21
21
Juniper
Alistair: June …
I’m so sorry about today.
It wasn’t supposed to go down like that.
“This is why you have your damn rules.” I thumped my fist into the pillow, doing a better job of beating it into submission than I was changing the bedsheets.
The guest room was a mess after the oh so charming Mr Lewis had checked out.
Dirty towels strewn across the floor, piles of old receipts beside the bed.
When I’d stripped off the linens, a crusty-looking tissue had made a little Ta-da appearance, as though he’d left it behind as a little departure present.
I’d worn the designated “bodily fluids” rubber gloves to dispose of it.
Those gloves saw more action than I was willing to admit.
I usually detested room changeovers, but today I craved the physical work.
Turning the music on my headphones up a level, I beat my fist into the pillow again, the image flicking between Callum and Alistair’s too handsome faces.
Alistair was back in Kinleith.
It felt as though he’d crossed an invisible boundary line, spinning all my carefully crafted calm out of control.
The control that Callum had been chipping away at for weeks now, if I was being honest.
I should have expected it – I had expected from the moment Heather had informed me of their father’s diagnosis.
Alistair would never stay away when he had an ill family member.
I’d spent weeks looking over my shoulder every time I set foot in the village.
And when he hadn’t shown, I’d started to relax.
My own damn fault.
I punched the pillow again, taking pleasure in that resulting thwack that reverberated against my hand.
I wasn’t certain what had affected me more.
Seeing Alistair for the first time since he shattered my heart or his brief head tilt when he’d spotted Callum and I together.
I recognised that head tilt.
I called it his equation-solving head tilt, when I knew his mind was racing over every possible outcome until he found the most likely.
Would he ever guess that his big brother had eaten me out so carnally, I’d thought I might die from the painfully sweet bliss of it?
I hadn’t felt this kind of panic since the night Alexander had died and my emotions raged so forcefully, they’d felt too much for my body to contain.
Then Alistair had ended things, and I’d just shut it all off.
I returned to Skye permanently like a dutiful daughter should and had been going through the motions ever since.
Until last night , a voice taunted.
And that night in Glasgow.
I hated to admit it, but Callum was right.
Some instinct in him just knew what I needed, what got me off.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that the two single times I’d felt anything other than a hollow rage in the last six years, Callum Macabe had a direct line of contact to my clit.
I didn’t believe in coincidences.
And that was a problem because despite this morning, despite the fact I couldn’t stand him half the time – I wanted to feel that rush again.
I already knew how good it would be.
Only now it was my turn to give him pleasure, and I wanted him out of control and slack-jawed for me as I did so.
I was sliding the pillow into a fresh case when a hand landed my shoulder.
“ Shit —” I tore out my earbuds.
“Heather, you scared the crap out of me!” She was the last person I expected to see.
“I’m sorry.” Her expression turned sheepish.
“Hank said you’d be up here. He looked about ready to go to war.”
I let the pillow fall, sinking down onto the mattress.
“Hank did?” He’d given me a once-over when I’d raced through the back door like a bat out of hell, tears crusting my eyes together.
I didn’t stop to think if he’d put two and two together.
“You saw Alistair?” I asked, understanding dawning.
A sympathetic smile twisted her pretty features.
“No. Callum told me. He said you were waiting in line at Brown’s when he showed up and that you might need someone to talk to.”
Damn if that wasn’t a little sweet.
It made me feel nauseous.
“He shouldn’t have bothered you, I’m fine.” I flopped onto my back, lying diagonally across the bed.
If she was here to yell at me again, she could go right ahead.
I didn’t have the energy to argue.
After a quiet moment, her weight settled beside mine.
“This mattress is comfy.”
“Thanks. I updated them to memory foam last year.”
We lay like that for a few minutes, watching the interspersed cloud cover lighten and darken the room before she said, “Want to know who you remind me of?”
“Morticia Addams?” I asked hopefully.
She snorted. “ Yes – but no. You remind me of Malcolm.”
Horrified, I tilted my head to look at her.
“Your brother Malcolm?”
“Don’t look like that, Mal is amazing.”
I agreed but, “Mal is … soft . Sickeningly sweet sometimes, I’m none of those things.” Shit .
Did other people think that?
She laughed at my description of her brother.
“He is all of those things, but for so long he didn’t know how to show it. He kept all his emotions buried inside and everyone who loved him at arm’s length.”
“You think that’s what I’m doing?”
Her face twisted, blonde hair like a halo around her head.
“Will you be mad if I say yes?”
I bit my lip.
“I wouldn’t be mad. But I would tell you that you’re searching for a problem that isn’t there.” Keeping my emotions to myself didn’t make me repressed.
I just preferred to handle my shit alone, like I always had.
I glanced again to discover her already watching me, Macabe eyes roving gently over my face as though, after twenty-five years of friendship, she was seeing me for the first time and was disappointed in what she found.
“All right, June.” She faced the ceiling.
I thought she was about to leave until— “I’m sorry.”
I swallowed, fingers locking around the pillow I clutched against my chest. “Why are you apologising?”
“Because I’ve behaved like a massive dick. I shouldn’t have jumped down your throat the other night—”
“You had every right to—”
“No, I didn’t. You and Callum are adults and free to do whatever the hell you like, it just surprised me, and I reacted badly. Just like I did when Alistair called things off.” She took a breath.
“You were so mad at him … and I didn’t know how to be there for you while still loving my brother. I felt like I had to choose. It’s a shitty excuse, I know – I should have been on your side.”
I thought back to the biggest argument we’d ever had.
How we’d screamed at each other in her kitchen when she refused to hear a word spoken against him.
We didn’t talk for months after that, the longest I’d ever gone without her in my life.
And even when we made up – we’d lost the ease I’d always taken for granted.
“He’s your brother.” I’d been hurt, but truthfully never blamed her.
Of course she’d pick her family over me.
“He is. But you’re my sister – a sister I chose for myself. He broke your heart and I should have been in your corner … god, I was so naive.” Her voice broke, eyes shining with unshed tears.
“I didn’t understand how it feels when the person who promised to love you above all else, actively chooses to leave. How it completely resets everything you thought you knew about yourself. Y’know, I thought, He’s just a man, she’ll get over it . But it’s not about the man in the end, is it? It’s about who the heartbreak turns you into. The shattered confidence, the whispers and the knowing glances in the village that make you question if everyone else saw it coming and you were just too damn blind to see it. And if they did know, then why the hell didn’t they warn you? The questions you replay over and over: What’s so wrong with me that I couldn’t make him stay? How long until everybody else sees it and leaves too? ” I reached for her but she held up a hand, batting away the tears that fell.
“All I mean is, I’m really bloody sorry Juniper, I wouldn’t have gotten through those first few months after Mike left without you. Now it’s my turn. Whatever you need while he’s here, it’s yours.”
She was choosing me .
That was what she was trying to say.
My own tears welled, so thick I was sure I wouldn’t be able to speak.
Scooching closer, I placed my head on her shoulder.
We lay in silence for a long moment.
“Shit … I think I’m coming down with something.” The back of my throat had felt scratchy ever since seeing Alistair.
Then there was all the bloody crying.
“So … are you like, dating Callum now?”
“No.” The word burst from me but didn’t feel quite right.
“Not exactly … we, well … it’s complicated.”
“Ugh.” She groaned.
“I need to find new friends who aren’t into my brothers. It’s gross.”
I laughed and she stroked my hair back in a way only a mother could.
Then I remembered, “Heather … I think a guy jerked off in these sheets.”
Heather shrieked in horror, and we leapt to our feet, brushing at our clothes as though we’d had front row seats to the semen party.
Then we were laughing.
So hard I had to swipe away a different set of tears.
Anger was a release.
But I’d forgotten that laughter could be one too.
“June! You okay?” Hours later, April’s door swung wide.
Her eyes were wide, every freckle standing out on her stark features.
“Can I come in?” I asked but she was already stepping aside, making room for me as I barrelled into the small but homey cottage she and Mal shared.
Mal gave me a small nod from his spot on the sofa.
He held a book in one hand, the other stroked lazy lines down Dudley’s back.
“I was just about to call you,” she said, following me into the kitchen and picking up a mug.
“Mal told me about Alistair, want to talk about it?”
“That isn’t actually why I came.” I shot one nervous look at Mal then thought, Fuck it, he’s a part this now.
“Callum went down on me.”
April spluttered, droplets of coffee staining her shirt.
“ He what? ”
“ Bloody hell .” Mal stood, swiping a hand over his jaw.
Dudley popped his head up, whining at the sudden lack of stroking taking place.
“I can’t know about this. I’m seeing Alistair in an hour.”
April scoffed indignantly.
“This has nothing to do with Alistair.”
“I’ll be with both of them and I’m terrible at keeping secrets. The last time I broke out in hives.”
“All right, enough of this.” I waved a hand as April settled on the sofa and tucked her feet beneath her.
“Was it good? With Callum, I mean,” she said.
“Do you even need to ask? You’ve seen the man.” He had a mouth made for sin.
“Leaving now,” Mal declared, tucking his book beneath his arm and pressing a kiss to April’s forehead.
“It was so good, April,” I moaned, covering my face with my hands the instant the front door closed behind Mal.
“Like, the hottest moment of my life, and now I’m fucked.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to do it again. And again and again.” I wanted him so badly that even Alistair’s return hadn’t curbed the hunger for long.
“ That good?” I flicked up a brow and she grinned.
“ Shit . It changes everything, doesn’t it? When someone just knows what you need and how to give it to you.”
“It can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it can’t go anywhere.” And the longer it went on, the more dangerous a game we were playing.
April folded her arms. “At the threat of sounding repetitive, but again, why ?”
“Alistair! They all have so much going on right now with Jim, I’m an extra problem they don’t need.”
“Alistair gets zero say in your love life. And I’ve seen the way Callum looks at you, you’re the furthest thing from a problem for him.”
“How does he look at me?” I cringed as soon as I said it.
Like some love-struck sixteen-year-old begging for her crush to finally notice her.
Pathetic.
She smiled softly.
“I asked Heather that exact question about Mal once.”
“What did she say?”
“She said he looks at me like I’m a revelation.” My heart squeezed at the gentle love in her eyes.
That’s exactly how he looked at her.
“And you think Callum looks at me that way?”
“Absolutely not.” She laughed.
“He looks at you like the world’s about to catch on fire and you’re the only person he’ll save. I don’t know how he’s hidden it so long …” She trailed off, catching my dazed expression.
Her words reverberated through me on a loop, as did the image of Callum on his knees, tongue working my clit, a frantic fervency in his eyes as he watched me come, like it was the most important task he’d ever been given.
“It’s okay to like him,” April said after a moment.
“I don’t like him,” I lied.
Not quite ready to admit my feelings aloud.
She rolled her eyes.
“What? What’s that look for?”
She shrugged.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
“Please don’t bring my cat into this.” I groaned.
“And the lady protests the perfect amount!”