22. Ten Years Later

Home / Midnight and Mischief (Welcome to Kissing Springs: Midnight Season) / 22. Ten Years Later

Midnight and Mischief (Welcome to Kissing Springs: Midnight Season)

Zee Irwin

Add to Library

Chapters

Settings

TEN YEARS LATER

CONNOR STOCKEY

Somewhere in the South - Ten Years Later

I rounded the corner of the backstage area only to find some of my crew slacking off. They knew better and should have had the schedule memorized by now. On the day of the concerts, we did a sound check at four. That gave us plenty of time to fix any last-minute glitches to ensure Reese’s performance went off without a hitch.

Everything usually needed tweaking from the positioning of the speakers and instruments to mic checks, adjustments to lighting, and final stage prep. Anything that could go wrong behind the scenes got double-checked. If my time managing the road crew for tours on behalf of Wild Horses Music had taught me anything, it was to prepare for the worst.

“Get off your asses. We have work to do,” I barked at the guys. After four weeks on the road, they should know well enough that I expected better.

Suddenly, a hand slapped my ass accompanied by a laugh that could only belong to Reese, the flashy bombshell headliner of this tour, and Wild Horses’ latest female rock sensation. The great Prima, the Rock Star Diva, had picked Reese herself from a talent contest, and declared her to be rock’s next biggest thing.

Reese had a voice on her, but she also had a thing for me, pursuing me this entire tour. I made it a rule to not mix business with pleasure, though.

She winked at me as she sashayed by. “Go easy on them, Con. Rock-n-roll can’t be just all work and no play. Or have you forgotten how to play? Stop by my bus tonight and I’ll remind you.”

I only slightly nodded with a flat-lined smile, non-committal. I knew Prima well; she gave me the start in this business back in Kissing Springs. I also knew her husband, Robbie, and their kids. Where Prima was all class in a very challenging business for women, Reese was trashy. Drugs, hard partying, men—she did it all without a care for the destruction she left behind.

Granted, occasionally I didn’t mind fucking trash when desperate, usually someone I met at a bar on the road between tour stops. But from the moment I met Reese, something warned me to stay away.

“Let’s go guys,” I grumbled again. Of course, they all sneered behind my back on the way to the stage with plenty of comments that I needed to get laid. Thankfully, my phone rang with perfect timing so I could walk away.

“Con here,” I answered and paced at the foot of the steps leading up to the platform where the band set up. Someone was on the mic warming up their voice. A female, but not Reese. Which was weird considering the opening act was an all-male band, Epic Union, who typically started off the sound checks.

“It’s John. Epic was called away suddenly for a funeral. I got someone very last minute to take the stage for a few nights, but they’re green. You’ll have to hold their hand,” he said. I liked John as a tour manager, and working with him was usually a breeze because we held the same work ethic. But tonight, I didn’t appreciate this news one bit.

I realized, just like the last tour, there’s a point where this rock-n-roll lifestyle constantly on the road stopped being fun.

“Fuck. Babysitting is the last thing I needed tonight.” I pinched back the tension threatening at the bridge of my nose. What I needed was to hold it together for two more weeks of this. Then I’d go home to Kissing Springs to be with my family over Christmas and New Year’s and rejuvenate. I wasn’t slated to hit the road again until mid-January.

John started telling me about the replacement, but something else caught my ear and I tuned him out. That female voice again came at me. Louder. A little more familiar.

I stood on my toes and caught a glimpse of her turquoise cowboy boots across the stage, and of course my eyes travelled up and couldn’t miss appreciating a fine ass in tight blue jeans.

Then my ears tuned into the song she was singing, and it finally registered. I gasped. It was mine. I’d dabbled in song writing over the years, but there was one song I wrote and gave to one person only. Ten years ago.

I jumped halfway up the stairs and squinted, straining my neck to get a better view of her.

“Stare a little harder, why don’t you? Nice voice. Cute, too. Wonder who she screwed to get here,” Reese snickered and rolled her eyes at me, stepping onto the bottom step. She could never be happy when someone else won the awards or got the featured spot in an entertainment program. Or when a newbie graced her stage with a voice like an angel. “Of course, she’ll need to pay her dues, just like the rest of us. I’ll make sure she understands that clearly. I’m the star around here.”

I opened my mouth to snap at her when the singing stopped, and through the mic the woman shouted my name.

“Connor?”

I hadn’t realized my feet had carried me all the way to the top of the stairwell, in full view of… Porsche.

She took my breath away. An absolute understatement.

We stood there, twenty feet apart, but years and distance didn’t matter. It was like we were back in Kissing Springs, the day she and her parents had to leave town, ripping us apart in the process.

“Hello? Con? You there?” John shouted loud enough into my phone I could hear, but I ignored him and hung up.

Like I was under her spell, I had to remind my feet how to walk, one foot before the other. Slowly, she did the same, and everyone and everything else around us melted away.

Until the last few feet, when she broke into a smile and jumped into my arms, laughing. “It’s you. It’s really you.”

I couldn’t help but join her, smiling until my lips split my face. I swung her around trying to recall how many times, a million, at least, I’d thought about her, and dreamt of seeing her again. Of holding and kissing her again.

And here she finally was in my arms. But different. A woman’s curvaceous body replacing the thin teenager I once knew.

Reese brushed by us, disdain coursing through her voice. “Think we could break up this reunion and get back to work? We do have a show to put on tonight, you know.”

Porsche parted from me, blushing, looking exactly like the sweet, innocent girl of sixteen when I first met her. She hadn’t changed, maybe a little more mature with her makeup and hair and clothes, otherwise the same beautiful angel I fell in love with at first sight as a young man of nineteen.

“Oh, Reese. I’m so honored to meet you. And I just have to say, thank you so much for this opportunity—” she started to fawn all over the star as I set her back down on her feet.

“Save it. I don’t care who you are. You’re nothing. You do your job and open the show and it might pan out for you. If you don’t, and if you embarrass me, then I’ll make sure you never step foot on a stage ever again.” Reese turned on her heel and left a very deflated Porsche in her wake.

“Come with me.” My words came out rough, partly agitated by Reese. I needed to find some place in this Godforsaken building where I could have five minutes alone with Porsche and kiss her senseless.

The last thing I knew of her, she was entering witness protection with her mother and my Uncle Nate. No one had seen or heard from them since.

But no matter. Kisses first. Then we’d talk, and figure out how the hell we both finally ran into each other after all this time.

Read more about Connor and Porsche coming in 2026, Kissing Springs: The Second Generation.

Be sure to check out the Kissing Springs Family Trees page at the front of this book for more books to enjoy.

Comments

Submit