“She was older than me. More experienced. She worked in the restaurant where I was training, and she seemed to have everything figured out. I thought she was…” June searched for the right word. “I thought she was everything I wanted to be. Confident. Talented. Fearless.”
“What happened?”
“She cheated on me. With the head chef. And when I confronted her, she told me it was my fault for being naive. For expecting loyalty in a kitchen, like that was some ridiculous thing to want.” June’s voice was steady, but her hand tightened on Melissa’s. “She said I was too soft. Too much. That I wanted things that didn’t exist in the real world.”
“She was wrong.”
“Maybe. But I believed her for a long time. I left because I couldn’t stand to be in the same city as her, couldn’t stand to see her and wonder if she was right about me.” June paused. “I’m still figuring out what I want. Who I want to be. I’m not there yet.”
June felt exposed in a way she hadn’t in months—years, maybe. She’d told Melissa more than she’d told her own motherabout what had happened with Ember. She’d let her see the wound that was still healing.
Melissa’s thumb traced a slow circle against June’s palm. “I don’t think any of us know who we are. I definitely don’t.”
“I thought you knew exactly who you are,” June said, the words coming out with a breathless quality.
“Appearances can be deceiving.”
The oven timer went off.
Neither of them moved.
“The brownies,” June said finally, but she didn’t stand up. Didn’t let go of Melissa’s hand.
“Let them burn.”
And then Melissa was kissing her.
Later, June would try to remember who moved first. Whether Melissa leaned in or June did. Whether there was a moment of hesitation, of last-chance pulling back.
There wasn’t.
One moment they were sitting at the kitchen island, hands intertwined, the air between them charged with everything they weren’t saying. The next, Melissa’s mouth was on hers, and June’s world narrowed to a single point of contact.
Melissa kissed like she did everything else—deliberately, thoroughly, with complete focus. Her free hand came up to cup June’s jaw, tilting her head for a better angle, and June heard herself make a sound she’d never made before. A soft gasp, half surprise and half relief, like she’d been holding her breath for weeks and finally remembered how to exhale.
She tasted like wine and something sweeter underneath, something that was just Melissa. Her lips were soft, softer than June had imagined—and she had imagined, late at night in her room down the hall, telling herself it was just a fantasy, just a harmless what-if that would never go anywhere.
June’s hands found Melissa’s waist, pulling her closer, and Melissa responded by deepening the kiss. Her tongue traced June’s lower lip, tentative and questioning, and June opened for her without hesitation.
The kitchen fell away. The brownies, the wine glasses, the carefully maintained distance they’d been keeping for weeks—all of it dissolved into sensation. The slide of Melissa’s fingers into June’s hair. The press of her body as she shifted off her stool and moved closer. The small, desperate sound she made when June pulled her in tighter.
June had been kissed before. By Ember, who kissed like a conquest. By girls in college, fumbling and uncertain.
This was different. This was Melissa Brandt, state senator and single mother and the most complicated woman June had ever met, kissing her like she was something precious. Something worth being careful with.
It was terrifying. It was perfect.
When they finally pulled apart, both of them were breathing hard. Melissa’s lipstick was smeared, her hair disheveled, her eyes dark and wide.
“I—” Melissa started.
“Don’t.” June pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t apologize. Don’t tell me it was a mistake.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.” June lowered her hand, let it rest against Melissa’s collarbone. She could feel Melissa’s pulse hammering beneath her fingertips, rabbit-fast. “Because I’ve wanted you to do that for weeks.”
Melissa’s breath caught. “June—”
