Finding June (26 page)

Reece could have easily sold the house and everything, once again leaving for a new place and a new present. However, he had stayed … and in part, it had to do with me. I could have felt guilty, that his staying made him face his demons, but I also knew he cared enough for me to deal with this and I would support him any way I could.

“I’m sorry, man, for barging in here. Looks like you were busy,” Caleb said as the men broke their embrace, his eyes darting toward me. I shyly smiled.

“No worries, man,” Reece replied as he walked back to me. Putting his arm around my shoulder, he told Caleb, “This is June. I buy her drinks.”

Caleb looked between us and smiled.

“Cool, man.” His words were still wrought with sadness. “You look happy and I should stop being a dick by trying to ruin it. But stop ignoring my calls. I missed my friend, and if you’re going to be in town we should hang,” Caleb stated as he put his hands in his pockets.

“Definitely.”

Caleb nodded his head, but you could still see the sadness in his eyes.

“I should go. I’m sorry for disrupting your night, guys.” He turned around and left the house without Reece or I saying anything. It was a bizarre situation, but traumatic events brought that out of people.

What now? The mood had easily been killed and I knew Reece had, once again, been brought back to his senior year of high school with Caleb’s impromptu visit.

“Tea?” I asked as I went into his kitchen and started to look through his cabinets.

“The one to the left.” He sat down at his table, his eyes glaring a hole into the tabletop, and it was the look I was starting to associate with when Reece was lost in thought. I grabbed the single box of English Breakfast tea from the cabinet and a mug sitting on a silver hook off of his wall. I heated the water in the microwave and threw the tea bag in after I took the mug out. I looked back to see Reece still staring at the table. I went in search of his liquor stash and found it in a cabinet above the stove. Grabbing the bottle of whisky, I threw in a healthy amount into the warm tea.

I placed the mug wordlessly in front of Reece and pushed it toward him. He finally looked up and took it, taking a small drink of the hot beverage.

“I don’t think your mom put whisky in your tea when you had a bad day.”

I smirked and said, “That would be correct, but one of the benefits of being an adult is I can make nearly anything into an alcoholic beverage, including fruit.”

That got a small laugh out of Reece who took another drink of his whisky filled tea.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t drag you into all of this.”

“Don’t apologize. This is your home and you have a past attached to it. It can’t help but come up after you have been gone for so long.”

“I know, but I feel bad. I want to be with you, but Rachel seems to keep popping up and killing the mood.”

“Well, that I agree with you about,” I said as I leaned back in my chair.

“Stay the night?” Reece asked as he looked over to me.

“Yeah.” I didn’t even think about it, there was nowhere else I wanted to be right now.

Reece took the last drink of his tea, his eyes finding mine. “We should probably grab the stuff from outside.”

I agreed and helped Reece bring in the food, wine, and his phone from outside. As night set in, the cold seeped down from the mountains and settled on the floor of the valley. It gave me chills as I watched Reece unplug the tree, with the half moon only giving away a small sliver of light. The perfect moment from earlier was gone, but I knew it would only last as long as the song. The small moment gave me fuel though to face another day. Now, with Reece by my side, I knew each day I would slowly gain back the hope I had held in the picture from my graduation. I also knew that it we needed each other. Together, we had enough strength to deal with whatever was thrown at us.

After putting everything away, Reece threw me one of his shirts so that I could sleep in it. I gave him my keys and he ran to my house to grab Morrison so he wouldn’t be left alone. Now that I wasn’t in the Reece induced sexual haze, I took in his room with the blue plaid comforter and the white down comforter at the end of the bed. It screamed warmth and comfort as I ran and jumped into the bed.

After the short trip to my place, Reece came back in with Morrison and settled in for the night, the three of us on Reece’s king-sized bed. While Reece was asleep within minutes, I couldn’t shut my brain off.

I came home lost, and while I still hadn’t really figured anything out, I had Reece. For now, that was more than enough. In fact, it was starting to be everything. With his arm draped around my waist, it wasn’t such a bad place to be. I snuggled in deeper and was finally able to fall asleep.

It was officially the end of the month long deal Reece and I had struck. We were sitting on his porch swing, a blanket thrown over our legs, warm peppermint schnapps filled hot cocoa in our hands, and a snoring dog cuddling on my side, his head laying in my lap. The sun had set, bathing us in the imminent darkness. The three of us were happily enjoying each other’s presence. In that moment, I felt loved and safe. It was almost like we were this tiny family. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I lost my breath. A family. It was scary to think about, having only met Reece just a couple of months ago, but I felt like it could happen. One day. Down the road. Very far down the road. I calmed my breathing as I became familiar with the thought. Reece, with his arm around my shoulder, squeezed me closer.

“You okay?” I took in his clean scent; it was an intoxicating smell that reminded me of being in the forest after it rained. Everything had been washed away and there was a sense of newness after a rainfall. The air was clear and fresh, and the woods were quiet. That was what I felt with Reece, the ability to clear my head.

“I’m more than okay.” I lifted my head and kissed him softly on the lips. As I leaned back, I asked, “All right, Reece, did you solve the mysteries of the world in the last month?”

“No, not even close, but I did figure out a few things.”

“Such as?” I questioned out of curiosity.

“You remember me telling you I had all of my generals done, and all I had to do was pick a major? Well, I still don’t know what I want to major in, but I did sign up for classes at BSU next spring.”

“What classes are you taking?”

“Since I don’t know what I want to do, I decided to pick four random classes.”

“You can do that?”

“Who says I can’t. I’m paying for it, I should be able to take what I want.”

“Hmm. I guess you’re right, I never thought about it that way. What are you going to take?”

“I am taking a 19th century literature class, intro to GIS, an automotive class, and a sociology class called
The Changing World of Poverty.”

“Wow, that is a pretty wide range of subjects.”

“Yeah, but from there I can possibly figure out if one of those classes interest me enough to either pursue it for a job or get a degree in it.”

“Which also means you will be staying here for at least a couple of years?”

“Yeah, it does. Maybe even longer …”

We fell into a few minutes of easy silence, the white noise of Morrison sleeping and the sounds of the neighborhood surrounding us. It was amazing how carefree I felt just sitting here, not doing or really thinking of anything.

“So. Next week?” Reece asked as he turned his head toward me and gave me a sweet kiss on the lips. Dammit Jolene. Of course this would be brought up. I glared at him as he broke away and I thought of all the ways I was going to harm her.

“Yeah. What about it?” I asked, feigning indifference.

“A little birdy told me it was your birthday.”

“Someone should have punched that bitch … I mean birdy,” I said as I gave Reece a huge, fake smile.

Reece laughed. “June, it’s your birthday! You should celebrate it! Although, I am not sure why you were born in October but named June.”

“My parents named me June more for old-fashioned reasons. Or something like that.”

“Well, we should do something next week.”

The fact he said
we
gave me butterflies. It was still something I wasn’t used to, and only in moments of self-hate was I also a little bit unsure. The majority of the time I was over the moon about it. He put a smile on my face, which had been gone for a long time. Now that my month of not thinking was over, I could possibly try to figure out what the next step was.

“I guess we can do something.”

“Let’s have a small get together here at the house. I can cook food and you can invite Jo and whomever she is sleeping with. Bethany and Timothy can come over, too.”

“When’s your birthday?”

“Not until April. April 16th to be exact. I will be turning twenty-six. Now that you have avoided the question, you cool with having a small party on the 29th of October, the day of your birth, sweet June?”

“Fine. A small party. No balloons or cake or anything. Booze and wine is okay, but only if they have ribbons on them.”

“Ribbon laden booze bottles I can do.”

“And … you should invite Caleb, too. It will be a nice chance for you two to hang out.”

I felt Reece tense slightly next to me. “You sure? It’s your birthday, I don’t want to take away from that.”

I nodded. “Positive. And we’re together in this, I don’t want you to think you can’t talk to me about it. I’m here for you as much as you are for me.”

“You’re too good to me, June.” I could say the same for him. As the night ended, I was positive things could only go up from here.

It was the two days before my birthday when the shit hit the fan. Actually, it was the day the fan melted. I really thought things were starting to look up. I thought having Owen dumping me was hitting rock bottom and I was, slowly, climbing myself out of this hole. Boy was I wrong. I was so wrong.

The day started off as usual. I had to work in the morning, so I got dressed and grabbed my school bag, throwing my laptop in also. It had become habit for me to take Morrison to Reece’s place so he could play outside instead of being stuck in his kennel all day, so I dropped Morrison off and went to work. Reece was going to spend the day out with his parents, helping them harvesting their huge garden and spending quality time with them. He was also going to take Morrison with him so he could run in doggy heaven all over Reece’s parents land. We were supposed to meet at my place when he got back. I had decided when I got off of work I would sit at the bar at The Shack and start to look for jobs again.

The lunch rush was busier than usual, but with the temperatures changing, more people were coming in to eat. I hauled ass the whole hour it was busy and ended up making decent money. Bethany had expressed how excited she was for my birthday, and Jo was already debating on which guy she should bring; Timothy’s friend she had hung out with at the cabin, or a new guy she had met randomly on a First Thursday downtown.

I had gotten phased. I only had one more table, which was taking their sweet ass time paying. A few middle-aged ladies who still thought they were twenty-five kept me running back and forth with their numerous Diet Cokes. I had just checked on them again when I saw Steve looking out on the floor for somebody. Once he made eye contact with me, I knew something wasn’t right.