I slide my other arm around her waist, pull her closer.
“Are you saying I’m not pretty?” I ask.
“I’m saying I wish you’d gotten that looked at instead of getting on a billion flights.”
“You’re looking at it,” I point out.
“I mean by a medical professional,” she says, half-rolling her eyes. “Obviously.”
Her other hand is still gloved, against my chest, and I swear I can feel her warmth even through the layers of shirt and sweater and coat that I’m wearing.
“He didn’t give me his permission,” I tell her.
“For what?”
“To date you.”
June raises an eyebrow.
“Did you ask for it?” she asks, incredulous, and I grin even though it hurts a little.
“Of course not,” I say, and I finally lean down and kiss June.
She kisses me back gingerly, tenderly, her gloved hand on my face. Her lips are cold but soft, careful, tentative.
“He didn’t punch me in the mouth,” I tell her without letting my lips leave hers.
June just laughs and kisses me harder. She presses herself against me, layers between us, and even though we’re fully in public on a sidewalk, cars driving past, I open her mouth with mine, sink my fingers into her hair, deepen the kiss.
Just then, a car honks, loud and long and insistent and finally after a few seconds, June pulls away.
The passenger window of a blue Honda Civic rolls down and a woman leans over.
“Hey!” she shouts. “Are you Jane?”
She looks at her phone.
“Sorry. June?”
“Oh, shit,” June says aloud, mostly to me, then clears her throat. “Sorry, I actually found another ride, I should have cancelled but I got distracted—"
The woman rolls her eyes so dramatically I think she might hurt herself, and her tires squeal as she pulls off, not even waiting for June to finish her sentence.
“That’s not Midwest Nice, is it?” I ask.
“I hope not,” she says, then looks back at me. “Sorry, I forgot that I requested a ride share like twenty minutes ago. I guess that was Kelly.”
“I love you,” I tell her.
June looks at me, eyes bright, cheeks red, and she starts smiling.
Then she starts laughing.
“What?” I ask, looking around. “I think this freezing, deserted sidewalk is very romantic—”
“I love you too,” she says.
“It wasn’t a hard decision,” I tell her, the words suddenly tumbling out of me, like Kelly in her Honda Civic is what jarred them loose. “Not once I got some space. I went camping for a couple of nights—"
“Oh,” she says.
“—To clear my head, and it turned out it was simple because I love you, and I love you more than the things that could lay claim to me elsewhere, and I think I’ve loved you ever since that morning after the thunderstorm when I opened the office door and you’d already been researching the puzzle of the tree murders for hours.”
I close my eyes, kiss her on the forehead.
“It took me a long time to realize it, but that was it. I knew right then I’d never met anyone quite like you,” I say.
June looks down, like she’s slightly embarrassed, then looks back up at me.
“I was six and you were nine,” she says quickly. “Silas put my stuffed elephant on top of the fridge, and you climbed onto the kitchen counter and rescued her for me. I still can’t believe you never knew.”
I kiss her again.
“I know now,” I say.
“Good,” she says. “I’ve still got a huge, wild crush on you, Levi.”
“How wild?” I ask, and June just laughs.
“Are you hungry?” she says.“So,” I ask, as the waitress is walking away with our menus. “Who’s Logan?”
June laughs. We’re in a booth somewhere in the middle of Mabel’s House of Breakfast, a diner that I’m sure has looked exactly the same since 1975.
There are four small carafes of syrup on the table next to the salt and pepper, and June lifts one, peering inside.
“Why, are you jealous?” she asks.
“I might be,” I tease.
“Silas could tell I was upset when he came over Sunday, so I had to tell him something,” she explains. “This is probably strawberry, right?”
“Could be raspberry,” I say.
“How’d he take it?”
I don’t answer her right away, just give her a long look.
“Well, besides that,” she says.
“Besides the fact that he punched me in the face for being with you, it went well,” I tell her, also grabbing a syrup carafe. “If it helps, I punched him back.”
June’s examining a second syrup bottle, and she looks up in surprise.
“You did?”
“Of course I did,” I say and hold up my right hand, cuts across the knuckles. “I’m no fighter, but I have four brothers. I’ve thrown punches before.”
“Good,” she says. “Is that why he didn’t give you permission to date me?”
“I didn’t even ask why he denied permission,” I say, crossing my arms on the table and leaning forward. “I just told him I didn’t want it.”