Chapter 12: Dixie Chicken

Everyone was astonished to find that by March Lance was still going strong with Jayme but they were also getting frustrated with his late nights. They were also worried that Jayme seemed to get distant with every new city that they were in.

When the guys tried to confront Lance about it, he just went off of them and continued to drift further away. By the end of March they were on the road to Nashville, Joey could not stand the fact that the entire time was spent with head phones on so he would not listen to Lance’s business. Once in Nashville, Lance rented a car and drove to Memphis to spend what he thought would be quality time with Jayme. He got a chance to see a few of the sites before Jayme convinced him to return to the motel that they had gotten on the outskirts of town.

He hadn’t even noticed until about 1 in the morning, that a few of the places that surrounded the motel were strip clubs and when he turned over Jayme was no where to be found. He shook his head and turned on the radio and much to his amusement what should be the theme song to the way his life was going came on.

We hit all the hotspots
My money flowed like wine
Till the lowdown southern whiskey
Began to fog my mind
Well I don't remember church bells
Or the money I put down
On the white picket fence and boardwalk
At the house on the edge of town
Now but boy do I remember
The strain of her refrain
And the nights we spent together
And the way she called my name

Thank god he had talked himself out of getting married while they were in Toronto. He knew that she wasn’t what he had truly wanted in his life and he knew that it was also putting a strain on the friends that he loved so dearly. But he couldn’t get away from her. There was something about the way she moved with him. He had a weakness for her stamina, the way her hair fell upon his chest with sweat and the way she smelled just like Natalee.

They returned the next day; he said nothing to the fact that she had been gone all night. He took a complete lashing from Johnny and the rest of the guys. But as they prepared for the show in Nashville, the guys sensed that something was different in the way that Lance treated Jayme.

With each city after Nashville, Lance kept pulling Jayme’s funding further away and with each city Jayme continually kept getting increasing weird on them. By the time that they hit Vegas again, Lance knew exactly what time it was when he went back to the hotel and found Jayme rolling in their bed with the man she must have gotten a phone call from. He saw the money on the table and shook his head.

"Don’t let me interrupt you." Lance said in his deep southern voice as he collected his things.

The man was startled but Jayme continued to do what she was doing until Lance noticed the wad of cash that was lying on the dresser. He reached for it and took half of the thousand dollars and said: "This is not nearly enough to cover the amount of expense that you have taken from me." He turned on his heels and gently closed the doors.

He knocked on Joey’s door and soon the guys were back to their old ways and Lance wasn’t any closer to forgetting about Natalee.