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“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“What am I…?” He paused, running his hands up the sides of his nose. He inhaled a deep breath, made a fist, jammed a rigid finger into his chest. “You’re asking me why I’m here? I’m doing the same thing I did in L.A., Missouri, New Orleans. I’m goddamn looking for you.”
Lola wished for something to steady herself on—a gate, a fence, even a tall boulder. She checked over her shoulder—nothing but white-rock ledge. She pulled her shoulders up as she looked back at him. “I never asked you to do that.”
“You turned my life upside down.” He scrubbed his whiskered chin and shoved a hand in his hair, ruining it. It was too long and not as perfect as she’d thought. “More than once. Did you think I’d lie down and take that? You didn’t think I’d fight back?” He’d said fight angrily, with a hard “F” and clipped “T”.
Lola’s heart beat a mile a minute, the tips of her fingers and toes tingling. “I don’t want to fight with you, Beau,” she said calmly. “I don’t want to play. I just want the bullshit to end.”
“It’s over,” Beau said. “Believe me. This game ended a long time ago.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I think I’ll ask the fucking questions, thank you.” He took a step forward, and Lola instinctively moved back a little. “What happened to you that night?”
“I did what I had to do.” She leveled her eyes on him. “What you made me do. You really thought I could love you after what you did to me?”
“Don’t pretend you’re innocent here, Lola.” His nostrils flared. “Or do you go by Melody now?”
She kept her arms straight at her sides, caught off guard to hear her real name from his mouth. She hadn’t thought he would remember that detail from the VIP room. “Is that how you found me?”
“That and a lot of money.”
Her jaw tingled, saliva pooling in her mouth. She didn’t know what answer she’d expected or hoped for with him. “Of course. Money.”
“At first, yes,” he continued. “But it only got me so far. After that, I had to figure it out on my own.” He squinted, holding his arms out, nodding. “I’m a little late, but I made it. Not bad considering you left me with nothing to go on.”
His words were bitter like his tone. He grabbed the knot of his tie and loosened it, leaving it crooked. There wasn’t even a sliver of relief or happiness in his eyes.
Lola swallowed. “What are you going to do to me?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing.” He took another step.
“I can’t go through this again,” she pleaded, shaking her head hard. “I’ve made peace with the pain.”
“I haven’t.”
Lola glanced around without turning her head from him. There were only two exits from this situation—forward or backward.
“What was it all about?” he asked. “I want the truth, so help me God. Don’t bullshit me.”
Lola opened her mouth, but nothing came. How could she explain what it’d been like to finally give in to her love for him after fighting it so hard, only to have him break her big, happy heart in half? And then—to have to pretend to worship him for weeks as she nursed her wounds in private? That was bullshit.
“That night,” Lola started.
He jerked his head to the side. “Which one?
“In your hotel room, when we were planning how to leave Johnny. I’d never—it was the most—” Lola wiped her palms on the seat of her jeans. “You didn’t ask. You just took. All of it. All of me.”
“But you came back. You gave me another chance, and I did my best to make up for—”
“I loved you,” she said, the word dropping like an axe between them.
They stood there a moment, two actors on an open stage, leaves rustling, voices distant, temperature dropping. A train horn echoed through the canyon.
“You don’t anymore?” he asked.
Lola looked down at the ground. What did it say about her that she still loved him after everything he’d put her through? Through all the lies, the spite, the games—her heart ached for him when he was right in front of her the same way it had when he was half a country away.
She looked up, keeping strength in her face, even though her body had begun to tremble. “My love hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still in the garbage where you left it.”
“I knew I was making a mistake that night. Even while I was doing it. But I’d gotten in too deep to pull myself out. Was it not enough punishment that I had to live with that? Knowing I loved you, but I could never truly make up for how badly I’d hurt you?”
“Knowing is one thing. You deserved—deserve to live the depth of your mistake.”
“For how long?”
“That’s for you to decide.” She shrugged, limp and unconvincing. “It isn’t something your assistant can add to your calendar. My forgiveness doesn’t matter—you need your own.”
“Where do you get off telling me what I need? Patronizing me? You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
She shuffled back the last few inches, glancing behind her again. “Yes, I—”
“You don’t know. You didn’t care to,” Beau continued, another step. “And I still have nothing. I don’t know where you went from Cat Shoppe. How you got there. Why. If you laid beside me in my own bed, plotting against me.”
