The Hometown Muse - Love in Abbottsville Book 2

Will going on tour with his band make them or break them?

Ellie Sweet has been in love with the boy next door from the moment she discovered romance movies and realized boys were no longer gross, but Cooper Mason never saw her as more than his best friend. After high school graduation, he left town to chase his country music dreams. Now, he’s famous and back in their hometown of Abbottsville for a visit, and he’s offering her a job too good to refuse.

Going on the road as his tour manager could change everything. Maybe even give Ellie the happily ever after she's always dreamed of. But all she's ever known is her comfortable life in Abbottsville—the perfect job, family and friends she adores, and precious memories of loved ones lost that keep her rooted in place. She can’t upend her entire life and venture off across the country with the guy she's always been secretly in love with.

Or can she?

The Hometown Muse is a heartwarming romantic comedy with plenty of small-town charm, flirty banter, swoon-worthy kisses, forced proximity, best friends falling in love, a fun cast of characters, romantic movie-inspired hilarity, and a happily ever after, of course.

I’m a sucker for romance. Always have been, always will be. Give me a sweet romance novel or a good romantic comedy on Netflix, and I’m in heaven. I could sit for hours and listen to someone tell me how they met their significant other or how they got engaged. I have an ever-growing playlist of romantic love songs on my music app. And I’ve even been known to play Cupid
a time or two. But my life is anything but romantic. Except maybe in my head.

“It looks like Valentine’s Day threw up in here, Ellie.” My roommate, Penny, came through the door of our apartment and stared at the streamers and balloons in pink, red, and white I’d put up that morning after she left for work. “Jessa’s going to break out in hives when she gets here.”

I dropped the container of heart-shaped sprinkles I’d been using to decorate the cupcakes I’d baked
last night onto the table and rushed across the room, grabbing Penny’s left hand.

“What are you doing?” She leaned away and snatched her hand back.

“Checking to see if you’re engaged.”

Penny snorted. “It’s a little early for that, don’t you think?”

“No. It’s been six months—”

“Five,” Penny corrected me. “And we’re not ready for that just yet.”

“Are you waiting until you turn thirty after all?” I teased, referring to the marriage pact we’d made after college but since abandoned when Penny fell in looove.

Penny snorted louder this time.

She and Lucas were totally smitten with each other, so I knew an engagement would be coming eventually. Hopefully sooner rather than later, though, so I could live vicariously through her. I couldn’t wait for all the planning and the wedding dress shopping. Venues and
photographers and caterers, oh my!

“Are you sure Luke’s okay with you hanging out tonight?” I asked. “It’s your first Valentine’s Day together.”

“We took half the day off and went to the overlook where we went on our first date.”

“The one where the cops caught you making out?”

Penny tilted her head, peeking from behind a curtain of wavy red locks, and failing at holding in a smile.

I cracked up laughing.

“You really went overboard tonight.” She set her purse on the table by the door.

I shrugged my shoulders as I went back to work on the cupcakes and swayed to the tune of “Kiss Me” by
Sixpence None The Richer.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been told that. But just because I didn’t have a Valentine to celebrate with,
didn’t mean I shouldn’t go all out for my best friends. I loved them more than strawberry milkshakes with extra whip from Jimmy’s diner, and that was saying a lot.

Maybe I went a little crazy when I was in decorating mode. So what? Party planning was my favorite. And theme parties were my jam. I loved any kind of celebration. And that landed me the job of community
event coordinator in Abbottsville. My job was like a constant “pinch me” moment. I was in charge of all the events around town—parades, carnivals, festivals, theme parties, etc.—and it was so much fun. Pinch.
Pinch. Pinch.

I loved living in Abbottsville. It was the best little small town anywhere. But I was a teensy bit biased. Born and bred, I was pretty sure I’d spend the rest of my life there, which was just fine with me. I had absolutely no desire to live anywhere else. It was home.

Tonight was movie night—one of my favorites, Sweet Home Alabama. The whole falling in love when you’re a kid and getting a second chance at love always struck a particular chord with me.

Tally arrived first, wearing her Solo Sisters T-shirt—black with white lettering around a picture of Han Solo
from Star Wars.

“Nice shirt,” I commented.

She looked back and forth between me in my pink sweater and jeans and Penny in her emerald green sweater dress. “Why aren’t you wearing yours?”

“I didn’t feel like changing after my date with Lucas,” Penny replied.

Tally looked at me questioningly.

“Pink is more Valentines-y.”

“I know we’re not officially the Solo Sisters anymore,” Tally said, “but it still means something to Jessa.”

Jessa had given us that nickname after college when the four of us made the marriage pact. We’d agreed not to get married until we were thirty and to spend our twenties getting to know who we were and what we wanted in life while establishing our careers. Jessa’s
brilliant idea. Can you hear the sarcasm in my voice?

Agreeing to such a pact was hard for me with my proclivity for all things romance. Yet somehow, Jessa
convinced me that even if I met someone, I was worth waiting for, so I’d signed on the dotted line. Yes, we
actually wrote out a contract and put our Jane Hancocks on it.

Honestly, when we first agreed to the pact, I figured if I met someone—or if a certain someone came back into my life—I was prepared to bail. But that never happened. I had plenty of dates, but zero steady boyfriends. Penny believed we’d jinxed ourselves since all of our post-pact dates were disasters, but I held to the belief that things didn’t work out because they
weren’t the right guys for us. And then she met Lucas, her perfect guy, and everything changed. For her.

But here I was ... still waiting.

“We’ll always be Solo Sisters.” I handed Tally a gift bag. “Even if we’re not all single anymore.” I eyed Penny, but she ignored me and went for one of the bags. I swiped the one she reached for and handed her the other.

“This one’s yours.”

I’d put together a bag for each of the girls with their favorite snacks and candy and a handwritten card telling them how much they meant to me.

“I wish you’d wear your shirts. I hate to see her frown.” Tally plopped down on the couch and peeked into her bag. “Oooh, Twizzlers!”

“When is Jessa not frowning?” Penny wasn’t wrong.

The first notes of “Then He Kissed Me” by The Crystals came on then, and I dropped what I was doing and started dancing around the room, using the sprinkle bottle as my microphone.

The girls laughed as I mouthed the words and whirled around like Elisabeth Shue in Adventures in
Babysitting, leaving a path of sprinkles behind me. Oh, how I wished the lyrics were true of my life.

I spun as I sang the chorus loudly and stopped at the sight of Jessa standing just inside the door, shaking
her head at me.

“Come on, Jess. Dance with me.” I skipped toward her, and she held her hand out between us.

“Over my dead body.” She was donning her Solo Sisters shirt too, and her eyes instantly took in what I
was wearing, but she didn’t say anything.

I grabbed the last gift bag and held it out to her. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Thanks.” She took it and went to the couch.

“Pizza should be here soon,” I announced as I headed toward the closet to get the broom to clean up
my mess of sprinkles. But first, I made a pit stop in my bedroom and changed into the T-shirt. I wasn’t a fan of Jessa’s frowns either, even if they were a regular occurrence, and despite my perfect Valentine’s look—
hair curled, makeup applied just right, and the pink sweater that made me feel really pretty—I preferred to
make my friend happy.

Penny came toward her room when I emerged and pointed at my shirt. “Great minds think alike. I’m changing mine too.”

As I was sweeping up the sprinkles, there was a knock at the door.

Jessa sprung from the couch and whipped the door open. “Red meat. We crave sustenance.” She snatched the pizza boxes from the delivery kid.
“Food. Food.”

The kid looked taken aback.

“Settle down there, Dusty,” I said as I went to pay for the pizza. Jessa often quoted lines from Twister when she was hungry.

“I love Dusty. He has all the best lines,” she replied.

“Is she okay?” the pizza kid asked.

“We sometimes wonder.” I handed him some cash, then grabbed plates and napkins. I set them on the table, but Jessa had already taken one of the boxes into the living room, sat on the floor with her legs crossed, whipped open the lid, and was devouring a slice.

The rest of us took a plate and ate like civilized people, and I started the movie.

The opening scenes with the young boy and girl on the beach never failed to remind me of my own
childhood love. Well, he never knew he was my love, but he totally was.

Cooper Mason. The boy next door. The guy I’d known pretty much my entire life.

Sigh.

I knew him when. Back in the days when we’d play together in our back yard. When my mom gave my brown hair a bob cut, a la Dora the Explorer, and he wore thick glasses and had a stutter and buck teeth. You wouldn’t be able to tell that now. My hair
eventually grew out so kids no longer asked where my friend Boots was or said “Swiper, no swiping” when I walked by. Cooper lost the stutter as he got older, and contacts and braces had transformed him into a total hottie. Not to mention hours spent at the gym. But it wasn’t only his looks I loved. He had the sweetest, kindest heart and the smoothest singing voice around. We used to sit around the fire pit at
my house and listen to Cooper play us the songs he’d written. He had a God-given talent, and after high
school, he moved to Nashville to pursue his music dreams, which paid off. There wasn’t a country music
fan in the world who didn’t know who Cooper Mason was now.

But I just knew him as Coop, my funny, goofy friend. And I missed him. Every day.