Melissa considered the question honestly. “A little. But not of this.”
June pressed a kiss to her shoulder and said nothing, which was exactly right.
Melissa closed her eyes, June’s hand warm against her ribs, and for the first time in days—maybe longer—she didn’t dream about any of it.
Chapter 12
Waterfall Braids
June
Wednesday, July 15th
June woke in Melissa’s bed.
Not her bed—Melissa’s. The sheets were higher thread count than anything June had ever owned, and they smelled like cedar and distant rain and something warmer underneath that was justMelissa, and for a few seconds June lay there in the grey morning light and let herself have it. The indent in the pillow beside her. The silence of a house where someone had already been up and gone, leaving behind only warmth in the sheets and the faint sound of a car pulling out of the driveway below.
She pressed her face into the pillow.
Brilliant move, Hollis.
It had been eight days since the first kiss. One night since everything else. And Melissa had kissed her forehead in the dark before five a.m. and whisperedI have to go, don’t movein a voice that was still rough with sleep, and June had saidokayand listened to her get dressed and leave, and now she was alone in Melissa’s room with the rain starting up against the windows and absolutely no idea what any of it meant in the daylight.
She knew what it had felt like. That was the problem.
She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, cataloguing the ways she was already in too deep: she knew the small scar on Melissa’s left wrist and the sound she made when she was trying not to make any sound and the exact spot below her ear that made her breath go unsteady. She knew these things now. She couldn’t unknow them.
You’re in over your head,she told herself.You know that, right?
She knew.
The rain continued through breakfast, drumming against the kitchen windows while June made pancakes and Lila worked on a drawing at the island. Melissa had texted at six-thirty:Committee session all day. Don’t wait up.Professional. Clean. The same text she might have sent to her aide.
June put her phone face-down on the counter and flipped the pancakes.
It’s fine,she told herself.She’s at work. This is what her work looks like.
But the doubt was already there, low and familiar: the knowledge that she spent her days playing nanny and her nights playing—what, exactly? Melissa’s girlfriend? Her secret? Something in between that didn’t have a name yet because naming it would make it real, and real things could be lost?
Would you even know if she was hiding you?
She pushed the thought away. It wasn’t fair. Melissa wasn’t Ember. Melissa was—
Someone who kissed you in the dark and left before her daughter could see.
“Miss Hollis?” Lila looked up from her drawing. “Can you braid my hair?”
“Sure, sweetheart. What kind?”
“A waterfall braid. I saw a video.” Lila produced her tablet, showing June a tutorial. “It looks hard, but I think you can do it.”
“That’s a lot of faith you’re putting in me.”
“You’re good at hair things.”
They settled on the couch after breakfast, Lila on the floor between June’s knees, the rain soft and grey outside. The waterfall braid was trickier than it looked—lots of starting over, lots of losing track—but Lila was patient, sitting still in a way that most seven-year-olds couldn’t manage.
“Miss Hollis?” Lila’s voice was quiet. Thoughtful.
