Chapter 34 #2
“Oh my god!” she yells, jumping up and down and shouting. The room erupts with her, but she only has eyes for me as she jumps into my arms. “I am so lucky, and everything works out for me!”
“You really are,” I murmur into her hair, relief rushing through me.
“Again!” Claire yells, but June looks over her shoulder and shakes her head. I let out the breath I’d been holding.
“I think that was enough testing my luck, even for me,” she says, giving me a wide, happy grin. I nod eagerly, and Grant laughs from beside her. We cash out, then once more, I pull her into my side.
“Now what, birthday girl?” I ask, pulling her into me, pressing my lips to hers gently. When I pull back, her eyes are just a bit dazed, a happy soft smile on her lips.
“We could go back to the room,” she murmurs, voice low and filled with implication.
I pick up on it and instantly want to live out those implications.
“We could,” I say low, my hand tightening on her waist.
“Absolutely not,” Claire says, moving closer and pushing us apart.
“Claire, babe, let them—” Miles starts, but she gives him a fierce look, and he stops, lifting his hands.
“No, we’re here to party, and we are going to party.” She turns to me. “You got that reservation, right?”
I bite back a groan, remembering that I did, in fact, reserve a party box at a club at Claire’s request. I nod, knowing that regardless of my desire to take June back to our room, she’ll have fun with what her best friends have planned.
“Let’s go party, lover boy.”
We’re in the private room that Claire and Sutton helped me pick out for a total of five minutes, just long enough for the girls to ooh and ahh over the view and the luxury before the opening chords of some song I vaguely remember fill the club. June and Claire turn to one another and scream.
“It’s our song!” Claire shouts, and then, as if there’s some unspoken understanding I’m not privy to, June kisses me before all of the girls hustle down to the main dance floor.
When the door shuts behind them, I stare at it for a moment before looking to Miles, who looks far less confused than I, an old pro at this, it seems.
“Do I want to know?” I ask.
“Would the idea of Claire and June dancing on a bar top scare the fuck out of you?” Miles counters. My eyes widen, and he grins, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, you don’t want to know. Might as well have a drink: it’s gonna be a long night, my man.”
We move to the bar, each of us grabbing a drink before settling into the barstools at the edge of the room. Part of the reason I chose this particular club was the ability to look out over the main dance floor from the private rooms, and I spot June dancing with the girls.
“How panicked were you out there?” Miles asks, and when I look to him, there’s a wide grin on his lips that I don’t quite understand.
“Panicked?”
“She put a grand on a craps table thinking she was lucky,” he says. I stare for a moment, unsure of how to respond, before settling on ignorance, lifting my shoulder with nonchalance, and taking a sip of my beer.
“She is lucky.”
"Sure, she is, but that luck isn’t all natural," he says, his grin widening.
I should have known.
I should have known that stepping outside of my carefully laid plans and asking Miles to tell her that her car issues were just small fixes was a bad idea, but I couldn’t help myself.
I should have known it would bite me in the ass.
“Not sure what you’re talking about,” I say.
“Can’t bullshit a lovesick bullshitter, Hawthorne. I kept seashells in my pockets for six years for Claire, dropping them so she’d think it was some kind of luck. I know a grand gesture when I see one.”
I sigh, realizing there’s no use.
“Have you told Claire?” I ask, not bothering to defend myself. He shakes his head.
“No reason to.” Relief washes through me. “Did you do that?” he asks. “At the casino?” I shake my head, then take a long sip of my beer.
“I might be lovesick, but I have no desire to go to prison.”
“Smart man,” he says, tipping his beer toward me.
“Who’s going to prison?” Grant says, coming over to where we’re sitting.
“No one,” I say quickly.
"Graham, if he keeps his shenanigans up with June."
I snap my head toward Miles because that sounds way worse than it actually is. Instead of correcting himself, he starts laughing.
“I’m sorry?” Grant asks, his anger looking more and more palpable by the moment.
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?” he asks, crossing his arms on his chest and lifting an eyebrow. This is not good.
"I—" I hesitate, unsure what to say. Grant Taylor might be the most important person in June’s life; making him angry could easily end things between us. Before I can answer, though, Decker speaks up.
“Is this about how you’ve been intervening with all of her shit to make her dreams come true or whatever?” Decker asks.
“What do you know about that?” I ask, then far too late realize it’s an admission of guilt.
An entire summer of scheming successfully and three guys and a beer are going to be what brings me down, isn’t it?
"Sutton’s got a big mouth," he says. There are plenty of ways I could respond to that, and I’m sure June would have a field day decoding that sentence, but I don’t touch any of them.
“I’m not explaining my relationship with June, because it isn’t any of your business.”
“Fine. I’ll just call June up and?—” Grant starts, and I know I’m fucked.
It’s all going to come tumbling down.
“Stop, stop. I’ll tell you.” Grant puts his phone away with a smile, and I realize the threat was empty. There’s no point in avoiding the topic though: it would only look worse.
“I’ve been…setting things up for June.”
“Setting things up?” Grant asks, and Decker lets out a snort of a laugh, clearly entertained. Miles sits, sipping his beer and smiling.
“Nothing bad. Just… She thinks she’s lucky, right?” Grant nods, crossing his arms on his chest. “So I’ve coercing with things occasionally so that things go her way.”
“Like?”
“He paid for the updates to her car,” Miles says, looking at me assessingly. “He asked me not to tell her. Told me to say she just needed a cabin air filter and an oil change, but then had me fix her air conditioning, the starter, and any safety updates it needed.”
“Why would you do that?” Grant asks.
“Because that car is a piece of shit and a death trap, but there’s no world where she should have let me cover the updates needed or even pay for them all herself at once.
So when I found out her car was in his shop, I asked Miles to do what needed to be done and bill me for it, and then tell her it was just a few things. ”
“I would have done it anyway,” Miles says, a smile on his lips. “She’s my best friend’s little sister, but I figured I might as well make some money for the shop while I was at it.”
Grant stares at me as if he’s unsure if he approves or absolutely hates me. “What else have you done?” Might as well put it all out on the table.
“I got her favorite donuts every day the first week she worked at Daytrip.” He nods, as if he noticed. “And I helped her find four-leaf clovers. I got her concert tickets.” I decide not to tell him about the job, at least until Sutton spills it.
That can be a concern for another day.
“And she knows nothing about this?” I give him a tight look.
“Not unless one of you tells her.” He stares at me for long moments, the room silent except for the booming bass. I become painfully aware that I’m the odd man out here, that we’re in a room with all of his friends, and if he hit me, they would all defend him. Hell, they’d probably pitch in.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he surprises me.
“You’re why she started leaning into art, aren’t you?” he asks. I shake my head.
“That was Claire and Lainey,” I say. He looks at me as if he doesn’t buy it in the least.
“They’ve been trying to get her to open that shop for years. It never happened. It was you.”
I sigh. “I made her feel lucky by making sure she found a four-leaf clover.
She saw it as a sign that she should put her shop live.
When I realized she actually did it, I also bought the first piece from her shop, which, I'll admit, I think made her believe in herself and start actually promoting it. But the rest was all her.” Grant stares at me, then nods.
His jaw goes firm, one final test, I think.
“The proposal for your boss—did you set that up?” I shake my head quickly.
“No. That was all her. Rowan saw potential because he has an eye for talent.”
His face shifts, and he sighs. “You’re good for her,” Grant says, begrudgingly.
“This summer has been good for her. When she quit, I was nervous because she was giving up everything she knew, everything she worked for, but I saw fast enough she was only teaching because she thought she was supposed to. She was always supposed to chase art, but I think I talked so much shit about it, she didn’t even think of it as a real option.
I feel bad for that. I don’t know how much she’s told you about our parents, but they weren’t the best, and that fucked with me, but it isn’t June’s fault.
I’m glad she has you helping her realize what she’s meant to be doing, because burning herself out with teaching wasn’t it. ”
I nod, relief rushing into me like cold water at what sounds almost like approval.
But then a smile spreads on his lips, and he tips his drink to me.
“But when she finds out, good luck. She’s going to have your balls.”