If you're being entirely honest, the whole thing wasn't really what you expected it to be.
Which is not to say that it was unenjoyable, per se. Liam hides it well, but ultimately, you believe he is a genuinely decent guy. He's also talented and good-looking and amusing, and this afternoon sure wasn't his first rodeo.
So, not a disaster, then - not by any stretch of the imagination. When all was said and done, it wasn't seedy or dangerous, no-one was being taken advantage of or infected with a contagious disease… and really, wasn't hooking up with Mr No-Strings-Attached exactly the sort of thing you imagined the new Rayna should be doing? Here was the day, ready to be seized, with no regrets or second thoughts allowed.
Still, though.
You had kind of thought it would feel more…liberating somehow. More daring and adventurous. Frankly, you'd thought it would be a little more fun.
He was the young, hot, rock star, after all; you were the glamorous queen of country. The frisson between you had been obvious to anyone who'd come to see the tour, it was the subject of countless articles and blogs posts, so you heard. By rights, the two of you should have been nothing short of amazing in bed together.
Given time, you can imagine that possibly you would be.
But, so keen were you both for this to be awesome, that you had managed to forget: you were neither of you the projections up on those sixty-foot screens - you were just people. He didn't know your body yet, and you didn't know his; you were too shy to ask for what you wanted, too busy trying to will away your own self-consciousness to do anything very bold.
And so even as tongues and hands and hips were making all the right moves, even as bases were reached and rounded with textbook success, it all felt somehow a little…perfunctory. Almost more like some kind of performance of passion than the real thing.
Because of course, the trouble is that you know – you know – what the real thing feels like. You know what it is to want someone with every single cell in your being, what it is to be at-once out of your own body, yet somehow also more profoundly connected to it, to the present moment, than ever before. You know private reverence and playful teasing and reckless abandon, and all the many ways that love and lust can combine exquisitely.
These things proved irritatingly difficult to forget, actually - thirteen years of marriage had taught you that, if nothing else.
Afterwards, you and Liam had smiled at each other, wriggled back into your clothes and then just gotten on with the rest of your respective days. As simple as that.
Thirty minutes on an unremarkable weekday afternoon, after which your primary feeling was of satisfaction at having now struck off one more item from the old post-coma checklist.
Finalise your divorce. Check.
Get the ball rolling on Highway 65. Check.
Put Deacon Claybourne behind you once and for all. Check.
And so what if you're not lying awake tonight thinking about Liam McGuiness? So what if you're not going to relive every touch and glance, or call him just to hear his voice? When you go after something specifically because it will be no big deal, you cannot very well complain when this turns out in fact to be the case. Ultimately, you're sure it will be better this way anyway, so much less risky and exhausting.
Admittedly, though, you do seem to have underestimated the sheer intoxication of emotional intimacy. Maybe you're just not very good at this one-night stand thing yet – because you cannot help but think, just for a tiny unguarded moment, that the look on Deacon's face when he sat with you at your father's bedside was worth ten trips to St. Lucia.
You cannot help but remember how when you knocked on his door that night, he had taken you to bed and held you close until the morning; how you called your sister the next day fit to burst with happiness, how every minute without him after that seemed like an hour.
It had all felt like a very, very big deal – terrifyingly so. Gloriously so.
Lying alone in your king-sized bed, you remind yourself that this way danger lies, that rehashing the past is against the rules. Of course it is unfortunate that now, as well as all those decades-old memories that just won't go away, you have some brand spanking new ones to contend with, all vivid and raw. But such is evidently your lot - shit happens.
Instead, you distract yourself. You wonder idly if there will ever be an encore for you and Liam. You couldn't say 'never.' In fact it was quite possible, particularly if the two of you ever happened to be drunk or horny or bored or experiencing an existential crisis at the same time in the same town.
Of course, put that way, the whole thing isn't really a scenario you ever thought you'd find yourself within a million miles of… but then, there are lots of things that haven't turned out the way you thought they would.