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Before long, he was finished, and he turned to me. “Wanna drive?”
“I’m good,” I said quickly, maybe a bit too quickly, but I felt horrified at the idea of letting him sit behind me again so he could hold onto thatso muchhe liked.
“Alright.” He smiled before leaning in to kiss me, his lips cold from the winter air before he pulled back and headed back over to the snowmobile. My brain felt like it was on fire from all the thoughts going through it. He’d also said he loved me, and I’d frozen then too. How was I supposed to believe what was real and what wasn’t? No one had ever said they loved me before. Besides my family, that is.
My legs moved on autopilot as I climbed onto the sled behind him, wrapping my arms around him. The time it took to go back to the cabin seemed to be the same length of time it took to blink, and then Evan was off, unhitching the trailer, and I walked into the cabin like in a dream.
As my eyes roved the main room, I came to one cold decision: all of this had to be a big joke. It couldn’t possibly be that I was wrong all this time, and he was actually not just a decent guy, but a guy who had been in love with me all this time. It was unfathomable. If we had both been in love with each other at the same time, we would’ve been together. But instead, I spent my last years in school being the brunt of every joke and eating lunch alone in my car because no one wanted to sit with me after Evan Butler determined I was persona non-grata.
Walking into the bedroom, I carefully gathered my things and carried them out into the main room. Glancing out the window, Evan was nowhere near the snowmobile, and from the sounds of it, he was out back chopping more wood.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I checked for any messages from my dad, hoping the roads had cleared, and he decided to come today after all. But there was nothing, which left me with one other choice.
Tugging my hat further over my head, I silently walked out to the snowmobile and shoved my bag into the storage compartment before climbing onto it and starting it up. My eyes flicked to where Evan would be around the cabin, wondering if he heard me before I steered the sled away from the cabin.
Over the rumble of the engine, as I robotically drove away from the property, I heard him shout.
“June!”
evan
“It’s gorgeous.”
“Oh, my gosh, it’s perfect.”
“Evan, great choice, man.”
Everyone gushed over the tree as they all stood around it, staring at the finished, decorated product. Ma sat on the couch, wrapped in a plaid blanket, as she smiled distantly to herself. She didn’t look the same anymore, but she tried. And at least with Christmas, it gave her something to think about instead of treatments.
Something about a lit Christmas tree always made me feel joyful, but not today. Since June took off on my sled, leaving me abandoned at the cabin until I finally managed to get ahold of Colt to get a ride home, I had been everything but happy and joyful.
Mainly angry and hurt.
I still had no idea what I might have said that caused her to flee, and three nights of playing it over in my mind instead of sleeping left me drawing the same blanks. Everything had been going so well, and yeah, alright, I’d said I love you without a reply from her, which may have been a red flag. If not for how she looked at me, which told me she felt the same, she was too scared.
Damn, Brendan Lewis. That fucking prick had hurt her so bad.
“Earth to Evan,” Forrest waved a hand in front of my face, “you there?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Blinking away the intrusive thoughts, I stared at my youngest brother. “What?”
“You got a partridge in your pear tree?” He poked my forehead as I swatted his hand away.
“No, just a lot on my mind.”
“Like what?” Beau walked over, beer in hand and a big grin on his face. At some point this year, I had amazingly taken the title of walking grump from the eldest Butler after he’d shacked up with the love of his life, Rose, and their son, Silas.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, it’s something,” Forrest said knowingly. Colt appeared as if summoned and nodded his head in agreement.
“It’s a girl.”
“It’s not.” I protested, but not very well because the next thing I knew, all my brothers encircled me, staring me down like they could read my fucking mind.
“It is. Who is it?” They started listing names of girls who were interested in me but I’d never been interested in. None of them were June after all. But then Forrest spoke again as if he knew me better than I knew myself.
“Juniper Danvers.” My head snapped to the side to stare at him in surprise, giving me away completely. A chorus of ‘ohs’ filled the room as my brothers immediately launched into a series of ribs about me and my life-long crush. Maybe I would’ve told them about the weekend spent in her arms, no, not even a weekend. A night. But that’s all I needed. And if it wasn’t for some other prick who’d gotten in her head, she might’ve even been here with us.
