by Ella James
He asked me over for a cookout, and I said I couldn’t—like I almost always did—but that day, he was less patient. He asked what was wrong with me. I told him “nothing” and he said, “you’re lying to yourself.” I didn’t take that well and told him maybe he was too content.
He laughed his ass off at that. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m too fucking content, Burke. You gonna shake things up for me by going to climb Everest and die in all the long lines?”
“You have to train for that, so no. No Everest.”
“Okay. Well, too content. I’ll keep that in mind in case I need to do some mental troubleshooting. What do you recommend the most, B? Chronic sleep deprivation or working every second of each day on crazy shit that might all be a gamble, hoping it might ease some of the guilt you’re carrying that’s not yours to begin with?”
“Nothing I have done has ever been a gamble. Especially not this venture right now. That’s some special bullshit.”
“I’m not ‘too content.’ You’re unhappy. Everything inside you is still cracked in a million pieces, and you hate to see me because it makes you feel like a fish out of water.”
“Fuck you, Ash. Take it to family therapy.”
“I will, and you should come with. Thursday afternoons at 4:30. Might be the best thing you could ever do.”
“Have fun, little brother.”
“Think of what you’re working for, and if nothing comes to mind to fill that spot, then maybe you’ve got everything bass ackwards.”
“Always were the clever one, weren’t you?”
We texted the next day, as I waited for my plane at SFO. We both said “sorry.” But that’s what I thought about the whole goddamn miserable trip. Asher and his smugness. Asher and his worry for me. Asher saying I was messed up. How ridiculous. I told myself that maybe it was jealousy. The bastard whose roof we grew up under has always prized money over everything else. Asher says—he said—that he was nothing like our old man, but he worked for the fucker day in and day out. So I told myself he envied my success.
I chew the inside of my cheek and trace the shadows on the wall with my gaze. I’m worth almost a hundred million dollars, and I can’t get my niece and nephew back to where they’re from. That’s how little Asher and Sutton thought of me. They would rather have their kids grow up at rodeos and county schools than be shepherded through life by someone like me.
They didn’t leave the kids to June by accident. The two of them preferred June. I rub my forehead, and I’m forced to admit I understand why.
Right before they set her ankle, June insisted on calling Mary Helen to talk to the kids. She told them two knock-knock jokes about breaking a leg—I later realized she was reading them from a laminated poster just over my shoulder—and was nodding at whatever they said in return as her eyes started to roll back from her latest infusion of pain meds.
After they had set her ankle, when she was high off her gorgeous ass, she started cackling about the weird-looking design on her gown. She did this epic, pig-snort laugh. She threw her head back against the pillow and said, “Don’t you fuckin’ push your finger to your nose. When I was a kid…” She shook her head. And then she did. She made a pig nose, and then laughed her ass off at that. “Pig laugh. Ever since first grade.”
And I realized in that moment that June is not the problem. And she hasn’t been. How I interacted with her was the problem. My presumptions and assumptions, and my judgments. Really makes me feel like fucking shit now.
The shit feeling fills my chest and head, and for the longest time, I just lie there on her bed—feeling heavy and cold. I half-dream about a stump that’s looking up at tall pine trees around it. Everything is moving, but the stump is still and cold and hollow. Then it’s cracking.
Then it’s morning and the birds are chirping outside. It’s morning and someone murmurs, “Burke.”
The voice is soft and husky. It spins through my head like sugar tendrils into cotton candy, and I open my eyes and it’s her. She looks a little pale, and she’s got tired smudges under her eyes, but she’s smiling, and it’s so gentle and and sweet that for a moment I’m sure I’m still dreaming.
I smile up at her. “Did you just call me Burke and not the devil?”
She grins back, but then squeezes her eyes shut. “I think the pain pill wore off,” she groans.
“Shit.” That one’s on me. I didn’t think I’d sleep—it so rarely comes that easily—so I didn’t set my phone’s alarm. “I’m sorry,” I say, getting off the bed. I stride toward the bedroom door. “Be right back.”
My heart hammers as I walk through her empty house. I hear her dogs’ nails clicking on the laundry room floor as I grab a pain pill and some water, and I make a mental note to let them out soon.
When I get back to her room—a girly space with lacy curtains, two paintings featuring a lot of abstract pink and sparkle, and an excess of what look like handmade patchwork quilts—I find her lying back against the pillows with her eyes closed.
I stand by her for a second, not knowing what I should do or say.
“Hi,” I whisper finally, feeling awkward as fuck.
Her eyes peek open. Her mouth twitches up on one side. “Hey there. You got my fix?”
I hold the pill out. “Sorry that I didn’t wake you to take it.”
She opens her palm, takes it from me. I hand her a glass of water with the red straw I found in her cutlery drawer last night. I watch her slender throat move as she swallows the pill.
“Not your fault.” She sets her drink on her nightstand and tilts her head back on the pillow, squeezing her eyes shut again. “Distract me, Sly.”
“Hey, now—wait a second. Does that stand for Slytherin?”
She grins, maybe a little smug despite her tired face.
“You know, you don’t strike me as an HP fan,” I tell her.
Her face twists and her eyes peek open again, just so she can narrow them at me. “Who calls it HP?” she asks, heavy-lidded.
“I do.”
She cracks one eyelid while the other stays shut, throwing me some hard shade. “When’d you read it?”
“The year it came out. Which, for you young’uns, was 1997.”
“Really?” Her soft voice drips skepticism.
“Oh yeah.” I fold my arms.
“How old were you?” she asks, arching a brow.
“I was fourteen.”
“How’d you come across it?” She brings her palm to her face and presses it against her forehead. It catches my notice because it’s something I do when I don’t feel well.
“School library,” I say.
“And you’re how old now?”
“I’m turning thirty-six.”
She shakes her head. “Old-school oldie from Oldsville. You know I’m ten years younger.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m in my prime.”
“Are you, though?” She takes a strand of her honey-colored hair between her fingers, playing with the ends as she looks up at me.
“Oh yeah.”
She gives me a strained smile. “Can this be verified?”
I have to work hard to contain the answer that springs to mind—and twitches my cock. “No need for that.” I arch my eyebrows. “It’s obvious to everyone.”
She laughs, then recoils. Pain drags at her features, and I feel a kick of guilt for not waking her up to take the pain med.
“Fuck. I’m sorry.”
After a slow, careful exhalation, she opens her eyes again and looks up at me. “We must officially be friends now. That’s a couple different sorries in the last twelve hours.”
“Do you want to be friends?”
“I don’t know.” She tries to smirk, I think, but it looks like a wince. “What’s in it for me?”
“Not very much,” I tell her honestly. “Maybe some packages from overseas with weird candy.”
“Weird candy? Like little gummy microphones from Tokyo, that sort of thing?” I nod, and she smiles. “Sol
d.”
“Don’t forget the five-star mattress-side service. Are you hungry?”
She makes a face, looking pale and weary. “I don’t know.”
“Eating is a good thing. Just tell me what to get you.”
She runs a hand through her hair. “Toast?”
“What kind?”
“Umm, butter and jelly?”
“Butter first, then jelly?”
She nods, looking amused.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m on it.”
When I return with a plate containing one slightly toasted piece of bread that’s topped by butter and a layer of homemade jelly, her eyes are closed.
“How are the kids?” she whispers without opening them.
“I don’t know.” My gaze jumps to the clock on her beside table, which says it’s 9:05 AM. “I’ll call if you want, though.”
“It’s okay,” she murmurs, her eyes still shut. “I can, since you don’t know her.”
Fuck…her voice is quiet. And she’s still. Jesus, she looks small under her blankets. She even looks small compared to her big, black boot. I hope the hard edge of her pain is blunted by the medicine I brought her.
“I do sort of know her,” I say, of her sister Mary Helen. “We talked some during the rodeo.”
Her eyes lift open, and even in her more sedated state, she gives me side eye. “Did you?”
“Yeah.” I grin, feeling a flash of silly pride. “She liked me.”
She snorts. “MH could talk the ears off of a chicken.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Do chickens have ears?”
Her lips curl in a slow smile. “Yes, you dumb-dumb.” She shuts her eyes. “Lil’ trivia. The eggs they lay…” She pulls her eyelids open again, and her gaze is less focused. “Same color eggs…as the color of their ears.”
“That’s just weird.”
She yawns. “I’m a wellspring of knowledge. Whip your ass at trivia night,” she murmurs.
“I’d like test that out sometime.”
“You’re on, Sly.”
She rubs a hand over her face, and I step back, aware I’m staring at her with more than a little intensity while she’s only partly awake.
“You want anything else, Gryffy? A big bag of ice to put over the boot or something?”
“No,” she whispers. Her face tightens, like the mention of ice hurt her.
“You still hurting?”
She nods, just a little motion.
A flush of heat spreads down my cheeks and neck and settles in my chest. I look down at her. She’s got her shoulders sort of curled in. Her eyebrows are rumpled, her smooth, pale face tense. I don’t like it.
My gaze moves all up and down her a few times. I tell myself that I should step away, stop staring down at her like some weird stalker.
Instead, I reach down slowly, gather a handful of her blonde-brown hair in my hand, and rub my thumb down the smooth locks, until it’s right there at the slightly prickly ends. Trying to remember how she did this to her own hair, I just sort of toy with them. I’m holding my breath, and then she groans softly and my heart starts to pound.
“Feels so good,” she murmurs. Her lips twitch a little, so I keep sifting through her hair. And very soon, she’s sleeping.
Chapter 13
June
“Yes! C’mon…” Then there’s a long, put-out sigh. “Don’t close your eyes again, June. I’ve got needs!”
The words trail slowly through my brain, a distant comet I can’t quite make out. And then I do. Needs?
I squint my eyes open and recoil at the face nearly mashed against my own. “Leah? What are you doing?”
She sighs again and stands to her full height—which is a good thing.
“Finally,” she sighs. “I’ve been waiting for a half an hour.”
I blink around my room, feeling so confused. “Waiting?”
“For you to wake up and explain that—” She nods toward the door, then waves both her hands in the air, as if we can talk via some drunken sign language.
“What is that?” I rasp, then swallow to steady my voice. “A mime of a dying bird?”
“Who is that schemxy thang out in your living room?” She bats her lashes.
“Are you having some kind of malfunction?” I squeeze my eyes shut, then attempt to shift my butt, which is asleep, but somehow still aching. “I think I’ve got bed sores.”
“How are you? How is your foot, poor baby?”
I roll my eyes. “Now you ask.”
She pulls the blankets down, revealing a plain white shirt and thin gray pants I must have gotten at the hospital—and my giant black boot.
Then her eyes fly back to mine. “I’m serious, Bug. Is that really Mr. Puppy Surprise?”
“Yes.” If my voice is snippy, it’s because I’ve been hit by a horrifying memory.
“What’s the matter?” Leah frowns down at me.
“Nothing.”
“You are acting so weird. Maybe it’s the drugs. What are you taking?”
“I’m not acting weird,” I lie. “But I do need to pee. Like immediately.”
Leah rambles nonstop as she and one of my brand new crutches help me to the bathroom. Then it’s time to sit down, and she’s staring at me.
“Turn around, you Looky Lucy.”
“How’re you going to lower yourself down onto the—Buggie! Did he do that?”
“Do what?” My ankle is pounding.
“There are rails on your toilet! You’ve got those old people rails.”
I look down—she’s right; I do—then look back up at her. “Well, hot dog.”
“He had to have done it. No one else has been at your house.”
“What time is it? And turn around.”
She turns around, revealing ombre hair that fades from dark brown then to medium and then to blonde down at the bottom.
“It’s half past noon.”
“Y’all left me out here by myself till noon?”
“He’s your brother’s best friend now, girl. Shawn has got a keg for tonight.”
“What?”
Leah flashes a lipsticked smile over her shoulder. “Oh yeah. Shawn and Mary Helen are ready to marry you off to Mr. Moneybags. That or Shawn’s gonna go gay for him. But if that doesn’t work out, imma get my claws in him. You said you hate his blood and guts, right?”
I shut my eyes again and finish doing my business. Then I stand up, using the rails.
“Are you sure you didn’t bring these?” I ask.
“Sure as shit, babe.” She steps closer, frowning at the rails attached to my toilet. “It’s not a these. It’s like…a this.” Leah squints like she’s trying to understand the entire manufacturing process for the potty handles.
Then she looks at my face. “Hun, you look like death. I think we should get you back in bed and I can bring some of these dumplins that MH sent.”
“You went by Mary Helen’s house?”
“Oh yeah—and I got cards from your darlins. Real cute, too. I’ll grab my purse and get ’em out. It’s in the den with him.” She says “him” with arched brows. While she helps me back into the bed, Leah regales me with the tale of how she had forgotten Burke would be here, and she found him in the yard with Tink and Petey. “Girl, he didn’t have a shirt on. It was masterful.”
That makes me laugh. “You know his last name, right?”
“Nu-uh.”
“Masterson.”
“Well I understand. He is a masterpiece of sculpted man meat. I could lick that six pack. Might of even been an eight pack.”
“Leah, this is outright disloyal. You and Shawn and MH.” I told Leah and Mary Helen in particular—before the rodeo—to steer clear of the devil.
“Bug, maybe you were wrong about him.”
At that moment, there’s a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I call. Then I flop back on my pillow. Better to make him think I’m half asleep. Maybe then he’ll leave.
Leah turns
fully away from me so she can smile at him. I can hear the smile in her voice. “Well hello there, Mr. Masterson.”
Burke looks gorgeous, damn him all the way to Hades. He’s got on a sort of snug gray T-shirt and those dark jeans and those black boots, but what’s such a show stopper is his face with stubble on his jaw. There’s a pair of aviator glasses hanging from his shirt collar, and his dark brown hair looks windblown.
“How’s it going?” he asks softly, taking a few slow steps into my room. His eyes find mine. “How’re you feeling, June?”
“Like she just got hit by a Mack truck,” Leah supplies.
“I brought another one of these.” He holds a pill up, and I let out a sigh.
“I don’t really think I need it, honestly.” I’m looking at the ceiling. Better there than at his devil blue eyes.
“You don’t?” He steps closer to my bed, and I can feel him looking at me, even as I refuse to look at him.
“Nah.”
“You sure?”
“I’ll take some ibuprofen. Leah knows where it is.”
As soon as I say that, I wish I could slap my own face. Now I’ll be left here with him!
“I can show you,” Leah coos.
The little hussy.
She walks toward the door, and when Burke doesn’t follow, she’s got tact enough to carry on by herself. Or I could choose to view it as her choosing to abandon me.
“Are you sure you don’t want it?” he asks. “You don’t have to take too many more of them, but right now, it’s still a fresh break. Lots of pain the first day or so.”
I nod. Swallow. I look up at him because I have to. I’m trapped in the damn bed.
I’m surprised and unnerved to find he looks…worried. Or something different than I’ve seen before. His face is nice, like a nice guy’s face. Those blue devil eyes are gentle as he looks me over.
“I’m not sure if I believe you.”
“Oh, how would you know?” I snap.
“Because your jaw is tight.” He taps his own. “And you look tired, but also tense around your eyebrows.” He rubs his finger over his brows.
“That’s not how to tell.”
“I’ve been watching you since last night.”
“Oh, since last night.” I shut my eyes and turn my face away from him.
