Justine
My phone chimes over and over on the nightstand.
Shit. Alarm.
I’m not ready to get up. I’m not ready for this to be over. If I could have conjured the perfect weekend out of thin air, it wouldn’t have been better than this one.
We cooked, we ate, we joked, we teased, we fucked, we made love, and more than anything—we laughed. Laughter hasn’t been a constant in my life, but with Ryker around, it’s now coming quicker and easier.
Neither of us wanted to let this weekend go, so when Ryker suggested we stay Sunday night and head back to school early the next morning for class, I didn’t hesitate to agree.
But my alarm is signaling our return to reality.
I grab my phone, intending to hit the screen and the snooze button to make it shut up. But when I hear a voice instead of silence, I sit up straight, waking Ryker.
“Shit. What’s—”
“Where the hell are you?”
The voice finally penetrates my sleep-muddled head. It wasn’t my alarm. It was my ringtone for Merica.
“Where the hell are you?” she repeats.
I look down at the screen, my stomach dropping at the time. Fuck, it’s already after eight.
“Shit! My alarm didn’t go off!”
Ryker bolts up in bed next to me. “Fuck, we gotta go. We’re missing class.”
“Justine—” Merica’s voice sounds like a muted yell as I hold the phone away from my head.
“We’ll be there. I gotta go.”
“Wait—”
But I hang up. I’m already in panic mode as I vault out of bed.
“We gotta go. I don’t know what happened to my alarm.”
Ryker grabs his phone off the nightstand. “Fuck, my phone’s dead, so my alarm didn’t go off. I’m so sorry, babe. I know how you feel about missing class.”
“It’s okay. I probably set my alarm for PM or some stupid crap like that. Let’s just go. Maybe we can make the next class.”
Ryker nods. “Pack our stuff. I’ll shut down everything in the house and we’ll be on the road.”
“Sounds good.” I lean over to press a kiss to his lips. “We’re a good team.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re headed back to reality as my phone chimes with a text.
MERICA: Call me before you get to campus. We need to talk.
JUSTINE: I’ll be there as quick as I can. Talk soon.
Ryker looks over at me as he pushes the truck harder and faster down the highway.
“Everything okay?”
“Merica wants me to call her, but I’ll see her after class. I owe her for calling and waking us up.”
“I’m sorry we’re missing—”
I cut him off. “Don’t be. It’s not a big deal. Missing one class isn’t going to kill us.”
He reaches across the center console and squeezes my hand. “I love you, baby.”
“Love you.”
We hold hands as we haul ass toward campus.
I should have listened to Merica. I should have called her, shouldn’t have hung up on her. If I’d done any of those things, I wouldn’t have walked blind into the shitstorm that meets us at the doors of the law school.
When Ryker and I walk into the building, we’re still holding hands, and I have one of those everyone is staring at us moments.
“Why is everyone looking at us like that?”
He wraps a hand around my hip and pulls me closer. “Because you’re fucking gorgeous, and they’re all amazed you finally gave me the time of day.”
I shake my head because it’s more than that. I can practically feel the buzz of gossip flying through the air.
“It’s something else. Something bigger.”
Ryker presses a kiss to my forehead. “Babe, don’t worry so much about everything.”
We step out of the elevator, and Ryker is proven wrong.
Everyone is watching us. A few look up from newspapers to us and then back down again.
“What the hell is going on?” It’s not the student paper they’re holding, but the local paper.
Merica rushes toward us. “I told you to call me!” She grabs me by my free hand and drags us both toward a corner. Merica shoves the paper toward Ryker.
“Did you know?”
He takes it from her and flips to the front. My stomach twists and cramps as I lean over his shoulder to read the headline: “Abuse of Power at Every Level.”
There’s a picture of Justice Grant and a woman I assume is Ryker’s mother just below it.
“Fuck.” Ryker whispers the curse. “I have to call my dad.”
I yank the paper from his hand and read the article as fast as I can.
My eyes lift to Ryker’s as I get to the part about his mother being in rehab because she caused an accident and left the scene, which resulted in a law student going to jail. The article says that Justice Grant knew about the accident but didn’t report it.
All the pieces start falling into place.
Chad.
Ryker’s mother.
The police report I read last week said it was a red car. Was it the same red car under a cover in the garage at the Grants’ house? It has to be.
“What . . . ? Your mother . . .” My voice shakes when I start to speak. “Your mom is the one who hit Chad?”
I’m not sure if I expect him to dodge the question, but what I don’t expect is stony silence. “I have to talk to my dad.”
“You have to get the family story line straight before you can say anything?”
Ryker glares at Merica. “Give us a minute?”
She looks to the open door of the Law Review office behind us. “You’ve got two, and then I’m coming in. Make her cry and I’ll kill you.”
Ryker pulls me into the empty office and shuts the door.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice is still shaking and betrayal cuts deep within me. “I laid myself bare in front of you, and you never said a goddamn thing to let me know that you were hiding something too. Why?” I realize that my questions might be unfair, given the secrets I kept, but . . . “I thought we were done with hiding. I thought everything from here on out was supposed to be real. No lies. No secrets. Just real.”
Ryker’s face is an unreadable mask. “I didn’t have a choice.”
The words hit me like a blow. “Do you have any idea how shitty I felt every time I had the opportunity to come clean and I didn’t? Do you know how badly I beat myself up over it? And the only thing you have to say right now is I didn’t have a choice?”
“What else do you want me to say? That I would’ve been thrilled to tell you that my mother is a functional alcoholic who drove drunk and hit one of our classmates, and my dad wasn’t about to let her go to jail, so he called on me to help clean up her mess?”
“That’s why you didn’t come? The morning I moved?”
He nods. “I couldn’t tell you. Even if I wanted to tell you, my dad wouldn’t have let me.”
Preserving the family name was more important. It’s not a concept I understand, but apparently it made sense to him.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I whisper the question because I need to know. I thought we were free and clear of all the bullshit, and that I was the only one living with guilt. And now, after I’ve shown him every part of me, right down to the ugly, awful memories, I find out that there’s more going on than I realized.
He shakes his head. “You didn’t need to carry this burden. You’ve had enough shit in your life. Why should this be your problem? It wasn’t relevant to us.”
“It wasn’t relevant?” I try to keep my voice down, but it raises an octave anyway. “I’ve known Chad for more than half my life! You don’t think that if your mom had turned herself in as the cause of the accident that maybe a judge wouldn’t have been more lenient? One word from your dad, or a single offer to help him out with the character and fitness committee, and maybe he wouldn’t have dropped out of school? But instead your family decides to keep its secrets and let someone else suffer for your mom’s actions. Who does that?” Now that the words are spilling out, I can’t stop the rest. “What else are you hiding, Ryker? What else don’t you think I can handle knowing?”
He drops his gaze to the floor. “That I knew—”
Before he has a chance to say more, the door of the Law Review office flies open and Merica strides inside. “The dean is looking for you both. More shit hit the fan.”
My stomach twists into even bigger knots. What now?
“We’re not done with this conversation,” Ryker says, his face pained, and stabs of guilt slice through me.
I don’t even know what to think or feel anymore.
What a fucking disaster.