34. I Have Feelings
I HAVE FEELINGS
COLE
Six Months Later
It’s still dark when I come downstairs.
February in the Lowcountry is not winter the way it is in New England—there’s no snow on the porch, no breath visible in the kitchen—but at five forty-five, the ocean has a low silver fog over it that hasn’t been lifted by the sun yet.
It’s the calm after the storm of us, and I remind myself to be grateful for everything we have now.
After making two cups of coffee, I walk down the hall to the office.
Our office.
Not our forever one, but the one for now.
The first thing we did when she agreed to move in with me, exactly two weeks to the day after I sat on Papa’s dock and asked her to try, was tear down a wall and build this office.
The kitchen door flies open, and Junie starts tossing suitcases in.
“Ah, what’s up?” I ask.
“Don’t be smug.”
I stand from the table and watch as she marches over to the garage and lifts one of the boxes Fenway sent from the Brookline house.
“Are you moving in with me?”
“Ugh, like the Boston boys haven’t already placed bets. Listen.” She drops a box at my feet, then reaches into her back pocket, where she pulls out a wad of papers.
Closer inspection reveals color-coded spreadsheets.
“There’s a matrix. It calculated our success rate, and I decided it was worth the risk.”
I had flipped through the pages. All sixteen of them. To this day, I can’t figure out how the math mathed, I’m just thankful it did. That was the longest two weeks of my life.
Since then, she’s Junified this entire home. Our temporary one. The place we sleep until our forever home is finished at Papa’s fishing hole.
The entire first month she lived here, she tested everything.
She spent an entire week in Charleston long before it was necessary for her new business because she was worried the distance would be what caused us to fracture.
I showed up for dinner two of the six nights.
We built our office, and she spent an entire month falling in and out of her Spite-Berry ways to test if we could truly be around each other all the time and not want to kill each other.
I’ve had more sex on my desk than I ever thought possible.
Fen has since demoted Spite-Berry to Petty-Betty, but the reality is, for the most part, she keeps her petty private these days.
Except for with me.
I hear about every time she runs into Lola at the grocery store. Every time Marley questions a new scorecard. Every time Nana Mae describes the shit Paula Van Holten has pulled over the years. Every time Hudson spams her inbox with messages that all end with: Needed by EOD.
I’m pretty sure when Junie hears “end of day” now, her fingernails turn into weapons.
Placing Junie’s coffee on her desk, I smile at the three open folders she has on it for her new clients—two of whom she gained after her farewell social media video went viral.
But the spot I linger on is a small corkboard that has a printout of a women’s small business advocacy article from December where Junie is quoted by name.
She’s the force of nature that these businesses have been waiting for. I always knew she’d do great things, I’m just happy that now she can see it too.
On my desk is a half-finished elevation drawing for a public library renovation.
This one is special because the original design was one of the first my mother was ever commissioned for.
Next to it is the AIA award letter I received in November but haven’t figured out what to do with and a small wooden model of a bench I built last weekend for the library to commemorate my mother’s original design.
Just as I sit at my drafting table that’s now in our shared office too, I hear her grumpily trudging down the stairs.
Junie’s not a morning person, but she joins me every day for this—the quiet moments before The Haven wakes and takes over.
“Morning,” she mutters, making a beeline for her desk. Or more accurately, the coffee sitting on top.
“Morning, sunshine.”
She closes her eyes briefly when the first taste of caffeine hits her lips. It’s the same thing every morning—and I never miss a single one. There’s something about the way her face relaxes with that small joy that makes whatever happens next worth it.
And what happens next, like clockwork, is business Juniper. “I’m having tea with Bea today at three.”
I hide my smile, knowing she won’t appreciate it. “I know.”
She clicks her mouse aggressively approximately four hundred times before her screen wakes up, and she hasn’t even sat down yet.
“And Charleston tomorrow.” This is where she thrives.
“The chocolatier wants her ledgers gone over twice, and she’s decided that the man who’s been embezzling from her since 2019 will confess if I push him hard enough. ”
“Do you think he will?”
“Probably.” She shrugs. “I have a face. People crack.”
I cross the room, unable to stand the space between us for a moment longer, and wrap my arms around her waist, mindful of her coffee that she has no intention of putting down.
“You do have a face.” I grin down at her.
I smile harder when I feel her twist the diamond on her finger against my side. It’s been there for two hundred and thirty-four days now, and while they say a diamond is forever, it’s not enough for my Junie.
The ring I haven’t shown anyone is the one that will make Junie and me an Us forever.
Now I’m planning the perfect moment that will be in no way perfect, but it will be perfectly us.
“Are you going to just stare at me all day or kiss me? Because some of us have work to do, Whittaker.”
I kiss her.
I’ll always kiss her.
“Stop trying to butter me up,” she says, pulling back an inch, breathless. I love her like this. “I have a chocolatier’s books to crack, and you have a window to be smug about.”
The window in question is for our new home. And I was correct that it needed to be bigger. Junie’s just a sore loser.
“I’m not smug, sweetheart.”
“Cole.” Her eyes narrow. “You are. Go…work or something. I have spreadsheets that won’t code themselves, and the boys will all descend on our morning soon enough.”
“I love you.” Every time I utter those words, it feels like the first time.
Her face softens, the sentiment still catching her off guard sometimes. “I love you too.”
My smile dances across my face. I’ve never felt happiness this viscerally before, but today I have my entire family staying within a two-block radius, and this time, everyone is slotted into the positions they were meant for.
By two thirty, we’ve already been interrupted numerous times.
The first was when Hudson barreled into the room requesting a phone charger like his life depended on it.
Next Fen spammed our group chat with an update on Grace, whom he just learned was dumped by Junie’s ex because she had faked the entire pregnancy and now has the TikTok mafia after her for the baby registry she benefited from.
Karma is real. Not only did Junie’s farewell to social media gain her a ton of new business thanks to Fen’s maneuvering, but it did its job in silencing both Grace’s and Natalie’s narratives.
It was almost as good as the news that Nolan gave us after he moved back to Boston a few months ago. He called to tell us that Natalie was applying for an executive assistant position at their company without realizing they owned it.
Hudson did some digging and found out that she had lost her architecture license and was appealing it, but it didn’t look good. He also confirmed that Marcus was in a new facility and was thriving, thanks in part to Junie’s ministrations.
We lost interest in Natalie after that because Junie decided it was time for her to move forward and let go of the past.
I still wanted to go after Natalie for the blackmail, but Junie has suffered enough, and I’m not willing to put her through a trial that would expose her even more. It doesn’t mean I like it though.
Now Junie has her headphones in to “block out the boy noise” that happens when all the guys are here visiting, and I have a pencil between my teeth as I stare at the library blueprints.
My mother was twenty-three when she designed this library for her hometown.
I’m twenty-nine. I’ll be thirty when the renovation is complete. There’s a math in that I can’t say out loud without sounding like a man who has finally forgiven himself for being alive.
Junie pulls out one earbud. “Don’t overthink it. She’d be proud of you, Cole.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. You think I don’t see you, but news flash, Whittaker, I made an art of seeing you without being caught before you could even drive. I see you. Be proud of what you’ve done and who you are. I am.”
Perfectly Viper.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say with a mock salute.
“And make sure you’re ready for dinner at Nana Mae’s tonight. She wants everyone to be on time.”
“On it.”
“I’m heading over to Bea’s.”
“I’ll be here when you get back.” I’ve learned not to make these departures emotional. She’ll have all she can handle during tea with Bea. Instead, I keep my head down and pretend that I don’t hurt when she does.
At four thirty, Junie’s back with red eyes. It’s a routine we’ve mastered. She walks in, drops her phone, sits at her desk, and I wait for her to make a move. Sometimes she wants to talk, and other times, she doesn’t.
This is her journey, and I’m learning to support her the best I can.
“I told her about kindergarten today,” she says quietly.
My pencil slips from my fingers. We’ve discussed this multiple times, and each time, I’ve gently nudged her to talk to Bea about it. She hasn’t been ready.
Today, I guess she was.
I’m hesitant to speak, but finally ask, “All of it?”
“All of it.”
Holy shit. That’s a big step for her. Really big.
I’ve had my own sessions with Bea, but I went in and laid everything on the table, so my sessions are different than Junie’s. Mine are like digging through a junkyard, while hers are more like…excavating a cemetery.