2. June
JUNE
Mer: Richard is out today, if you want to come over. I think Mom is getting sick of us both. She’d appreciate seeing a different face.
My grip on the frying basket tightens to the point of self-punishment as I check my phone, narrowly avoiding the urge to throw it in with the calamari.
It’s another of Davon’s new menu experiments. Following the success of his lobster mac and cheese, we’ve been rigorously stress-testing new deep-fried sides ahead of the summer season—much to the delight of the locals, who religiously come every day at lunchtime.
The man himself is at my side, marking the progress of the slowly goldening crust with a stopwatch. He throws me a curious glance. “You good?”
No, never. Not even for a second.
“Yeah, I just think we got it last time.” I let the unwarranted frustration seep into my words, eager to get it out of my chest before I lose my phone in the oily depths.
Davon, bless his heart, takes it in his stride with a snort. “We have health codes to adhere to these days.”
“You calling me old?”
“I’m calling you undisciplined,” he fires back easily.
I roll my eyes. “We pay for him to do one training course, and this is how he thanks us.”
My phone buzzes again, and it’s pure instinct that I look back down at it.
Mark: Rumor has it the feds are circling new evidence. I’m having dinner with his legal team about another case tonight, and I’ll see what I can dig up. You should call me after. It’s been a while. Don’t make me tell you that I’ve missed you.
“Davon? Take my phone off me. Now, please.”
The offending item is snatched from my hand with a wayward salute. The urge to give the man a bonus is almost strong enough for me to talk to Meredith about making it happen.
Almost.
“The screentime is rotting your brain anyway.” He provides an explanation when I don’t.
“That’s actually inconclusive,” Mia calls over her shoulder from where she’s assembling rolls. “There are studies that suggest screens can aid in educational development, too.”
Davon’s good-natured smile widens impossibly further. “You’re absolutely right, my mistake. God, you’re so smart.”
The crude hand gesture over her shoulder speaks for itself.
“I was complimenting you!”
She huffs. “Stop being so pathetic.”
Davon lets out a dramatic, lovelorn sigh. “I am what you make me.”
“June!” Mia whines. “This is workplace harassment.”
Before I can respond, a hand appears out of nowhere to whack Davon around the back of the head.
“Ow!” His body flinches on impact. “Trent!”
“As the self-appointed head of HR, it’s my duty to ensure my employees are treated with equal disrespect.”
It’s instinct alone that has me reaching out to snatch my brother by the hood of his sweater to pull him out of Davon’s reach.
“Let me at him, June. I swear I’ll only mess him up a little.”
But my attention is on the grin Trent is wearing in front of me.
I swear the boy has shot up a few more inches.
I now need to crane my neck to look up at him.
His seventeenth birthday did little to deter his ever-deepening physical similarities to Aiden Holloway, and his dark, unruly hair is now long enough to brush his shoulders.
If it weren’t for his metabolism-lean frame, I’d be suspicious that we had a clone in our midst.
However, the smile on his face is something nurtured. Something so akin to Sophie’s dazzling beam that I find the corners of my own mouth twitching in response.
“Well?” I ask expectantly.
In response, he pulls the coveted piece of plastic from his sweater pocket and proudly presents it to all of us. There, in formal block lettering: Massachusetts Driving License.
Davon lets out a whoop behind me.
“You did it!”
“I did it!”
The hug we pull ourselves into is mutually assured and lengthened as Davon enthusiastically joins in. Trent laughs with heart-clenching joy as he squeezes us back.
“I’m so proud of you, my little chauffeur!”
Davon’s words earn him a half-hearted push, effectively collapsing our little pile-on.
“I’m not driving you anywhere,” Trent retaliates. “I don’t even have a car.”
I have to bite my lip to hide my grin. The secondhand Defender parked around the back of my house isn’t my secret to tell. Sophie just needed to keep it somewhere out of prying teenage eyes.
“Congratulations,” I say instead, pushing onto my tiptoes to ruffle the boy’s hair. “You sticking around for a shift? I’ll go open up.”
His response is lost amid Davon’s roughhousing and Mia’s good-natured complaints that something is burning—promptly followed by a panicked retrieval of the now-blackened calamari. The three of them soften something that has itched under my skin since reading those messages.
I push through the doors and out of the kitchen before my quickly deteriorating mood can taint their fun.
At least Mark is easier to ignore. Despite every one of his messages dangling the proverbial carrot in hopes of a reaction, I don’t need to see him again. Besides, I can get updates about the case elsewhere—even if it’s a few days later than if I’d accepted his offer.
Not that it isn’t tempting.
The odd routine we had last winter of helping each other through fits of insomnia was, unfortunately, comforting. Even if his deceit now overshadows that whole period of my life, there are still mortifying moments when I lie awake at night, more than a little tempted to see if he’s still up.
Meredith, on the other hand…
“Eddie!” I jolt in surprise as I notice the man waiting outside as I switch the sign around.
The handsome bar owner shoots me an easy smile. “Hey, June. Do you mind if I take a few rolls for the road?”
I open the door wide for him to step through. “How long have you been waiting out here? You should’ve messaged me.”
“I did.”
Ah. My phone’s absence burns a hole in my pocket more acutely than it did when it was actually there. “Yeah, sorry. Battery died,” I lied as I thought about my sister’s text.
She’d appreciate seeing a different face.
It’s a sly tactic on Meredith’s part. A game we’re both not admitting to playing. But I know she knows I’m avoiding her, just as I’m aware she’s been avoiding Eddie since our return flight from New York. Neither of us is ready to confront that particular elephant, or so I’d thought.
Using Mom to bait me into a conversation is definitely underhanded.
But I’m self-aware enough to admit that maybe the anger also stems from her first trying to bridge the gap. That I couldn’t gather my courage quickly enough.
Maybe it’s because I know that a confrontation would mean admitting to myself that her betrayal was multifaceted. That just maybe, discovering what I’m truly angry about is mortifyingly unthinkable.
Maybe that in itself would be another kind of betrayal.
But I push that thought deep, deep down. The only person who was truly wronged by my sister’s actions is the man now standing before me.
“You want any stuffies with your rolls?” I try to make the question conversational rather than guilt-laden.
“Nah, better not lead Dad into temptation,” he shoots back as he makes himself comfortable on one of the benches. “I just need a little pick-me-up.”
I try not to notice his exhaustion as I scribble down his usual order and hand it to Mia through the hatch.
It’s hard, though, when there’s nothing left to occupy my hands, and he’s just sitting there waiting. Seeing him look out the window so forlornly, it’s difficult not to compare him to an oversized puppy.
It’s the guilt that eventually has me walking over to join him. “I have this great tea Sarah gave me.”
He blinks at me in confusion. “Day?”
“Magnolia,” I correct with a half-smile. “For sleeping, I mean. If you’re struggling.”
His lips quirk up a little. “She doesn’t seem the type for herbal remedies.”
“She’s British.” I wave him off.
There’s another pang of guilt when I realize I haven’t seen Sarah in a while.
Not since Trent’s birthday party, anyway.
My oldest friend had been eager to update me on the progress she’d been making on her newest husband’s house and quietly begged me to reopen the gallery at my earliest convenience.
Not that Aiden June’s would ever be convenient any time soon. Daddy issues and marital issues embodied in one space? Give me a break.
It also happened to be the night of Eddie and Meredith’s “I need more time” conversation.
My heart breaks all over again for the man before me. The one who took a risk on my wayward sister, sacrificing another relationship and fifteen years of emotional distance to give things another go.
Only for her to throw it all back in his face.
Eddie looks at me now as if he’s trying to read these thoughts for himself. “You don’t need to baby me. I’m fine.”
He’s not.
But neither am I.
“If I wanted to baby you, I’d have called Sophie in,” I retort as lightly as I can. “You know she had someone come over to install another set of cameras on the Defender?”
Grateful for the change in conversation, I do my best to muster enough interest in cars so Eddie can talk my ear off while we wait for his food. The brown paper bag passes from me to him with a brief squeeze as our hands meet in the middle.
She doesn’t deserve you.
That awful voice in the back of my head rattles at its cage, and I’m momentarily overcome with the urge to blurt it all out. To tell Eddie the truth. To put him out of his prolonged misery.
“June?”
I swallow it down as I withdraw my hand. “Give Roland my love, yeah?”
Whatever he discerns from my hesitation, he places a hand on my shoulder and offers another squeeze. “You’re doing so well, June-bug.”
And just like that, I’m fighting the tears that prickle in my eyes.
Because I’m not.
It’s so hard to go home to an empty house.
So hard to sleep. So hard to wake up every morning and force myself to go to work, if only to keep every waking hour as occupied as possible.
So hard not to slip into the back office and take a moment for myself.
To drown out all the fears and the unknowns.
Eddie.
Mark.
Meredith.
Mom.
Him.
I force an iron door down on that corner of my mind through blistering force of will—a muscle well exercised.
“Thanks.” I even manage a smile. “I’m trying.”
Eddie nods before saying goodbye. There’s a scuffle as I shove his dollar bills back into his hand, promising that my drinks are free the next time I visit him. Then, a good-natured departing insult from both of us.
It’s a well-worn performance; remembering the lines is second nature at this point.
Next, Eddie will offer a salute as he leaves through the door, then blow me a kiss through the window as he crosses the road to Birdie’s.
I’ll watch as he shoulders open the door and disappears inside, and pretend I don’t see how his expression falls the second he thinks no one else is looking.
But the pantomime goes off script the second he opens the door to leave.
He freezes as he stares out at whoever is waiting outside.
I think it must be Meredith, and my stomach drops to the floor. But then his expression doesn’t shift, doesn’t offer a greeting. Only barges past without comment, not bothering to blow me a kiss on his way.
And I realize it’s far, far worse than that.
“So, this is the Shack, huh?”
It takes me a second, just a second. Because the federal lawyer, for once, is not wearing a perfectly tailored three-piece suit. The linen trousers and shirt, unbuttoned at the top, look disturbingly out of place. Like seeing a teacher outside of school. Or a pig walking on its hind legs.
What the costume change means, what it could suggest…
“What are you doing here, Mark?”
The bane of my existence steps over the threshold of the Holloway Lobster Shack with unbridled curiosity, taking in the work of three generations—more recently, three sisters and a mouthy teenage boy.
Yes, it’s modestly sized and, despite our best renovation efforts, will always be a little crooked.
It will always smell a little like briny seawater, and there’s no way to open a window without risking an opportunist seagull using the place as its hunting ground.
But I will always be proud of it. Of what we’ve accomplished.
Seeing it now, scrutinized by Mark’s uncaring eye, feels raw in a way that stokes the fires of defensiveness.
“Thought I’d surprise you.” He finally turns to address me, the smug expression on his face so very, very punchable.
“You said you were in New York. You said you were having dinner tonight.”
“So you have been reading my texts.” His eyes light up something foul. “I was starting to think you were ignoring me.”
He comes to stand before the counter I’m now gripping with both hands. The dull pain in my nails is the only thing keeping me from collapsing—or lunging over the register to wrap my hands around his neck.
“What do you want?”
He purposefully looks at the menu above my head. “How’s the lobster mac-n-cheese?”
“Get. Out.”
The smug expression on his face stutters for one satisfactory moment. “What’s with the hostility, June? I thought we were friends.”
So did I.
But rather than say anything, I ring him up. “That’ll be sixteen ninety-nine.”
There’s an unspoken comment about friends and family rates. The implication, seemingly too on the nose for Mark to voice, causes a frown on his face that speaks more to his general confusion than to any slight to his wallet.
A twenty-dollar bill is slapped on the counter. “You can keep the change.”
“I don’t need your charity.”
“Why stop now?” His words are intended to provoke, to force an explanation out of me.
But I swallow it. “I’ll bring your food out when it’s ready.”
“June!”
I’ve already begun to make my escape. Turning back around is instinctive and stupid.
He searches my face before my body comes to a complete stop. “I’m here for the summer. When you lose the attitude, come find me, okay?” Then, in a softer tone, he adds, “I’ve missed you.”
The office door slams behind me half a moment later.
A room with all the trappings of an ambitious closet.
Meredith’s domain, though she hasn’t been here in months.
I notice the bottle hiding behind the tax records from the early two thousands and sink into the chair, letting the bitter taste on my tongue blur away my thoughts.