Page 78 of Love Felt Like This

Farther down on street parking, Eddie and Maria leave their car. They toss a wave, both lingering on us before heading up to the diner. I tense and lead our crew to the creaking wooden porch. Best we keep our appearances minimal.

Taylor left the front door unlocked, just like Nana said she would. Griffin, Ava, and I file inside, rattling the bell above the door. Classic country music blares over the speakers perched on the front counter. The building smells like too much lavender and a tinge of something burning, probably from a heating unit cranked up too high. It’s almost too hot to wear a coat.

“Hello?” I call out.

“Back here, Bev!” a voice yells, her accent making the one-syllable word stretch to two. “Look around all you like!”

Griffin lowers Ava to the ground, and she takes off running to a side room. We follow her, stopping when she runs between long hanging coats. Griffin keeps an eye on her, and I tap through the hangers on a low metal rack.

“Shopping for yourself too?” Griffin teases.

“Nah. But I spent many weekends scouring these same aisles in high school,” I confess.

“This explains a lot.”

I laugh. “What does that mean?”

He eyes my current outfit of thigh-high platform boots and a striped bell-sleeved dress, all under my usual fur coat.

“You always look like you landed right out of the ’70s,” he says.

“Lies.”

“Not a one.”

A few clothes catch my eye, but I tongue my cheek realizing how similar they are to his observation. “Okay, so maybe I have a preference.”

His lips crook into a smile before he follows Ava as she runs around another corner. I trail behind them, but on the opposite side, we find a woman tabbing through her phone in front of an open plastic bin. Empty hangers sit on a bare rack. Our creaking footsteps bring her eyes up, and they instantly grow double their size.

“Oh my God.” Her accent is so thick it sounds like Uhmahgawd instead. “Beverly!”

“Taylor? Hey. Nana said it was cool if we—”

She claps across the floor on wedge heels and pulls me into a tight hug. She smells strongly of bubble gum.

“It’s so good to see you again!” Taylor ends the embrace but continues gripping the outside of my arms. “Feels just like old times, doesn’t it?”

My head jerks back. Mostly because I don’t recognize her at all. When Nana mentioned Taylor, I assumed I hadn’t met her before. But the memories come back slowly with each eager bat of her smoky eyes and long lashes. She was in my theater classes. If I remember correctly, Taylor was friends with most people.

I shake my head and blink through the memories. “Oh, hi! Yes, wow, it’s so great to see you! It’s been so long.”

She pats my arm and leans back, scouring my figure as if assessing me. “I know, I know! How have you been?” Bee-uhn.

“Good, yeah.” I never know what to say to that. It’s been fourteen years. That’s a lot of wiggle room for good, bad, and everything in between. “How about you?”

“Oh, you know”—she waves a hand that clacks with thin gold bracelets and thicker metal ones—“working here. I married Tyler.”

“Oh, wow, that’s great.”

“He’s all right, I guess.” She scrunches her nose into a playful I’m such a stinker face. “Helps with the kids and all. But don’t ask him to clean. Oh lord, you’ll never hear the end of it.” The laughter that follows is boisterous but sweet. “No, I’m kidding, he’s a good man. You do remember Tyler, right? Football team? Never made quarterback, but he was real good. Sort of. Well, he had fun at least.”

I awkwardly laugh, and she barrels on.

“Now, but you were with Beau, weren’t you? God, he’s really taken off, hasn’t he? I mean, what a man. We went to go see him when he was in town—over in Raleigh—and wow. What. A. Show. We keep in touch sometimes, but he’s just so busy, y’know? Takes a few weeks to answer my texts.”

My heart ratchets into my throat. Everything about this conversation brings me back. The familiarity with Beau in this town but also being in this specific shop. Beau and I searched these racks for his first touring outfit. I distinctly remember him lingering at a glass case near the register where they kept jewelry, thinking maybe he was looking at vintage engagement rings.

In my heart, I knew he wasn’t. I could sense how he pulled away from me first when we held hands, how he didn’t buy any clothes I picked for him, and how his laughs at my jokes turned to grimaces.