June would keep goading me and the girls would delight in it. Or... I could make June squirm.
“I don’t know, June Bug. Why would a teenage boy pretend to be ticklish around a cute girl?”
June’s laughter hitched. Her smile died, and I choked on my snicker. I quietly waited for her to put the pieces together.
“You aren’t ticklish?”
The scandal in her tone prompted a snort from me.
She sucked in a gasp. “You were faking? We used to wrestle so I could tickle—” She snapped her mouth shut, her gaze darting to my bewildered children.
“And then what?” This time, my tone was deceptively innocent. “What would happen?”
Her cheeks turned pink, and I grinned.
“The audacity,” she muttered.
I lost my battle with my laughter. June used to love thinking she got the upper hand by tickling me. Instead, I’d gotten both her hands on me, and she would burrow in close. Those tickle wars had turned steamy more often than not.
Bethany wrinkled her nose. “I’m confused.”
June pretended to glare at me, but humor danced in the honeyed depths of her eyes. “Your dad was making me think I was getting what I wanted when he was actually getting what he wanted.”
“I like to think we were both benefiting.” The lightness inside of me was from laughing with June again. From not dreading the twist of emotions when I saw her. From not avoiding her.
I’d been handling the situation all wrong. June being in Bourbon Canyon wasn’t something I should grit my teeth through. It just was. I was me, and she was her, and that was the way it’d always been. We both knew our futures went in different directions. So why not enjoy these moments when they converged?
CHAPTER TWELVE
June
I sat with Scarlett and Autumn in Curly’s, our favorite bar and grill. Bourbon Canyon’s only bar and grill. Before my voice was on the radio, he’d always seated us in the back, yet my brothers got a table at the front window. My sisters and I were “just” Kerrigans in his eyes, and we didn’t have the status of our Bailey brothers. Now that I was June Bee, he’d tried to put me and my sisters front and center, but I’d smiled sweetly and asked for a table in the back. “For privacy,” I’d said, enjoying his disgruntled acceptance. Two could play his games, but I really did want privacy.
Curly was old-fashioned in the worst of ways, but he made excellent food and we were on our third basket of buns. We were having an early dinner. What had been a sparsely filled restaurant was now half-full. The Saturday night crowd would start to pour in soon.
People around town were getting used to seeing me.I’d ventured onto social media platforms and there’d been speculation, but most of my fans had pushed back, insisting I was holed up writing my next greatest hits. They cited the selfies I’d taken with the kids in the coffee shop. After the news clip, the posts had blown up. My supporters guessed I was in town to write and prepare for my release and rumored tour. They wanted the tour announced and didn’t want me interrupted.
I loved my fans. But reading those words piled giant boulders onto my chest until I struggled to breathe.
“You’re stressing,” Autumn said around a mouthful of bun.
I scowled at her. I still had five songs to write. “How can you tell?”
“Your eyes are glazed, and you haven’t finished buttering your bun.”
Scarlett nodded like it was obvious.
My knife was poised over the bread. Curly made his famous bourbon cinnamon butter from Copper Summit products. I’d let him seat me in the parking lot for that spread, yet I was staring at the wall instead.
Should I tell them that I was worried I wouldn’t finish the album? I was, but those thoughts weren’t dominating my brain. My mind strayed for a reason that had nothing to do with my career. The reason was six foot two, bearded, and a phenomenal baker.
And I had a month left to be frustrated with him. Yes, I needed some of those boulders lifted from my lungs. “I found out Rhys just let me think he was ticklish the whole time we dated.”
Scarlett’s eyes widened. “Why would he do that?” She wrinkled her nose. “Never mind. I’ve had dates pretend worse things.”
Autumn patted her arm. “We had to wade through some frogs to get to our princes.”
“Except those guys thought I was the frog.” Her gaze went dreamy. “I don’t have to worry about any of that with Tate.”
