Tennessee Whiskey

The song that inspired even a beast like Giorgio

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Hi loves,

One of my father’s favorite genres of music is country. It’s actually very common among Caribbean men, young and old, and it’s a Caribbean man who introduced me to Tennessee Whiskey. I’d never heard any version of it up to 2019, but then my cousin’s brother-in-law came into the picture. We’ll call him Gatlin, after Justin Gatlin, because he ran track…like Justin Gatlin.

Gatlin is a tall, handsome man with sex appeal like a fruit ripening in spring, which naturally made me terrified of him. You see, for a person who enjoys the heck out of writing romance, I AM SHY. Imagine the shyest person you’ve ever met, clone them, and then mold both forms together. My fingers aren’t shy (i.e. I can write about anything. See my last post about my breakfast), but in person…lordt.

Example

About a month ago, a Best Buy sales technician cornered me, like they like to do, and everything was fine—I can talk my way through computer specs, processors, hard drive capacity, etc—until he posted up and crossed his arms. Until he started asking me non computer-related questions. Until he did this thing Chipotle (a guy from my past for those just now jumping into the KAlexWrites world) used to do: he looked at me when I laughed. Like really looked at me. That encounter still makes me sweat and my heart race.

When Gatlin introduced me to Tennessee Whiskey, I instantly fell in love with the song. I thought about Gio, what kind of music he would like, and then I saw him and Mo #spoileralert at their wedding dancing beneath string lights while it played in the background. I saw the interplay between this beast of a man and the boy who’d been looking for the kind of love only Mo could deliver. Then from my brain to my fingers to the book…

What did you guys think? Did it fit Gio?