Chapter Twenty-Five
Josie
The windows looked perfect. I sprayed more cleaner onto the front window and wiped in slow circles. The morning sun streamed through the glass, making the mint-green trim glow.
I was just about done when my eye caught the lower corner of the trim. There was a white spot, not even the size of a dime. I wiped at it and realized it was from whoever had been leaving me loving messages on my window.
I leaned closer, and Brandi, standing in the ice cream shop with a white smudge on her hand, flashed in my mind.
Everything fell into place. The comments about my weight. The way she looked at me. The way she’d touched Rome at the clubhouse. The way she’d practically sneered when she said my name. “Oh, my God.”
I dropped the rag, and it hit the floor with a wet slap. “It was Brandi.”
Not Bruce.
Brandi.
Brandi, who hated me. Brandi, who thought Rome belonged to her. Brandi, who made comments about my body without blinking. Brandi, who knew exactly where to hurt me.
Everything clicked into place so fast my head spun. I grabbed my phone so fast I almost dropped it.
Rome.
I hit call, it rang once, and then voicemail. “Dammit.”
I hung up immediately and tried again. Straight to voicemail.
My stomach sank. Shit. He was probably already at Bruce’s, and I had just figured out that this had nothing to do with Bruce.
The bell above the door rang, and a group of teenagers walked in.
Now would have been a great time for me to have someone here to help out. That was going straight to the top of my list of things I needed to do.
I shoved my phone in my pocket and got to work serving the kids, knowing the second they had their ice cream, I was going to blow up Rome’s phone until he answered.