Chapter 16
I walk towards the door, stealing myself for whatever may come. John, an anxious expression plastered over his very tanned face, stares at me through the leaded glass window. I unlock the door but don’t step aside to let him in.
“The store doesn’t open for another hour, John,” I say, my lips forming what I hope is a smile that says, ‘go away.’
“Paige, I have to talk to you. It’s important.” He looks way too upset for a man who’s just returned from his beach vacation honeymoon. Three weeks ago, I would have been desperate to know what was troubling him, but today I could give zero shits.
He moves towards me but then stops, surprised when I don’t back up to allow him into the store. “This isn’t a conversation I want to have on the street, Paige. Please let me in.”
“How about you write me an email? Or shoot me a text, you still have my number, right?”
“Paige…please.” He’s starting to look desperate, and I don’t have it in me to actually slam the door in his face, so I begrudgingly move aside.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were still on your trip.” I say as I walk towards the register. I stand behind the desk, preferring to keep our interactions as business-like as possible.
“Do you really need to put a desk between us?” John asks, shaking his head sadly. Yes, you asshole, the desk is very necessary. It’s like he’s conveniently forgotten that we haven’t had a civil conversation in over a year.
John opens his mouth but then closes it and starts wringing his hands. He’s usually much better at hiding his agitation. “Come on, John, spill. I have lots of stuff to do.”
“I made a mistake,” he blurts.
“What? Ashley didn’t like the books you bought her on your way out of town? Sorry, no returns,” I scoff, and he pulls back like I’ve hit him. I never used to talk to him with such derision.
“I should never have ended things between us.”
I shake my head, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Us, Paige. I should never have given up what we had. I miss our life. I’m so sorry it took me this long to realize what we had together.” He reaches across the desk to grab my hand, but I pull it back just in time. My jaw drops. You. Have. Got. To. Be. Fucking. Kidding. Me.
“Are you having a stroke? Do you realize what you’re saying? You’re married and we have barely spoken in a year,” I say, the volume of my voice increasing with every word.
“I know. I know. I think I was wrapped up in the newness of everything with Ashley—”
“Don’t you fucking dare. You don’t get to say that to me.”
“She’s not the right person for me. I know that now. It was always you, Paige. I still love you. I--” John reaches for me again, desperation evident in his every move.
I back up, almost tripping over the stool behind me.
The man in front of me, the man I spent a decade of my life with, is unrecognizable.
The man in front of me is weak. He’s not a pillar of anything.
Maybe I’m finally seeing him as he truly is for the first time.
Maybe I’m finally unblinded by my desperation to belong.
This revelation is exhilarating. I am finally over him.
“Everything good out here, babe?” Shayne’s voice sounds directly to my right. I didn’t even hear him approach. Babe? That’s fresh. The verbal equivalent of marking me with his scent.
“Everything’s fine. John was just leaving.”
John, who was already acting the most untethered I’d ever seen him, is looking between Shayne and I like we’ve each sprouted a second head.
“Babe?” he sputters.
I ignore that and say, “I think it’s a good idea if you leave now, John. I don’t know what happened between now and the last time we spoke—when you so blatantly waggled your new wife in front of my face—and honestly, I don’t care, but you should go.” John gapes at me, unmoving.
“Listen to my lady, John,” Shayne says. His voice is like a quiet thunderclap, snapping John out of his freeze. Babe and my lady? Oh, he’s marking me alright.
“Paige, who is this guy? I don’t understand.” John has the audacity to sound indignant, and my anger flares even hotter.
“I owe you nothing. I owe you no explanations. You’re married!”
John flinches but still makes no move to leave.
Shayne moves closer to me, so close I can feel the warmth emanating off his body. John’s eyes widen as if it’s finally occurring to him that I won’t be swayed.
I reach behind me and grab Shayne’s hand, placing it on my waist. “John, meet Shayne. Shayne, this is John. John danced to the Titanic theme song at his wedding to our former realtor, whom he left me for in the midst of us planning our wedding. John, this is Shayne. The man who’s given me more orgasms in two days than you did in ten years. ”
John stumbles backwards into a display table, knocking over several stacks of books. He rights himself and then turns and sprints to the door without a backwards glance.
The first laugh surprises me, sounding more like a bark than anything.
Then, as if the floodgates have opened, I’m gasping for breath as laughter surges out of me.
My body shakes, and tears fall down my cheeks, as I hunch over the desk trying to get a hold of myself.
I’m so consumed by whatever stage of grief this is (a manic undoing?) that I almost forget Shayne is standing behind me.
Almost. He must think I’ve lost my mind, and he wouldn’t be wrong.
“I take it that was the ex?” Shayne says when I’ve finally settled down into an intermittent chuckle.
I wipe my eyes for the third time and turn to face him with my back leaning against the counter.
“Yes, my ex. Silvercreek’s very own Mayor John.
I have no clue what just happened. I’m afraid the sky might actually fall next. ”
“He’s the mayor? Interesting.” Shayne purses his lips like he’s considering what to say next. “He didn’t seem very…mayoral.”
“No, he didn’t. I’m guessing the honeymoon didn’t go well.” I lean forward and lightly jab him in the chest with my finger. “I told you to stay in the back room.”
“I wanted to make sure everything was alright,” Shayne says, catching my hand and trapping it against his chest.
“You came out swinging. Babe? My lady?”
Shayne raises an eyebrow at me. “I don’t think it was my comment that had him knocking over books,” Shayne says with a smug look on his face. He rubs his thumb across the back of my hand, and just that little touch is enough to get me going.
I feel a blush start to form on my cheeks, and I look away. Yeah, that was a bit of a low blow, but it did have the intended effect of disappearing John. I’m ashamed to admit that I’d probably have considered hearing John out if he’d come crawling back a few weeks ago.
My life has changed so much in such a short amount of time.
“Alright, I have to open the store soon, so if we’re going to put our heads together, then we better do it now.”
Shayne nods in agreement, “Do you mind if I use your laptop? I can pull up her accounts.” I push my laptop over to him, and he clicks around for a minute, signing in to Lila’s socials.
“She cross-posted the photo you saw on her public account. It’s also on her Instagram.
” He shows me her Instagram grid, the photo of her and Andy being one of the last photos she ever posted.
I click through a couple of photos prior and land on a photo of Lila from earlier that summer.
She’s wearing a cropped white peasant blouse, jeans, cowboy boots, and a giant smile.
She’s standing with her arm around the neck of a gray-and-white-dappled horse. There’s a long caption:
Participated in the Lovington Chamber Classic and set a personal best with Cookie. We didn’t podium but I’m so proud of the progress we’ve made. Hard work pays off. Met some pretty incredible riders this go around. One in particular stands out.
“This must be the day she met Andy,” I say, clenching my jaw. “Jo was nine-months pregnant then.”
Shayne makes a sound, and I glance up at him. His lips twist in a sad smile. “Photos of her still aren’t easy.” I reach over and squeeze his hand briefly.
I click back over to the photo of her singing with Andy a few weeks later. It’s geotagged on this platform—that information that wasn’t available when I first saw the photo.
“Did you ever click on this Varney’s Karaoke Hut account?” I ask him.
“No, why?”
“Well, maybe there’s another photo on their page of this night. You never know, maybe it would prove it was more than a photo from a random night out.”
“You are much better than I am at this. Can’t hurt.”
“I’m basically Agatha Christie with internet access.” I click on the link, and it takes me to a surprisingly long list of pages with photos geotagged at Varney’s Karaoke Hut.
Varney’s is apparently the place to go if you’re a geotagging karaoke lover and are in Albuquerque I guess.
I scroll through pages and pages until I get to photos dated in August of 2017 and find the photo that Lila posted.
It’s one of about ten photos from that night.
I click through them, but nothing jumps out.
Just more blurry close-ups of random people singing.
There’s only one wide-angle shot of the stage area.
On stage in the middle is an older bearded man caught in a rapturous pose while the screen next to him is lit up with the lyrics to Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’.
The patrons sitting at the tables surrounding the stage mostly seem to be raucously participating in the performance.
There are a few tables with people talking among themselves, and one couple in the far corner is making out, oblivious to anything else.