HAZEL FINE SINGS ALONG (WATTYS 2022 Winner!)

Chapter 24: Hanging Around

They were down to twelve.

Bella, Benji, Hazel, Zoey, Cole, Dave, and Martin's protégé, Sarah, were all through.

Despite her rocky start in the competition, and the fact that she was a replacement for cancer-stricken Lacey, Zoey had really started to shine. Her mentor was a bit useless, but Georgia had taken her under her wing, giving her extra pointers off camera even though she wasn't supposed to.

"And then she told me that Kenney Chesney hit on her once, can you believe it?" Zoey said, as they walked Checkers on his leash in a nearby park. "I would've died."

"Who is that again?"

"Oh my God, Hazel. How are we even friends?"

"We can't be friends because I don't know everything about country music?"

"Well, I'm not saying that. But honestly, it's like you have these huge gaps in your understanding of the culture. You grew up in Texas, and wear cowboy boots. How did you miss country music?"

Hazel watched Checkers hop around on the grass. She couldn't quite believe they'd managed to keep him hidden for so long, alternating between putting him the car overnight and the room. Zoey had fallen in love with him, but Brooke had finally decamped, claiming that she had to go back to work, but giving Checkers a look of disgust as she left.

"Busy doing other things, I guess."

"Ballet, right?"

"What? Oh, yes, that's right. And music lessons. My parents had me taking piano from when I was three."

That part was true. Her parents had been obsessed with laying down a classical foundation for her, with lessons five days a week under a severe woman who didn't understand why a child might not have practiced two hours a day. When she'd taken up the guitar at twelve and insisted on quitting the piano, they'd been devastated and had threatened to ground her. They'd made her keep at her piano lessons as a compromise, which she'd done for years even though she mostly hated it.

"I didn't know you could play piano," Zoey said. "Why don't you incorporate that into your performances? Like Taylor or Gaga?"

That was a good question. A piano performance was something that would elevate her position in the competition, make her more than just the girl with the cowboy boots and the guitar. But Hazel resisted the thought. The piano was too linked to her parents.

"Maybe."

A large black lab came into the park and made a bee-line for Checkers. Hazel stooped down and scooped him up before he got attacked. Checkers whole body was shaking, and Hazel was pretty sure she was about to get pooped on. "We should go back to the hotel."

"Sure, sure, I should call Brooke anyway. I hope she got home all right."

"I'm sure she got home fine."

Zoey gave her a lazy grin. "I wish you had someone like her in your life."

"That would be nice."

"What about Nick?"

Hazel blushed. Over the course of the last week, Nick tended to cross her mind at the oddest moments. Their interaction at the bar, the way her skin had felt when his hand grazed her leg. How intimate it had felt when they wrote that song together. She'd even had an X-rated dream about him the night before, waking up worried that she'd been groaning in her sleep.

"What about him?"

"Well, now that you're not with Benji anymore ... You're not with him, right?"