Chapter 4 Justice
JUSTICE
Song: Secrets by OneRepublic
I never joke about women’s empowerment
In this town, peaches ruled all decisions. There wasn’t anywhere you could go without having peaches thrown in your face.
Candles? Peach scents.
Hair salon? Peach shampoo.
The local diner? Peach pancakes.
Living here, I’d never noticed the zeal with which people pushed their peach-y wares. There were peach-themed ceramics, peach-pun shirts, peach desserts at the bakery and peach preserves at the local store.
Which made Hope’s family an anomaly in this town.
Damn, just thinking about apples made me think about Hope and the startling conversation we’d had last night. Who would have thought the shy girl next door had a naughty side?
I mean, I did. But then I’m a degenerate asshole. I assume that everyone is as fucked up as me.
I glanced around, catching sight of my security detail in booths around the diner. The guys were discreet, attempting to grant me the facade of privacy if not the reality.
Sighing, I glanced back down at my phone, absently clicking into the notes app to jot some lyrics that had been playing through my mind all night.
I’d been intrigued by Hope’s boldness and sass as she’d ordered me to read the books that had lined her shelves.
I’d made assumptions about them—and about her. Turned out my girl didn’t want soft and slow. She wanted filthy, dirty, needy sex.
And the fuck if that didn’t turn me on.
My girl?
I stiffened.
Shit. When had I begun to think of her as mine? I didn’t. I couldn’t. She had to remain the girl next door. She had to remain my friend’s sister.
Besides, no way would she let me touch her. She had too much self-respect to roll in the hay with a guy like me.
The bell above the door jingled, and like clockwork, Hope stepped into the diner.
She wore a pretty blue dress with a white cardigan. Her auburn hair had been pulled back from her face by a hair ribbon that appeared to be failing, allowing wisps of hair to curl around her face.
Sweet and sexy, just looking at her felt at once familiar and new. A dichotomy I didn’t know how to interpret.
Taking a seat across the booth, Hope flicked open her menu and lifted it in front of her face, examining the faded writing as if it held the answers to the universe.
I grinned, already knowing her order. It’d been the same every weekend when Harley, Holden and Hudson took her here for a meal.
We’d all pile into the booth, sharing laughs and teasing, bumping elbows as we’d picked from each other’s plates.
There’d always been a riot of kids and teens when we’d come, and my brothers and I had been leaders of our rambunctious pack.
A strange hollow feeling took up residence in my chest. I rubbed it absently as I watched Hope make her decision.
Ruby, one of the waitresses, made her way over.
“Well if it isn’t the wildest of the Wild boys,” she said, slapping a hand on her hip saucily.
The woman couldn’t be a day under seventy, but she worked her age like she worked her sass for tips.
She still dyed her hair a fire-engine red and still painted her lips and nails to match.
She’d developed more wrinkles since the last time I’d seen her, but her piercing brown eyes hadn’t dulled one bit.
“Ms. Ruby,” I greeted with a slow, easy smile. “How you been?”
She waved me off. “Nothing changes around here.” She tilted her head toward the door where a flood of paparazzi hovered outside. “Except that, apparently.”
They’d arrived in the night like assassins, camping out at the end of our drive to try and snap pictures of the rockstar returning to his roots.
They came with the territory, and while I’d become used to them, I couldn’t say I enjoyed any aspect of the vulture-like mob.
“Ignore them,” I said, forcing my smile to stay on my face. “Or better yet, take ’em all a piece of pie and charge it to me.”
“They don’t deserve our pie,” Ruby said with a sniff. “Now, am I getting you both the usual?”
I nodded, waiting until Hope finally dropped her menu on the table.
“Yes please,” she said, still avoiding eye contact with me. “And a milkshake, thank you.”
“One day, Hope Higgins, you’ll surprise me,” Ruby said, waggling her pencil at her.
Hope grinned for the first time since sitting down. “I doubt that very much.”
“You never know.”
Ruby left us alone and I spread out, stretching an arm across the back of the booth as I watched her do everything within her power to ignore me.
“I started reading your books.”
Her head flew up, her eyes wide as she stared at me. “You—my—”
“Yeah.” I dropped my voice, forcing her to lean in to hear me. “They’re hot. Didn’t think you were into that kind of thing.”
I delighted in the blush that flamed across her face. “I like it.”
Her mouth opened and shut a few times before she finally summoned words. “I told you.”
I chuckled, leaning back in my seat. “So, you did.”
“Which book are you reading?”
“The first one about the drummer. Though I have to say, I might need to track down this H. Stone woman. Not to come across as a diva or anything—”
“Never,” Hope said with a straight face.
“But Justin, the lead singer? The way he’s described, and some of the things he does….” I ran a hand over my face. “Well, it cuts a little close to home.”
Hope frowned. “You think so?”
I rolled back the sleeve of my Henley to bare my forearm, turning it so she could see my dagger tattoo. It read “half agony, half hope” on each side of the blade—a nod to my mother’s favorite book. The dagger itself pierced a peach—a nod to my father.
“I’d think this is a bit of a unique tattoo.”
She nodded and swallowed rapidly, her gaze glued to my forearm. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“And this?” I pulled my shirt up to reveal my chest tattoo—a giant dragon, with the dragon wrapping itself around my biceps, triceps and across my chest.
I watched as Hope’s gaze heated, growing distant as she stared at my chest.
“I… I never really considered it before,” she murmured. “But tattoos don’t necessarily equate to a stolen likeness.”
I moved to drop my shirt, but her next question stopped me.
“Why do you have a blank spot on your chest?” she asked, fiddling with her napkin.
I laid my hand over the naked skin, watching her for signs of judgment. “It’s for the woman I’ll spend my life with. I want her to be inked above my heart.”
Hope blinked in rapid succession before sighing heavily. “That is so romantic.”
“Don’t tell anyone.” I dropped my shirt, “But I’m a closet romantic.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” she promised, as Ruby placed our meals in front of us.
We began to eat—me a fully loaded burger with a side stack of fries so high it threatened to cause an avalanche of potato if disrupted—and Hope with her stack of waffles, berries and peach ice cream.
I reached across the table to swipe a bite.
“Hey!” She blocked my fork with her own. “That’s mine.”
“We always share.”
“Sure, before you became a big rockstar and started collecting all sorts of diseases from your fans.”
I frowned. “Are you slut shaming?”
“What? No! I’m talking about colds and flus. Isn’t that why you’re here? Cause you had to cancel a leg of your tour because of a sore throat?”
I sat back in my chair, the delicious burger turning to ash in my mouth. “Not quite.”
“No?”
I glanced away from her innocent curiosity, battling the emotions that threatened to overwhelm me.
“It’s twenty years this year, and….” I swallowed. “The park is finally going to be donated to the town.”
She reached across the table to squeeze my hand. “I understand.”
“Do you?” I huffed out a bitter laugh. “Cause I don’t.”
“Grief isn’t linear, Justice. We don’t get to experience it and then we’re done. It remains like a shadow over our shoulders. We can’t remove it; we can only delay.” She held my gaze, her deep blue eyes searching my own. “Don’t deny what you feel.”
“When did you get to be so wise?”
She grinned, letting go of my hand to pick up her fork. “I’ve always been this wise. You were too busy trying to kiss the Addler twins to notice.”
I groaned, shaking my head. “What are those girls doing these days?”
“Women,” Hope corrected. “And one is the pastor’s wife and a stay-at-home mom with eight kids and loving it. The other became a stripper. Last I heard she was dancing out in Vegas and owns three properties and a fleet of cars.”
I stared at Hope for a beat. “Is that a joke?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “I never joke about women’s empowerment.”
We resumed our breakfast, and I couldn’t help but consider the differences in Hope.
She’d always been funny, intelligent and too ridiculously nice for her own good.
But now there was a depth to her that called to me—not that she hadn’t always been a deep person.
No, it was more an unknown element that made me want to dig deep and uncover all her secrets.
She’d developed layers of maturity and experience that I had no knowledge of.
But god knew I wanted to. I wanted to understand her, to work through the complexity to get to the heart of the woman who ate waffles like her life depended on it.
“Not to rush you,” Hope said, glancing at her watch, “but I have a call this afternoon with a staff member, and I need some time to prepare for it. What did you want to talk about?”
I hesitated, knowing what I was about to ask would be pushing the boundary of our rekindled friendship.
“Faye’s fielding calls about why I’m back in town,” I said finally. “The media wants to interview my family about the park and Mom and Dad’s accident. I’d like to keep the attention off them, if possible.”
Hope frowned. “And what does that have to do with me?”
I cleared my throat. “Faye suggested that an easy way to keep the attention off them would be for me to be seen with a local girl. Someone who understands this isn’t real and who won’t get angry when we break it off. Someone without any secrets in their closet.”