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Fuck me.
Geneva cackles behind me. “Oopsie! Looks like you’ve let the cat out of the bag now.”
“Are you?” Mrs. Cole asks June, ignoring her eldest daughter.
June hesitates for only a moment. Then she inflates her chest as pridefully as she can. “Yes, I am.”
“And when were you going to tell us?”
“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it.” June sighs. “This is not the way I wanted you guys to find out, and I’m sorry about that. But I am getting married, and I am having a baby. You guys have never been very enthusiastic about my life decisions. I didn’t think this time would be any different.”
“Well, that… that’s—”
“Accurate,” she says, sticking to her guns. “I just didn’t want the judgment. Not this time. Not with this.”
Mr. Cole lurches to his feet suddenly. “That’s no way to talk to your parents,” he scolds, though his face is burning with embarrassment. “I won’t sit here and be criticized for your poor choices. Call us when you decide to behave like a proper daughter. Bridget, let’s go.”
Then the two of them storm off.
The silence doesn’t last long, though. “I cannot believe you called Mom and Dad down here,” June hisses, turning to Geneva.
She shrugs. “I thought it was important that they knew.”
“That wasn’t your call to make!”
Geneva shrugs again, but this one is a little more self-conscious. “I honestly didn’t think you’d be this upset about it.”
“No, you thought you’d pull them down here and create a whole awkward thing out of it. You were hoping to trip Kolya up, right? You didn’t think about me at all!”
“I—that’s not what—”
“Save it,” June snaps. “Let’s just go home.”
She leaves Geneva standing there, frazzled. I follow her out, feeling strangely proud. The girl can look like a Bambi-eyed fawn sometimes, but she’s got claws when she needs to.
We get into the Mercedes, and I immediately pull up the partition to separate us from the driver. “June, I’m sorry about what happened there. It was a mistake to mention the baby.”
She looks straight ahead for a moment. Her shoulders are tense, almost as tense as they were when her parents were with us.
Then she takes a deep breath.
“I’m not mad about that. I mean, yeah, I was thrown. But I’m not mad.” She squirms uncomfortably in place. “I wanted to tell you that the way you defended me, what you said back there in the café about me… It meant a lot. I know you were probably just playing your part. I’m sure you didn’t mean any of the things you said, but—”
“I meant it,” I tell her firmly. “I meant every fucking word.”
Her eyes darken instantly. The next thing I know, she leans in and kisses me. Her lips press against mine, earnestly and enthusiastically, for the length of one shuddering breath before the self-consciousness creeps back in.
She pulls back, her face flushing with color. “I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
I place my hand under her chin and force her eyes up to mine. “And I shouldn’t do this.”
Then I kiss the ever-loving fuck out of my bride-to-be.
42
JUNE
I straddle him and wind my fingers through his hair. It’s thick and soft and smells faintly of sandalwood.
