Chapter 19
nineteen
JOAN
It wasn’t until I’d finished bowling the third frame that I realized something was going on.
I’d caught Candace and Mac and Bonnie with their heads together for the fourth time, and they’d looked more excited than guilty.
The Lucky Strike Lanes bowling alley wasn’t the best place for a conversation. It was loud; the sounds of pins crashing, music playing, and people talking created constant background noise. But whatever was going on clearly had my friends’ attention, and I had a bad feeling it had to do with me.
“What is it?” I asked as I took the open seat beside my sister. “Just tell me.”
The women exchanged tight-lipped looks.
It was Bonnie who eventually spoke up. “Well, it appears that someone in the Kirby Falls Facebook group posted pictures of you and Ian from the Spring Fling.”
I winced, not expecting that.
Ian had practically announced his location here in Kirby Falls when that trailer tour interview had aired two weeks ago. His well-meaning effort to boost the local economy—and the orchards—made the location for filming easily searchable.
By some miracle, his fans and the paparazzi hadn’t been knocking down any doors, mostly because the website had reported inaccurately—at Ian’s manager’s request—that filming had finished. Now, photos of Dorian Masters with some mystery woman in rural North Carolina might change all that.
“I see.”
Bright-eyed, Mac straightened and snatched her phone off the table. “Do you want to see?”
But I held up a hand. I’d made the mistake of googling Dorian Masters early on.
I’d witnessed him with models and actresses, women so beautiful they didn’t look real.
Whatever images a local or an amateur photographer had captured at the Spring Fling were sure to be nothing so glamorous or flattering.
“But, they’re good,” Mac pouted. “They got taken down by admin Becca pretty damn quick, but I’d already downloaded them.”
“Becca deleted the post?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Candace confirmed. “She didn’t want them to circulate or make it to some entertainment site. So far, Ian has only had to deal with residents and tourists in Kirby Falls. We don’t need him hounded by paparazzi or obsessed fans.”
That was kind of Becca. I glanced between the gleeful faces of my sister and my friends. At least someone was looking out for me.
“Really, Joan,” Bonnie said, “you should see them. They’re . . . y’all look good together. Happy.”
I was already shaking my head, but her last word stopped me.
My brows furrowed, and Bonnie smiled sweetly, nodding.
As if detecting my surrender, Mac squealed and started tapping away on her phone. She placed the device in the center of the table, and all four of us leaned in.
She swiped slowly through a collection of slightly crooked and off-center images of Ian and me in the back of the kissing booth.
The first few showed us eating and talking, knees slotted between one another as we sat on two folding chairs in the midday sun. In one shot, Ian had just taken a huge bite of caramel apple pie, and I’d been mid-laugh, shoving a napkin his direction.
The following photos caught us kissing, a stop-motion sequence of my touch running from Ian’s chest to his shoulders, his arms locked around my lower back, fingers fisted in the back of my shirt.
“Damn, girl.” Mac whistled.
I touched the back of her hand to stop her from scrolling for a moment.
Even with the terrible lighting and the shitty camera-phone lens, Ian and I looked like something beautiful, something timeless. The way Ian’s big body curved over mine. How we were so obviously wrapped up in one another. We looked like the stars in an old movie.
Apprehension gave way to a flicker of panic. These photos could have very real consequences. The invasion of privacy, the world’s reaction, the impact on Ian’s career and my daily life. A story about Hollywood’s leading man and a small-town farmer could explode in all our faces.
But despite the fear chilling my bloodstream, there was a warmth battling it. These images were undeniable. There was no hiding what we meant to one another, how deep that well of emotion ran.
I forced myself to take a breath, to push away the dread of discovery. Taking in the photo once more, I allowed the warmth to flood my veins and buoy my strength.
I wanted to frame it and stare at it. I wanted to send it to Ian and tell him to kiss me like that every day for the rest of our lives. I wanted to delete it from this phone and my memory forever.
There was nothing rational about my reaction, and I didn’t know how to—
Mac swiped to the next photo.
Candace sighed suddenly, “Oh, this one is my favorite.”
At the image suddenly on the screen, I leaned in without thought, without permission. I heard myself make a sound, part gasp, part wounded animal. Luckily, it was too loud in the bowling alley for my friends to hear me. Still, I fought the urge to cover my mouth with my hand.
The photographer—interloper, whatever you wanted to call them—had captured the moment when I’d just exited the booth.
I was looking down, my face painfully soft, and I was pressing two fingertips to my lips, like I could hold on to Ian’s kiss if I just tried hard enough.
I had no memory of doing that. I just remembered feeling dazed, overwhelmed, grateful for the stolen moments behind the curtain.
But it was the rest of the image that made pressure build in my chest, behind my eyes.
Ian was staring after me. He’d stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and his eyes were on my back.
People talked about unguarded moments. His face was a case study in vulnerability and openness, longing so deep and endless, it was all I’d see when I thought of him.
The first night we were together, when we’d watched The Tycoon and the Aristocrat, he’d confessed in a whispered rush, I know I’m going to make a fool of myself. I’m going to be so fucking stupid over you. And I can’t help it. Couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to.
This image was the photographic proof.
Candace’s hand gently squeezed my elbow. “He looks at you like . . .”
“Like you’re the greatest thing he’s ever seen,” Mac said, when my sister hesitated.
“Like you’re his whole world,” Bonnie added.
“Like he’d do anything to keep you,” Candace finally finished.
I did cover my mouth with my hand, then. And proceeded to drag it down my chin in mute despair. What the fuck were we going to do?
Part of me feared that this photograph, this split second in time, might haunt me for the rest of my life.
“Oh, honey,” Mac said suddenly.
Bonnie gazed at me with sympathy.
Candace rubbed my back. “It’s going to be okay.”
Our attention shifted to the phone and Ian’s love-drunk face until the screen put me out of my misery and went dark.
I wanted to turn it back on. I wanted to send it to myself so I could remember this moment—the damning recognition, the unrelenting fear—forever. I wanted to press my fingertips to my closed eyelids until I could only see stars.
We sat there in weighted silence as pins crashed and The Chicks played over the ancient bowling alley speakers.
Finally, Mac stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Welp, ladies. I say we call this one and go straight to the bar.”
Bonnie nodded and stood. “Let’s do it.”
Candace looked to me. “Whatever you want, Joanie.”
I glanced between my friends, my sister—these women who supported me, put up with me, who were so determined to give me exactly what I needed in my time of crisis.
Even with the impending sense of doom and the agonizing realization that I’d gone and fallen in love with a man and a little boy who I’d never be able to keep, I couldn’t help but smile at the determination on the faces staring back at me.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”
Two hours later, I was in Candace’s passenger seat as she drove me home from Magnolia Bar. I wasn’t drunk, but I was tipsy, and my chest was warm from tequila.
We’d gone to Magnolia because I hadn’t wanted to see any locals over at Mattie B’s. Despite the photos being removed from the town’s Facebook group, I knew people had seen them and would undoubtedly ask. We went to the leafer bar in an effort to avoid speculation and nosy neighbors.
Plus, Bonnie’s boyfriend, Jack, was working behind the bar tonight.
Candace had offered to be the designated driver as soon as we’d walked in.
Bonnie didn’t need a ride because Jack lived in an apartment above the bar, and the two were living there while Bonnie’s house was being renovated.
Mac also did not need Candace to drive her because she and Brady lived just a few blocks away. My brother had walked over at last call to escort a very drunk Mac home.
Brady hadn’t said anything or asked why our bowling team had decided to get hammered on a random Wednesday night, but he did give me a big hug and a kiss on the top of my head. And that felt like the nicest thing he could have done.
“You feeling okay?” Candace asked from the driver’s seat.
I eyed my sister and ignored her question. “Are you pregnant?”
Her gaze shot to mine briefly before she focused back on the road. “What?”
I snorted. “We hadn’t even gotten all the way through the front door of Magnolia before you shouted to the whole bar that you’d be DD.”
Candace’s face was briefly bathed in cool, pale light as a car passed by going the opposite direction. Her eyes were frantic, and she was gnawing on her bottom lip.
Laughing, I reached over and hugged her as safely as I could while she was driving. “I’m so fucking happy for you.”
“Really?” she asked, and she sounded like a little girl again. The one who’d followed me into the fields every Sunday after church and begged me to put on a talent show for our parents.
“Of course, I’m happy for you,” I practically yelled. Maybe I was a little drunk. “You and Mercer are going to be amazing parents, Candace. I can’t wait to be their aunt. They’ll have Brady for all the fun uncle stuff. But they’ll have me too.”