy in khakis and boat shoes while he talked about the album he had just released, a folked-up version of sacred Christmas music, because of-fucking-course he was a musician too.

Leah had asked her about Boat Shoes for the next three days, but Brighton couldn't even remember his face, to be honest. Brighton liked cis men sometimes, but it took a lot to catch her attention, and Boat Shoes had done nothing but bore her, despite Leah's insistence he was the greatest guy . Leah was twenty-four and a conservative Christian, a tiny detail she'd neglected to include in her Craigslist ad for a roommate six months ago. The resulting partnership had made for an interesting living situation, considering Brighton was not only agnostic but also very, very queer.

Suffice it to say, Brighton was desperate to make the rent on time this month. Leah was perfectly nice, but whenever Brighton got roped into some church event, she ended up stuck in a conversation that was, essentially, some version of "hate the sin, love the sinner," and Brighton preferred to leave the word sin out of her identity altogether.

So she put on a smile and fluffed her dark bangs until they fell over her forehead just so. At least she'd get out of this town in a few days, heading home to Michigan for Christmas. Brighton couldn't wait. She wanted her mom's cinnamon hot chocolate and her family's traditional lineup of Christmas movies playing every night, always starting with Home Alone . She wanted to walk along Lake Michigan's snowy shore, icy waves locked in midcrest so that the whole world looked like another planet.

She and Lola used to—

She froze midstir of a dirty martini, shook her head to clear it. She and Lola…there was no she and Lola. Not anymore. Not for five years now, but Lola still crept into so many of her memories, like a habit, especially at Christmastime. Five years was nothing compared with the ten before that. Still, Lola might as well be a ghost, might as well not even exist at all, and Brighton didn't care to think too deeply about why.

About how it was all her fault.

She plopped an olive into the drink and handed it over to a girl with brown curls and green eyes. Their fingers brushed, just for a second. The girl smiled, her gaze slipping down from Brighton's own dark eyes and pale face to the black-and-gray tattoo of the Moon tarot card surrounded by peonies on her upper right arm.

"I love that," the girl said, eyes back on Brighton's.

"Thank you," Brighton said, feeling her cheeks warm, and rested her forearms on the bar. She rightly sucked at dating, but hookups she could do. She looked at the girl through her lashes, smiled with one corner of her mouth. "It's—"

But she froze as the musician onstage shifted from "Silver Bells" to a song that most definitely was not a Christmas tune, the familiar, catchy melody like a splash of ice water in Brighton's face.

Rain is gone and I'm feeling light

Your ripped jeans like silk and wine

Cherry lipstick still on my mind

Can't blame me, darling, I'm back in line

Brighton closed her eyes, tried to block out the lyrics she'd heard on Saturday Night Live a month ago and now couldn't seem to escape, even sitting in her own bar. The song, "Cherry Lipstick," was everywhere—Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, covered at least twice a week in Ampersand. In the last six months, the band, a trio of queer women called the Katies, had rocketed from near nothingness to the hottest thing to hit millennial and Gen Z ears since Halsey.

To most people, "Cherry Lipstick" was just a song—a damn good indie pop song that many a gal would probably attach to their queer awakening, but a song nonetheless—and the Katies were just a band finding some success. Good on them. So this ubiquitous song playing in all corners of the world was fine and dandy…except for the fact that a mere nine months ago, Brighton had been the Katies' lead singer.

And now she most definitely was not.

The singer arrived at the chorus, belting out the lyrics with such gusto, Brighton was positive the woman was in the middle of her own awakening.

"Oh, I love this song." The girl was still standing in front of Brighton, martini in hand. "Don't you?"

"Ah, Christ," Adele said under her breath. "Here we go."

Brighton glared at her friend, then turned a saccharine smile on the girl. "It's a fucking masterpiece."

At Brighton's tone, the girl's smile dimmed, and she drifted away toward her friends. Just as well. Brighton was clearly in no mood to be accommodating, and anyone who loved "Cherry Lipstick" was bound to be horrible in bed. Granted, Brighton knew her logic there made absolutely zero sense, but it made her feel better in the moment, so she went with it.

"Isn't it time for your break?" Adele asked.

Brighton sighed, pressed her fingers into her eyes. "Yeah."

"Then by all means." Adele waved her hand toward the back room, but her expression was soft. Adele knew all about the Katies and Brighton, knew the whole affair was still an open wound. Knew Brighton hadn't touched her guitar or sung a single note since Alice and Emily's betrayal nine months ago.

Adele reached over and squeezed Brighton's hand, then gave her shoulder a little shove. "Go. Jake's got this."

Brighton obeyed, nodding to Jake, the other evening bartender, before pouring herself a large glass of water. She disappeared into the back, passing through the bustling kitchen, fry cooks dipping Monte Cristos into vats of oil, until she reached Adele's office. The song followed after her like a ghost.

I can't, I can't forget the taste

Your cherry lips, your swaying hips…

She gulped her water, then set the empty glass on Adele's desk and kept moving, passing by the big leather couch on her way to the back door. She burst outside into the cold December air, breathing it into her lungs like a new form of oxygen. She leaned against the building's red brick and closed her eyes, which were starting to feel tight and watery. On Demonbreun Street, she could hear the bustle of the Saturday night crowd—laughter, more live music, all the sounds she used to love.

The sounds she used to be a part of.

Because she clearly loved being miserable, Brighton took out her phone and opened up the Katies' Instagram page. Three hundred and ninety-three thousand followers. And counting, no doubt. Emily's dark curls haloed around her lovely face, falling nearly to her shoulders. She favored crop tops and plaid pants, and Brighton even spotted the pink-and-green pair Brighton herself had found at that thrift store in the Gulch last winter. Alice was brooding, as always. A tiny, dark-haired pixie with huge butch energy.

Brighton and Emily had first met at a restaurant in Green Hills where Brighton had gotten a job as a server when she first moved to Nashville five years ago. They bonded quickly over music, melancholy queers like Phoebe Bridgers and Brandi Carlile. They started playing together on their days off, messing around on Brighton's guitar and Emily's keyboard in Emily's tiny East Nashville apartment that she shared with three roommates, but they soon began writing. Lyrics turned into whole songs, which turned into small gigs at coffee shops, just to try it out.

That was how they met Alice.

They'd just finished playing a late-afternoon set at J&J's, a quirky coffee shop–slash–convenience store on Broadway that also hosted live music, and Alice walked up to them afterward, declaring they needed a drummer.

"And you're just such a drummer?" Emily had asked.

Alice had grinned. "I sure as hell am."

And she was—brilliant and passionate and driven. Soon the three of them were sharing an apartment in Germantown, and when they discovered they all shared the same middle name, same spelling and everything—Katherine—the Katies were born.

That was four years ago. Four years of struggle, gigs that paid nothing, tiny regional tours to audiences of ten or less. Still, it was everything Brighton had ever wanted. Being in this band, part of something that she'd made, something that felt like her , had been worth it all. Emily and Alice had been a lifeline during a time when she was sure she'd ruined her life, ruined every good thing she'd ever had. They'd reminded her that she still had herself . Still had what it took to create and perform. At least she'd thought so at the time, when those dreams were still possible. Still alive.

Now Brighton couldn't help but smile at a photo of Alice smirking at a topless Emily, Emily's bare back to the viewer. The two of them had always had chemistry, though they'd never officially gotten together. Brighton wondered if they were now, this silly photo evidence that they might have taken the leap.

Then she read the post's caption—a shoot for NME magazine.

And on Emily's other side, there she was.

Sylvie.

Even her name sounded musical. Red hair like a Siren, feathery bangs like a rock star. Emily and Alice had discovered her in some bar in East Nashville nearly a year ago, when Brighton had been home for Christmas. Emily had wanted to bring her into the group as another singer and songwriter, a suggestion Brighton did not take very well. The three of them had been clashing on their sound at the time—Emily and Alice wanted to go more King Princess–style pop, while Brighton clung to angsty folk-rock as her inspiration.

Sylvie, of course, was pop all the way, funky and fresh and sexy as hell. Even Brighton could admit that. Then, this past March, it had all come to a head when Emily invited Sylvie to a Katies practice without even running it by Brighton first. Sylvie played one of her own songs on her guitar—"Cherry Lipstick"—and Brighton hated it. Said as much, which Sylvie took with an annoying amount of grace.

"This is the direction we're going, Brighton," Emily had said. "If you don't like it, maybe this isn't the best fit for you anymore."

Brighton had left rehearsal before she really started crying, then went home to Michigan for a week, figuring everyone would calm down with some time off. But the day before she flew back, Emily had called her, told her she was out.

And that was it.

Nearly four years of friendship and struggle and creative work finished in a single phone call, all for a redhead with a talent for writing bops.

Brighton knew she should swipe out of Instagram—her own account was currently set to private with all of 120 followers, so there were no notifications for her to check. For Brighton, social media was now nothing more than a catalog of her failures, everything she was missing out on. Still, she couldn't help but type another name into the search bar, another account she didn't dare follow but couldn't seem to leave alone either.

@RosalindQuartet

The grid was much different than the Katies'—muted colors and the deep wood of stringed instruments, four beautiful, very clearly queer musicians in the throes of their art in various auditoriums and theaters.

One woman in particular drew Brighton's eye, always did. Salt-and-pepper hair and gorgeous, quintessential red lipstick, black attire. Lola's style never changed, not that Brighton ever expected it to. Lola had started going gray at twenty-one, and Brighton was glad to see she'd just let her hair silver, never once dyeing it, as far as Brighton could tell. It looked beautiful—regal and ethereal, just like Lola.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" Adele's voice piped up from behind her. Brighton clicked her phone dark. Adele knew about Lola…Well, she knew that Brighton had been engaged and it hadn't worked out, but that was about it. Brighton left out the smaller story points, including Lola's name and the fact that she was pretty much a world-famous violinist now. She was simply known to Adele as the fiancée , like some mythical creature who only existed in legend. Brighton left all the finer details—as well as the particulars surrounding her and Lola's disastrous wedding day—to her own torturous musings.

"Just getting some air," she said to Adele now.

"It's freezing," Adele said, rubbing her arms.

Brighton nodded, goose bumps texturing her own bare arms. She hadn't even noticed, honestly. Too busy being a sad sack.

"Hey," Adele said, nudging her shoulder, "do you need to go home?"

"Do you want me to?" Brighton asked. God, she really was a sad sack—her own boss was pretty much begging her not to work.

Adele pressed her mouth flat. "You've got to move on at some point, baby girl."

She said it so softly, so gently, Brighton nearly started crying right there. Trouble was, she felt like she'd been moving on for the last five years, and she hadn't gotten anywhere.

Before she could say anything else, her phone vibrated in her hand with a call. Only one person ever called her, so her heart already felt ten times lighter when she saw Mom flashing across the screen.

"Mama, hey," she said, her throat thickening as she pressed the phone to her ear. Mama only slipped out when she was feeling really sorry for herself.

Adele gestured to the door, but Brighton shook her head, grabbed onto Adele's arm. She didn't want to stand out here alone anymore, even with her mom on the phone.

"Hi, darling," her mother said. "I've got Dad on the line here too. You're on speaker!"

"Hey, Rainbow," her dad said, employing the name he had used for her ever since she was four and latched on to a Rainbow Brite doll. The nickname became even more fitting when she came out as bisexual when she was thirteen. "How are you?"

"I'm good," she said, her voice nearly fluorescent. Adele rolled her eyes. "Can't wait to be home in a few days." She stuck her tongue out at Adele.

"Oh, honey," her mom said. "I know. That's actually why we're calling."

Brighton's back snapped straight, all her senses on alert. Her mom's tone had gone a bit too sweet, almost songlike, the way it always did when she had to deliver bad news.

"What's wrong?" Brighton asked. "Are you both okay? Is Grandma all right?"

"Fine, Rainbow," her dad said. "Everyone's fine. Fit as fiddles."

Brighton exhaled. "Okay. Then…?"

Her parents were quiet for a second before her mom said it all in one rushed breath. "The magazine is sending me to Provence to review a new winery, so your dad and I are going to be in France for the rest of the year. I'm so sorry, baby."

It took Brighton a second to register her mother's words. But when they hit, they hit hard. "What?" was all she could get out, her voice a pathetic squeak.

"I know," her mom said. "The timing is so horrible, but the magazine just landed a spot at the winery's opening, and we're the only American publication invited, so it's a pretty huge deal."

Brighton felt dizzy and slid down the wall a bit more. The rough brick scratched her back, and Adele grabbed her arm.

"You okay?" Adele mouthed.

Brighton couldn't answer. Didn't know the answer. Her mom had been the head chef at Simone's, a fancy restaurant in Grand Haven, for all of Brighton's childhood. Four years ago, she retired—arthritis making it too hard for her to continue working in a kitchen—and started writing for Food & Wine magazine, traveling the country and reviewing restaurants and bistros. She loved it, and Brighton knew going to France to do nothing but eat and drink wine and write about all the eating and drinking was a dream come true for her.

"That's great," she managed to say.

"I wish we could bring you with us, honey," her mom said. "I asked the magazine, but—"

"No, it's okay," Brighton said carefully. "It's fine. I'll be fine." Her brain whirled, trying to think just how she'd be fine . Her only grandmother lived in Florida, near her mom's oldest sister, Brighton's aunt Rebecca. She supposed she could go there, but the idea of spending Christmas in swampy Tampa, her uncle Jim drinking Bud Light Lime in his pleather La-Z-Boy and watching Fox News twenty-four hours a day, made Brighton literally nauseous.

"You sure?" her mom said. "We don't have to go."

That sobered Brighton up a little. "Mom. Of course you have to go."

"That's my Rainbow," her dad said, and Brighton could tell he was smiling. "I told her you'd be fine. You're a grown woman."

"A grown woman," Brighton repeated, as though saying it out loud would make it true. She felt anything but her two years shy of thirty right now. Still, a lie rolled off her tongue, easy as pie. "Yeah. I…I have some friends here who are getting together on Christmas Day. Adele and…some others."

Adele's brow lifted.

Brighton ignored her.

"I'll spend the day with them," she continued. "It'll be fun."

"Oh, good," her mom said, exhaling so loudly her breath buzzed into the phone. "I'm so glad to hear that, baby. Tell Adele we said hi."

Brighton nodded, even though her mother couldn't see her, and proceeded to ask all the right questions about her parents' trip—when they were leaving, the name of the winery, etcetera and so forth.

By the time she hung up ten minutes later, her chest felt tight enough to burst.

"Aren't you a smooth liar," Adele said, facing Brighton with her arms folded.

Brighton leaned her head against the building, looked up at the inky-black sky. "My parents are going to France for the holidays. I had to say something."

Just like she'd said so many somethings to her parents since the Katies had booted her out— I'm doing awesome! Things are going great! Of course I'm still playing! I've got a gig this weekend! And the next! I'm a star!

Okay, she hadn't exactly said that last one, but the spirit was the same. Her parents believed she was a fully functioning adult in Nashville, paying her rent dutifully and living her musical dream as a solo artist. They didn't even know how to access Instagram or TikTok, much less search for their own daughter among the accounts. The lies were easy, harmless, and made Brighton feel like someday they might actually cease to be lies if she just kept at it.

Kept at what, exactly, she wasn't sure. All she'd done for the last nine months was sling martinis and draft beer and grind her teeth at every musician who stepped onto Ampersand's stage.

"Fuck," she said, dropping her head into her hands. She just wanted to go home. Maybe she still could. She had a plane ticket. She loved Grand Haven more than any other place in the world. She'd be fine spending Christmas…all alone.

But without her parents, she'd have no buffer. No traditions to fall back on. Every shop and restaurant, every bike path and snow-covered sand dune, every rise and fall of the lake already reminded her of Lola every time she went home, but she always had her parents to distract her. Her mom, only twenty-one years old when she'd had Brighton, was pretty much her best friend, and without her…

Brighton would drown under all the memories. She'd absolutely drown by herself. She knew she would.

Before she could stop them, tears streamed down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away, but Adele saw them anyway.

"Baby girl," Adele said, pulling Brighton into her arms, which really set Brighton's tears loose. Adele patted her back and let her cry, which Brighton took full advantage of. She couldn't even remember the last time someone had hugged her—probably her mother, back in March, right before her entire life blew up.

Again.

"All right," Adele said, rubbing Brighton's cold arms. "Okay, here's what we're going to do." She pulled back and looked Brighton in the eyes. "You're coming home with me for Christmas."

Brighton blinked. Sniffed some snot back up her nose. "What?"

"You heard me," Adele said. "You're not going home by yourself, and I know I'm your only fucking friend in the world, so you're coming to Colorado with me. You can tell all your woes to my mom over a nice cup of cocoa. She'll love it—my sister and I never tell her anything."

Brighton prepared herself to refuse, but who the hell was she kidding? Adele was her only friend, and she was desperate enough right now that the idea of crying into a strange woman's lap actually sounded pretty nice. She knew Adele's parents were divorced and her mom owned a bakery and liked to meddle, which Adele and her sister—whose name Brighton couldn't remember at this very moment—took it all with a grain of salt. Honestly, a little motherly meddling sounded pretty damn great right now.

So she nodded, dried her eyes with her shirt, and then she and Adele went back to work. The next day, she got on her airline's website and spent all her rent money on the exorbitant fee to change her plane ticket from Grand Rapids to Colorado Springs. She dreaded telling Leah and hoped, at the very least, someone brought homemade peach pie to the next potluck dinner.