Hate You Not

I guide her to the swing, and we sit down together. Then I hold her so tightly, I’m worried I might hurt her. I can’t seem to let her go. We’re kissing—everywhere. Her lips are on my throat, my cheeks, my forehead. My fingers twine in her hair as our foreheads touch, and I try to look at her. We both go cross-eyed and then laugh.

“Don’t forget about me. Promise,” she whispers.

I laugh. “I’ll call you from the airport.” I hug her again, smelling the fruity smell of her hair. I kiss her lips again, and then we’re at it. We can’t stop. She pulls away first, breathing hard. “I could never forget about you. No one could. Trust me on that.”

The kids burst onto the porch at that moment, yipping all around me like the puppies do, trying to say goodbye, chasing me down the porch stairs to give me one final hug.

They escort me to the Jeep, and I give June a big grin over their heads as I hug them.

She blows me a kiss. When she moves her palm off her lips, they’re tilted at the corners in the sweetest little grin. It’s all I think about as I drop the Jeep back at Shawn’s and get into the car sent by the service I hired to take me to the airport.

I text June a picture of the view from my window—because I’m weak. I fucking need her. Maybe I should really ask the driver to turn around. It wouldn’t hurt to miss a few days of work, would it?

I laugh, because the answer is “yes.” I laugh because I find I don’t care. When the phone rings, I answer with a grin because I know it’s her.

“Hello?”

“Hello? Mr. Masterson? It’s Sally Cadmus.”

“Mm?” I frown.

“From Artful Staging?”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

“Yes…well. Do you have a minute?”

“Yeah.” I lean forward in my seat, tugging at my seat belt as my heart pounds in prescience. “What’s up?”

“I’m not sure how to approach this, so I’ll just be blunt. Your real estate agent, Becky, is a friend of mine. I learned something about the house you’ve hired us both to work on. I had joined one of the neighborhood apps, of all things, hoping to see images of the interior of some of the other homes around the area. One of the neighbors had seen the for sale sign. There was a thread on…something delicate. I’m sure you understand. You know what you were…withholding.”

My head spins as I sit back in my seat. I blink at the window. Let my vision blur, let everything go unfocused as the pine trees whip by out the window. “I told Becky. I felt it was only fair for her to know what she was getting into. No matter what measures you try to take, buyers will find out a house’s history. Particularly if the owner is someone as well known in the Bay Area as you are, and your family has been. I do staging now, but I, too, have my real estate license and I can tell you for sure—”

I hang the phone up and return my gaze to the window. My fist clenches around the phone. My heart pounds so hard, I open my mouth to tell the driver to pull over.

I’m distracted by another ring of my phone. I silence it then see the name on the screen: June Bug.

My fingers fumble for the screen, but they’re shaking too badly to answer. I put the phone between my knees. I put my head between my knees and try to breathe.JUNEI find out later that he left the Jeep at Shawn’s and caught a ride share to the airport. Shawn was headed down to Destin, which Burke knew. Apparently, he had planned to do that—even though he had to know the kids and I would have been happy to take him to the airport.

I wonder if things changed for him somewhere along the way, or if the whole time, he was lying to me. Did he know when he drove off that he would never look back? Was he already planning not to call or text, or visit me on Wednesday like he mentioned? Or was there some shift at the airport, on the plane? Did he get seated next to an old girlfriend? Fall in love with a flight attendant? Was he sick, or, even worse, did he get hurt somehow? Could he have gotten in a wreck? Since Sutton, these worries seem so much more viable than ever before.

I call him twice that night. It doesn’t go straight to his voicemail, but he doesn’t answer. I text three times. Nothing.

The next morning, I call his office, terrified he never made it home and isn’t at work. To my shock, I’m told he’s there.