It's not that it's not good enough
And it's not that I'm not man enough
There's just somethin' easy goin' that I love
About you and Tennessee

So I made up my mind to learn my lines
And try to play the part
But part of me is in Tennessee
And deep down in my heart
I miss my Smoky Mountain home
And I miss your lovin' too
And it's deep inside of me
And it's always gonna be
'Cause this ain't Tennessee*

----------

“Where’re we going?”

“Just follow me!” Her laughter was infectious as she reached out for his hand and pulled him along behind her. He took one look at the darkening sky and winced. She had to have lost her mind. Any minute the sky was going to open up and it was going to pour and she had dragged him a good fifteen minutes from the truck. They were going to get soaked.

“Nina, come on! It’s getting ready to rain,” he pleaded, thinking of how the last thing he wanted to do was get wet. He’d been nursing a cold for weeks and he certainly didn’t need anything to worsen the situation.

“I know,” she replied with a mischievous smile. “Follow me.”

No sooner had the words left her lips than the rain began to fall. She held his hand tighter and began to run, laughing as their feet pounded the beaten down trail and the drops of rain began to fall harder. They ran until Justin wasn’t sure he could go much further. And then they stopped.

The dense growth of trees provided them with shelter from the weather as they stopped to rest. After Justin caught his breath he began to look around, feeling a mild panic come over him when he realized they had long since left the trail.

“What are we doing here?” Nina was silent as she walked toward the edge of the trees, looking out over a portion of the Tennessee Valley. She took a deep breath and took it all in, sighing contentedly as she did so.

“Don’t you ever just feel like getting away?” Justin had been almost certain that she hadn’t heard his question so he was surprised when she answered with one of her own. He frowned at her, even though she wasn’t facing him, trying to be angry with her for bringing him out in the middle of nowhere during a storm.

“Of course, but there are better- " he started, not at all surprised when she cut him off. She knew the answer to the question anyway. She wouldn’t have asked otherwise.

“But listen to the thunder.” Justin took a deep breath, calming himself, and then stepped forward until he was beside her. He closed his eyes and listened, a smile creeping on his face when he heard the gentle rumble of thunder in the distance.

“You can’t hear that just anywhere. You can’t hear it in the city, not like you can here. Listen to the way it goes on forever with nothing to stop it.” And he couldn’t argue with that.

---

He wished Trace had never told him about running into her in Memphis, how she’d been happy and smiling and just so full of life. Just like Justin remembered her. And he’d been remembering a lot lately, especially with series of storms that had come through LA the week before. He’d found himself thinking of her, wondering what she was doing now, where life had taken her. Trace mentioning her name in passing during a lengthy phone conversation had seemed like a coincidence, but on the third morning he awoke to rain running down his windows, he wasn’t so sure.

That time they’d spent together in her native east Tennessee had been six years earlier, when he was eighteen and young and in love. Definitely desperately in love but not daring to show it. He was supposed to have spent that time in Memphis, resting and on a short break before the next tour started, but he’d run into her in Millington and found himself drawn to her once again.

They’d talked about mutual friends, ones that Justin hadn’t seen in years. As soon as Chris had called him to start a group, Justin had flown out of Memphis without so much as a goodbye to most everyone. It had never registered to him what he was leaving behind, only what was in his future. And Nina had been one of those who had been left behind. They hadn’t talked in years but somehow, it just felt right and he had felt as if she understood him more after that 30 minute conversation than most people had in his entire life. Maybe that was the reason why, when he found that she was heading to Knoxville for a few days to visit family, he had jumped in the truck with her and taken off without so much as a goodbye to anyone. He’d waited until they reached Nashville to call his mom, fearing she’d send the police to bring him back. He’d looked in the rearview mirror for the first 100 miles, just sure someone was following him. And Nina had laughed.

As he listened to the rain fall on LA, he realized he had never forgotten that sound.

---

“Have you really lost your mind?” Justin ignored the surprise in his friend’s voice and continued to tell him the details of his flight.

“You’ll be there to pick me up, right, Trace?” he asked firmly, looking over the flight information he held in his hand. “I don’t want to have to rent a car just to drive home.”

“Yeah, of course I’ll pick you up. But I just don’t get why you’re doing this, J. You’ve got a million things you could be doing out there. Why are you coming back to this hole in the wall town?” Justin cracked a smile, looking out the window at the hovering dark clouds.

“Because it’s raining here,” he explained simply, not expecting Trace to understand.

“Justin, are you sick or something? Seriously, you’re starting to freak me out.”

“I’m fine,” Justin assured him with no further explanation.

“Well, you know it rains in Tennessee, too, right?” Trace asked cautiously. Justin almost laughed out loud, picturing the look on his friend’s face. Knowing him, Trace was probably flipping through the phonebook already, looking for the nearest mental institution to lock him up in once he landed. But that was fine with him.

“Yeah,” he finally answered. “That’s exactly right.”

---

“So you’re going home tomorrow.” It was more of a statement than a question. Not that it mattered anyway; Justin already knew that Nina didn’t ask a question that she didn’t already know the answer to.

“I, uh, yeah I am,” he whispered, his words almost disappearing under the sound of the thunder in the distance and the rain beating on the windshield of the truck. He leaned forward and rested his head on the steering wheel of her truck, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to calm the racing of his heart. Why was he feeling like this? Why did it feel as if the plane he was supposed to get on the next day was taking him back to prison?

He felt Nina scoot across the bench seat until she was so close that her thigh was touching his. In the middle of the cold rain falling outside, her warmth was welcome. He kept his eyes closed, relishing every minute of it until he felt her hand brush his cheek. Looking up slowly, there was no doubt about what was in her green eyes. And he decided right then and there that he simply wasn’t going to fight it.

Her lips were soft against his and the rain that dripped from her hair down her face and to his tongue only made her that much sweeter. He explored softly, gently but with an urgency inside him like he had never known. The wet clothes that clung to them were soon discarded, and the warmth of skin on skin was more comforting than anything he’d ever felt. She moved with ease, touching him lightly at first and then taking his world by storm. She moved like the rain, unpredictable and with a subtle strength…

---

Closing his eyes and resting back in his first-class seat, Justin thought about that night when things had gotten out of control. He’d made love to her in the cab of a pickup truck and despite any clichés he had heard about things like that, it had been amazing. For the first time in practically forever, he had felt normal.

He’d flown back to Memphis the next day, again without saying goodbye. At the time he’d thought it best, but in hindsight he had been wrong. He’d thought about her almost every day for nearly a year afterwards, but that had been the extent of it. He’d gone back to his life in the spotlight, his prison, and she had gone free, taking part of him with her. He’d fallen in love with her as they’d drive across the state. And he realized for the first time, that maybe that’s the way things would have been if he’d chosen a different path. He would have been homecoming king and she would have been the queen. He would have taken her to prom and held her tight as they danced the last dance and said goodbye to high school. Nina was from another life. A ‘what if’. If he’d chosen to at least say goodbye the first time. If he’d chosen Tennessee.

---

“Are you sure you want to come?” Trace asked as he straightened his own tie in the mirror. “I mean, you didn’t graduate from high school with any of us. You’re probably gonna be bored out of your mind.” Justin pushed Trace aside to take a look at himself in the mirror. Once satisfied that he didn’t look overdressed, he turned his attention back to his friend.

“I’ll be fine. I just want to tag along tonight,” he tried to explain. “Besides, it gets you in good with the ladies if they know you brought me along, right?” he elbowed Trace good-naturedly and offered him a crooked smile. “Do this for me, man. I need to go, okay?”

“Fine,” Trace relented with a sigh. “But if you start stealing all the women I’m sending your ass home.” Justin laughed- a real laugh for the first time in a long time.

“That’s a deal.” And they shook on it.

---

Millington Central High School’s five year class reunion was not like Justin expected it to be. Everything he’d seen on TV or heard from his friends about high school reunions indicated that they were boring and stuffy and all about who could out do who. But not the MCHS graduates. Granted they had rented out a large portion of the Wyndham Garden Hotel, one of the nicest places in Memphis, but within an hour, the formal atmosphere was gone. Jackets and ties were discarded as several people made their way to the dance floor while still others shared drinks while catching up on the last five years. Justin desperately wished he still knew these people. He recognized faces from his years at Jeter and a few more from the short period of time he had attended junior high with them, but no one that had been special to him. And certainly not the one person he’d been waiting on the entire night.

He had been certain that she would show. He knew that she’d been involved with her class in several ways while they were still in school so it hadn’t even crossed his mind that she might not show. That is until he sat at the bar, nursing a beer and pretending to be interested in what the woman next to him was talking about. She was obviously a fan, unable to control the way she went on and on about what an honor it was for him to have shown up even though he hadn’t actually graduated. He gritted his teeth and forced a smile. He was tired of everyone bringing that up.

He had honestly just about given up hope and was getting ready to tell Trace that he was going to call it a night when he heard her. After dreaming about the laugh for the past three weeks, he would have recognized it anywhere. He followed the sound of her voice and when his eyes landed on her, he inhaled sharply. The six years they’d spent apart had certainly been kind to her. Her dark hair was shorter now, cut above her shoulder and with wispy layers that looked as soft as silk. Her body was trim and tight, accentuated by her black dress, and her eyes… That brilliant shade of green was vivid from across the room. He kept his eyes on her as he stepped away from the bar, ignoring the protest from the woman opposite him.

He watched her as she spoke to old friends, smiling and laughing and fully of life. Just as Trace had described her. Just as he had remembered her. He reached out to touch her arm slowly, as if he were dreaming, and was surprised when she turned around quickly. Nothing had prepared him for looking into those eyes again, for having all that heat focused on him. He was so consumed with it all that he nearly forgot to speak.

“Um, hi,” he greeted nervously, offering her a weak smile.

“Hi,” she replied softly, her face suddenly sober and her smile gone. “I, uh… what are you doing here?” Justin was a little taken aback by her response. No flowery welcome backs, no stroking his ego, just a flat out demand for an answer. And then it hit him that she didn’t know but she had asked anyway. She didn’t know how he felt, didn’t know he thought about her every time he felt the rain on his face lately. But he was finally going to tell her.

“I came with Trace, but I… I really came to see you.” He got it out in a hurry, afraid that if he didn’t it wouldn’t come out at all. She frowned and he saw his chance slipping away. He was grasping for anything he could hold on to. “Let’s go outside. I need to talk to you.”

“It’s raining outside. Can’t we talk somewhere…” She didn’t have the chance to finish her sentence because as soon as Justin heard it was raining, he grabbed her hand and practically ran for the door. “Justin, what are you doing?” He didn’t stop once they reached the door, instead pulling her away from the building and under a street light where he could see her face. Within a matter of seconds they were soaked.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, nearing tears as her frustration with him overwhelmed her. “You can’t just…” she trailed off angrily as she tried to think of how to finish her sentence.

“I can’t just what?” he asked calmly, taking her hands in his and pulling her closer to him.

“You can’t just do this,” she replied, looking all around to indicate what ‘this’ was. “You can’t just show up like this. You can’t waltz back into town like you own it and everybody in it. You can’t…” she trailed off as she bit back tears. “You can’t do this to me again.”

“I came back to see you,” he tried to explain, letting go of one of her hands to wipe the rain from his eyes. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Trace told me he saw you in town and ever since then I’ve been thinking about that night.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Justin. Everyone said you hadn’t changed but I didn’t believe them. I took a chance on you and I let you in. And then you just left. You left without saying goodbye. You let me think that I had done something wrong.” The words rushed from her lips with a flood of emotion that Justin found overwhelming.

“Nina, please just listen to me,” he begged softly. “I screwed up, I really did. I never should have left without saying goodbye, but I thought it was the right thing to do. I honestly thought it would be better for both of us if we could go on with our lives. Except I couldn’t go on with me.” He took her face between his palms and looked down at her earnestly. “Hear me out on this. You opened my eyes, Nina. Nina. You made me real. It was like something clicked for me that night and I realized that I could have had all this, could have had you, if I had chosen something else. If I had chosen here.”

“But you didn’t choose here,” she whispered, averting her eyes from him. “You’ve chosen your life and you’re living it.”

“But I’m not living,” he sighed desperately. “I’m not happy. I want to be home; here in Tennessee. I want to have a go at the life I didn’t choose. I want us to start over and do it right this time.”

“So you want to have your cake and eat it, too,” she smirked. He could feel her slowly giving in and he wanted to jump for joy. “How do I know that I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and read in some paper that you’ve flown back to LA?”

“Because I can’t hear the thunder there,” he smiled. “You were right, there’s nothing like hearing thunder rumble in wide open spaces. And there’s nothing like sharing that with somebody you love.” He placed a finger under her chin and tilted it up, watching as the rain dripped off her jaw line. “I want to come home to the two things I love, Tennessee and you.”

Her tiny gasp was swallowed by his lips sliding over hers. The taste of rain urged him on as his hands skirted over her body. They were drenched and freezing but the familiarity of the situation was oddly comforting. In the distance, thunder sounded and seemed to roll on for miles, unabated. Justin felt that same freedom well up in his chest as Nina kissed him back. Somewhere in the distance, the thunder kissed the edge of the rainshower signaling the time to move on, to start again somewhere else. To run free at home in Tennessee.

* song credit- "This Ain't Tennessee" by Garth Brooks