Hometown

Chapter Two

Harmony slides back into her BMW, the leather seats soft under her fingers as she tosses her bag into the passenger side. The car gleams in the sunlight, a small emblem of independence and taste—nothing lavish, but far from cheap.

The city sprawls in the distance as she drives, windows down just enough for the morning air to brush against her face, carrying with it the faint scent of asphalt and budding trees.

When she arrives at her home, she deposits her things on the white leather couch with a practiced lack of care. It is tidy, modern, comfortable—a place that whispers stability, even if she cannot feel it inside.

She pads toward the shower, steam slowly curling around her, hot water tracing over her bruised skin, loosening muscles taut from tension. Her mind refuses to release him.

Axel.

Even seven years away, he is heavy on her thoughts, a constant shadow over everything she touches.

She wonders if he is seeing anyone now, if he has found someone serious, someone who has captured the space she once held entirely in his world.

The thought twists her stomach into tight knots.

Her hand trembles slightly as the water sprays down her face, washing away sweat and city dust, but nothing can wash away the ache of memory—or the fear of losing him again.

The steam thickens around her, fogging the glass, softening the edges of the bathroom until everything feels distant and blurred.

Her fingers press against the tile wall, her forehead resting there for just a second longer than necessary.

Graduation night comes back to her in pieces.

The gymnasium had been transformed with cheap twinkle lights strung too high and crepe paper in school colors drooping from the rafters. The air had smelled like punch and hairspray and something electric—the end of something.

Axel had looked different that night.

Still hers.

But already leaning away.

They had slipped outside when the music grew too loud, heels in her hand, his jacket draped over her shoulders. The summer air had been thick and warm, cicadas buzzing somewhere in the dark beyond the parking lot.

“I don’t want you waiting on me,” he had said, staring straight ahead instead of at her.

She had laughed at first, thinking he was being dramatic. “You think I can’t handle distance?”

“I know you can,” he had replied quietly. “That’s not the point.”

She remembers the way his jaw tightened, the way he swallowed before continuing.

“You deserve a life that’s happening right in front of you, not one you’re putting on pause for me.”

She had stepped closer, gripping his shirt, heart thudding. “That’s my decision.”

He had finally looked at her then, dark eyes heavy with something she couldn’t name at eighteen.

“I won’t ask you to choose me like that,” he had said.

He kissed her that night—slow, deliberate, memorizing. Nothing like the clumsy creek-side kiss years before. This one had weight. Finality.

He left the next morning.

And she never got to decide.

The water runs cooler now, snapping her back to the present.

Harmony straightens, inhaling sharply.

Seven years.

Seven years of pretending she is not still standing in that parking lot.

Harmony pushed through the door of her establishment, the low, steady pulse of music already threading through the walls like something alive, something waiting. The air wrapped around her instantly—perfume and liquor, a faint trace of smoke clinging stubbornly beneath it all. It was familiar in a way nothing else ever quite was. Grounding. Possessive.

Hers.

Four years ago, this place had nearly torn Pickett’s Creek in two.

Back then, the road leading out here had been lined with protesters—tight-lipped women and hard-eyed men clutching handmade signs, their voices rising in righteous fury as if they could shout the building back into dust. Sunday sermons had sharpened, her name slipping into them like a curse disguised as concern. There had been threats too. Idle, most of them. Anonymous letters. Voicemails left late at night with voices that trembled more than they threatened.

They had been so certain she would ruin their town.

That she would bring in crime. Corruption. Decay.

But Harmony had never built this place to be reckless.

She had been deliberate. Careful. Smart enough to buy an old, forgotten warehouse just beyond town limits—close enough to reach, far enough to deny. It had been small, run-down, barely worth a second glance when she first stepped inside. Broken windows. Rust creeping along the metal bones. Silence thick enough to feel.

She had seen something else entirely.

And she had turned it into exactly what she envisioned.

Now, four years later, the outrage had quieted—not because they approved, but because they could no longer deny the truth. The crime never came. The chaos they predicted never followed. The town remained exactly as it had always been.

Only now, it had a secret.

Because Harmony’s establishment didn’t cater to just one kind of desire.

Men took the stage. Women took the stage. Nights rotated, curated carefully—some evenings drawing in women with laughter and low voices, others pulling in men who pretended they weren’t regulars, and plenty that blurred the lines entirely. It wasn’t just a strip club.

It was an escape.

And it drew in far more than the town would ever dare admit.

Mayors. The chief of police. A judge whose name never passed anyone’s lips in here. People who stood on polished reputations and spoke about morality in daylight, only to slip through Harmony’s doors once the sun dipped low enough to hide them.

What happened in Harmony’s Garden stayed there.

Always.

Now, the town didn’t protest.

It ignored.

It looked the other way, choosing silence over confrontation, filing her business neatly into the category of things better left unspoken. A dark little secret tucked just outside the edges of respectability.

Harmony preferred it that way.

Tonight, though, would be anything but quiet.

Men’s night.

Half-off drinks meant bodies packed tighter, laughter louder, hands a little less careful with every refill. The kind of night where control had to be held firmly, or it would slip through your fingers before you even realized it was gone.

Exactly the kind of night she excelled in.

Her dancers spotted her the second she stepped fully inside, their energy shifting instantly. Greetings came from every direction—bright, excited, genuine. A hand brushing her arm. A quick hug in passing. A grin thrown over a shoulder as someone disappeared toward the dressing rooms.

Harmony acknowledged each of them in her own way—a nod here, a brief touch there—small, intentional gestures that reminded them she saw everything, even when she said nothing.

Especially then.

She slipped behind the bar with practiced ease, setting her purse beneath the counter in one fluid motion. The space settled around her like armor, familiar and steady, a place where nothing caught her off guard.

Or at least—that was how it was supposed to be.

Cinnamon noticed immediately. Mid-pour, she glanced up, eyes narrowing just slightly as she took Harmony in. The glass in her hand filled smoothly, amber liquid cascading over ice before she slid it down the bar without breaking focus. Then came the wink. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Cinnamon said, her tone light, but her gaze anything but careless. “You okay?”

Harmony forced a smile, though it felt thin, stretched at the edges. She reached for the whiskey without hesitation, already pouring herself a shot before she could think better of it.

“Some ghosts,” she murmured, voice quieter now, threaded with something she didn’t bother hiding completely, “come back to haunt you.”

The glass was heavier than usual.

She didn’t measure.

“Should I ask?” Cinnamon leaned her hip against the bar, curiosity flickering sharp and knowing.

Harmony didn’t look at her as she lifted the shot. m“I’d rather you didn’t.”

The whiskey burned its way down, settling deep in her chest, chasing the chill that had followed her inside. It helped—but not enough.

It wouldn’t be enough.

Cinnamon smirked, unsurprised.

“I hope you don’t plan on getting wasted at work,” she said, one brow lifting. “You remember what happened last time.”

There it was.

Harmony paused just long enough for the memory to flicker—unwelcome, sharp—before she lifted her index finger in warning. “Don’t even start.”

That earned her a laugh.

A real one.

The tension cracked just enough between them, the moment easing as they shared it, taking advantage of the quiet before the night swallowed them whole. Outside, the last stretch of daylight clung stubbornly to the horizon, but inside, the shadows were already settling in, stretching long and slow across the room.

It would not stay quiet for long.

Harmony reached for another glass, her movements automatic, precise—but her thoughts were elsewhere now, slipping back to something she couldn’t quite outrun.

Ghosts didn’t return without reason.

And whatever had followed her through that door tonight—wasn’t finished with her yet.

A few hours later, the club had filled.

The music no longer hummed—it throbbed, heavy bass vibrating through the walls hard enough to rattle the windows in their frames. Laughter rose in waves, loud and uninhibited, blending with the clink of glasses and the slick rhythm of bodies moving under colored lights. Shots were poured and passed just as easily as wandering hands, the line between indulgence and excess blurring more with every passing minute.

On stage, skin gleamed beneath the lights—men and women alike moving with practiced precision, commanding attention, feeding off it. The crowd responded in kind, drawn in, lost in it, exactly as Harmony had designed.

It was alive.

It was thriving.

It was perfect.

And Harmony wanted no part of it.

She moved through the chaos like a ghost of her own creation—unnoticed, untouched, slipping between bodies and shadows with a quiet precision that came from years of knowing exactly where to step and when. No one stopped her. No one questioned her. They never did when she wore that look—the one that said not tonight.

By the time she reached the back hallway, the noise dulled just slightly, the bass still pulsing but no longer suffocating. It followed her anyway, crawling through the walls, refusing to let her fully escape what she had built.

Her office door shut behind her with a soft click.

Silence—or as close as she ever got to it in this place—settled around her.

The bass still thudded faintly through the walls, a distant echo of the world just outside, but in here, it felt… contained. Manageable.

For a moment, she just stood there.

Then her eyes lifted to the clock.

10:56 PM.

The numbers seemed to stare back at her, unmoving, indifferent.

Axel was home.

The thought didn’t arrive gently—it hit, sudden and sharp, knocking the air from her lungs before she could brace for it.

He was here.

In the same town.

Under the same sky.