My gut clenches, the smell of roasting coffee beans threatening to undo my unease. “And?”
“Relax,” she assures me with a giggle. “Richard turned up with Ingrid about an hour later, and we split not long after that.” She pauses, allowing my heart ample time to speed once more while I imagine the worst. “I asked him about you.”
“You did not,” I groan.
“Totes did.”
“Well?” I hold my hand up when the server slides a small plate of cake toward me. “Could you deliver that to my table, please?”
The woman nods, swiftly slipping the plate onto her hand and moving out from behind the counter.
“He’s real sweet on you, Lace,” Greer explains. “But there’s something else up with Barrett.”
I watch as the server sets the plate down between Willow and Colt. “Like what?” Willow glances toward me, and I blow her a friendly kiss.
The narrowing of her eyes is all the satisfaction I need.
“I don’t know.” Greer pulls me back into the conversation with the air of concern to her tone. “He said that there’s stuff going on at home, but he wouldn’t elaborate. Lace,” she adds. “I’ve known him since kindergarten, Lacey, and he’s never been this distant, this aloof.” She pauses to huff before adding, “I get the impression that whatever the drama is, it’s centred around him.”
“Maybe. We’ve all got issues,” I state flatly, thoughts drifting to my dad. “I’m sure if it he needed our help, he’d say something.”
“I guess.”
The coffees arrive on the counter before me. “Tell me what Barrett said about me.” I balance a drink in each hand; my phone trapped between shoulder and ear.
“He was disappointed you left. Asked where you went.” She sighs. “I think he was worried you’d left because of him.”
“Oh, my God. No.” I weave between the tables, focus on the light brown liquid threatening to crest the rim of the cups. “Although he did make me a little nervous. In a good way,” I hastily add.
Colt lifts an eyebrow as I slide his coffee before him, then carrying mine around the back of his seat to take my place at the table.
“If you’re on a call, please take it elsewhere,” Willow gripes. “With your cake.” She pushes the plate toward me with a stiff middle finger.
I shake my head and back away from the table, stepping out onto the sidewalk. She glares after me, attempting to unload the cake onto Colt.
He declines. Damn, I love my brother.
“You have to tell me every detail,” Greer pleads. “Let me live out the fantasy of Barrett Reed vicariously through you. Please?”
“Well…”
I stand at the edge of the sidewalk, free hand cupping the elbow of the arm holding my phone and retell Greer everything I remember.
By the time I’ve finished gushing with her over his smooth caress, not only is my coffee cold but so are the heated emotions that surround my father’s arrest.
I retake my seat before Willow convinced once more of a truth I’ve held dear to my heart these past years: I don’t break easily.
No matter what comes our way, we survive, and we thrive.
It’s the Williams way.
Which is why I’m unprepared for what awaits when Colt and I arrive home an hour later.
Unprepared, and totally one hundred percent unimpressed.
“The case is going to court.”
Six words from my mother that shake me to my core.
“Why the hell for?” Colt booms beside me. “He was cleared of culpability, wasn’t he?”
“Not officially.” My mother strides before us, back and forth, her gaze never once settling on her children. “Our lawyer will negotiate a plea bargain.”
“A plea bargain?” I echo. “Doesn’t that mean he accepts guilt for what happened?”
“It means he doesn’t position himself either way.”
“It’s bullshit.” Colt erupts from the seat, causing my end of the sofa to shudder. “If he didn’t do anything, then it shouldn’t need to go to court.”
“Colt Matthias,” Mum warns. “Watch your tongue.”
“What is he charged with?” I ask quietly, hands shaking uncontrollably on my lap.
All I want to know is if he’ll come home after the judgement is handed down or be locked up in a place he doesn’t belong.
Mum sighs; her golden chains glimmer around her neck with the movement. “The official charges don’t matter. What matters is that you hold your heads high throughout this case.” She eyes each of us in turn; Colt refuses to show any interest in what she has to say. “People will talk. Assumptions will be made, and it’s your place to carry the Williams name with pride and honour so that none of these people have reason to be proven right.”
Colt spins from where he’d been at the window. “It won’t matter if he’s proven innocent or guilty; the damage would be done.”
Our mother pins him with a hard stare. “We can recover from this.”
“Unlikely.” My brother returns to staring petulantly out the window. “People don’t forget easily around here.”
“When?” I murmur.
Our mother shifts her attention to me. “When, what?” The look I find in her eyes isn’t an emotion I like one little bit: burden.
“When will Dad’s case be heard in court?”
“I’m not sure as yet. It will depend on how long the prosecution feels they require to put forward their best argument.”
“In other words,” Colt mumbles. “How long it’ll take them to go through our records and find what they need.”
“What are they looking for?” I scoot to the front of the seat, eager for an explanation around this.
Neither Mum nor Colt seems willing to oblige.
“Who knows about this already?” Colt strides toward Mum. I can damn near feel the frustration radiating off him where he stands an arm’s length from me.
“I only know of the Mayberry’s and the Fellows.” Mum settles a hand to her throat. “I’m unsure how far the whispers have spread from there. If you’d like Monday off school—”
“No.” I won’t hide away in fear of what others think of me. “We need the routine.”
“Maybe you
