Hate You Not

“Yeah.” I’m surprised to find I mean it in the moment. I believe it.

He scoots just a little closer to me. Then he drapes an arm over my shoulders and pulls me against his side. He doesn’t offer any words, is silent on the subject of the happy ending.

I wish I knew why.

His eyes are sad on the ride back to the house.

After we return the horses to their stalls, I take him to my bed, and we enjoy each other’s bodies again. His default is gentle, playful, but I make it so he’s groaning and tied up in knots in no time. We both laugh when he finds a small piece of kudzu clinging to a lock of my hair.

After we both scratch the itch, I fall asleep in his arms. When I wake up, he’s smiling like he’s content.

“Can you stay?” I murmur.

“Mmm?” He widens his eyes, inquiring.

“Can you stay any longer this time?”

It’s a while before he answers, but I feel the tension in him. It makes me think I was wrong for asking.

“You want me to stay here?”

“I would love it if you could.”

He smirks. “What would you do with me?”Chapter 27BurkeShe kisses my chest and drapes her soft, tanned leg over my hard one. “Well, I would talk to you, for one.”

“Talk to me?” I say it like that’s absurd. “What about?”

“Your favorite everything. All the things about Burke—the devil is in the details.” Her eyes shine as she sets an indulgent smile on me.

Despite the tightening feeling in my chest, I hear myself say, “Hit me with a question.”

She sits up and pushes her hair back over her shoulders. Her face is thoughtful, like she knows she just has this one chance and wants to make it count. She screws her face up almost comically, as if she’s thinking hard, then asks, “Do you feel smart because you went to MIT? The only way I really know it is from that movie Good Will Hunting.”

“Good movie.”

She thumps my chest. “That’s not an answer.”

I force myself to sit up, too. I lean back against her pillows, reaching out to trace her bare knee with my left hand. “No,” I say after a second. “I would say it doesn’t make me feel smart.”

“But you know you are smart.”

I shake my head. “There are lots of kinds of smart. I’m good at taking tests.” I narrow my eyes at her. “I bet you are, too.”

She shrugs.

I think it’s meant to be dismissive, but instead she just looks sly, like she’s keeping a secret.

“I’m right about that. You were, weren’t you?” I grin as I picture June in some small, country schoolhouse sitting up straight like she does when she’s eager for something. I can see her acing every test, being a little know-it-all.

“I was good in school,” she drawls after a second. “Nobody said I wasn’t.”

“College doesn’t matter. I’m so fucking sorry that I said that.”

“Even if you hadn’t said that, it does matter.”

“We’re just one meteor away from the world as we know it being completely different. And always just a second away from something way worse. Common sense matters. Business sense matters. Kindness matters. College, not so much.”

“Good thing Mama taught me to be nice.” June winks, and I shake my head.

“I’m not sure I’d use the word ‘nice.’”

She jabs at my ribs, and I swat at her. After that, there’s a weird silence in which she tilts her head at me as if she’s thinking something. I have this strong sixth sense she wants to ask about my mom. She doesn’t, though, and I’m grateful.

“Has anybody ever read your tarot?” she says abruptly. My eyes snap to her curves as she hops down off the bed. She’s still fully naked, which makes my voice catch when I answer. “Um…not sure?”

She rolls her eyes as she opens her nightstand drawer. “Then you haven’t. Trust me—you would know.” I try not to ogle her as she climbs back on the bed, but damn she’s gorgeous, with her hair falling over her shoulders, soft, curly ends brushing the pale globes of her breasts as she moves.

“I’ve just got a Rider-Waite deck,” she says, sitting cross-legged by me unabashedly. “My fancy deck is in my car, and I’m not walking out there, so we’re going old-school. We’ll just do a three-card spread,” she murmurs, shuffling the deck. “Let’s do…opportunities, challenges, outcome.”

She walks me through it step by step, and I try to be open to it, as she urges. I end up with the Magician, Death, and the Fool—a reading June goes crazy for. She’s still shaking her head at it as we step into the shower in the kids’ bathroom.

I watch her as she washes, especially when she can’t tell I’m looking. She’s about as perfect as I can imagine any woman being, and I don’t know when I’ll see her like this again, or even if I ever will.