Chapter Fourteen

Elisabeth slept the entire night. She never woke up once because she was just that tired. The fact that she was having a very nice dream involving Nick and a boat had nothing to do with it. Not at all.

She woke up that morning and didn’t have time to play around. She woke up, showered, ate breakfast and go ready for work. Nick did the same as her, and decided to declare the day ‘Follow Elisabeth around at CMT Day’. Of course she knew it was going to get on her nerves, but, she couldn’t tell him no because he could come.

In fact, while Elisabeth was in meetings most of the day, Nick was hanging around the studios, and went and had lunch with Tim and his band after rehearsal. Elisabeth didn’t have time to eat. CMT was seriously drilling her about this Tim McGraw special since not only was it going to be broadcasted live on CMT, but also on all Clear Channel radio stations and on VH1 Country, another country channel owned by VH1. Lance wasn’t even a part of the special, so it was all on her.

It was a lot of pressure, and Elisabeth knew it - but she was ready for it. Nick kept going to her office, checking on her, but each time he would come, he’d interrupt her from working. She was so nervous and busy, she never called her mother back either, who also left her several messages. Not that she was worried about it. All her mother was going to do was drill her on why Nick was there. Of course you can’t forget to mention how her mother would talk about her new ‘boyfriend’ and talk about her father as if he was a dog.

She knew she couldn’t take that right now.

It was getting closer and closer to show time and she was getting more and more nervous. She wasn’t nervous about interviewing Tim per se, just about actually doing the show period. It was probably one of the biggest things she had ever done in her career so far.

“Elisabeth,” Nick whispered as he peeked in her office, seeing her sitting at her desk, wearing a pair of low-cut dark jeans with a big black belt, and a black sleeveless top with a design on it, “You okay?”

“Just nervous,” Elisabeth said as she sat there, looking at the clock. Ten minutes until the show began, “Just really nervous.”

“Come here,” Nick said as Elisabeth smiled, standing up and walking over to her. He laughed and looked down at what she was wearing and looked back up at her, “You’re showing your tummy a little. Less shy tonight?”

“They told me what to wear,” Elisabeth said as she rolled her eyes and wrapped her arms around his waist, “You going to stand in the back and watch?” Nick smiled in return, wrapping his arms around her, giving her a big, warm hug.

“You bet,” Nick whispered as he moved his head, kissing her on the neck lightly, “You’re gonna do great. I know you are.”

“Thank you,” Elisabeth said as they stopped hugging and looked into each others eyes, “I’m scared I’m gonna mess something up, you know? This is just a really big deal for me and I’m scared,” she said as she looked down, “I’m scared of a lot of things lately.”

“It’s okay to be scared,” Nick said as Elisabeth looked up at him again, “I get scared a lot too. Wanna know a secret?”

“Sure.”

“I’m terrified of tomorrow night. I’m scared you’re going to hate me.”

“I’d never hate you,” Elisabeth said as she started to laugh a little, leaning in to give him a little kiss when the producer came to the door, knocking on it and interrupted them.

“Elisabeth, you need to come on out,” the producer said as he walked away. Elisabeth looked at Nick with a nervous look on her face, and leaned up, kissing him on the cheek.

“Here goes nothing,” Elisabeth said as Nick gave her a huge, warm smile. She moved her arms from around him and walked over to the door, and they both walked out. Nick looked back in the office, and shut the door behind him, following Elisabeth to the set.

The show started with Tim doing a performance of “Real Good Man”, a song from his new album, Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors. Nick stood in the back, behind the directors and producers, watching with his arms crossed. Elisabeth kept looking back at him during every commercial smiling at him. He would just wave and smile back.

After the performance and the commercial break, Elisabeth sat down and interviewed Tim about the new CD. They talked about how he wanted his actual band to play on it and be the stars just as much as he is this time around. They took a few phone calls from fans and Tim answered a few questions. Everything was going really smoothly and you could tell that Elisabeth was a lot more comfortable around Tim thanks to Faith inviting her and Nick to dinner the night before.

Before getting into the questions that fans had asked on the channel’s website, Elisabeth showed the picture of her and Tim that was taken years ago, right after his very first album came out. She explained to how he was the very first celebrity she had ever met and everybody laughed about how they looked in the picture. Tim had a mullet and was wearing this extremely cheesy country buttoned up shirt while Elisabeth had on overalls, a Tim McGraw t-shirt and a huge perm with fluffy bangs.

Nick stood over in the corner, cracking up laughing that she even had the nerve to show that on TV.

After answering questions from the website, they went to a commercial break. Nick walked onto the set, still laughing about the picture when the nosey little assistant producer who was about 4 foot 5 came onto the set and rushed him away. Nick winked at Tim who saluted at him and Elisabeth stood there wondering what the hell they were talking about. She stood there, looking over at Tim who was getting ready for the last performance when the producer started counting down for them to go back on air.

“Welcome back to MWL’s Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctor’s special, and here they are, Tim McGraw, and his band, the Dancehall Doctor’s for tonight’s last performance,” Elisabeth said as the director motioned that she was off camera and they panned into Tim who started talking to the camera before they began to perform. Elisabeth backed up, over to the chair she sat in during the interviews and sat down, crossing her leg and looked over at him, talking about a song that he had once recorded, that wasn’t on the new album.

“So tonight, by a special request from someone who’s watching right now, I want to do a song that was on one of my earlier albums. I know the person that usually performs it with me, my wife, isn’t here and I do perform it without her sometimes. But this is “It’s Your Love” and I was asked to perform this for our host Elisabeth because it’s her favorite song and the person wants me to let you know that he really loves you,” Tim said as he looked over at Elisabeth and winked while the music began to play.

Elisabeth opened her mouth in shock and looked over to where Nick was standing to see Nick standing there, with his hands in his pockets. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled, looking down at the ground. Elisabeth smiled back at him, reaching her right hand up to her lips and blew him a kiss as Tim began to sing.

Dancin’ in the dark, middle of the night

Takin’ your heart and holding it tight

It’s your love, it just does something to me

It sends a shock right through me

I can’t get enough

And if you wonder about the spell I’m under

It’s your love

Elisabeth looked back over at Nick to see him standing there, with his arms crossed, watching her. She smiled back and crossed her arms, holding the microphone in the same hand as her cue cards. She took a deep breath and looked down, trying to keep herself from crying, but it really wasn’t working to well. She blinked her eyes a few times, looking around and then back up to Nick who was watching Tim sing. She sat there looking at him for a few seconds, until he closed his eyes and looked back over at her, with a smirk on his face.

The song ended and Elisabeth walked up to the set where Tim was, and they both closed the show. The show ended and everybody started clapping since it went off perfectly. Elisabeth hugged Tim, thanking him for singing the song, but he told her it wasn’t him, that it was all Nick, since he asked him to sing it.

Everybody was wanting to celebrate and go to an after party after the show, and invited Elisabeth to come along, but she just really wanted to go and see Nick, but somehow he had disappeared. She didn’t see him anywhere. She kept trying to walk around and find him, but then someone would come up to her, telling her how she did a great job. She didn’t care if she did a great job or not, she wanted to see Nick.

Finally she made her way to her office, and walked in, turning on the light to see a vase of white roses on her desk. She smiled, walking up to them and reached in for the little envelope. She tried to open it. She couldn’t get it open fast enough, and finally she did, pulling out a little card.

Elisabeth leaned over, smelling the roses and looked back at the card. She knew exactly where he was. She looked around, not even wanting to go and change clothes. She’d bring the clothes back sometime tomorrow. She wanted out of there. She reached over, picking up her leather jacket from her coat rack and reached for her messenger bag, throwing it over her body and practically ran out of her office, running into Lance.

“Elisabeth? Where are you going?” Lance asked as Elisabeth held the card up to her chest, and looked at him, “Aren’t you coming to the party?”

“No, I’ve got to go. I’m leaving in these clothes. I’ll bring them back tomorrow. Tell everybody I said goodnight,” Elisabeth said as she started walking down the hallway in a hurry. She walked past security, and practically ran out of the door, running up to her car. She unlocked it and got in, throwing her jacket in the seat beside her and cranked up the car.

She couldn’t get there fast enough.

She reached over, turning her radio on and listened to it. She needed something to calm her nerves. She didn’t know what she was going to do when she got there but she wanted to see him. Hell she didn’t even understand why exactly he left all of a sudden, but she knew where he was.

Finally she pulled into Opry Mills, the mall where she always went to sit and parked her car in a handicapped parking place. It was the closest one to the door and all of the others were like a half-mile away because the place was so packed. She jumped out of the car, not even getting her jacket and started to run inside.

She opened the door, walking into the mall and began walking down the short hallway, going up to the tables and park bench where she usually sat at. There were so many people around since it was a Friday night that it was hard to see if Nick was sitting at a table or what. She finally reached the park bench, and looked around, seeing nobody. Well she saw people, but she didn’t see Nick. She looked down at the card, seeing the message again. She sighed, looking up again. She still didn’t see him.

Elisabeth rolled her eyes, pulling a chair out from a table and sat down, crossing her legs. She tapped the card on the table a few times, looking around for Nick. He just wasn’t there. Then all of a sudden, the card fell over and she saw something written on the back. She picked it up and began to read it.

“That ass,” Elisabeth muttered as she stood up and practically ran out of the mall.