I’m hopeless.
“What are you staring at?” His expression mirrors mine, I suspect. Gooey and wide-eyed.
“You,” I say, propping my chin on my fist across the table from him. “Will you go with me somewhere?”
“Anywhere,” he answers, before quirking a brow. “Where?”
“To ask January why she sold me out.”
Not that he needed another check in the pros column, but he gets one for dropping his fork, standing, and digging his key fob out of his pocket.
“Let’s go.”
“Just like that?”
“You’ve found your ire, love. I’m not about to step in front of it. Let’s go.”
Every time he throws that short, four-letter word out, my heart expands a centimeter. It makes me soft and clumsy from the distraction of it.
“I don’t even know what I’m going to say to her,” I say, still surprised at how readily he’d go with me. I expected at least some conversation about it.
“Speak from your heart,” he says, taking my hand and leading me out the door.
By the time we get to the bar, I still haven’t formulated any sort of plan. All I know is that I’ve been stewing since I found out about it. My suspicion that it was her only became truer after I saw the photo, myself. The angle of it confirms it came from the direction of the bar she stands behind every shift. I’m certain it was her.
When we walk in, she balks. More proof. She must know we know. I’m sure word of it has swirled back to her. The owner of the bar doesn’t live here in Stowaway. Apparently, he is some investor from Eugene and only comes a handful of times a year to check in. Maggie said if it was a local, they’d have fired January for it. I don’t want her to lose her job, though. I want her to understand.
Pierre’s betrayals, every instance of them, don’t deliver the same sting that hers does. She had to have seen the story to know that there would be any interest in selling the story. She knew what he did to me. She saw the pictures of me, broken and bruised. And still, she sold me out.
“Do you know what you’re going to say, yet?” Grady’s whisper tickles the shell of my ear. I shake my head. I’ll know when I’m standing right in front of her.
Sam sits at the end of the bar, a knowing smirk under his unruly mustache as he tips his head at me.
“Should I film this?” he asks.
“I live to be in front of the camera,” I tease. “But maybe not this time.”
“Ruining an old man’s fun,” he gripes. Grady takes the empty stool beside Sam.
“I hear you’ve been having plenty of fun with Martha from the flower shop,” I say and laugh as his cheeks turn to tiny apples.
“God damn gossip in this town,” he says, as if he isn’t the biggest offender.
I walk to the other end of the bar where January is working—slicing a small pile of lemons and limes.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Not really, I’m quite busy,” she says without looking up.
“I think you’ll make it work,” I say, ignoring her words. “There’re some things you need to hear, woman to woman.”
“I don’t need,” she starts, then pauses, her chin dropping to her chest as she contemplates what it is she wants to say. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“This is more about what I want you to hear,” I say and wait for her to drop the knife, wipe her hands, and turn to me. “Maybe you didn’t believe what he did to me. Maybe you don’t believe that he’s still a threat. And maybe you won’t believe me when I assure you, he is. That’s fine, you don’t know me, after all. You do know the people in this town, though. All the ones who would rally behind you if anything like what happened to me were to happen to you. I’m guessing, because of how common this sort of thing is, and given your profession, you’ve probably come across a woman or two that needed an escape. A safe place. Like I did. Like Ihad.”
“Louisa.”
“No. Don’t say my name as if you know me. As if you’re sorry or care. You sold mysafety. The one place I felt secure from the man who nearly killed me. For what? Jealousy? Did you thinkit would give you a shot with Grady? You know nothing about him if you think he’d be so easily manipulated,” I say, watching the tears pool in her eyes. “You’ll have to live with that. With the fact that you were willing to let another woman be hurt because you wanted a man. You’ll have to live with people around here knowing what you did. With how easy you can be bought. And you’ll have to live with seeing me here. Often and forever. I’m not going anywhere. I won’t forget, but I’ll be kind, maybe even cordial. Because I would never treat another person the way you treated me.”
