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“Wait,” Katherine seemed to be the only one with half her brain cells left that morning. “You… Shit, June. He caught you, didn’t he?”
I nodded into my arms.
Maxine gasped, looking around the mess hall like she might find the despicable villain himself.
“Did he yell at you?” Katherine hissed. She was wearing all black again, although the sheen of her leggings and T-shirt told me it was breathable workout gear of some kind. An unusual look for her, in all honesty, but she had been smarter than I had. I would probably get a perfect ring of sunburn around my belly and my back. She shook my arm. “June, tell me. Are we screwed? Are we all going to lose our jobs?”
I sat up with a sigh, looking down at the pine table and tracing a tree knot with my finger. “No, he doesn’t know you guys were involved.”
“Areyougetting fired?” Maxine whisper-screeched, still looking around the room.
I thought about the way Amos had smiled at me, almost indulgently, and the fact that he had happily climbed into my bed to sleep after he’d showered me off. But, then again, I had puked purple all over his bedroom. And kicked him in the balls. I rubbed my eyes hard. “I don’t know,” I admitted.
“We’ll defend you,” Maxine said with sudden intensity. I imagined her standing up to Amos, her hands on her narrow hips and her pretty, pink lips all pouty with indignation.It’s giving… Peach v. Bowser,I thought with a twinge of amusement.
I gave her a half-lidded glance of amusement. “Thanks, but no. Trust me, you don’t want to mess with Brady. He spanked me, you guys.” Katherine’s red-tinted lips popped open. Maxine gasped again, bringing her hands to her mouth. “Yeah.” I continued, “and then he hosed me off in the showers after I’d puked on his floors.”
Maxine covered her eyes and Katherine shook her head, mouth still agape.
“The whole night was an unprecedented disaster,” I cringed. “He caught me before I could even get a drop on him, and not only did he just,” I paused, pulling a face and mimicking the squeezing of a bottle with both hands, “all over me. All over. But he literally kidnapped me. I’m telling you—”
Katherine’s mouth snapped shut and Maxine went rigid, her hands in her lap. But I didn’t notice because I was too desperate to spew my story like I was giving myself an exorcism.
“—he fucking enjoyed it, too. Like, maybe not the part where I puked on him or the part where I kicked him in the balls—”
Both girls gasped audibly.
“—but the man is psychotically interested in tormenting me.”
Two large hands landed on the table on either side of me, and a warm, familiar presence caged me in from behind. Amos bent down near my ear and whispered, “Psychotic?” I jumped, my body stiffening. I gripped the edge of the table, wondering if it would be too violent if I slammed the back of my head into his chin. Amos put a heavy hand on top of my head like he expected me to do just that. “Good morning, ladies,” he said.
“Morning,” Katherine said, her eyes dancing between the two of us. Maxine made a squeaking noise that wasn’t actually a word.
“It’s been good to get to know my employees better,” Amos said, straightening away from me. “Enlightening.”
I caught Katherine’s gaze, widened my eyes, and mouthed, “Psycho.”
Amos patted my face obnoxiously. “I’m excited for the activities. Team building, right?”
I swatted him away, but he was already gone. Flustered, I pushed escaped curls away from my face and tried to wipe my cheek like I could get his warm, masculine scent off me.
Katherine’s blue eyes tracked Amos’s retreat, and then her attention sucked back to me. She splayed her hands out on the table, and I noticed that she was already missing one of her glossy, black acrylics. She gave me a meaningful look. “What in the sexual chemistry, June?”
“Excuse me?” I asked in outrage.
“No, no,” Maxine said from beside me, unfolding like a pill bug. “That,” she said, gesturing with her hand in my general direction, “was definitely a thing.”
“There’s no ‘thing,’” I argued.
They both snorted in unison. “Bully romance,” Maxine said, as if she’d received an epiphany.
“Enemies to lovers,” Katherine added with a serious nod.
“Stop that,” I snapped. I got up from the bench. “I’m getting breakfast. No more insinuations. I just got over my nausea—I don’t need another round.”
“Grumpy/sunshine!” they both exclaimed, pointing at each other.
Which one of us is supposed to be the sunshine? I thought with a roll of my eyes.I am definitively grumpy this morning.
