5. June
JUNE
The Shack, after closing, is usually a lovely little haven before the looming prospect of returning to an empty home. Today is no different. The comfort of Trent chatting mindlessly next to me, his shucker aggressively deshelling tomorrow’s clams, is a balm for the sharper edges of my thoughts.
He’s got this infuriating knack for picking up any task effortlessly—typical Holloway trait. Skip the manual, trust the instincts, hope for the best.
It’s been three days since Mark appeared. In their good humor, Davon—or maybe Trent—printed his face on an old-timey “Dead or Alive” poster and stuck it to the back of the counter. A somewhat unnecessary reminder that the man isn’t welcome here, but appreciated, nonetheless.
Unfortunately, if Mark was telling the truth and intends to stick around all summer, I’m not sure it will be enough to keep him away.
Trent’s phone is connected to the old Bluetooth speaker, filling the kitchen with crackly female vocals and pop-centric chord progressions. For a football player, his musical tastes were pretty refreshing—another win for Sophie’s parenting techniques.
She’s around the back somewhere, picking up Meredith’s slack. Not that I can be mad about that, really. It wasn’t like I was quick to volunteer to live with Richard and be Mom’s carer.
“All I need to do is figure out how to uninstall all the cameras.”
I snort as I ground myself back into the conversation around me. “Yeah, good luck with that. She probably has them shoved in places you wouldn’t know to look.”
“It’s like she doesn’t trust me or something,” Trent says with a groan.
“I think maybe smashing up Marlene Abrams’ car might have something to do with it.”
That earns me a shell to the face. “I didn’t smash it up. I just grazed it a little.”
“Tell that to my bank account.”
The teenager scowls right back. “I never asked you to do that, you can’t lord it over me!”
“But that takes all the fun out of it!”
But he’s barking with laughter, filling the whole kitchen, bouncing off the stainless steel and the recently mopped floors. He sounds so much like Sophie when he laughs like that. I feel it in my chest, tugging gently at something I keep taped shut.
We fall into silence again, and I find myself watching his hands as he works. Careful, in a way Dad never was. It’s not really fair how often I compare them. And I’m not sure it’s fair that Trent usually wins.
He should be free to make his own mistakes and walk his own path. But the more time I spend with him, the more I hope that path leads him away from the choices our father made. The more he smiles at me and laughs with me, the more I trust him not to.
“So…you seeing anyone?” I ask suddenly, mostly to distract myself from the pit in my stomach that grows every minute closer to closing up. “A girlfriend? Boyfriend? Anyone I should threaten to have buried at sea?”
Trent’s knife stills for a fraction of a second.
“Well?” I prompt as I get a handle on my twitching lips.
“Nothing serious,” he says lightly. “School’s been…busy.”
“Yeah, but it’s almost summer.”
“I meant football,” he corrects. “With the Island Cup and everything, I really want to make the team.”
If I were a worse person, I might’ve pressed. But the poor kid is flushing to his ears. “Yeah. Is Danny still coming here before practice tomorrow?”
Danny’s a good kid. He’s dropped by the Shack enough times now that I know his order and expect Trent’s break to last at least an hour—a boy after my own heart.
So, Trent’s grimace is, therefore, unusual. “He still hasn’t cleared it with his dad.”
He sounds so put out about it that I find myself playing along. “But he was fine with it last week, wasn’t he?”
“Right?” He relinquishes his knife as he turns to look at me properly. “It’s so annoying. Even when he okays it, and we hang out, his dad is blowing up his phone, like, ‘Who’s with you?’ ‘How long are you gonna be?’ ‘What’s your ETA?’”
“Classic helicopter.”
“It’s suffocating.”
I let out a forlorn sigh. “Sucks that not everyone gets to be raised by their super chill and awesome sister, then huh?”
“Sisters,” he corrects.
I give his shoulder a shove. “Suck-up.”
“No, I know.” He wipes his hands on a towel as he recovers his footing. “Noah’s a good guy. He is. Like, he obviously cares. Not every kid gets a dad who cares. He’s just…a bit much.”
I shove whatever begins to unravel in my chest deep, deep down. “Yeah, well. It’s a good job he’s not your dad then.”
His smirk doesn’t last long. “Yeah. I don’t think I’d last two minutes. It just sucks because Danny is so much more relaxed when he’s hanging out with Sophie and me. I think he wishes he could stay with us all the time.”
“Does Danny ever say anything to you about his dad?” I ask gently.
He hesitates. “Only that he loves him. And that he hates disappointing him. Which I guess is normal?”
“Normal adjacent.”
He smirks for half a second before it fades. “I just don’t get why Noah’s so intense about everything. It’s not like Danny’s done half the crap I’ve done.”
That hits harder than he means it to.
I set down my knife. “Hey. I’ll have you know, you’re turning out just fine.”
He rolls his eyes, but before I can formulate something vaguely uplifting, the back office door creaks open.
Sophie slips out, blinking into the bright prep lights. Blond hair in a messy knot, wearing a hoodie half-zipped over leggings, but still as beautiful as ever. “Hey,” she says, voice soft. “You guys nearly done?”
“Almost,” I answer, wiping my hands. “Did you get everything you need sorted?”
“Almost.” She glances at Trent, who’s picked up his knife again. “I actually need to talk to June. You good to finish up?”
“Sure.”
Sophie gives him a small smile before turning to me, jerking her chin toward the doorway. “Two minutes?”
I get a weird sense that I might be in trouble. But I nod anyway and follow her out of the kitchen.
The room is cramped enough that when I step in and close the door behind me, we’re basically pressed shoulder to shoulder between boxes labeled 1999-2004 and a leaning tower of junk mail.
“God,” Sophie mutters, picking her way through the clutter to the one available office chair. “I have no idea how Meredith gets anything done in here.”
“She sits on the floor,” I remark casually. A split second later, I remember finding her here one night last summer, curled up asleep and surrounded by tax records. The tainted fondness clogs my throat for a moment.
Sophie snorts as she swipes a cloud of dust off an old monitor. “I’ve been trying to find the investors’ pack for, like, half an hour. I thought maybe if I poked the computer, it would magically load itself, but it keeps threatening to update whenever I move the mouse.”
“That’s because this computer predates Roland,” I say as I take a position leaning against the shelves. “Why does Meredith need the investor’s pack?”
She fiddles with the edge of a Post-it note, Dad’s old passwords barely discernible anymore. Peeling it back and sticking it again. Then again. “It’s, uh…”
“Soph?”
She hesitates, choosing her words. “She’s worried about Ashton.”
It’s like something punches me directly under the ribs. Hard. I grip the shelves behind me to stay upright.
Nope. No.
Meredith. I’d rather go back to talking about Meredith. At least Meredith only makes me feel guilty, betrayed, and confused.
And yet.
“Why would she care about him?” My voice cracks. And my heart cracks with it. But I need to know, desperately so.
Her expression softens immediately. “There’s a bit of a question mark about his investment in the Shack. If his case goes badly, Meredith is just trying to make sure this place isn’t wrapped up in the fallout.”
“No.” I shake my head too fast, my vision blurring with the motion. “No, that’s not—no, it wouldn’t—he wouldn’t?—”
“No one here is accusing him of anything. But if the government decides it was fraudulent money?—”
“It wasn’t fraudulent.” The words come out sharp, strangled.
She stands, stepping closer. “June. We’re just covering our bases. That’s all this is.”
I can’t breathe. The walls feel like they’re shrinking, pressing in with thirty years of tax records and dust and my own humiliating naivety.
“Sit.” She reaches for my hands, guiding me into the seat she just vacated.
I fold forward, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. My chest is tight, buzzing, as if someone filled my lungs with static. I can hear myself breathing too fast. Too shallow.
She crouches in front of me. “June. Look at me.”
I can’t.
“Hey.” Her hand squeezes mine. “Breathe with me. In for four.”
“I can’t?—”
“Yes, you can. Come on. In…one, two, three, four. Hold. Out…one, two, three, four.”
I try. I really try. And eventually, the static starts to thin, and my vision steadies. My hands stop shaking. When I finally lift my head, Sophie’s watching me with that soft, steady expression that I know nurtured Trent to near-adulthood.
“You’re okay,” she murmurs. “And we’re okay. Nothing will happen to the Shack. Meredith is on it.”
I swallow, my throat burning. “I’m so pathetic.”
“No.” Her voice is still soft, but the conviction is strong. “You’re actually the person I admire the most in the whole world.”
“Suck-up,” I whisper for the second time today.
It takes another minute before I can sit back in the chair, entirely drained and weighing up how comfortable the floor might be after all. Sleeping here might be safer than driving home.
“That’s actually not what I wanted to talk to you about,” Sophie says after a moment.
I let my eyes close. “More good news?”
I only open them again when I hear the telltale sound of a bottle being placed on the desk next to me.
My heart stops.
“I found this shoved behind the 2002 box. Figured I should talk to you first before interrogating the others.” There’s no accusation in her tone, but I can see from the way she carefully crouches before me again that she already knows the truth.
“Please don’t tell the others. Don’t tell Trent.”
“June.”
“Promise me, please.”
Suddenly, I’m nineteen again, and she’s just found me crying over yet another breakup. Her sweet young face is maturely empathetic to the fact that I’m too mortified for anyone to find out, not for all the cranberry pie in the world.
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” she says. “But, June…this is not okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re drinking at work.”
I shake my head. “I’m coping.”
“You’re unraveling.”
“Can you blame me? I’m just—” My voice breaks. “I’m just trying not to fall apart.”
She exhales softly. “You don’t have to pretend with me. Okay? The others, you’re their boss, I get it. But I’m your sister. Talk to me.”
Something in me cracks. Not loudly. More like a quiet split along an already damaged seam.
A dam groaning under the pressure building behind it.
And I think about just telling her everything.
About Meredith. About Mark. About that kiss in my weakest, most grateful moment.
About the second kiss I wasn’t supposed to witness.
About how I can’t look either of them in the eye without feeling like I’m choking.
And then the door slams open.
“Guys!” Trent burst in, face drained of all color. His phone shakes in his hand. “It’s Eleanor. She’s in the hospital again.”