He turned around, and she was struck by how gorgeous he looked. Because she looked hideous. It suddenly felt all the more notable that he never did. Whether he was hung over or coming off of punching her ex-fiancé in the face, Justice King was a glorious sight. His shoulders were broad, his chest well-muscled; the golden hair sprinkled over those muscles looked... textured. It made her fingertips itch a little bit, and she couldn’t really say why. He looked a bit sleepy eyed, and that was completely different to the swollen pig eyes she was currently sporting. That heavy, hooded blue gaze looked more like a woman had just rolled over in bed to the sight of him staring at her.
Justice was a lethal weapon.
His rage yesterday on her behalf had been... It had been the nicest, most amazing thing anyone had ever done for her. She really did think he might’ve happily risked prison. It touched her in a way that it maybe shouldn’t.
“This is a really sucky day,” she said, stomping deliberately over to the dining table and plunking down hard. The living area and the dining room and the kitchen of his place were actually pretty nice. Partly because she had helped him put everything together. His bedroom was decent too, owing to the fact that he had told her what he really wanted was a decent place to bring women back to. She had helped him with his dark wood furniture, and his very plush bedding. He clearly had not transferred the lesson over to his guest room. But then, she supposed women didn’t sleep in his guest room.
“I know, Rue.” He started brewing the coffee, and then he opened up his fridge. “Yogurt?”
“Yes,” she sniffed. He got out plain yogurt, granola, sliced strawberries and honey, and proceeded to make a bowl that looked a lot like what she often had for breakfast.
“Do you just have all this on hand?”
“I went to the store after you went to sleep,” he said.
Which meant he had driven back to Mapleton. He was just so... He was so good to her.
“Thank you.”
“You really need somebody right now.”
“Yeah. I do. I... I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know what to make of any of this.”
“It sucks. But, I’ll take you back home today, and you can figure it out.”
“I guess I have to. Nobody’s going to do it for me.”
“I’ll give an assist,” he said.
She ate, and drank some coffee, and was disappointed to discover it didn’t actually make her feel more human. But then she got into Justice’s truck, and they drove a few minutes to her house.
“It occurs to me that my car is in Mapleton,” she said.
“No. We took care of that too. Bix drove it back.”
“Where did she get a key?”
“I find it best not to ask questions where Bix is concerned. Because either she hot-wired it or she lifted your key off you at some point. Either way, she managed to get it back.”
“Well... tell her thank you,” she said.
“Believe me. I already did.”
“This is the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened. I got left at the altar, and everybody knows. I have like a hundred texts from people asking if I’m okay. And... no. I’m not okay. I don’t know how I could ever be expected to be okay. It’s... it’s awful. My life is... nothing that I thought it was twenty-four hours ago. I was getting ready to get married yesterday morning. And now... the inside of my mouth tastes like a musty old carpet, and I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“A toothbrush might help with your mouth. As for the rest... I don’t really know what I’m doing either.”
They pulled up to the house, and she saw her car parked in the driveway. That at least felt sane.
They walked up to the front of the house, and she noticed a yellow paper on the door. And then, she noticed that there were padlocks on the doorknob.
“What is this?”
“The hell?” Justice grabbed the paper and tore it off the door. “It’s a notice of foreclosure. And property seizure.”
“What?”
“Yeah. It says... it says that because of the failure to pay on a loan taken out by David and Mary Matthews, as cosigned by Nina Hallstrom, the property is being seized by this company.”
