Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
“ T his is not what I thought you had in mind, June,” Aiden said, bending over to suck oxygen. They’d spent the last twenty minutes sprinting up and down the hotel’s many sets of stairs. Aiden’s legs quivered, his lungs burned. June, of course, looked no worse for wear. She wasn’t even sweating that he could tell.
“The best cure for heartache is to keep your body too exhausted to feel it,” June said. “One more set, or are you ready to call it?”
“Have mercy,” Aiden wheezed.
June laughed. “We need to get you in better shape, Doctor.”
“Med school didn’t leave a lot of time for working out,” he said. Though the truth was that he had never been a super athlete. Sure, he’d played soccer and dabbled in rugby, but he had never been the star player. Like everything in his life, he had been mediocre.
“Right. And how many years have you been out of med school?”
He put her in a headlock. Laughing, she wriggled away and hugged him hard around the middle. “Let’s go get cleaned up and then on to our next adventure.”
Aiden felt an odd pang then, different from the pain his sore limbs were already sending him. Whoever ended up with June, for real and not for pretend, would always have a next adventure on the horizon. She was one of those people who could make the mundane not only tolerable, but exciting. He paused and hugged her in earnest. “June, I appreciate you. You can’t know how much.”
“Ditto, Aiden. You’ve saved my life more than once, literally.”
He had a sudden fear, or maybe a premonition, that something would happen between them, something bad. “Let’s promise we won’t let anything come between us, okay? No matter what, we’ll leave this arrangement as friends. Deal?” He held out his hand to her.
She hooked her pinky through his and gave it a tug. “Deal. Now, I’ll race you back to the room.” She gave him a hard shove and took off, sprinting toward the exit.
“June Kellogg, you are such a cheater,” he hissed.
“It’s June Lawrence now,” she hissed in return, not slowing her stride.
Grinning, Aiden put on a burst of speed and tried hard to catch up with her.
They reached the room and took turns showering. As soon as June disappeared into the bathroom, Aiden realized his good mood went with her. She was the lone buffer between him and total devastation, in all the ways. He sank so far in the time it took her to shower, he was certain he wouldn’t be able to rally again. Then June opened the door and it was like sunshine making a return after an eclipse. She was all smiles and wet hair, her face freshly scrubbed but no less beautiful. She tossed herself onto the bed beside him and produced a pack of cards, as if by magic.
“Where did those come from?” he asked, amazed.
“Downstairs. I went on a recon mission while you were in the shower. You take long showers, Doctor Lawrence.” She reached for the empty ice bucket, set it on the end of the bed, split the stack of cards in half, and handed some to him.
“Card basketball. Let’s see what those steady hands can do.”
They played the ridiculously mindless game until they were too exhausted to play anymore, and then June reached for the phone.
“What are you doing?” he asked. How many times would he ask her that question in the coming months? About a million, guessed.
“Room service.”
“This hotel doesn’t have room service,” he noted.
“Sure it does,” she said, giving him what he was coming to recognize as her I’m-up-to-something grin.
A few minutes later, someone knocked on their door. When June answered, Aiden saw the besotted desk clerk on the other side, beaming at June as if maybe she were the answer to some long held prayer.
“Oh, my goodness, Jeremy. Thank you so much, you are the best. Lots of amazing Yelp reviews for you.” She pushed some money into his slack fingers, but the beaming fool made no move to leave. Aiden got up and went to stand beside her.
“Thanks,” he said pointedly, taking the door from June and closing it in the boy’s face. When he turned, he finally saw what June held—a pint of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.
“Breakup comfort food,” she explained. “Although, hmm, Jeremy only sent one spoon. I’ll call and ask for anoth…” Aiden took the phone out of her hand and hung it up.
“I think we’ve seen enough of Jeremy for an evening. You and I can share a spoon.”
“That’s an awful lot of germs for a doctor to indulge in,” June said, nose wrinkled.
Aiden tipped her face to his. “June, we’ve touched tongues. Our germs are on a first name basis.”
“When you put it like that, ew, gross.” She gave him a little shove but put a heaping mound of ice cream on the spoon and held it out for him. He sank onto the bed as he chewed the bite, watching June as she loaded the spoon and ate her own giant mound. When it was his turn, she fed him again, and Aiden didn’t mind at all. Even though he usually found it disgusting when couples were codependent, somehow it felt okay to have June fuss over him. Better than okay, he could definitely get used to it.
She reached for the remote and turned to a crass and mindless old comedy. It was stupid humor, but they were tired enough to find it funny, hilarious even, as they alternately overdosed on ice cream and giggled uncontrollably.
The end of the ice cream coincided with the end of the movie. By that time, exhaustion weighed heavily over both of them. June barely had the energy to reach for the remote and turn off the television. Aiden summoned the strength to rearrange the covers over both of them, and they fell asleep, side-by-side but not touching.
Somehow in the night they gravitated together, limbs entwined, her hair between his lips and up his nose, her hand clutching his shirt in a hard fist. Aiden woke first with a confused jolt. Pain, then joy, then pain again. Erica, no, June, not Erica. June woke more slowly and with zero self-consciousness.
“I think my hair has become self-aware,” she murmured.
Aiden laughed, an impossibility on the morning after he’d been publicly jilted. And then he gasped as remembered pain knifed through him, so sharp he felt like he might collapse from it, fold in on himself like a dying star. And then June’s lips were on his, soft, warm, plying, comforting him, distracting him, urging him to respond. He gripped her the way someone might grab for a boulder when tipping backwards off a cliff. At first he merely allowed himself to be kissed out of his misery, and then he began to respond, and then he took over, pressing her into the mattress, easing atop her. Her leg twisted around his, and his brain activity ceased in favor of his more primal self.
And then the alarm beside them began to blare, eventually breaking through the mindless fog now dragging them under.
“As I was saying, good morning,” June murmured, causing Aiden to laugh, his lips moving against hers. With effort, he rolled away onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.
“If that’s your version of a wake up call, June, I’ll take one every morning,” Aiden said.
“Don’t get attached. I’m still on distraction duty. Plus we’re technically on our honeymoon. I felt the need to represent.”
They turned their faces toward each other. Aiden was surprised by the tension he felt shimmering inside him and he wondered if she felt it or if it was only him being a man. “Exactly how much leverage can I get from this honeymoon thing?”
“Walking hormone says what?” she said, but she smiled as she reached over and poked him.
“Not my fault that my fake wife is for real hot,” he said.
“You’ll do pretty well, too,” she said, which Aiden thought was generous. Not that he was an ogre. Pre-Erica he had done okay dating. Girls had told him he was cute. With his brown hair and brown eyes, he was kind of a boyish everyman. And he had always tried hard to be a gentleman, something women seemed to appreciate. But he wasn’t in the same realm as June. If he met her somewhere in the world, a restaurant perhaps, he would take note of her for certain but never try to approach. He would assume she was already attached, probably to someone rich and famous. She had the sort of beauty that would look at home on the arm of a professional athlete or actor.
They shared a smile, each loaded with sympathy for the plight of the other. “Are you ready for today? Last chance to back out.” Today they would officially sign on the dotted line, the final paperwork for the house. After this moment, Aiden would officially be a homeowner. If June went through with her part of the bargain, he would take it free and clear, a generous gift worth nearly half a million dollars. If she backed out, he had no idea how he would survive the coming financial tsunami. Even so, he would never hold her to their bargain for his financial gain.
“I am so ready,” June said with passionate conviction. “Being a free man yourself, you can’t understand how it’s been to live under the combined guilt and smothering love of my dad and brother. I’m sorry for you, Aiden, truly. I wouldn’t wish your current situation on anyone, and especially not you because I like you so well. But you have no idea how much this means to me. Picture me as that dog whose owner leaves the door gaping an inch. It’s my chance and I’m going to make a break for it.”
He reached over and skimmed his palm on her cheek. “I wish it were true freedom, June. I wish I knew a way to grant that to you without involving you in my heartache.”
“Hey, I would want to be here for you regardless. We’re friends. I’m always there for my friends. If we weren’t doing the marriage thing, I probably would have shown up on your doorstep with the ice cream, offering a listening ear and a few hugs.”
“That would have been nice,” he said, his hand continuing its tender ministration to her face, skimming lightly over her nose, chin, forehead and cheeks in a circular motion.
She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. “This is like getting a facial. Do you do manicures and pedicures?”
“For you, sweet girl? Absolutely.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” she said, smiling the rotten smile he was coming to know, the one that said she was up to something ornery. Suddenly he could picture it, the two of them laughing while he attempted to paint her nails, her joking about his “doctor hands” while he tried to remain steady and hold onto his man card. It was an intimate little scenario and he felt immediate shivers of hot guilt, followed quickly by confusion. It wasn’t cheating on Erica to picture June in her place; she had left by choice, had irrevocably broken and denounced all that was between them. Even if he and June really were married, it would be nothing to Erica now.
His finger must have stopped moving because June opened her eyes and looked at him. “Hey,” she whispered softly. “Go take a shower, and I’m going to procure coffee. How do you take it?”
“Intravenously,” he said and was rewarded when she smiled.
“Excellent.” She squeezed his fingers, her warmth a contrast to his sudden chill. “No sinking allowed. We haven’t reached the grieving stage of things yet. That comes later. Right now we have a plan.”
“What’s the plan?” he asked, ridiculously glad she was still in charge of his wellbeing right now. Without her, he would be in an abyss of sadness.
“Shower, food, sign papers, move my things into the house, and settle in. And then you’re allowed to fall apart.” She leaned closer and jutted a finger in his face. “But don’t you fall apart on me before then, Aiden Lawrence. Or else.”
“Or else what?” he asked.
“Or else I’ll fix up my brother and your younger sister on a date.”
He exploded in a laugh. “June, that’s diabolical. But if you think I’m the one who would suffer in that scenario, you clearly didn’t spend enough time with Jenna.”
“Denver thinks Corn Nuts are a fine delicacy, and he used to let his pet boa constrictor roam the house for ‘exercise.’ One time I woke to it wrapped around my leg.”
“How did you turn out so well?” he asked.
She pressed her palm to his forehead. “You’ve clearly forgotten everything you know about me if you think I’m doing well. Good for you, a clean slate is refreshing.” Leaning closer, she kissed his forehead and sat back. “Coffee.” She skittered out of bed, tossed on his discarded shirt, tied it around her waist, slid into her shoes, and walked out the door. Aiden knew he was supposed to shower, but he remained in bed, staring at the door, more than a little dazzled by June, his almost wife.