The Second Chance Shoe Shop (15 page)

’
W
hat the hell
am I going to do about everything, Ash?’ said Riley as they got on the bus that night after work. ‘If anyone else comes into the shop and says I’ve run off with their man, I’m going to run off myself!’

‘Oh, Riley,’ Ash soothed as she shuffled along the seat.

Riley sat down next to her. ‘Thousands of people on social media think I’m a home-wrecker. I hate that word. And I’m not one, full stop.’

‘It will all die down.’

‘Not for a while. Clarissa is trying to keep it going as long as she can. I know it’s getting better, and thankfully she won’t hear about today’s fiasco, but all the same. I’m going to get myself a reputation and I haven’t even done anything.’ Riley shrugged. ‘Anyway, let’s change the subject. How are you and wonder boy getting on?’

‘Oh, we’re doing okay,’ Ash grinned.

‘Ready to introduce him to us yet?’

‘No, I bloody am not! I need at least another year before that.’

‘It’s only fair. You’ve all met Ethan now. I can’t see what the big secret is.’

‘I want to be certain of things before I unleash my friends on him. I’m going to get enough stick about being a cradle-snatcher as it is.’

‘He’s not a teenager!’

‘But there is an eleven-year age gap. If I do stay with him, things will get complicated.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Riley snorted. ‘If I’ve learnt one thing over the past few weeks, it’s to live your life and don’t let anyone else stop you. I doubt you’ll get as much fuss as I’m getting.’

Ash sighed. ‘I can’t believe Nicholas’s wife came in to see you. I bet you wanted the floor to open up and swallow you whole.’

Riley nodded. ‘If it wasn’t for the flash mob, I could have easily gone on living my life as it was. Now, everyone knows me. I can’t hide anywhere.’

‘You shouldn’t have to hide,’ said Ash. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong. If anyone is to blame, it’s Nicholas for being such a selfish bastard, and Ethan for being a pushover. And now you’re getting the blame for both their messes.’

Riley smiled. It was just like Ash to stick up for her, and try to make her smile too.

‘So, where are you off to this evening?’ she wanted to know.

‘Out for a drink, I expect.’

‘I’m surprised I haven’t bumped into Warwick visiting you. I might have to pop upstairs for a cup of sugar.’

‘Ha ha. Well, if you do pop round this evening, Cooper will be here. I’ve got a problem with my electric fan in the bathroom and he’s coming over to look at it on his way home before I go out. Are you seeing Ethan later?’

Riley nodded. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Staying in or going out?’

‘Staying in! I want a bit of peace and quiet.’

‘Oh, is that what they call it nowadays,’ Ash teased.

Riley smirked. She was so lucky to have Ash. After Liz had left, Sadie and Dan had been trying to console her, but she couldn’t tell them what had happened with Nicholas. It was good of them to leave it alone, as she knew they would both be dying to know what had happened. She’d tell them soon. There was nothing to be gained by keeping it to herself now. And at least her friends wouldn’t think she was a fool.

D
espite everything
that had been going on online, Riley spent a pleasant evening with Ethan. They’d chatted about Clarissa and put the world to rights. On the surface everything was good again; but underneath, there was an uneasiness between them. Riley wasn’t too sure that she should tell him about Liz and the events of the day, so she kept it to herself.

The shop was fairly quiet the next morning, but at least another batch of the sandals had arrived. Sadie was wiping down a shelving unit before putting them out on display. Dan was supposed to be helping her but he was busy looking at his phone.

‘Anything nasty yet?’ asked Riley. She hadn’t checked her phone in a good while, for fear of the trolls’ comments getting her down.

‘There are still lots of competition entries coming in.’ Dan glanced her way before his head went down again. ‘Lots of not-so-nice tweets about you, too.’

Riley sighed as she got out her phone. She was just about to go on Twitter and block a few people when a text message arrived. Covering her mouth, she held in a gasp. It was from Nicholas.

I’m outside. If you don’t come and speak to me, I’m coming in.

Riley looked up to see him loitering on the pavement on the other side of the street. What the hell did he think he was doing, turning up unannounced at her place of work?

‘I’m just nipping outside for a few minutes,’ she said, quickly grabbing her purse from the drawer beneath the till. ‘Either of you want anything from the newsagent’s?’

‘A Crunchie, please,’ said Dan. ‘And a bag of cheese and onion . . . no, just a Crunchie, thanks.’

‘Sadie?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘I’m okay, thanks.’

When Riley got out onto the pavement, Nicholas jogged across the road towards her. Surprised to feel her heart skip a beat, she tried not to look at him, but her eyes were drawn to his face. His wife was right. He would no doubt have moved on to some other gullible woman by now. He was so good-looking that he could take his pick, and conceited enough to know it and to try his luck. She remembered kissing those full lips, having those blue eyes stare into hers with such adoration that they brought tears to her own, running her hands through his thick hair…

But she hated what he had done to her. He’d turned her into someone who couldn’t trust another man for fear of being hurt again.

Quickening her step, she continued on towards the newsagent’s.

‘Riley, I only want to talk,’ she heard him say.

She turned her head slightly as he drew level with her, moving away as he tried to touch her arm. ‘You have a nerve coming to see me,’ she snapped.

‘You wouldn’t have let me if I’d asked.’ Nicholas marched to keep up with her.

‘Too right, I wouldn’t. I had enough to deal with when your wife turned up yesterday.’ She manoeuvred round a woman with a pushchair, almost colliding with Nicholas and then moving away as if burnt. ‘Why the hell didn’t you delete your photographs?’

‘I didn’t want to. They were happy memories.’

‘And how many other happy memories have you got on your phone?’

‘Liz was lying.’ He looked shamefaced. ‘There hasn’t been anyone else.’

‘You expect me to believe you?’ Riley smiled at Ray as he came out of his café onto the pavement as they passed. ‘Morning, Ray.’

‘Morning, Riley. Looks like being a grand day.’

Nicholas scuttled along after her. ‘I loved only you,’ he insisted.

‘No!’ She stopped suddenly and prodded him in the chest, just as Liz had done to her the day before. ‘
You
were in love with the idea of having a bit on the side and I was in love with a lying, cheating bastard. Why didn’t you throw away the gift?’

‘Because I thought one day I’d be able to give it to you in person.’

She walked off again.

‘Riley! I’m―’

‘She came into the shop,’ she turned to him again, ‘shouting at me, telling me it was my fault! Can you imagine how I felt?’ She pressed her index finger and thumb together. ‘This small.’

They had reached the newsagent’s now. Riley pushed the door open and marched inside, leaving it to close on Nicholas. But he followed her in. Ignoring him, she grabbed chocolate bars for herself and Dan then went to the till.

‘Hi, Riley, diet over then?’

‘Never even started, Stefan,’ she laughed, as she searched in her purse for the correct change for him.

Nicholas was still behind her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘But it’s over between me and Liz now. My marriage has been stale for a while and . . . I was thinking, maybe you and . . .’

A look from Riley silenced him.

Riley heard Stefan snigger under his breath. She paid for the chocolate and turned to leave. ‘You’ve been thrown out, haven’t you?’ she asked Nicholas, not bothering who was listening.

‘No, it was my choice to leave. Things hadn’t been working for a while.’

Riley rolled her eyes, although glad that Liz had managed to go through with her resolve to give him his marching orders.

‘And now you have the audacity to think that you can come back to me, four months later, and move in because you have nowhere else to go. You piece of lowlife!’

‘But we were so good together! You can’t deny that.’

Riley couldn’t. Their fling had been short but very intense. She pushed past Nicholas again and was back out on the pavement in a matter of seconds. She’d almost reached Chandler’s when he grabbed her arm and twirled her round to face him again. She landed against his chest with a thump.

The familiar closeness made her gasp and she stopped in her tracks, breathing in the familiar scent of him. It would be so easy to let him back into her life, feel his arms around her and his mouth on her lips.

Coming to her senses, she shook her head. This man had hurt her. She wasn’t going to turn down the chance of happiness. And even though she and Ethan were on rocky ground because of Clarissa, she wouldn’t give up on him yet.

She pushed Nicholas away, but he kept hold of her arm. Pulling her close again, he pressed his lips to hers. Her eyes widening, she pushed him away and slapped him hard across the face.

‘Get away from me,’ she said, almost snarling at him. ‘You don’t own me. And you certainly don’t have the right to do
that
, ever again.’

‘Riley, I’m sorry,’ Nicholas cried after her as she raced away down the street to the safety of Chandler’s.

Turning at the door, she saw that he had followed her, but at walking pace, giving her a bit of distance.

‘Keep away from me,’ she told him, before disappearing into the shop, back to her colleagues. She almost threw the chocolate at Dan as she ran past him. Dan twirled round but she had already disappeared down the stairs.

In the staffroom, Riley began to cry, as it all became too much. Nausea rushed over her and she sat down before her knees gave way. This week was going from bad to worse. How had everything become mixed up so quickly? How had it all spiraled out of control?

There was so much running through her mind that she didn’t know how to process it all. She needed to talk to someone, but she didn’t know who. Dan and Sadie didn’t know the full story about Nicholas. In fact, until today, they hadn’t even known what he looked like. Ash was at work and it was past lunchtime so she couldn’t treat her to a bite while she offloaded. There was no one else except Ethan – and she certainly wasn’t going to share this with him.

But then she began to calm down and think rationally. Things had just got out of hand, that was all. Just a lot of misunderstandings because of other people’s interference.

She sent a message to Ethan.
Had a great night last night. Can’t wait to see you again. Rx

She saw there were numerous notifications for her again on Twitter. She wondered if someone had added a photo of a crazy shoe. There had been some really great ones that had been shared simply because they were so unique.

But it wasn’t a photo of a shoe that met her gaze as she scrolled down her Twitter feed. Her shoulders drooped and her blood ran cold. It was a photo of her with Nicholas earlier.

She peered more closely at it. It hadn’t been taken when she was pushing Nicholas away, nor when she’d slapped him. It had been taken when Nicholas had been kissing her.

Someone had taken it deliberately to stir up trouble.

That someone was Clarissa. And she had tagged Ethan, too.

#LiarRiley @RileyFlynn @HedworthEthan

Riley put her head in her hands and sobbed.

R
iley sat
in Sadie’s living room, a glass of wine in hand, trying to keep back the tears that were threatening to fall. After seeing Nicholas earlier, Dan and Sadie had been really worried about her and Sadie had insisted she phone Ethan and tell him she was coming home with her that night for dinner. Riley couldn’t deal with a confrontation with him once he saw Clarissa’s tweets, so she’d messaged him again, saying that she wasn’t feeling too good. After that she’d switched off her phone. She knew she’d have to address the situation with him, but she couldn’t cope with it just yet.

Sadie was putting Esther to bed. She could hear them upstairs, Sadie trying to cajole Esther into brushing her teeth. Riley twirled the stem of the glass, trying to concentrate on the television, but it was no use. She couldn’t focus on anything.

It had been a while since she had felt this low. Everything had been so good last week and now, only a few days later, everything that could go wrong had done so.

How on earth could things change so quickly? She’d been thrilled with the flash mob, as well as the marketing campaign that would possibly save Chandler’s and their jobs. The competition had been getting some decent coverage. What’s more, lots of people now knew of Chandler’s, especially since Urban Angels kept tweeting photos of their shoes every day, so the hashtag #ShoeLove was still active.

Now, the flash mob felt like the worst thing that could have happened. In the space of two days, Riley had been accosted by Nicholas
and
his wife. She wondered what lies he’d told Liz when she’d confronted him. Riley wondered if Liz believed her when she had said she didn’t know Nicholas was married. She was the right age to be a mistress. Mistress, she scoffed. Even the word sounded horrid.

Before that had come the showdown with Clarissa, and the online smear campaign that she had started. And again, this afternoon, with the photo of Riley with Nicholas. What did she gain by being so nasty? Riley was certain she wouldn’t get Ethan back that way.

She sighed. All the hard work everyone had put into Chandler’s marketing campaign had been tainted when people had started to tweet nasty things about her.

Why did some people prefer to be negative rather than spread good news? She would never understand people who fed off other people’s misfortunes. They were like vultures, ready to pounce and make a banquet out of bad news. Parasites, that was a good word for them too.

None of this was her fault. It had all started with exes. And Nicholas was the lowest of them all. Imagine him thinking she would go back to him after all that had happened.

Riley flicked away a tear as Sadie came back into the room and dropped onto the settee beside her. ‘You need to talk and I’m all ears,’ she told her.

Riley shook her head, but her tears defied her and fell in streams. Sadie listened while she let it all out.

‘It’s all gone wrong,’ she said in between sobs. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘What really happened with Nicholas?’ asked Sadie, once Riley’s sobs had slowed. ‘You seemed so happy before Christmas. None of us could believe it when you said you’d ended it. We hadn’t even met him.’ She frowned. ‘Did you know he was married?’

‘I had my suspicions that something wasn’t right. I suppose that’s why I never introduced him to anyone. Not that he would have been willing, anyway.’

‘Gut feeling?’

Riley nodded. ‘I thought it was because I didn’t want to tie myself down, being on the rebound from Tom. You know how much he hurt me. So seeing Nicholas a couple of nights a week was perfect at first. He told me he lived in Newcastle, that he only came to work here during the week. But the nearer it got to Christmas, the more I wanted to see him, and that’s when I realised I was falling for him.’

‘You mean the L-word?’

Riley nodded.

‘Did you know how Nicholas felt about you?’

‘He said he loved me, but that he had to keep the relationship long-distance because of his job.’

‘Which is?’

‘A sales rep.’ Riley almost snorted. ‘Or so I thought.’ She suddenly realised how stupid she had been, how gullible for believing him.

‘So he never asked you to go to his place at the weekend?’

‘No. I asked him lots of times. Now I know why I couldn’t go. In the end I thought he saw me as just a casual thing, for fun whenever he wanted it when he was down in Hedworth on business. I was right about that – but I hadn’t thought it was because the bastard was married.’

‘You had no idea?’

Riley shook her head. ‘I did think about it at first, but then I thought he was just scared to commit. He told me he’d recently had a divorce and was still reeling from that. He said he needed time to get over her, the usual rubbish. I think I believed him at first because I wasn’t ready to commit to him. I wanted a bit of fun, I suppose, with no ties. But that never works for me in the long term, so when I did eventually want more, he wasn’t happy. That was when I tried to finish it.’

‘You did?’ Sadie sat wide-eyed.

‘Yes. Early December, I told him I couldn’t look forward to the New Year while not knowing whether he wanted to be with me or not. I said that Christmas was a time to be with a loved one, and if he didn’t want to share Christmas Day with me, then the relationship should end now. He told me there was nothing he wanted more than to spend Christmas together, so we started to plan.’

‘Oh, Riley,’ Sadie said quietly. ‘He didn’t turn up, did he?’

Riley shook her head, tears falling again. ‘We planned everything. Christmas Day was just going to be the two of us. We would cook dinner together, open presents together, get drunk together, and – well, you know. I thought he was fine with it.

‘At six thirty on Christmas Eve, when I had done all the preparation I could, and he was due to arrive at half seven, he rang me to say he wasn’t coming. And not only did he tell me that, he also told me the reason why. That he was spending the day with his wife and two children.’

‘Small children?’

‘Yes, although he’d lied about that too. He said they were grown up.’

‘He told you that on Christmas Eve?’ Sadie raged. ‘The bastard!’

‘I think he panicked. He couldn’t get away with saying he was working over Christmas so he came up with lie after lie to tell his wife. And then he backed himself into a corner. He didn’t want to disappoint me, but knew he couldn’t stay with me.’

‘He humiliated you!’

‘It wasn’t nice what he did. I didn’t want to be anyone’s bit on the side. I couldn’t stop thinking of his wife and children for ages after I had found out.’ Riley shrugged again. ‘I don’t think he had any intention of hurting me. He wanted to please too many people because he’d only thought of himself up until that point. When it all came tumbling down, I was the collateral.’

‘What a snake.’

‘No, being a snake was when he then wanted to resume the relationship in the New Year, just see me once or twice a week, whenever he wanted. That’s when I found out he didn’t live in Newcastle at all, but had been living in Hedworth all the time. That’s when my world shattered. It took me a long time to get myself back together.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Sadie asked.

‘I didn’t tell anyone but Ash. You had your own problems, with Ross dying. I couldn’t burden you with any more pain.’

‘But you were there for me when that happened!’ Sadie sounded hurt. ‘I would have been there for you, too.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Riley gave a faint smile. ‘It was just . . . I still miss Ross too. Maybe it was because I’d lost him, after losing Tom, that I clung on to Nicholas?’

‘It’s possible. Ross meant so much to all of us.’

Riley reached for Sadie’s hand and squeezed it. ‘It was like losing a brother for me. I don’t know how you cope.’

‘Oh, I do okay.’ Sadie’s smile was faint too. ‘I have to, for Esther’s sake. I’m sure if I didn’t have her, I wouldn’t be so calm, though.’

O
nce Riley had left
, Sadie sat down with her laptop and logged on to Grieve Together. What a day. She still couldn’t believe what had happened with Riley, and how the public had reacted. When Dan had shown her what some people had been saying online, it had shocked her. She couldn’t believe how vindictive trolls could be. He’d had to stop her from replying, telling her that it would make things much worse. His advice was to let it die down, ignore it and not fuel the fire.

Instead, they’d all been using their personal Twitter accounts to share photos for the competition. It had worked to a certain extent, but they had all had to block several people who had tried to keep Clarissa’s tweet going. Why did a few people want to spoil things for the majority? It was a sad world they lived in.

She checked her private messages, wondering if Tanya had been online. Yes, there was a message. She clicked on it to open it.

Sadie put down her laptop and picked up her pen and journal. If she didn’t write her feelings down, she would carry them round in her head for the rest of the evening and that was never a good thing to do. But a message popped up from Tanya.

Sadie logged off Grieve Together and closed down her laptop. Just lately, she’d wondered if being a member of the site was helping her to move on and deal with her grief, or if it was keeping it alive far more than she needed. It was great to have Tanya to talk to, but maybe this was prolonging her struggle to face life without Ross. The first anniversary of his death was playing on her mind. Once she got past that, she would decide whether to stop using Grieve Together or not. She’d probably stay friends with Tanya online, maybe via emails instead, though.

She really hoped she was doing the right thing by writing her journal. She wasn’t able to keep Ross’s memory alive any other way, so this seemed the right thing for her to do.

Because now all she had were those memories.