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Nodding at Kip, I slap him on the shoulder and mutter, “Thanks.” I am thankful. I’m thankful June is in one piece, home safe.
Kip is a little older than Theo and me, pushing thirty, and while I’ve only known him for about a year, he’s fit right into our lives as if he was always meant to. Kip lost his parents in a tragic boating accident five years ago, so I think the frequent Bailey barbecues have tethered him to Samantha and Andrew in a familial sort of way. He also has a sister, so he understands that connection.
He understands us.
Skipping his gaze across the yard to June, he glances back to me, then extends his palm for a handshake. I accept it. “Keep me posted. If you find out any details I’d want to know about, call me, you hear?”
“Yeah, will do.”
With a final smile, he retreats back into his cruiser and makes his way down to the main road.
I turn to June.
She’s staring at me now, her arms dropped at her sides, brown hair flittering across her face, sticking between parted lips.
Go easy on her.
My fingers stretch and splay as I advance on her. My heartbeats vibrate through me like a power drill. My insides tense with dread, with anger, with a fierce sense of possessiveness over this woman.
No…this girl.
She’s just a girl.
A teenager, bound to make mistakes. Destined for missteps.
And I know, I know…those missteps shouldn’t stomp all over me with steel-toed boots, leaving me shattered and ruined.
“Brant.” Her soft voice surrounds me, ripping through the rancor. June closes her eyes, long lashes wet and fluttering, kissing the curve of her cheeks. “Brant, I…”
The tips of my shoes land at the porch step, until we’re eye level with each other. I ball my hands to keep them from touching her. “Tell me what happened.”
“I…” A carousel of emotion dances across her face, and the wind whips through, stealing her breath, as if even nightfall is loath to hear her sins. June swallows, the delicate bob of her throat capturing my attention for a split second before our eyes lock again. She rushes out the words. “I messed around with Wyatt.”
I go still.
Eerily still.
June continues, tripping on her words, desperately reaching for me as she begins to ramble. “I–I don’t know why I did it, but I hate myself for it. He said cruel things, vulgar things. Things that make me feel dirty and awful, and I’m so afraid you’ll look at me different now and I won’t survive that. I just won’t.” She grips my rigid shoulders, lightly shaking me. “I already feel like I’m losing you, and I can’t bear to see you slip away from me for good. You mean everything to me, Brant, everything. You and Theo, Mom and Dad. You’re my whole world, and I can’t lose a piece of my world or it wouldn’t be whole anymore.”
“Go inside, June.”
She blinks. Her mouth is partially open, her next words eclipsed by my command. June’s fingers curl around the fabric of my shirt as her head shakes side to side. “What happened to you, Brant? Why did you wake up one morning and decide you didn’t love me anymore?”
My heart decimates into kindling, but I don’t reply.
I say nothing, and she takes that as a confirmation.
Something in her eyes dwindles, fades like hopelessness. She is nothing but tattered sails in a big sea.
But she doesn’t know the real reason for my silence. She doesn’t understand that my sea is being transformed by a deadly typhoon, and I refuse to let her drown in the weight of my waves. “Go inside. Now.”
“Brant, please—”
Spinning away from her, I stalk toward my car and I don’t look back. I can’t watch her standing on that porch, a picture of devastation and confusion, as I speed away down our street.
I just drive.
I simmer.
