By the way, if you were a regular, and Sunny and Shambles liked you, they gave you a hippie name. I knew this because, while getting to know Lauren and Lexie, I learned that they called Lauren “Flower Petal” and they called Lexie “Midnight Sunshine”. Usually, they just called me “Star” for short like they called Laurie “Petal” and Lexie “Midnight”.
They were weird. They were hippies. They were the only hippies I knew so I didn’t know if they were weird hippies. What I did know was that they were sweet.
“It’s okay, Shambles,” I said, smiling at him.
“It’s cool you read ‘cause reading is cool,” he went on softly. “It’s cooler you’re not reading and, instead, standing close to a hot guy.”
No truer words were ever spoken.
My smile got bigger.
Shambles smiled back.
Then he jumped as he whirled, moving to his espresso machine and crying out, “Hazelnut latte and triple shot latte, coming up.”
“We need breakfast, Sunny,” Chace said and she jumped to the case filled with Shambles’s homemade baked goods.
“I see you’re having a good effect on the hot guy already, Star,” Shambles said to me while fiddling with that coffee grinder thingie. “He never gets anything out of the case. The only alternate he orders is one of my smoothies with a scoop of protein powder. The only reason I have protein powder is because he and Midnight’s hubster ask for it in their smoothies.”
“The hot guy has a name, Shambles,” I said quietly, smiling through it and hoping I didn’t sound like I was being mean. “His name is Chace.”
Shambles, showing he took no offense, threw a goofy grin over his shoulder at me and replied, “We know his name but I’m the kinda guy who calls ‘em as he sees ‘em.”
Well, there you go.
“Lapis Bravery,” Sunny, at this point, murmured under her breath.
“Perfect,” Shambles murmured back.
“What?” I asked and Sunny’s eyes tipped to me.
“Lapis,” she said softly, “his eyes. Bravery,” she hesitated and I felt my throat get thick before she finished, “him.”
That was perfect. If there ever was a hippie name for Chace, that was it.
Chace didn’t think so and I knew this when I felt his body get tight and he asked, “What the fuck?”
I looked up at him. “Your hippie name. I’m Crimson Stargazer. Lexie is Midnight Sunshine. Sunny is Sunray Goddess. And you’re Lapis Bravery.”
“I don’t –” he started but I gave his waist a squeeze and shook my head once.
His jaw got hard and he shut up.
I looked into the display and ordered a blueberry muffin with brown sugar crumbles on top. Chace took the fun out of it by ordering a carrot muffin made of whole wheat flour which was the healthiest thing in the display.
Chace paid and I didn’t even go for my purse. This was because Chace paid. I learned that lesson already. In fact, I learned it the third time I tried to text him saying coffees were my treat at stakeouts and he’d texted back:
Baby, I pay. The end.
There you go.
The end.
We gave our farewells and were walking back to his truck (we’d dropped mine at my place before shopping) when Chace started, “Faye, I’m not big on –”
I stopped walking abruptly and stopped him with me on a tug at his waist (we still had our arms around each other).
Chace looked down at me and I whispered, “Don’t.”
“Baby –”
I shook my head and turned into him, getting up on my toes. “Baby works for you, honey, but this time, please, don’t use it. You’re that to people in this town. You’re bravery. I don’t know why you don’t like it, why you get that weird look on your face and tone in your voice when it comes up. I want to know and hope I will, when you’re ready to tell me. But let them have that. In this town, after what went down, people need to believe that. And Sunny especially.”
Sunny, too, had been kidnapped and stabbed by the serial killer Dalton McIntyre. Arnie Fuller had not instigated a search for her even after Tonia Payne had already been killed. It was Tate and Wood who went looking for her and called in the police to assist with the search. She had been quiet for a while after that. Now she was back to her normal self.
So everyone needed to believe there was bravery behind the badges that protected that town.
But Sunny needed to be a true believer.
Chace stared down at me and a muscle ticked in his square jaw. But he didn’t say anything and this I correctly took as him giving in.
I pulled in a breath and hoped I was doing the right thing when I tipped further up on my toes and kissed that jaw.
I did it right.
I knew this when he sighed, his arm got tight around my shoulders giving me a mini-hug then it loosened telling me to step back and get a move on.
I stepped back, adjusted to his side and got a move on.
But this didn’t mean I didn’t worry about what just happened. I wasn’t wrong. Chace didn’t like being a local hero.
Any man should be humble. I knew this because my Dad said so.
But that wasn’t it.
It was deeper, darker.
And I hoped he’d one day share it with me so I could throw some light on it.
*
Nine sixteen that morning
I watched Chace’s door open on his Yukon and then I watched him fold out, slam it and saunter to me.
Malachi hadn’t shown. He was never this late.