The lights were still on at the guitar shop when Layla drove by. It was 3:57 P.M., and she thought it closed at four on Saturdays. She pulled in anyway. She was full of righteous indignation and she wanted to take it out on a guitar. But she was low on guitar strings and maybe Brian wouldn’t care that she was dashing in at the last minute.
The bell tinkled when she walked in, and Brian looked up. Layla could see the irritation on his face. He’d probably been manning the store by himself all day and was ready to go home and enjoy his Saturday night. But he smiled as soon as he realized it was Layla.
“I’m so sorry. I just need some strings and then I’ll dash back out the door. And if you don’t have time, I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“If it was anyone else, I’d care,” he said, walking toward the door to flip the sign over to the CLOSED side and lock up. “But I’m happy to help you out. You’re my best customer.”
“I wonder if I should be worried about that,” Layla said, smiling back at him.
“I’m the one who should be worried. It means I don’t have very many customers.”
Layla selected her strings and brought them up to the counter. “I appreciate this, Brian. I really, really need to play.”
He rang up her purchase. “Feel like jamming? It’s okay if you don’t have time or don’t want to. It’s a standing offer.”
Suddenly, jamming with Brian was exactly what she wanted to do. “Actually, I do feel like it.”
He pointed to a row of guitars and then toward an amp. “Pick one out and plug it in.”
They played for two solid hours and fell into the kind of easy rhythm musicians were sometimes lucky enough to experience. It helped that they both knew the songs and weren’t fumbling their way through the arrangements. He’d play a few opening chords and she’d join in as soon as she recognized it. Then she’d play a few chords and he’d jump in, and it wasn’t long before they were trying to stump each other as their song choices grew more obscure. She could play anything, and so could he. He brought a microphone into the mix and Layla discovered that Brian was no slouch in the singing department, either. After that, they shared a microphone and they didn’t stop until they’d sung every song in their shared repertoire. Her alto blended well with his deep voice, and she could go up the range if needed. The result was a soothing harmony that reminded her of the way she and her fellow band member Rick had sounded when they sang together.
“My friend was right. You can definitely bring the house down,” he said.
“So can you.” Together, they’d be a force to reckon with. She put the guitar back on its stand. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted to play with someone else,” Layla said. “I’ve just been playing alone, but God, this felt good.”
Imagine how good it would feel to play for a crowd.
He glanced at his watch. “Felt good for me too. I lost all track of time. Will there be anyone sending out a search party for you? Husband or boyfriend filing a missing person report?”
“Oh, no. I’m single. Divorced,” she clarified now that she and Liam had signed the papers and it was final. It felt strange, like she was admitting she was tarnished goods and had been booted back to the singles table to try again.
Brian didn’t wear a ring. He was nice and she found him attractive. They certainly had a lot in common and could probably talk about music for hours. She didn’t feel the flutter the way she had with Josh, but she felt a strong urge for companionship, and the way they’d meshed so seamlessly appealed to her. Maybe she and Brian would be one of those made-for-each-other couples who started out as friends. Layla opened her mouth to ask him if he’d like to grab a drink or a bite to eat sometime, but then his cell phone pinged and before she could ask him, he looked down at it and said, “Sorry. That’s my fiancée. I better grab it before she’s the one who files the missing person report.” He picked up his phone, punched a button, and then said, “Hey, sweetie. Sorry about that. I’ll be home in fifteen minutes.” He hung up the phone, and Layla’s face was still warm with the embarrassment of her narrowly avoided proposition.
“I was single for a really long time,” Brian said. “I always said I’d never get married. Swore it wasn’t something I ever needed to do. Then I met Jeannie and a year later, I was down on one knee. I guess falling in love will do that to you.”
“Yep. I do remember that part,” Layla said.
* * *
She and Liam had been dating for about fifteen months when he announced he was taking her to the Seychelles. Their friends were all vacationing in Mexico or the Bahamas. Turks and Caicos if they wanted to flaunt their travel budgets. That was exactly why those places wouldn’t do. Liam had to show everyone that their vacation was bigger and better than theirs, and Layla spent an inordinate amount of time giving an impromptu geography lesson to everyone who asked her where exactly the islands were located. When she protested that she couldn’t afford her share of a vacation like that, Liam said he didn’t expect her to. “Can’t a guy spoil the girl he loves by taking her someplace warm every once in a while?”
The bonuses had continued to roll in, and he looked so excited and so genuinely happy that he had the means to make this kind of grand gesture that all she said was “Of course he can.”
Liam was surprised that she’d never vacationed internationally and even more surprised that she didn’t have a passport. The Hilding family had always vacationed closer to home, and they usually arrived by car. Layla and her siblings had spent plenty of time fighting in the back seat as their parents introduced them to the Great Lakes, the Grand Canyon, and Washington, D.C.
Layla expedited her passport application, and she had a feeling Liam might propose to her on the trip. They’d been living together for over a year by then, and the love she felt for him was genuine. They were good together, and when it was just the two of them they never ran out of things to talk about. Liam was exuberant and fun-loving and there was nothing standoffish about him. Meeting new people was one of his favorite activities, and you could plunk him down in the middle of any social situation and he’d come away with five new acquaintances. He also bragged about his job a lot, and one night Layla grew frustrated. They’d had an argument in the car on the way home when she said, “People don’t always want to hear about your job and how good you are at it. You can keep some of the details to yourself. It’s really no one’s business.”
“If people want to ask me about my job, I’m going to tell them. I’m a salesman,” he said. “Nothing wrong with selling them on myself, first. It’s all about networking, Layla.” She could hear the change in his tone, and she knew he was mad.