“Limestone,” I deadpan as I open the doors to my wardrobe.
“Obviously,” she says, knowing her fair share about whiskey. Limestone in the water here is one of the many things that makes Tennessee whiskey so damn smooth.
“I get the runaround any time I ask about cold cases. And don’t get me started on the sexual assault rumblings on your beloved university campus.”
“What sexual assault rumblings?” I ask, snapping my attention to her fully, stopping from looking through my display of shoes.
“Don’t get her going on this,” Jo whispers loudly. “She won’t stop.”
“It’s only rumors at this point, because our county sheriff’s department isn’t doing shit about it. Any of it. It grinds my gears.” She pops another olive into her mouth, then flops onto the bed. “Give me something good to focus on instead, Wynnie. I’m dying for a little hook-up story, some juice to keep my spirits up, please please please tell me the details of this bathroom tryst?”
“Are you hormonal?” Jo asks her with a quirked eyebrow.
“All the fucking time,” Stevie groans out dramatically. “I’m living my best life in a loving, platonic marriage. I’ll take what I can get.”
Stevie and Theo’s relationship has always had gray lines and curious roots, but they stay together and would go to bat for each other in a minute. When she’s ready to talk about it, I know she will.
“Here,” Jo says as she tosses me the boots. “Can I ask you another question?”
I glance up at her as I sit to put them on. “You can.”
It’s one of the deals we made when I came back—to ask before asking. Stevie blows past remembering that one most of the time, but Jo doesn’t. She stared at the scar along my side in horror after the Summer Solstice party Birdie had thrown and I told them that they could ask.
“News flash,” Stevie interrupts. “That was more dessert than brunch, but I’m not mad about it. Here. If we’re staying in the same place tonight, then it’s a sleepover, and sleepovers equal matching pajamas, or being naked, depending on the parties involved." She laughs, throwing a wadded-up ball of pink plushy fabric at my head.
I stand up, and without thinking, take off my shirt, but before I’m able to shed my pants, they’re both staring at thejagged, protruding scar. It isn’t pretty, and it never would be, but it’s healed. The phantom pain happens less often now—the memories of how it was made never truly leaving me, but muting more as time goes on.
“What happened, Wynnie?” Stevie asks as tears track down her cheeks. I hate seeing her like this—both of them crying over something I didn’t want to think about ever again, let alone talk about.
I clear my throat to hide the emotion that’s threatening to surface. “If I share this, it stays with us. Only us. I don’t want Mom or Birdie knowing any of it—not until I’m ready.”
They look at each other, silently agreeing that they can do that—keep a secret if it means making sure I’m okay.
“We promise,” they say in unison.
And they’ve kept it. My sisters know what I survived, that the monster I escaped is dead and that meant it was safe for me to come back home. But they didn’t know where I had been while I healed. They didn’t know that it took me so long to come back.
“You said Montana, so that means you met him while you were...” Her question drifts off.
“Healing,” I tell her. They couldn’t know about Hideaway. It’s the one place that has to stay out of the conversation. There are still people there, because it isn’t safe for them anywhere else. “I was working at a bar. We flirted and he showed up a couple of months later, and we fooled around in the bathroom.” I smile, thinking about how that makes me sound—so out of character with who I used to be. Or maybe it’s more like me now.I wasn’t Wyn when I was with him.At least not the one everyone in Rumor knew. “But I never thought I would see him again.”
“But he’s here now,” Jo says.
“He found you,” Stevie says, like it’s romantic.
He said he looked for me, and while I want to believe that, I know I’m not what brought him here. “What if that’s not theentire story? What if it was a strange coincidence that brought him here, but I don’t want it to be?”
Jo furrows her brow. “There’s always more to every story, Wyn. You know that. And I’ll remind you of one very important truth.” She looks at Stevie and then back to me as she raises her chin. “You’re a Crowne, Wyn. We believe in what we want. If you want to flirt and have fun, be serious and fall hard, or just forget it all, then do it. What’s stopping you?”
Chapter Twelve
Julian
Muffledroars of motorcycles echo ahead as I pull into one of the few spots left in The Whispering Fool’s parking lot. I spent the rest of the afternoon hunting down materials for a piece I wanted to start working on, and trying to convince myself that staying here isn’t as dangerous as it seems. Between my conversation with Mickey and the mess that is Cora Billings, I want to understand exactly what Birdie and Lu Crowne are doing and with how much frequency in this town.
The door to the bar is flanked by an intimidating pair of women, their arms crossed, keeping a roped-off line at bay. It’s a crowd that’s starting to curve around the side of the building. There’s a handful of men, similar in height and build as me, wearing leather cuts that show off the location of theirmotorcycle club, plenty of others who I wouldn’t remember, and groups of women peering at me as I bypass all of it and head straight for the doors.
“Nope,” the tall woman says as I approach, holding her hand up in front of my chest. It hovers inches from touching me. I look down at it, then back up to her as she says, “You wait in that line, just like everyone else.”
