Page 14 of Justice

“Wow. They really like you.”

“They do and I feel bad, like I’m using them as a means to an end. You know? I don’t plan on being there longer than, what? Six months.”

“It’s a job. Don’t get too attached. You’re paid to do a job and that’s okay.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” It felt like something more than a job though.

“Okay and those brothers. Tell me about their fine asses,” she leaned in closer.

“Prime and Quest are taken. But they do look good. And then there’s Justice…” my voice trailed off.

“The middle one. You like him?”

“Aubrey! I don’t like him. I barely know him. He just looks good.”

“But he’s single?”

“I don’t know. He has two girls. I don’t know where their mama is.”

“I’m gonna Google,” she announced, whipping out her phone and fervently typing. “Ah-ha! His wife died three years ago. And according to Google…He might have a girlfriend…”

And God help me, my face gave me away before I could catch it. Just a flicker. But Aubrey was a bloodhound, and she came up out that booth like she’d struck oil.

“Skye. What was that? What was that face?”

“That was not a face.”

“That was a whole face! You just did a whole face about a man!” She was delighted, pointing at me, loud enough that the next booth looked over. “Oh, this is why I love a debrief. Tell me about it right now. I knew you liked him.”

“There is nothing to tell.” I couldn’t stop the smile, which just made it worse. “He’s Rita’s grandson. He’s my boss, basically. He is so far out of my league it’s not even a real conversation.”

“Out of your league.” Aubrey set her glass down slow, and just like that the play went out of her voice, gentle now, careful. “Baby. There is not a league on this earth you are out of. You hear me? Whatever that man made you believe about yourself. Whatever any of them made you believe. It was a lie.”

Aubrey knew exactly why he was out of my league. Maybe five years ago he wouldn’t have been. But today, I was no match for him. Besides, those powerful men came with predator baggage.

“Anyway.” I cleared my throat and reached for the light again. “He’s not thinking about me. Men like that don’t.”

“If you say so.” Aubrey clearly did not say so. She stood, dropping her napkin on the table. “Let me go pee before this calamari comes. Do not touch my drink and do not have any more revelations about fine men without me. I mean it.”

“Okay girl,” I laughed.

While she was gone I picked up my phone, because like every other American I can’t just sit still in silence anymore. The aloneness and silence had to be filled with simulation from the pocket computer.

As soon as I opened it I saw a notification. It was an Apple News alert. I get like forty a day. I almost didn’t look. I’d have given anything, after, to have not looked.

But my eyes went to it the same as they went to everything, out of the old habit that had kept me alive, and I read the name in that banner before my brain could stop my heart.

I read the name in the banner and the restaurant disappeared around me.

The clink of glasses, the music, Aubrey’s laugh somewhere behind me at the bar, all of it dropped, and there was just that little glowing line of text and my pulse roaring in my ears. A name I had buried in another life. A name I hadn’t let myself so much as think in three years. And beside it, plain and quiet and final as a door swinging open in a house you thought was empty.

Solomon Sheffield conviction under review, new legal team files for relief

My hands went cold. Because a case reopened was a thread pulled loose, and I of all people knew where that particular thread led if somebody followed it far enough. It led to a courtroom. It led to a woman who used to be me. It led home, to the grave I’d dug for her and salted over, and it did not care one bit that I was finally, barely, learning how to breathe.

And underneath the fear, quick and ugly and gone before I could be ashamed of it, was the other thing. Hope. The thin, terrible sliver of it. Maybe. I hated maybe. Maybe was how women like me got found.

“Girl, that bathroom was a journey.” Aubrey dropped back into the booth, still talking, reaching for her wine. Then she looked at me, and she stopped. “Skye. What. What’s wrong?”