by Ella James
I text June a picture of the view from my window—because I’m weak. I fucking need her. Maybe I should really ask the driver to turn around. It wouldn’t hurt to miss a few days of work, would it?
I laugh, because the answer is “yes.” I laugh because I find I don’t care. When the phone rings, I answer with a grin because I know it’s her.
“Hello?”
“Hello? Mr. Masterson? It’s Sally Cadmus.”
“Mm?” I frown.
“From Artful Staging?”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
“Yes…well. Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah.” I lean forward in my seat, tugging at my seat belt as my heart pounds in prescience. “What’s up?”
“I’m not sure how to approach this, so I’ll just be blunt. Your real estate agent, Becky, is a friend of mine. I learned something about the house you’ve hired us both to work on. I had joined one of the neighborhood apps, of all things, hoping to see images of the interior of some of the other homes around the area. One of the neighbors had seen the for sale sign. There was a thread on…something delicate. I’m sure you understand. You know what you were…withholding.”
My head spins as I sit back in my seat. I blink at the window. Let my vision blur, let everything go unfocused as the pine trees whip by out the window. “I told Becky. I felt it was only fair for her to know what she was getting into. No matter what measures you try to take, buyers will find out a house’s history. Particularly if the owner is someone as well known in the Bay Area as you are, and your family has been. I do staging now, but I, too, have my real estate license and I can tell you for sure—”
I hang the phone up and return my gaze to the window. My fist clenches around the phone. My heart pounds so hard, I open my mouth to tell the driver to pull over.
I’m distracted by another ring of my phone. I silence it then see the name on the screen: June Bug.
My fingers fumble for the screen, but they’re shaking too badly to answer. I put the phone between my knees. I put my head between my knees and try to breathe.
JUNE
I find out later that he left the Jeep at Shawn’s and caught a ride share to the airport. Shawn was headed down to Destin, which Burke knew. Apparently, he had planned to do that—even though he had to know the kids and I would have been happy to take him to the airport.
I wonder if things changed for him somewhere along the way, or if the whole time, he was lying to me. Did he know when he drove off that he would never look back? Was he already planning not to call or text, or visit me on Wednesday like he mentioned? Or was there some shift at the airport, on the plane? Did he get seated next to an old girlfriend? Fall in love with a flight attendant? Was he sick, or, even worse, did he get hurt somehow? Could he have gotten in a wreck? Since Sutton, these worries seem so much more viable than ever before.
I call him twice that night. It doesn’t go straight to his voicemail, but he doesn’t answer. I text three times. Nothing.
The next morning, I call his office, terrified he never made it home and isn’t at work. To my shock, I’m told he’s there.
“If you’d like to wait a moment, I can put you through?”
“No thank you.”
I text again, thinking maybe he dropped his phone in the toilet or something funky.
How’s your Monday, cowboy?
Nothing. By Monday afternoon, I’m worried.
Did I do something to upset you, B?
Hours pass…and then it’s days. I wake up every morning feeling like I just got kicked in the chest. Am I crazy? How classic is it that I’m wondering what I did wrong? And how classic that the man I chose—the one I’m shocked to find that I desire with every fiber of my being, the one that makes my eyes go starry—would be yet another one who doesn’t want me back. Or if he does, he won’t…or can’t engage. Totally willing to take what I have to offer and give nothing in return.
About ten days after he leaves, he FaceTimes the kids during my shower, telling them he’s in Nepal. I listen from behind my bedroom door and feel like I might hurl at the sound of his voice.
The next week, I cave and send a few more texts.
One day: Hi there. Doing okay?
The next: I miss you. Hope you’re having a nice Tuesday.
Later that day: Any way you can let me know what happened?
He doesn’t answer until after that one. Hours later, he sends three words that hit me like bricks falling off a chimney. June. I’m sorry.
I rage around for a few days, and then I cry. How can I move forward when I don’t understand what went wrong? I break down and spill the beans to Leah, and she takes me out to Albany to go dancing one night. I get sick off one beer like a lightweight and come home with blisters on both of my heels.
Six days after that, the kids and I get a package from Nepal: a tin filled with sweet and slightly gooey stuff called Pustakari.
For the rest of June, we see and hear nothing of him. One night when it’s boiling hot and I’ve spent all day floating in the pool, conjuring up memories, I stay up late and try to read about him and his family online—looking for…just anything, I guess. I find a charity bearing his mama’s name, but it’s headquartered in Washington, D.C., so I don’t think it relates to her. Instead, my searching leads me to the write-ups about Sutton and Asher.
History, I tell myself as I lie in Margot’s bed late that night after she’s just had a nightmare. History is all you have with him. Well, history and chemistry.
I kiss Margot’s head and snuggle up beside her, inhaling her sweaty kid smell.
I promise myself that I’ll stop thinking about him. It’s really no surprise, the way he did me. Men are men, aren’t they?
Shawn and Mary Helen come over for dinner on the Fourth of July, along with my dad, Leah’s mom, and Leah herself, and somehow the topic of Burke comes up at the dinner table. The kids wolfed down their food and are out back with the pigs and goats. I’m in the kitchen, but as soon as I step back into the dining room with the rolls, silence falls.
“That’s what I thought,” I say sharply.
Leah fakes a coughing spell, then asks my Dad when he’s going back to Mexico, which, given what we know about that, distracts everyone.
I think about Burke every time I water my mom’s ferns or drop by the water cooler to pump gasoline or even walk past my screened porch swing. I wish I didn’t.
I think of that guarded look he got after I said that bit about the happily ever after, of how hard he hugged me on the swing before he left, and I wish I knew what happened to him. I could tell myself he’s just a ghosting dickbag, but…I don’t think so. For just a second, I saw him—the real him—and I really liked that person. But I guess ghosting dickbags can have nice personalities and still be awful people.
One morning after I take the kids to school in August, I drive myself to Mama’s grave and sit down in the fluffy green grass.
“Tell me why I miss him so much, Mama. I’m so dumb and stupid. And I’m really tired of feeling lonely.”
Tears are coming—I can feel the prickle and the tightness in my throat. Right at that moment, a black and orange butterfly perches right atop the letters of her name, right where his hand was that day. It just hangs out there and flaps its wings for a while. Then it flits to me and sits on my hand for the longest time; I think it has to be almost five minutes.
Tears fall down my cheeks and drip from my chin. When the butterfly goes, I do my best to wipe them.
Before I haul myself to my feet, I press my hand against my belly. It’s so little right now, nobody can see. But I think my mama can.
Chapter 28
June
My mom’s birthday comes on August 19. I have my twelve week OB-GYN appointment that same day in Albany and sob my eyes out in the parking lot right after.
I don’t know why. Maybe hormones. Maybe it’s because I still feel very foolish. I just can’t believe that I’m this girl. The one that lets s
tuff happen to her. After Lamb, I told myself I’d never be that girl again—the one he doesn’t mind just up and leaving. The one who still wonders what she did wrong when she did nothing but right.
I was so damn happy settling in with Sutton’s kids, and now they’ll be confused…for lots of reasons. When the devil finds out—and he will, because I’m going to have to tell him in a few weeks—I’ll be forced to take his devil money, because I can’t even keep paying for obstetrician visits without it.
So far, I’ve kept myself from this black hole, but sitting there in my truck, I have a good cry. What was going on in his head that made me so disposable? I try my best to tell myself it wasn’t personal—I mean, clearly, the multi-millionaire insomniac who runs hot as fire and cold as ice has got some issues—but it’s hard not to feel like I messed up.
I go to the Steak ‘n Shake, draping my hand into my purse over the glossy ultrasound paper as I order a chocolate shake. Then I sit by the window. I check my phone to be sure no one from the school has called—that’s a reflex now, during the daytime—and I drain my cup until only a little bit of whipped cream and the cherry remain at the bottom.
I’m slurping at the whipped cream when my phone rings. I fumble for it. It’s a California number, but I tell myself that’s a coincidence.
I answer, and a woman says, “Are you June Lawler?”
“Yes.” I draw it out, so it’s at least two syllables. My heart starts pounding in the silence after.
“Burke Masterson had you listed as his emergency contact?”
Something sharp and cold pours through my body. For a second, I can’t get my breath. “Is something wrong?”
And there’s another awful silence.
“Mr. Masterson was in an accident,” she says. “He’s going into surgery this afternoon to repair one of his eyes.”
“His eyes?” I spread my hand over my belly. “What happened to his eyes?”
“He was involved in a worksite accident. Sustained some damage to his vision. A surgeon here at UCSF will be working to repair his retina.”
“Oh my God.”
“He’ll be admitted for about a day and a half after, for post surgical monitoring.”
“I’m in Georgia,” I say, standing up and grabbing my keys off the table. “But I can fly out today.”
BURKE
For the first day and a half after surgery to fix my fucked-up eye, I have to lie in my hospital bed with my face parallel to the floor.
My back and shoulders ache from tensing every time the door to my room opens. I don’t even remember giving them her name and number, but apparently I did—right after the fall.
For the first day after surgery, my hospital room door opens twenty-nine times, and none of the entrants turn out to be June. She’s probably not coming, despite what she told the nurse who called her. Who could blame her?
I try to endure my miserable sentence without letting my mind spend too much time on her, but it’s a losing proposition. I’m lying face down in a special bed that makes my bruised shoulder and chest hurt. And my vision’s fucked, so that means I can’t look at screens to pass the time.
My stomach’s churning, and my mind’s foggy from the damn concussion. I can’t see well out of my “good eye,” and no one seems to really understand that. Most of them are blaming it on the concussion plus the damage to the injured eye. I don’t get it, but I’m assured it will get better.
“When your next of kin arrives, we’ll send you home,” one of the nurses tells me, patting my hand.
And if she doesn’t come? I’m not calling my father—that much I know. I don’t want to call any of my old team from Aes, either. They’re busy. And since I sold to Sabal Gurung, that’s not my gig anymore. I have a few friends in the area, but if I call, I’ll have to explain how I got hurt.
The sale of Aes has hit the news, along with the devastating and graphic write-up about my past by a local gossip rag, but no one knows I’ve been working construction sites to keep myself busy. If my friends found out, I don’t know what they’d say. Scratch that. I do. They’d either believe I’ve lost my shirt or my mind.
Needless to say, I spend most of my face-down time thinking of June. I can’t believe I told them to call her.
Around the thirty-six hour mark, when I’m hoping to be cleared to sit up, a nurse helps me get up off the bed and walk into the bathroom. I’m shocked to find that I can barely do it. My vision is still blurry as shit, and my legs are weirdly shaky.
“That will clear up as time passes,” the dude nurse offers as he guides me back to bed.
I nod before I lie back down, moving carefully because my head is throbbing and my chest and shoulder ache. The nurse pulls the blankets back over my legs for me. I shut my eyes and bring my arm over my head a little. For some reason, right now, I feel like I might cry. I don’t know if it’s allowed—if it will fuck my damaged eye up more—but if I can’t control it and the tears come, I don’t want this random motherfucker seeing.
The door opens again, and I grit my teeth. Lucky number thirty.
I can tell it’s her in the first second. Maybe I can smell her or I recognize her gait. I don’t know how, but even with my senses all fucked up, I know for sure it’s June who comes through the door—and my heart slams into my ribs.
I’m holding my breath as the nurse says something to her, and she replies in soft tones from what sounds like over by the door. I can’t hear over the whoosh of my blood in my ears.
Then I feel her by the bed. Her palm comes down on my back and then slowly rubs a circle, sending warmth all through me…making my throat tighten.
“B? Hey there.” Her voice is so damn soft. It’s like a fucking caress.
“He can get up,” the nurse cuts in. “Mr. Masterson,” he says crisply, “you’ve reached the thirty-six hour mark. I can help you sit up if you’d like.”
But I don’t want his help. I don’t want June to step back. I grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut, forgetting about the hurt one and then panting from the pain I caused by tensing that part of my face.
“What do you think?” June says, her hand still on my back; her voice sounds right by my ear, so I’m pretty sure she’s leaning down. “Do you think you want to sit up?”
I don’t know. I look like shit, and I’m scared of what I’ll see on her face. Her hand rubs my back again, and I let out a loud sigh. “Why the fuck not.”
She moves away, and I feel like an invalid as the nurse helps me position to shift onto my back. Then I do—I turn over—and the pain almost makes me groan. I fell through a bad spot in some flooring down into the room below, which was filled with plywood scraps.
I don’t remember the impact—it knocked me out—but I feel like I got trampled by a heard of buffalo. My ribs and shoulder seemed to take the brunt of it, along with my forehead—and this one eye—but I’ve got sore spots all over, and my joints all feel stiff and creaky.
I close my eyes as the nurse raises the bed’s headboard. My hurt eye and my head start to throb from all the movement. Then the throbbing makes my stomach churn.
Oh, shit. I’m not gonna get sick.
I press my lips together till the sensation eases. Then I crack my eye open. My heart races when I realize June is right beside me. I look up at her, but I can’t fucking see her. I blink twice, my brain unwilling to accept that I can’t see her face—she’s blurry—and when she doesn’t become visible to me, my stomach lurches.
One of the machines hooked up to me starts a shrill beeping. “Maybe you should lie back down,” the nurse says. He silences the alarm, then lowers the headboard without further conversation. “If you’d like to, we can elevate the bed again when I check on you next.”
Did he leave? I can’t even fucking see. My pulse surges. Lying on my stomach, I couldn’t tell how fucking helpless I am. I’m like…blind. Or might as well be. I feel like I’m viewing things from underwater, and my “bad eye” is covered with a bandage, so it doesn�
��t make sense.
I blink at June as both eyes and my throat start to sting. I can see her face a little better for a split second before my fucking eyes spill over.
I drag air into my lungs and cover my eyes with my hand, but it’s too late. I feel her weight indent the mattress. She wraps an arm around me like we’re lovers…or at least good friends. Not like I disappeared on her without a word of explanation.
She leans in so close that I can feel her soft breasts, smell her fruity shampoo smell. It makes my throat knot even tighter.
“Hey there, baby.” Her fingers smooth my hair back off my forehead as she sits up a little more. Must have been a reflexive comment, because her body stiffens and she leans away like she’s recoiling.
“It’s okay,” she whispers. Her hand trembles as it strokes into my hair, her fingers tickling under my ear, where I’m pretty sure there’s bruising on my neck from how I landed—in that pile of two-by-fours.
I wince, and her fingers go.
“You’ve got a bad bruise.” Her hand is back, tracing along my chin, where I’m swollen and sore.
I close my eyes and drag another breath in. Then I grit my teeth, and my head gives an awful throb. Maybe I wince, because she murmurs, “You’re still sort of sitting up. Do you want to lie down more flat?”
Before I’m able to think of an answer, her cool palm covers my forehead. She pushes my hair back…and then does it again. A soft groan leaves my throat before I even know it’s in there.
“Does that feel good?” her voice whispers.
I nod, and my head aches in protest of the motion.
She keeps doing it. The room is quiet except the sound of air moving through vents and the lull of hall noise. I don’t open my eye, and she doesn’t speak—just runs her fingers gently back through my hair over and over until my body’s warm and heavy and my throat feels thick from holding back tears.