The Enemy (It Happened in Charleston 2)

She’s docile now. A tiger shot with a tranquilizer and about to pass out against the window. I need to find out her address before she’s so far gone that I have to bring her back to my hotel room, because ‘guy carrying an unconscious girl into a hotel room at 2 AM’ is really not a look I care to add to my repertoire.

June leans her head against the glass, balls her hand up under her chin, and lets out a whimper. It’s a pitiful sound. My jacket is still around her shoulders, swallowing her whole. Her mascara is a little smudged under her eyes, and there is only the faintest tint of red on her lips now. She looks like she’s gone through the wringer, and I doubt that this is the look she intended to portray tonight when she was getting in my face with how successful she is. Still, I like that I get to be the one to take care of her like this—also that I’m the one to make her come a little undone.

I’ve been doing nothing but running through the paces of my life these past twelve years. I go from achievement to achievement, turning over stones and trying to find something under them. I don’t know what that something is yet because I’ve never found it. I just keep moving to the next stone.

But seeing June again tonight—sensing that spark ignite between us again—it has me pausing. It feels like my heart is trying to kick back to life. And I know she’s aware of it, too. Evidence being that she has drunk herself into oblivion just trying to keep busy and avoid making eye contact with me all night.

Yeah, but I saw you stealing glances at me, June.

Something is there. I feel it. I just need to play her game and peel back the layers of her hate to find it.

When I ask for June’s address, she mumbles a few incoherent words and swats her hand in my direction like she’s trying to get me to shut up so she can sleep. I give up and let her pass out. Reaching into her purse, I pull out her phone and open the maps app. Luckily, she has her address saved under home, and I start the directions.

Ten minutes later, I’m pulling up in front of a small white bungalow. I cut the engine and walk around the car to help June out. She stumbles a bit, her legs moving more like spaghetti noodles than functioning limbs, so I pick her up and carry her to her front door. I pause outside the bright, teal-colored front door and realize I have no idea if she lives with anyone or not.

Surely, if she had a boyfriend, he would have come with her tonight? And I know she’s not married, because you better believe the first thing I did when I saw her again was assess her ring finger. Well, it was almost the first thing I assessed on her.

I could kick the door to see if someone answers, but I’ve always enjoyed being a risk taker, so I’ll take my chances. I set June on the ground beside the door. Her head rolls back to rest against the siding while I scoop up her clutch and start digging through it. Annnnnd I’ve sailed right past gallant knight and pushed straight into creepy guy, because I take my time, making a mental note of the contents I stumble over. There’s nothing exciting, though. Some gum, her credit card and ID, a tube of lipstick, a hair tie, a guy’s phone number (oops, it flutters right out of my fingers and into the wind), her cell phone, and keys.

After unlocking the front door, I scoop June up again and carry her through, amused at how much she would recoil at the idea of her greatest enemy carrying her over the threshold of her home like a syrupy-sweet couple, fresh from the wedding chapel. I consider placing a band on her ring finger just to mess with her when she wakes up.

Once we’re inside, I use my foot to shut the door behind us, plunging us into darkness. Trut

hfully, at the start of this evening, I might have briefly imagined taking June back to her place at the end of it. Needless to say, my fantasy looked MUCH different than this.

I flip a switch and turn on the lights. June’s house is simple but comfortable. I like it. It’s completely opposite of my apartment in Chicago. Where mine is all dark furniture, hard surfaces, and a sprawling view of the city, June has a plush yellow couch, a mid-century coffee table, a thriving fiddle-leaf fig tree that proves she remembers to water it, and picture frames full of her smiling with friends and family.

Also…wait. Is that a throw pillow with Nick Lachey’s face on it? Yep. Definitely is. More disturbing, I think there’s a blanket folded up on the end of the couch to match it. I’d go check, but honestly, I’m scared. I’m not ready to find out that June is a secret Nick Lachey mega-groupie and has been clipping letters out of magazines to send him creepy fan mail all these years. Better to assume there’s a reasonable explanation and move on.

Besides seeing Lachey’s face on way too many surfaces, the whole vibe in here makes me want to kick off my shoes, unbutton my cuffs, roll up my sleeves, sink into that couch, and sleep until noon tomorrow. It’s an urge I can’t say I’ve ever had when looking at my black leather couch. But something tells me that if I did sleep here tonight, I would wake up in the morning to June hovering over my body with a butcher knife. So instead, I make my way through her house, passing a bathroom, an office, and a kitchen before finding her room.

I turn on the light and smile at the coral, ruffled throw pillows on her bed. No man lives here. And there wasn’t a single framed photo of her with any dudes, so I don’t think she has a boyfriend. I think I’m cheating in our game right now. I’m behind enemy lines, getting an eyeful of her battle plans.

And if June’s plans have anything to do with the lacy blue bra I see hanging on her bathroom door, I’m a goner. But I’m also a gentleman, so I don’t look at that bra above four times before I set June on her bed and make my way to her dresser. I pull out a cotton t-shirt and some PJ shorts and toss them onto her lap. She’s still sitting up, but her eyes are shut, shoulders sagging.

“Put those on and yell when you’re dressed.”

Her heavy eyelids crack open, and she frowns. “I don’t like you.”

“Yeah, I got that.” I shove my hands into my pockets.

“I don’t think you do.” Her words are still slurring heavily, but I understand her perfectly. Her hair is hanging over one of her shoulders, and she’s sitting on the edge of her bed, wearing my suit jacket like a blanket. It looks way too good on her. “I haaattteee you.”

“Why?” I ask, knowing I shouldn’t but also unable to resist getting this unfiltered truth.

She lifts a shoulder and drops it. “Because it’s what we’ve always done. Hate each other.”

She’s right, and the realization makes me oddly sad. June and I fought over everything in high school. We had no choice but to be around each other a lot since our best friends were dating, but we made it a point during those forced hangouts to annoy each other as much as possible. If June wanted to go to the movies, I convinced everyone we should go bowling. If I planned a New Year's Eve party, she planned a bigger, better one. If Stacy and Logan convinced us all to have a friends dinner (meaning just the four of us), I would bring a date to rile June up. All of this, plus at least a hundred harmless pranks.

Yeah, thinking back, I wasn’t the nicest guy in the world to June. The difference is, my pestering was never an actual attack. It was the only way I could get her to pay attention to me. And I wanted her attention on me.

“But worst of all…” Her sleepy words break through my thoughts. “I tipped my chin up to you, and you walked away.”

“Tipped your chin up? What are you talking about?” I step a little closer.

She falls onto her side to bury her head in her pillow. The hem of her little black dress hikes up an extra inch, and suddenly, it feels wrong standing here in her room without her sober permission—wrong to see her picture frames, and her throw pillows, and hear her honest thoughts.

I’m an uninvited guest, staying late to a party I wasn’t even invited to in the first place.