Chapter 15
Summer Storm
Melissa
The sky was darkening by the time Melissa pulled into the driveway, though that might mostly be due to the clouds stacking up, splattering fat raindrops against the windshield.
She sat in the car for a moment, engine off, watching the droplets make their way down the glass.
Her whole body ached with exhaustion—three days of meetings, of carefully worded arguments, of watching her coalition fray at the edges while Thornfield’s lawyers tied everything in procedural knots.
Her phone lit up on the passenger seat. David. She watched it ring and go to voicemail, then picked it up and turned it face-down.
Later, she told herself. Think about it later.
Right now, all she wanted was to see her daughter. And June.
She grabbed her bag and made a dash for the front door as the rain began in earnest.
The house was warm and lit, and the moment she stepped inside, she heard Lila’s voice from the living room, high and excited, talking a mile a minute about something June was apparently required to respond to with appropriate enthusiasm.
“—and then the giant otter ate a whole fish in like two seconds, and that’s because they have really strong jaws, and did you know they live in families called romps? That’s such a funny word. Romp. Romp romp romp.”
“Very funny word,” June agreed. “Almost as funny as ‘murder’ for crows.”
“That one’s scary, not funny.”
“Fair point.”
Melissa set down her bag and stood still for a moment in the hallway, just listening.
Three days of conference rooms and careful language and the relentless performance of competence, and she’d walked through her own front door into candlelight and the sound of June’s voice explaining collective nouns to her daughter.
The contrast was almost physical—like stepping out of cold water into warmth, her whole body needing a moment to adjust.
She followed the voices.
The living room had been transformed into something unrecognizable.
Blankets were draped over the furniture, creating a makeshift tent.
Flashlights were lined up on the coffee table like soldiers.
Pillows were scattered everywhere, and in the middle of it all sat June and Lila, cross-legged, surrounded by books and snacks and what appeared to be every stuffed animal Lila owned.
“Mom!” Lila scrambled up and launched herself at Melissa, nearly knocking her over. “You’re home! Miss Hollis said you’d be home before the storm got really bad, and you are!”
Melissa held her daughter tight, breathing in the familiar smell of strawberry shampoo together with something sweeter—cookies, maybe, or the vanilla candles flickering on the mantel.
“I’m home,” she said. “What’s all this?”
“Storm camp.” Lila pulled back, her face bright with excitement. “Miss Hollis said storms can be scary, but they’re less scary if you’re prepared. So we made a fort and got flashlights and picked out books to read and made snacks that don’t need cooking in case the power goes out.”
“That’s very smart.” Melissa looked up and found June watching her from the blanket fort, something soft and relieved in her expression—and underneath that, something else. Heat. Melissa’s body answered immediately, like a frequency she’d been tuned to without realizing.
“Very smart indeed,” Melissa said, and hoped her voice came out steadier than she felt.
“Come inside!” Lila tugged at her hand. “You have to come inside the fort. It’s the rules.”
“I should probably change first—”
“Later. Fort first.”
Melissa let herself be dragged into the pile of blankets and pillows, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten.
June shifted to make room, their shoulders brushing as Melissa settled onto the floor, and even that—just the brief press of June’s shoulder against hers—made Melissa aware of exactly how long three days had been.
“Welcome back,” June said quietly.
“Thank you.” Melissa held her gaze for just a moment—long enough to see everything there, the questions and the warmth and the same want she felt herself—before Lila demanded her attention again.
“We have crackers and cheese and grapes and these little sandwiches Miss Hollis made with the crusts cut off, and there’s apple juice in a cooler because she said we might need drinks, and—”
Thunder rumbled outside, low and ominous, and Lila’s chatter cut off abruptly. Her eyes went wide.
“That was close,” she whispered.
“It’s just thunder,” Melissa said, pulling her daughter into her lap. “It can’t hurt us.”
“I know. But it sounds angry.”
Lightning flashed through the windows, bright enough to make them all flinch, and a moment later the thunder cracked overhead—not a rumble this time but a sharp, violent explosion of sound. Lila pressed her face into Melissa’s shoulder.
“I’ve got you,” Melissa murmured. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
June moved closer, her hand coming to rest on Lila’s back, which meant she was close enough that Melissa could feel the warmth of her even through the blankets. Close enough that if Melissa turned her head, she’d be able to—
But not with Lila there.
“You know what I like to do during storms?” June said. “I count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder. The longer the count, the farther away the storm is.”
Lila’s voice was muffled. “How do you count?”
“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. Like that. Want to try?”
They waited for the next flash of lightning. When it came, June started counting aloud, and after a moment Lila joined in, her voice small but steady.
“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four—”
Thunder rolled, and Lila looked up with something like triumph.
“Four! That means it’s far away, right?”
“Getting farther,” June said. “We’ll keep counting to make sure.”
The storm raged outside, but inside the blanket fort, with Lila warm in her lap and June’s shoulder solid against hers, Melissa felt something she hadn’t felt in three days.
Safe.
They ate their picnic dinner by candlelight, the power having flickered out around six and not coming back.
Lila was calmer now, distracted by the novelty of eating in the dark, her fear giving way to the excitement children felt when normal rules were suspended.
Melissa had changed out of her work clothes to yoga pants and a soft shirt.
June had lit more candles—tea lights arranged along the windowsill, two pillar candles on the coffee table—and the room glowed amber and close, and Melissa kept catching herself looking at June’s face in the candlelight and having to look away.
June caught her once. Held her gaze for just a beat too long before turning back to Lila.
Melissa’s pulse had no business doing what it was doing.
“Can we sleep in the fort?” Lila asked eventually, already drowsy from the warmth and the food and the late hour.
“If you want to,” Melissa said.
“I want to. All three of us. Together.”
June caught Melissa’s eye over Lila’s head, a question in her expression. Melissa nodded.
“All three of us,” June agreed. “Together.”
They rearranged the blankets, creating a nest of pillows and quilts on the living room floor.
Lila settled in the middle, her otter stuffed animal clutched to her chest, and June and Melissa took their places on either side.
June was close—necessarily close, the blanket nest didn’t allow for much distance—and Melissa was acutely, almost painfully aware of every inch between them.
“Will you tell me a story?” Lila asked, her voice already thick with sleep. “Not from a book. A made-up one.”
“I’m not very good at made-up stories,” Melissa admitted.
“Miss Hollis is. She told me one last week about a girl who could talk to birds.”
“That sounds like a good story.”
“It was. The birds helped her find her way home when she got lost.” Lila yawned hugely. “Can you tell one together? Take turns?”
Melissa looked at June across Lila’s small sleeping form, and June looked back, and there was something almost unbearably tender about it—the two of them bookending this child, this nest of candlelight and blankets, the storm still murmuring outside.
“Once upon a time,” June began, “there was a little otter who lived in a river at the edge of a great forest.”
“The otter’s name was…” Melissa hesitated. “What was the otter’s name, Lila?”
“Luna,” Lila murmured. “Like the moon.”
“Luna,” Melissa continued, surprising herself. “Luna the otter was the smallest in her family, but she was also the bravest. She wasn’t afraid of the rapids or the deep pools or the hawks that circled overhead.”
“But there was one thing Luna was afraid of,” June added. “Storms. When the thunder came, Luna would hide in her den and wait for the sky to stop being angry.”
They passed the story back and forth, each adding pieces—June supplying the adventure, Melissa filling in the details.
Luna met a wise old beaver who taught her that storms brought rain, and rain made the river rise, and the rising river brought new fish and new friends.
By the time the storm passed, Luna wasn’t afraid anymore.
She’d learned that scary things sometimes brought good things too.
When they reached the end of the story, Lila was asleep, her breathing slow and even, her small body warm between them.
The candles had burned lower. The storm had quieted to a soft, steady rain.
“You’re better at made-up stories than you think,” June said softly, lying on her side facing Melissa.
“I had help.” Melissa reached across Lila’s sleeping form and found June’s hand in the darkness.
June’s fingers closed around hers immediately, warm and certain, and Melissa felt the wanting move through her like a current—all the more acute for the fact that Lila was right there, that this was all they could have right now, just hands.
“Thank you for this,” Melissa said quietly.
“I was dreading coming home tonight. I was so tired, and the bill is falling apart, and I kept thinking about everything I’d have to deal with.
But then I walked in, and there was this fort, and Lila was happy, and you were here, and—” Her voice caught.
“I don’t know how you do it. How you make everything better just by being present. ”
“It’s not magic. It’s just caring.” June shifted, careful not to disturb Lila, which brought her fractionally closer. In the candlelight her eyes were very dark. “The same things you do. You’re just too exhausted to see it.”
“I don’t feel like I’m doing anything right. Not with the bill, not with Lila, not with—” Melissa stopped.
“Not with what?” June asked.
“Not with you.” The words came out quiet, honest. “I keep thinking about what you said. About not wanting to be a secret, or an experiment. And I’m terrified that’s exactly what I’m making you. That I’m being a coward, and you’re going to realize it, and you’re going to leave.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“How can you be sure?”
June was quiet for a moment. In the low light her face was half in shadow, and Melissa wanted so badly to close the distance between them that it was a physical effort not to.
“I’m not,” June admitted. “I don’t think anyone can be sure about anything, really. But I know what I feel. And I know that when I’m with you—both of you—I feel more like myself than I have in a long time. Like I’m not pretending anymore.”
“I feel that too.” The words came out rough, unpolished. “When I’m here, in this house, with you and Lila… I feel like I can breathe. Like I don’t have to be Senator Brandt every second.”
“Who is that? The real you, without the title?”
Melissa considered the question. “I don’t know. I’ve been defining myself by my work for so long, I’m not sure what’s left underneath. Someone tired. Someone lonely. Someone who’s made a lot of mistakes and is probably going to make a lot more.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No.” June’s voice was soft. “It sounds like someone I’d want to know.”
They lay there in the darkness, Lila sleeping peacefully between them, the rain steady and soft outside now.
Melissa could feel June’s hand in hers, warm and steady, and the space between them felt charged with everything they weren’t doing—all the wanting held carefully in check by the small sleeping body between them.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Melissa admitted. “With any of this. With the bill, with my career, with you. I’ve always had a plan. I’ve always known the next five steps. And now—”
“Now?”
“Now I just want Lila to be happy, and I want you. Those are the only things I’m certain about.
” She pressed a kiss to June’s knuckles, felt June’s breath catch across the small distance between them.
“I’m not confused about you. Whatever else is a mess, whatever else I’m failing at—wanting you isn’t a question. ”
“Melissa.” June’s voice was careful, the tone of someone exercising a great deal of restraint. Her thumb traced a slow circle against Melissa’s palm.
“I know.” Melissa felt the heat of it, the promise, the anticipation of a door that would open later. “I know.”
Neither of them moved. Neither of them could. But June’s thumb kept moving, that slow deliberate circle, and Melissa lay in the amber dark and felt the wanting hum through her like a held note, patient and insistent and entirely focused on the woman on the other side of her sleeping daughter.
“We should sleep,” June said finally, and her voice was not entirely steady.
“Yes,” Melissa agreed, and made no move toward sleep at all.
The candles burned lower. Outside, the rain had gentled to almost nothing, just the soft drip from the eaves. Lila’s breathing was deep and even between them.
This is what peace feels like, Melissa thought. But it was peace with an edge to it, a warmth that had nothing to do with the blankets, a patience that was not quite patience—more like anticipation with its hands folded in its lap, waiting for the night to shift.
She closed her eyes. June’s fingers were still laced through hers.
She didn’t sleep for quite some time.