The Naked Truth (The Honeybrook Hamdens Book 1)

“
W
ho is
that
?” Julie Hamden’s friend, Sarah, stared at the two boys climbing from the bus behind them and Julie rolled her eyes.

“Who? Chase?” She gave a cursory glance to the two boys— the first her blond, perfect brother and the second his dark-haired shadow of a best friend, Chase Westmore.

Frankly she couldn't see much of what there was to recommend either boy. Her brother was lanky, even if he was athletic, with the slightest traces of Acne still covering his maturing face. And Chase? Well, Chase was just Chase. He was just as athletic as Luke, if somewhat broader in the shoulders. His dark hair was always disheveled, and it seemed like ever since the summer had gone by he had a constant trace of five o'clock shadow on his lean cheeks.

"Is that his name? Sarah practically swooned. He'd probably never be interested in a girl like me. What if I went to talk to him? Would you introduce me? Maybe if he--"

"You don't want to go out with Chase." Julie rolled her eyes, then suddenly felt a swell of something like anger rising in her gut. "He's not your type."

"Why not? He could be."

"He's not, though. He's always talking about football and wood shop."

"I could be interested in anything he wants." Sarah glanced behind them again, then her face turned bright red and Julie heard a deep voice behind them.

"What ya talking about Jules?" Julie glanced over her shoulder to find Chase at her side.

"Why you don't have anything better to do than hang out at my house every day," she shot back."Shouldn't you have a girlfriend or something?"

"What if I'm just waiting for the right girl?"

"Then you'll be waiting a long time." She narrowed her eyes and Chase barked out a laugh.

"You're just jealous because your mom likes me better." He chuckled, and she might have too if there hadn't been so much truth to it. Still, Luke called for Chase and he sprinted off to catch up, waving to the girls before he left.

"Just as good walking away." Sarah stared after him and Julie swallowed hard.

Because suddenly? She sort of agreed.

How had she not noticed before? The way Chase's shoulders had broadened over the summer made him look like...like a man. The smell of him in the air, and she briefly touched her arm where he'd brushed against her.

Julie blinked. "I'm telling you, Chase is off limits."

"Why?"

"Because he's going to be mine."

"Are you allowed to smoke on trains?"

Julie Hamden blinked at the elderly woman beside her who, until this point, had been entirely silent on their journey from the city. She stared for a moment, not entirely sure if the question had been directed her way, but then the lady hauled a Mary Poppins-style carpet bag onto her lap and rooted around inside.

After a moment, she produced a pack of Lucky Strikes, opened the top of the carton and held it out to Julie.

"I...uh, I don't know," she said, trying her best to seem nonplussed. They still
made
Lucky Strike cigarettes?

"Well, I guess we'll find out." The woman loosed a stick from the pack and popped it in her mouth. "No offense, but I don't think I can sit next to you the rest of this trip if I don't get a couple of puffs."

Julie looked around the half-empty midday train. Row upon row was empty, and she was on the cusp of suggesting the old woman move, but then let it go.

After the day she'd had, this lady was the least of her problems.

"It's okay. I guess if you have a habit--" Julie started, but the old woman shook her head.

"Oh no, dear. I haven't smoked in ten years. You're just stressful to watch." She pulled some matches from her bag, then lit up, glancing from side to side--presumably to see if the fuzz was going to call her on it.

When nobody showed up, the lady let out a long slow puff.

"I..." Julie glanced from the lady to the cigarette and back again, but couldn't find the words. She couldn't have really been that bad, right? She knew she'd been fussing with her phone a lot, but nearly everyone did that nowadays.

Maybe the lady was just old and not used to this fast-paced world. Like, maybe she was on leave from a nursing home and everything stressed her out...

Still, based on the lady's blasé demeanor and her bright, sharp expression, Julie couldn't say it was likely that the woman was off her game just yet.

"I hope I didn't upset you, dear." The woman stuck the cigarette back between her fire engine red lips, then brushed back a few grey pin curls. "I'm sure you're fine."

"No, I'm not upset." Her phone buzzed in her pocket again and she looked at it despite herself. Another message from her assistant, Trina. She flicked it open, even though she knew what it would say.

Please come back. Troy is beside himself.

Good, let him be. She felt bad leaving Trina with him like that, but then…

She sighed and shook her head. She was leaving those problems in the city. From here on out, she was just going to focus on the present.

She was going to help her family clear out her hoarder great aunt's house, and after that she'd face what was waiting for her. Who knew, maybe everything would blow over by the end of the month.

"Please. Take one. I can't stand it anymore." The old woman offered up a cigarette again.

"I don't--" Julie said, but the woman shook the package in her face.

"Then it'll be a new experience. Here."

She knew she shouldn't. It was a filthy, disgusting habit that was laughably out of fashion. And still...

The lady was just so insistent.

She plucked a loose stick from the package, then surveyed it for a long moment. "My first cigarette."

"If you keep sighing and shaking your head like you've been doing, it won't be your last." The woman fished some matches from her purse, and then struck one. "Now come here, beautiful people don't light their own cigarettes."

Julie smiled, tucked the thing between her lips and leaned in. The white paper singed orange and black for a moment while thin wisps of smoke trailed from the tip. It was like she was a detective in an old Hollywood movie.

She held the cigarette between two fingers like she'd seen on television when she was a kid, and then dragged in one long, slow breath.

And promptly burst into a fit of coughing. Tears stung her eyes and she reached for the seat in front of her, bracing herself as she leaned into the aisle and nearly gagged.

"Kids today," the woman beside her mumbled, then took another long drag on her own cigarette.

Julie laughed despite herself, and then straightened, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I've just got to get the hang of it. You were new at this once, too."

"I suppose." The old woman shrugged. "Just do me a favor and don't look at that damned phone again. If I have to keep watching you, there will be no cigs left for my husband when I get home."

"That's probably a fair deal." Julie nodded.

"What's so important that you can't put the damn thing down, anyway?"

Julie winced. "It's nothing. Work stuff."

"And what is it you do...what's your name, by the way?"

"Julie Hamden," Julie said.

"Irene Carter." The old woman tipped her head, though her curls stayed perfectly in place. "So what do you do, Julie?"

"I...was an assistant at a fashion company." She thought of her desk. Her perfect, beautiful chic desk with the clear glass top. She'd only gotten it last week. She'd barely even gotten to use it...

"You were?" Irene pulled on her cigarette. "So, what are you now?"

Fucked.

"I'm...between positions." And boyfriends. And lifetime dreams.

"I see." Irene nodded. "Well, if they got rid of you--"

"They didn't exactly get rid of me. I kind of sort of quit." And threatened to burn the building to the ground. And may or may not have done some truly heinous things to her ex-boss/ex-lover's office.

"So, why are you still answering their messages?" Irene asked.

"It's...a long story." One she couldn't think about right now. Or maybe ever.

But definitely not fifteen minutes before she was supposed to see her family again.

As far as they were concerned, she'd finally gotten her act together. She wasn't wasting her precious youth as a barista anymore. Oh no, she'd found a job in the city. One where she could have her name on the door and people answering to her. One where she might have eventually become the designer she wanted to be.

That was, she could've gotten there if it hadn't been for Troy. The lying, stealing, manipulating...

She sighed and shook her head, but then Irene smacked her on the leg.

"Smoke that thing." She pointed to the cigarette still tucked between Julie's fingers. "And don't forget what I said about the sighing. You'll give me high blood pressure."

"Right." Julie puffed, held her breath for a moment, then let the smoke billow out. "Do you have brothers and sisters, Irene?"

The other woman shrugged. "I have a sister."

"Do the two of you get along?"

"As well as sisters do, I suppose. Though, once she got too big to steal my clothes, our relationship improved quite a bit." Irene chuckled. "I'll never forget that day. She tore one of my favorite dresses. Then again, it wasn't as funny when we found out she was pregnant. Still, it was a fine time to be me." Irene shook her head and Julie frowned, not exactly sure where to go from there.

"Um, I'm sure it was." Then an idea struck her. "What happened when everyone found out your sister was pregnant?"

"Oh nothing, dear."

"Nothing?"

"It was the fifties. Nobody found out she was pregnant. Not even my parents."

"But the baby..."

"Was born eight months into her marriage. She eloped. Covered the whole thing up. People whispered, but they could never say a word." Irene shook her head. "See, that's what people today don't understand. When something needs to be kept a secret, you keep it that way. What does it help to go spilling out your feelings like a damn broken fire hydrant?"

She flicked her cigarette, took a pull and the looked at the stick in her hand. "These were great for that. You have a problem? Smoke. You worried? Smoke. You don't have to go spewing everything to Doctor Phil or Rachael Ray or whatever crazy person you kids watch these days."

"But what if it's something important that might change the way people look at you?" Julie brushed ash off her skirt.“Like, say, if you finally got your act together and that nice dependable boyfriend your whole family thought was so great turned out to be using you in the worst way possible and you were too dumb to realize what was happening?”

Okay, maybe that was an over-share.

"Do you want that to happen?" Irene asked.

"Well, no, but it's hypothetical."

"Well then hypothetically, I'd say keep that shit to yourself."

The train dinged then pulled to a stop as the conductor squalled through the speakers. "Devonshire County. Next stop, Honeybrook Station."

Irene hooked her carpetbag under her arm, then hip checked Julie. "Move it, toots. This is my stop."

"Right. Well, thank you."

Irene smiled, then looked at her for a moment with an expression somewhere between pity and affection. Silently, she pulled the purse open again, dug through it, and then thrust the pack of Lucky Strikes in Julie's direction.

"Here, you need these a lot more than my husband does." And just like that, she bustled along, out the doors of the train. Julie staring after her, the pack of cigarette still clenched in her palm.

By the time the train got to Honeybrook, Julie had fake-smoked

The more she thought about it, the more she realized exactly how right Irene had been. There was no reason to tell her family about her break-up with Troy or about the atrocities at the office this morning.

As far as they were concerned, she was still perfectly happy, living her dream life in the city. And when she got back and put everything right, then she could briefly mention that she'd found herself a better situation.

Easy peasy.

Of course, the first test would be to convince her perfect sister, Amy, of all of that when she got into her car to head over to the house, but maybe that would give Julie the chance to work out a few kinks in her story.

So, tucking the pack of cigarettes into her satchel, she braced herself as the train slowed again and she joined the other three people ambling down the steps to the Honeybrook platform. After a quick stop in the bathroom to freshen her makeup and ensure the wear of her morning wasn't etched all over her face, she headed down the little grassy hill and into the parking lot.

Instead of her sister's shiny Mercedes, though, she found her brother's ancient blue pick-up truck parked on the corner.

"Well, if it isn't the family Jules." Luke grinned, though in truth he was looking just about as worn for wear as the truck itself. His blonde facial hair was shaggy and overgrown, and the mop of blonde hair on his head stuck out in all directions. If he hadn't still had those ice chip-blue eyes, she might not have recognized him.

"Haha." She rolled her eyes. "You been sitting here thinking that up?"

"You know me. Now hop in."

She tossed her bag in the truck bed then hoisted herself into the passenger seat. Luke sniffed, then his mouth twisted in disapproval. "Have you been smoking?"

Shit. She hadn't thought of that. She should have sprayed perfume or...

"No, this old woman on the train was smoking next to me. I'll tell you all about it." As they headed toward the old house, she filled him in on the finer points of her trip--excluding, of course, why the woman was smoking and her apparent susceptibility to elderly peer pressure.

When she was done, Luke grinned and said, "Sounds like you had a good trip. I'm glad."