16. Carly
CARLY
I was wiping down the bar when the door opened and Savannah Merritt walked in.
My hands stopped mid-wipe. I knew that walk, the way she moved like she was always on camera, like someone was watching and she wanted to make sure they got the right angle.
Her dress was cream-colored and expensive, the kind that probably required dry cleaning, and her heels were tall enough to make me wonder how she walked on them without breaking an ankle.
Everything about her screamed money and polish, and I felt suddenly aware of my jeans and the bar towel in my hand.
She looked around the bar like she was assessing it, her gaze sweeping over the scarred wood, the neon signs, the old stage in the corner where I used to sing before Boone and I got married. Her nose wrinkled, just slightly, like she'd caught a whiff of something unpleasant.
Then her eyes landed on me.
The smile that spread across her face wasn't friendly. It was the kind of smile a cat gives a mouse right before it pounces, all teeth and satisfaction. My stomach twisted, and I forced myself to keep wiping the bar, to pretend I didn't care that she was here.
Savannah crossed the room. Her heels clicked against the floor, each step deliberate and loud, and I could feel the attention in the bar shift toward her.
A couple of guys at a table near the door turned to look.
The woman sitting at the end of the bar glanced up from her phone.
Even Dee, wiping down tables on the other side of the room, paused to watch.
Savannah stopped on the other side of the bar, directly in front of me. She set her purse down on the bar top, a sleek leather thing that probably cost more than my monthly rent used to be, and folded her hands on top of it.
"Carly." She said my name like it tasted bad. "I heard you were working here again. I thought you'd moved past this."
Heat crawled up my neck. I set the rag down, slowly, and met her eyes. "What do you want, Savannah?"
"Just checking in." Her gaze slid past me to the bottles lined up behind the bar, then back to my face. "I wanted to see how you were doing. You know, after everything."
My jaw tightened. "I'm fine."
"Are you?" She tilted her head, her smile sharpening.
"Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're back where you started.
Pouring drinks in a dive bar. Cleaning up after strangers.
" She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice just enough that I had to strain to hear her. "I guess some things never change."
I gripped the edge of the bar. My hands wanted to shake, but I dug my fingers into the wood and held on. "Why are you here?"
Savannah straightened, her smile softening into something almost sympathetic. It was worse than the smugness. "I thought you should know the truth. Since you left him and all." She paused, watching me. "Boone and I had an affair in Atlanta."
The words landed like a slap. My throat went tight, and for a second I couldn't breathe. I stared at her, waiting for the punchline, for her to laugh and tell me it was a joke. But she just stood there, calm and collected, like she'd told me the weather.
"You're lying." My voice came out steadier than I felt.
"Am I?" Savannah's eyebrows lifted. "Ask him about the dinner at Canoe.
August twenty-first. I was there. He was there.
We had a private table in the back, and the waiter kept refilling our wine glasses even though Boone barely touched his because he had that meeting the next morning.
" She tilted her head. "After dinner, we went to the hotel.
The Ritz. Room 1247. You can check his calendar if you don't believe me. Or ask him. I'm sure he'll remember."
My heart raced, blood rushing in my ears. August twenty-first. I remembered that trip. He'd been in Atlanta for meetings, back-to-back sessions with label executives and producers. He'd called me once, late at night, and told me he was exhausted. That he missed me.
God, had he been lying?
"That doesn't prove anything." I forced the words out. "You could've been at the same restaurant. That doesn't mean?—"
"Oh, honey." Savannah laughed, soft and cruel. "You really don't know, do you?"
I hated the pity in her voice. I hated the way she was looking at me, like I was some naive kid who didn't understand how the world worked. My fingers went numb, so I shoved my hands behind my back and clenched them into fists. "Know what?"
Savannah reached for her purse, slinging the strap over her shoulder. She didn't answer right away. She just looked at me, like she was deciding how much to tell me, how much damage she wanted to do.
Finally, she said, "There's a photo at the old ice cream shop downtown.
You know the one on Fourth, near the record store?
It's been there for years. Boone and I are in it, from when we were sixteen.
We're standing in front of the counter, his arm around me, both of us holding cones and laughing like we didn't have a care in the world.
" She paused, letting that sink in. "That picture's been hanging on their wall for over a decade. He's never asked them to take it down."
My chest tightened. I'd walked past that shop before. I'd seen the photos on the walls, old snapshots of customers and locals, a collage of Nashville history. I'd never looked closely. Why would I?
"He's always loved me, Carly." Savannah's voice dropped, softer now, almost gentle. It made my skin crawl. "You were just convenient. Someone to keep his bed warm and write his songs while he figured out how to get back what he really wanted."
I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to tell her she was full of it, that Boone loved me, that we'd built something together. But the words stuck in my throat, and all I could do was stand there like an idiot while she tore everything apart.
"Get out," I said. My voice sounded hollow.
Savannah didn't move. She just kept looking at me with those cold, calculating eyes. "I gave him a child, Carly. Something you never could."
The floor dropped out from under me.
A child.
Boone and Savannah. A baby.
No. No, that couldn't be right. He would've told me. He wouldn't have kept something like that from me. That was impossible.
But Savannah's face didn't change. She just stood there, watching me process it, watching me fall apart piece by piece.
"You're lying." My voice cracked. I sounded desperate, even to myself. "You're lying."
Savannah shook her head slowly. "I'm not. And deep down, you know it."
My hands were shaking so hard I could barely feel my fingers. My chest felt like someone had wrapped a band around it and was pulling tighter and tighter. I couldn't get enough air.
"He was with me the other night," Savannah continued, her voice soft and relentless.
"At your house. The big house outside Nashville, the one with the wraparound porch and the garden you spent all spring planting.
You'd already left by then, so I thought I'd stop by and see if he needed anything. " She smiled. "He did."
The other night. The house. My house. Our house.
The image hit me like a fist to the gut. Savannah in my house. In my kitchen. In my?—
I couldn't finish the thought. I felt sick.
And then I remembered something else.
Atlanta. His phone had been dead when I tried to call him.
I'd tried twice, late at night, because I couldn't sleep and I wanted to hear his voice.
Both times it had gone straight to voicemail.
When I'd asked him about it the next day, he'd shrugged and said the battery died, that he'd forgotten his charger at home and hadn't realized it until it was too late.
He'd been so casual about it. So unconcerned.
And I'd believed him.
God, I was such an idiot.
"I see you're putting it together." Savannah's smile widened. "Good. You're not as slow as I thought."
The room swam. My vision blurred at the edges, and I had to blink hard to clear it. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. I wanted to grab her by her perfect hair and drag her out of the bar myself.
But I didn't do any of that.
I just stood there, my hands clenched behind my back, my nails digging into my palms hard enough to hurt, and I made my voice come out cold. Flat. "Leave."
Savannah blinked. "What?"
"Get out of my bar." I met her eyes, and I didn't let myself look away. "Now."
For a second, she just stared at me. Her smile faltered, just slightly, like she hadn't expected me to fight back. Then she picked up her purse and adjusted the strap on her shoulder, smoothing down her dress with one hand.
"You'll figure it out eventually," she said. Her voice was calm again, that smug certainty back in full force. "He's always been mine, Carly. You were just borrowing him."
She turned and walked toward the door. Her heels clicked against the floor, each step echoing in the quiet bar, and I stood there frozen, my hands still clenched, my whole body rigid.
The door swung open. She stepped through. And then she was gone.
The bar stayed quiet. Someone coughed. A glass clinked. Dee was across the room, wiping down a table, and when I glanced over she was watching me with concern written all over her face. But I couldn't go to her. I couldn't move.
I turned back to the bar and picked up the rag again. My hands were shaking so badly it took three tries to grab it.
I wanted Savannah to be lying.
God, I wanted her to be lying so badly it hurt. I wanted every word out of her mouth to be a lie, some twisted game she was playing to hurt me because she was jealous or bored or just cruel.
But the dinner. The photo. His phone, dead in Atlanta when I needed him. The house, the other night, when I wasn't there.
It all fit.
Every piece she'd given me fit together like a puzzle I didn't want to solve.
I wiped down the spot where she'd leaned against the bar, scrubbing harder than I needed to, like I could erase the fact that she'd been here at all. Like I could scrub away her words, her perfume, the way she'd looked at me like I was nothing.
It didn't work.
Her presence was still here, hanging in the air like smoke. I could still smell her perfume, something floral and expensive that didn't belong in a place like this. I could still hear her voice, soft and cruel, telling me things I didn't want to believe.
The door where she'd been standing was just a door now. Empty. But I kept looking at it anyway, like maybe she'd come back and tell me it was all a joke, that she'd made it up just to watch me squirm.
She didn't.
I set the rag down. My hands were still shaking, and my chest felt tight, like I couldn't quite get a full breath. I pressed my palms flat against the bar and stared down at the worn wood, at the scratches and rings left by years of glasses and bottles and elbows.
I couldn't go to Boone. Not yet. Not until I knew for sure.
But how was I supposed to find out? Ask him? He'd deny it. Of course he'd deny it. And then I'd be standing there, looking him in the eye, trying to figure out if he was lying or if Savannah was.
I didn't know which answer scared me more.
The bar felt too quiet. Too still. Like the whole room was holding its breath, waiting to see what I'd do next.
I picked up the rag again and moved down the bar, wiping in slow, methodical circles. My whole body felt unsteady, but I ignored it. I ignored the tightness in my chest, the sick feeling in my stomach, the voice in my head that kept replaying everything Savannah had said.
Dee appeared beside me, quiet and careful. She didn't ask. She just handed me a clean glass and started drying the ones I'd already washed.
I didn't look at her. I couldn't.
Because if I did, if I let myself stop moving for even a second, I was going to fall apart.
And I couldn't do that. Not here. Not now.
Not until I knew the truth.