Chapter Twenty-One An Idea
Caleb
The vendor market had turned the whole block into a crowd as people slowly looked over each stall. I had the shop door propped open as an invitation. People drifted in and out in small groups, some curious, some purposeful, some just warming up before heading back into the cold.
This was the version of busy I liked.
Here I was the guy behind the counter who knew where things were and how they worked.
I tuned a guitar for a teenager, teaching them how to do it for themselves in the future.
I showed a couple from out of town where the music stands were and demonstrated how compact certain ones could become.
Someone bought a banjo. Someone else browsed for ten minutes and left without buying anything, which was fine too.
I caught myself smiling, which was embarrassing because there was nothing particularly smile-worthy happening. It just felt… right. Like a life I could keep showing up for.
When the bell chimed again, Ephram stepped inside, stamping snow off his boots and glancing around like he was making sure he hadn’t walked into a trap.
“Can I help you?” I asked, wondering if he was trying to find a holiday gift for Lydia. I wasn’t sure he had come to the right place as I hadn’t noticed any musical tendencies about his girlfriend. Then again, he knew her better than I did.
He grunted. “I’m on Secret Santa duty.”
“That sounds dangerous<” I mused with a smile.
“Police station Secret Santa,” he clarified. “Even worse, I pulled Gail.”
I nodded immediately. “Piano.”
“Piano,” he confirmed. “She already owns everything so I figured this would be the place to start brainstorming on what to get her.”
“She doesn’t own everything,” I said, already moving toward the shelf near the back. “She doesn’t have the new contemporary arrangements yet. The one with the winter set.”
I pulled the book and flipped through it once, just to be sure. Clean layout. Interesting harmonies. Challenging without being obnoxious.
“She’ll like this,” I said, handing it to him. “It’s different enough to be interesting without feeling like homework.”
Ephram turned it over, impressed. “You’re good at this.”
“It’s my one consistent skill.”
He set the book on the counter, then glanced to his right. “Isn’t that supposed to move?”
I followed his gaze to the corner of the counter, where Dave’s abandoned bobblehead sat, unmoving, its head frozen in a permanent nod that it had never actually completed.
“It’s defective, like the person who brought it in,” I said flatly.
Ephram picked it up and shook it gently. Nothing happened.
“That’s upsetting,” he said.
“My former agent brought it as a merchandise concept. It’s horrible,” I replied, ringing through Ephram’s order.
“Ah,” Ephram said, nodding slowly. “This explains nothing and everything.”
“He thinks I should do a full product line,” I continued. “Tour. Branding. All of it.”
Ephram set the bobblehead down before taking out his wallet. “I can tell by your tone you’re not interested in all of that.”
“I prefer to stay here in Maple Ridge,” I answered.
Ephram paid for the book, then leaned his elbows on the counter instead of leaving like a normal customer.
“You know,” he said casually, “people make a surprising amount of money off quality drop-shipped stuff these days in their own online stores.”
I frowned. “Stuff.”
“Stuff,” he repeated. “Mugs. Apparel. Niche things. Only works if it’s decent quality, though.”
I snorted. “That eliminates ninety percent of the market.”
“True,” he said. “But Lydia seems to be doing just fine.”
I blinked. “Lydia? She has an online store?”
“Oh yeah,” Ephram said. “She told me all about it when she was setting up her booth at the vendor market here. She has sleep masks, mugs, journals, candles. Everything branded, everything controlled by her. She calls it her ‘micro-empire.’ She occasionally tells her online community about a new product she sells and it’s money in her bank account. ”
That did make me laugh. “She would.”
“She controls production of her online content, pricing, and has everything drop shipped so she doesn’t need to fulfill orders.
This month Lydia is setting up a course for people to take if they want to do the same thing,” he went on.
“No agents. No middlemen. She pushes it through her socials and pulls ad revenue on top of sales.”
I felt something shift, subtle but unmistakable. “She does all that herself.”
“Yep,” Ephram said. “And she never leaves town unless she wants to.”
The words landed harder than I expected. I leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, staring at the shop like it might offer commentary.
I thought about online lessons. Guitar tutorials. Songwriting breakdowns. Teaching people who actually wanted to learn instead of performing for people who wanted to be entertained for three minutes and forget me the next.
I had never seriously considered it. Not because it wasn’t possible, but because it hadn’t fit the narrative I had been handed. Tour or disappear. Be loud or be nothing.
“That’s… an option,” I said slowly.
Ephram grinned. “Funny how that works.”
I exhaled, something tight in my chest loosening. “I wouldn’t have to tour.”
“Nope.”
“I wouldn’t need an agent.”
“Nope.”
“Do you think Lydia would talk to me about it? Give me some insight on how to get started?” I wondered.
“She would talk at you about it,” he corrected with a fond smile. “But yes, since you and Kitty are together, I’m sure she wouldn’t even charge you for her advice or time.”
The bell chimed again, and Eva stepped inside, snow in her hair, expression distracted. Ephram straightened and checked his watch.
“I should go.” He hesitated, then added quietly, “For what it’s worth, I think you’re on the right track.”
“Thanks,” I said. And I meant it.
After he left, Eva didn’t move toward the counter. She hovered near the door instead, hands tucked into her coat sleeves, eyes distant.
“What’s wrong?” I asked coming around the counter to approach her.
She hesitated. “I don’t want to cause trouble.”
My stomach tightened. “That sentence never ends well.”
She sighed. “I saw Kitty earlier. Outside the arena.”
I relaxed a little. If this was about Kitty it was sure to be fine. “Okay.”
“She was talking to Dave,” Eva said.
I was quiet as I thought about that statement. I didn’t doubt Eva had seen Dave talk to Kitty. “He probably cornered her. Dave has tried to get to me through you and Dad before.”
Eva nodded. “I figured. I just… didn’t like it.”
“Kitty wouldn’t push me into something I don’t want,” I told her.
“I know,” Eva said quickly. “I know that. I really like her. I do. I just had a bad feeling, and I didn’t want to keep it to myself.”
“Did she tell you what he said?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then she probably shut him down,” I replied. “She’s busy tonight with the market. I’ll make a point to talk to her later.”
Eva studied my face, then nodded. “I hope so.”
“So do I,” I said.
She smiled faintly and moved toward the door. “I just want you to be happy.”
After she left, the shop felt quieter, even with the market still buzzing outside. As the afternoon wore on, I periodically glanced at my phone. No messages. No missed calls.
I told myself that meant nothing.
I rang up one last customer, flipped the sign to CLOSED, and started locking up. I thought about Kitty, about honesty, about the future that suddenly looked wider instead of narrower.
As I stepped outside, my foot caught on something solid.
I stumbled, caught my balance, and looked down.
A tent.
A full-sized tent. Pitched neatly. Directly in front of my door.
“Surprise,” Glenna said cheerfully, popping her head out of the tent like this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do on a public sidewalk.
I froze, one hand still on the door handle, my other foot half tangled in a guide line that had been driven down by a peg into the space between the sidewalk concrete and the brick of my building.
The tent was not small. It was not discreet.
It was pitched with confidence, stakes driven cleanly into the narrow strip of ground like she had done this before and learned from experience.
“Glenna,” I said carefully. “What are you doing?”
She beamed. “Camping. I needed a place to stay.”
“You’re… outside my shop.”
“Yes,” she agreed, like that was the point. “I didn’t want to be far from you.”
I looked up and down the street, half expecting someone to step out of the shadows and tell me this was a prank. The vendor market had thinned, but there were still people wandering past with cocoa cups and paper bags, all of them pretending not to stare.
“You can’t stay here,” I tightly mentioned.
“Oh, I’m not staying,” she replied brightly. “I’m just resting. Temporarily.”
“This is not okay,” I told her.
She crawled out of the tent with surprising agility and stood, brushing imaginary dirt from her coat. She had changed shirts. This one also had my face on it, but from a different era, hair longer, smile wider. I felt a specific kind of tiredness settle into my bones.
“I’m respecting boundaries,” she continued, pleased with herself. “You asked me to leave the inn, so I did. I didn’t want to impose.”
“You pitched a tent,” I said. “On the sidewalk.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “That way I’m not in your space. I’m adjacent.”
I closed my eyes for a second, feeling tension mounting in my temples. When I opened my eyes, she was holding something out to me.
“I made you a scarf,” she said proudly.
It was… a scarf, in the loosest sense of the word. Several colors that did not belong together. Stitches uneven, tension wildly inconsistent. It looked like it had been knit with enthusiasm rather than skill.
“It’s mismatched on purpose,” she added. “I didn’t want it to feel too polished.”
“Thank you,” I said, because my mother had raised me to be polite even in the face of absurdity.
She looped it around my neck without waiting, patting my chest when she was done. “There. You look so much warmer.”
“Glenna, you know this isn’t appropriate, right?” I gently questioned.
“And these,” she said, reaching back into the tent and pulling out two lumpy socks. “Still working on the second heel. I like to take my time.”
She hummed as she handed them to me, the melody unmistakable. An old song I barely remembered writing, back when I thought heartbreak had to be loud to count.
“You know all the words,” I said quietly.
“Of course I do,” she replied. “I know all of you.”
That was the moment I realized just how badly I had miscalculated the situation. Not because she was threatening. She wasn’t angry or threatening at all, but she had an absolute conviction that she belonged wherever I was, that my life was something she could simply attach herself to and inhabit.
“I need you to pack this up,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “And leave.”
She tilted her head. “But I just got settled.”
“I’m calling my lawyer,” I said, more to myself than to her, something I should have done immediately after leaving the inn this morning.
She smiled. “You always say that when you’re overwhelmed.”
I reached for my phone, fingers moving on muscle memory, and stopped.
A restraining order would take time and I would need proof of her behavior.
Instead of my lawyer, I scrolled to Ephram’s name and hit call.
He answered on the second ring. “Ephram here.”
“I have a situation,” I said.
There was a pause. “Define the situation.”
I stepped a little farther away from the tent and lowered my voice. “There is a woman camping directly outside my shop.”
Another pause. Longer this time. “Camping? As in a tent?”
“On the sidewalk. She’s one of my previous stalkers,” I revealed.
“Is she armed?” Ephram asked.
“No.”
“Is she threatening?”
“No.”
“She’s stalked you in the past?” Ephram questioned.
“I had a restraining order against her which has since expired. Apparently, I need to get that done again,” I dryly mentioned.
Ephram sighed. “I’ll be there.”
Glenna waved enthusiastically at the phone. “Tell him hello for me.”
“I will not,” I said.
I hung up and shoved my phone back into my pocket, heart pounding harder than it had any right to. The streetlights flickered on, casting everything in a warm glow that felt wildly inappropriate for the moment.
“Why don’t you pack up,” I tried again. “We can talk later.”
She shook her head gently. “I don’t think that’s best.”
“Glenna.”
“You’re tired,” she said, patting my arm. “You need rest. I’ll watch over things.”
“I don’t need you to watch over things. I am managing,” I told her.
She smiled indulgently. “I’m not so sure about that. You have a lovely girlfriend, but you seem very tense. I know you didn’t like touring but is this what you want your life to be?”
A couple walked past, whispering. Someone lifted a phone. I turned slightly, angling my body so Glenna was blocked from view as much as possible, even though I knew that wouldn’t last.
“Glenna, I’m happy in Maple Ridge. You need to go home,” I told her.
“Home is with you,” she sweetly replied.
Ephram’s car pulled up ten minutes later, tires crunching over snow. He took in the scene in one sweeping glance. The tent in front of my shop and Glenna, mid-sentence about yarn weights.
“Oh,” he said. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“Hello, Officer,” Glenna said brightly. “I made him socks.”
Ephram looked at me. “Are you okay?.”
“I will be,” I said. “Once I call my lawyer. I’m just hoping to get this documented so the judge will be on my side”
“Good plan,” he replied. “Let’s get her moved along for tonight.”
As Ephram stepped forward to begin what I assumed would be a very careful, very polite conversation, I leaned back against the shop door and exhaled.
I checked my phone one more time and wondered why Kitty hadn’t called to tell me about Dave.