Stretching my hand, I flex my fingers and rub along my palm. The stitches came out and healed pretty quickly, but it left a nice looking scar.
“I was wrong,” Wyn said as she ran her thumbs along the reddish-purple mark that stretched along my palm. “I told you that this hand wasn’t going to change, that its lines were your destiny.” She kissed the scar, and all I thought was being there that night to stop Reed from hurting her was exactly where I was supposed to be. Protecting her and loving her was always supposed to happen. I wholeheartedly believe that.
“Jules?” Jo calls out from the open wall cutout connecting our two spaces.
“I’m not answering to that. You and Stevie need to knock it off,” I yell back as I turn on the buffer, a smile quirking my lips.
“And yet, here you are, answering to it,” she calls out.
Downstairs is being renovated into a gallery, making this entire building look more approachable, and hopefully profitable.
I switch on the buffer and run it across once more. If there’s anything that I want to shine, it’s this. The thin gold band will fit perfectly; I sized her finger while she slept. I knew what stone was going to be hers as soon as I told her the story about it. I just needed to convince a certain asshole to sell it to me. And about three months ago, I made it happen.
JULIAN
There’s an entire block of empty buildings here that are going to waste, especially with a whiskey distillery coming into town, endorsed by Foxx no less. You’d be nuts not to swoop it up. I’ll take my name off the bid for it, if you sell me that fucking stone.
RHODES
Fine, you have a deal. Come and get it.
JULIAN
Are you fucking with me? That was fast.
RHODES
Have I ever given off the vibe that I would have time for that.
JULIAN
My position still stands, I’m not paying in favors.
RHODES
I think your position is bullshit, but I’ll accept the payment you offered with an asterisk that you still owe me something at a time to later be determined.
JULIAN
Deal, asshole.
He didn’t waste time after I picked it up. I glance out across the street and see renovations already underway on the long stretch of abandoned storefronts.
Jo walks by, leaning her elbows on the opening of the half wall divider, looking out where I am. “What the hell is a billionaire doing buying properties in Rumor?”
“He’s got nothing else better to do. Billionaires have rich friends, the kind that like to go to art galleries and acquire a bunch of work,” I say to her as I focus back on the ring.
“She’s going to love it, Jules,” she says. Jo’s watched me obsess over the design of this for weeks now, but I think she’s right.
I hold it up and let the bright light catch the way the gold shines. Fuck, this one came out perfect. I made two others whenI wasn’t sure I would get the stone I wanted. There were plenty of beautiful gems that I considered for her, but the emerald felt like it belonged to her.
Jo claps her hands. “Okay, I want your knee-jerk reaction to this advertisement display with the pinup and the logo. I want to make sure I didn’t just go too over the top here.”
If anyone questioned the drive and hard work the Crowne sisters have been putting in, I would come out swinging. Grant and Lincoln Foxx made a trip down to help calibrate their new copper still. The Foxx brothers and Crowne sisters spent nearly twelve hours straight talking through flavor profiles and how they would filter through sugar maple charcoal, making it a true Tennessee whiskey.
Grabbing my bag, I lean against the archway that transitions my space to Jo’s.
“What do you think?” Jo asks, biting at her thumbnail.
