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I take her hand and kiss the back of it. “No worries. Pretty sure he wouldn’t want that, either. Dad is … I never got the talk from him. In fact, he’s never been the kind of guy to ask me about my personal life, aside from demanding I have a girlfriend.”
“Who gave you the talk?”
I laugh, thinking about it. “Mom tried. But she got too awkward about it. So, our family physician made a house call for the occasion. He brought diagrams and pictures. It was all very clinical. Mom sat through it with me, in case I had questions for her, too, but she and I were both so red-faced through the whole thing, I couldn’t bear to speak.”
June laughs hard. “Oh my god, that’s … I mean, it’s great that she did that, but that had to be so painful.”
“Oh yeah. I was twelve, I think, and I was so freaked out about it all that I didn’t even try to sneak porn for a year.”
“You were looking at that back then?”
“Before the talk, yeah. I had the internet and had found Grandfather’s classic Playboys here, in fact. He kept them in the library, I think, in hopes Grandmother would never find them.”
She glances around. “I noticed the library is organized alphabetically. Are they under P for Playboy or something else?”
“Under P for Popular Mechanics.”
“Huh?”
I smirk, unable to stop myself. “Grandfather had slipcovers made for his Playboys—or maybe he fashioned them himself—so that they all look like Popular Mechanics magazines instead of what they are. When I found the magazines, I’d thought I’d learn about cars, but I learned about something else that day.”
She giggles. “Oh my god.”
“He was clever. It was a good way to keep Grandmother from figuring out he had them, because she hated all that stuff.”
June takes a deep breath. “So, um, do you think we’ve dawdled enough? Should we go join them?”
“Not exactly. I should rearrange the furniture back to what it was.” I get up and start, but she looks up at me with the strangest look on her face. “What is it?”
“I … I’m not sure where to start.”
“Try the beginning.” Her tone has me worried, so I sit next to her again. “What’s going on?”
She runs her fingers through her hair, and they snag on a curl, so she gives up. “This wasn’t what I thought it would be, Anderson.”
I gulp. “And what was that?”
“I’d thought we’d come here, do our little act, and you’d get your account, and that would be that.”
Shit. My heart sinks through the floor. “Are you saying you regret what happened in here?”
But she half-smiles and shakes her head. “Nothing like that. I’m saying I could never regret what happened in here. I like you. If you’re game for it, I’d like to see where this might go.”
I feel like a puppet with their strings cut, as all the tension leaves me. “Truly?”
“Yeah. But no more embarrassing your dad.”
I laugh sharply and kiss her. “No more of that. I promise.”
“Wait—how did he get in here, anyway? I thought you locked the door.”
“I did, but I forgot about the door at the other end of the library. It’s past the stacks down that way.” I point toward the far end. “The library is so large that it needs two points of entry, even with all the windows. The second door was added a few years ago to keep the place up to code.”
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Well, let’s not forget about that ever again.”
“Never.” I cup her cheek in my hand. “You mean it, though? You want to give us a shot?”
“If you do. Yeah.”
