About time, p.7
About Time, page 7
“Long Islands?” Elle asked.
“I’m sure they’re the weak kind, not the excellent knock-your-socks-off kind, but for one dollar, it should be worth it, right?”
“Yeah.” Elle nodded. “What’s good to eat here?”
“Everything is good. At least, it was when I was last here over two years ago.”
“Why did you come here?” Elle asked, trying to pry some personal information from the closed book sitting across from her and get to know her better. June had always been resistant to personal questions, but perhaps tonight would be different.
June squinted and wrinkled her nose as she set her drink menu down and picked up the food menu. “I came here on a date.”
“Oh?” Elle raised her eyebrows up and down several times. “A date that ended well?”
Snorting, June shook her head. “You’re ridiculous, but yes, if you must know, a date that ended well. I’d been here before that, but that’s the last time.”
“So then maybe it didn’t end too well in the long run.”
June hummed as her eyes skimmed the food menu, and she stuck with her noncommittal answer. Elle didn’t let the response get her down.
Instead, she forged ahead in her attempt to put herself back on the market. “Steak or chicken?”
“Steak. Hands down. I like this one.” June put her menu down and flattened Elle’s out on the table before flipping the page twice and pointing. “Garlic parmesan shrimp on steak. It’s seriously the best thing on the menu.”
“Sold.” Elle grinned and leaned forward slightly. “What are you going to get?”
Humming again, June went back to her own menu and flipped a page. “I think I’m in the mood for just the plain grilled sirloin.”
After ordering drinks and their meals, they settled into comfortable conversation. They caught up on each other’s days fairly quickly and moved on to one major commonality both of them shared—a love of coffee. Elle was enraptured in the way June knew every little coffee hole in town, even the ones she hadn’t thought would ever exist.
“And if you ever go to Dino’s, you have to try the mocha latte. Seriously. It is to die for.” June waved her hands around as her excitement increased. “I have never had a drink so good in my life. However, don’t just order regular coffee. It sorely lacks in anything for human consumption.”
Elle snorted. “That’s an interesting description.”
“It was bad. Trust me.”
“I do.”
As their conversation continued, Elle couldn’t help but think to herself that they were flirting. For the first time, they were truly flirting without any holding back on either of their parts, and secondly, her crush was fast deepening and taking over every dark recess of her mind. June was a fabulous and interesting woman, and she had no doubt she wanted to get to know her better.
★
June lifted her near empty drink to her lips and sighed contentedly. It didn’t take too long for their plates to be cleared and their third—or was it fourth?—Long Island iced teas to be set on the table. June couldn’t wipe the grin off her cheeks if she tried to, and Elle seemed to be experiencing the same. It had been the first time in a long time June felt completely able to relax and enjoy the company she was with. She envied others who had it so easy, but until she and Lydia resolved some of their problems, her life was going to be a tense spiral of chaos.
“Want dessert?” Elle asked with a bright glint to her eye.
“Yeah, something chocolate sound good?”
“What about cheesecake?”
“Chocolate cheesecake?” June responded with a hopeful twinge in her voice. “Pleeeeease.”
Laughing, Elle nodded and gripped June’s fingers. June’s lips parted in surprise, and she slid her hand away again. That was the fourth or fifth time Elle had done that throughout dinner. It made her uncomfortable. She nervously debated whether to finally share with Elle she was in a relationship, and not just any relationship, but a long-term committed one. After all, she and Lydia had just celebrated their second anniversary. She’d almost let it slip earlier in the night, since it was Lydia who had taken her here on their first date all those years ago.
“Yes. Chocolate cheesecake.” Elle flagged the waiter down and put in their order along with one more round of drinks. “We should probably stop drinking soon. You know, driving and all that.”
“Agreed.”
June twisted her hands together in her lap, trying to figure out just what to say and how she wanted to say it. She must have fallen asleep or zoned out because the cheesecake was set in front of them with two forks before she realized any time had passed.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have one more drink.”
“You’ll be fine,” Elle insisted. “Let’s eat. This looks amazing.”
Grinning, June picked up her fork and took the tip off the slice of cheesecake and slid it between her lips. She groaned as the flavor hit her tongue and melted in her mouth. God, it really was amazing. She quickly took a second bite before Elle even had a chance for one.
“Hey, don’t hog it all. It’s called sharing for a reason.”
June giggled and poked her fork in for a third time and took another bite. “Snooze, you lose. Better get on eating quick. It’s too good to wait.”
Elle dove in with her own fork, stealing a rather large bite. Like June, she moaned around the food in her mouth. A shiver ran up June’s spine and then down, settling in the pit of her stomach. She tried to tamp down the feeling as best she could, but it wasn’t working. Every moment she spent with Elle, the more awkward she felt and the more pulled in two different directions. She shouldn’t be feeling that way at all; in fact, she most certainly did not want to feel that way.
Her head was spinning, most likely from the copious amounts of alcohol she had consumed. Skipping the last drink Elle had ordered for her, June grabbed the glass of ice water and drank half of it. She needed to get her head on straight if she were going to navigate through this. Glancing up at Elle, she knew what she really needed to do. She needed to stop pretending they could just be friends.
“I heard there’s going to be a band playing at that bar we went to the other night this coming Thursday. Want to maybe head out and see it? I have no idea if they’re good or not,” Elle commented as she took another bite of cheesecake.
“Are they local?”
“Yeah. Some rock band, I think.”
June hummed. The buzz in her head grew louder. Glancing around the restaurant, she bit her lip as she tried to figure out a way to get out of going to the bar again with Elle. She needed to distance herself. She may not have been cheating, but in essence, she was cheating. Or at least getting very close to it, and she refused to let that happen.
Something at the bar caught her attention. Narrowing her gaze, her eyes caught on the flash of silver, a giggle, a familiar pitch of voice. As she focused, she saw bouncing blonde curls.
“Oh my God,” June whispered.
Before she knew it, Lydia was leaning over another woman, sliding her hand up this woman’s leg to nestle on her inner thigh right in the crease of leg to hip, her other hand curling in this woman’s long locks, and then—of all things—their lips locking. They were making out.
Panic set in. June covered her mouth with her hand as she ordered herself to tear her gaze away. It wasn’t working. Her heart rate amped up; the buzzing in her ears grew so loud she couldn’t hear anything else. Her eyes watered.
Lydia’s body was practically writhing on the bar stool. Her partner-in-crime held Lydia’s head in place by grabbing the back of her head as they crushed their mouths together. They were like teenagers in the back of a car in their parents’ driveways.
Bile rose from June’s stomach into her throat. She still couldn’t stop watching them. Her heart pounded in her chest, her belly twisted, her eyes felt like they were going to bulge out of their sockets. She just had to look away—that was it. Look away, then get away.
“You okay?”
Elle’s caring tone brought her back to reality and gave her the direction she needed to look away.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I need to leave.” June grabbed her jacket from next to her and slid out from the booth, tossing a few bills hastily on the table—whatever she’d had in her wallet. “I’m so sorry.”
Her head got dizzy as soon as she stood up. She flipped her jacket over her shoulders, pushed her arms through the sleeves, and zipped it up. She practically ran out of the restaurant, tripping over her own feet as soon as she made it to the front door. Not daring to look back, June pushed her way out of the building and into the frigid air. The snow falling hit her face like glass shards. Tears threatened to break the dam and not stop the flood.
She fished in her pocket for her keys, fumbling to get her car unlocked. The hand on her shoulder made her gasp and spin around, fear rising to meet the terrible hurt. When she saw Elle’s sweet and concerned face looking back at her, she did the only thing she could think of.
She kissed her.
June pulled Elle in tight, one hand against her cheek and the other at her waist. Their lips pressed together, hot in the cold of winter. She leaned against her car, tugging Elle to follow her as she went. If she wasn’t dizzy before, she certainly was now. Her head spun as Elle’s warm body lined up against hers.
Their tongues intertwined, and June drew in a sharp breath. Her heart rapped against her chest in a fast rhythmic pattern, and she lost herself in the embrace. It felt so good. Everything felt good, from her toes to the top of her head to everywhere in between. June slipped the tip of her tongue along Elle’s lip, keeping her eyes closed as she enjoyed the feeling of this very confident and considerate woman against her.
Elle’s fingertips reached the inside of June’s shirt, just at her hip. Warning bells went off in June’s head, warring with the kiss she desperately did not want to break. Giving in to temptation even more, she slipped her hand behind Elle and cupped her ass, squeezing gently while tugging her even closer than before. Elle’s hand inched upward, taking June’s jacket and shirt with it and exposing her skin to the freezing air.
It was enough of a wake-up call to get into June’s head. She jerked away, gasping for breath she didn’t realize she so desperately needed. She pushed down at Elle’s hand, effectively removing it from her body. Immediately, June missed the warm, soft touch, but at the same time, she knew she was right. Wildly, she looked through the parking lot to make sure Lydia hadn’t miraculously shown up without warning and witnessed the whole thing. She’d never live it down.
“I can’t do this,” June admitted. “I can’t.”
She swiped her fingers over her lips, removing the dampness as quickly as possible. Twisting out of Elle’s reach, June opened her car door and slipped inside without another word. The engine roared to life after she turned the key, and after clicking her seatbelt into place, June put the car in reverse and left the restaurant and a no doubt extremely confused Elle in her wake.
June didn’t make it far. She pulled around the next block before realizing she really shouldn’t be driving. She parked in an empty parking lot of the grocery store. Her heart hadn’t stopped its race yet. It didn’t take long for the dam to open and the floodgates to be released.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, her nose stopped up with snot, and her mind spun a million and one circles in the span of a second. Lydia was with another woman, and it did not look like it was the first time. How on earth could she have claimed to want so badly to fix their relationship, to mend fences, to work on their problems as to go to therapy together, and then this?
Shaking her head, June let the tears continue. Cheating was her hard fast line. They were done. But she couldn’t exactly go back to their apartment. At least not yet. June needed to have her cool about her, her wits; she needed to be strong when she called Lydia out on what she’d seen. It was going to be the confrontation of the century.
Sighing, June wiped the tears from her face as she calmed down and caught her breath. Then it hit her. The kiss, everything else she had done when she was upset. Tears started afresh as the weight of what happened crashed down on her. She had drunkenly kissed Elle. The woman she was trying to be friends with, the one who she attempted to firmly put up boundaries with. She was exactly like Lydia—a cheater.
“Oh God.” June hit her head against the steering wheel twice. “What have I done?”
She winced at the phrase. She really needed to sober up before she drove the rest of the way home. She got out of her car, headed into the grocery store, and bought two bottles of water. Then she downed one before starting her walk around the block, three times. Between the cold and the fluids, she felt sober enough after an hour to drive home, except she couldn’t go home.
Letting out a light growl, June fished in her wallet and headed to the hotel right next to the hospital. She grabbed her duffel out of the trunk of the car, the backup clothes she always kept in case she was out and on call. Getting herself a room for the night, June marched herself right inside and took a freezing cold shower until the wee hours of the night. She lay awake the rest of it, debating just what to do about both messes she had found herself in.
Chapter Eight
June waited at the entrance to the Emergency Room. Her jacket was wrapped tightly around her body in a failing attempt to ward off the cold and the snow that had been falling and accumulating for two days. The sliding doors to the Emergency Room kept opening and closing when patients and staff would walk in and out. The early morning sun had woken her in her hotel room, and she felt like crap. Even three days after the botched dinner and her discovery of Lydia’s cheating, she still felt like she had been run over by a semi three or four times.
She was cried out. Her voice was about gone from screaming into her pillow at night. Her nerves were frayed, and she’d probably lost ten pounds from not eating. But she had to talk to Elle. She had to attempt to explain what had happened. In the last three days, she had ignored phone calls and texts from both Elle and Lydia, not knowing which problem she should address first.
Sighing, she’d chosen finally. Saturday morning had hit, and she’d made her way to the hospital to try to catch Elle as she left from her shift, but she did not want to walk inside the building. She didn’t want to get dragged into work things or be put on the spot for helping someone else. This was her time, and she needed to take it and deal with the mess she had made.
She tightened her scarf around her neck and paced back and forth in front of the small, snow-covered memorial right next to the Emergency Room entrance. Each time the doors slid open, she’d glance up, her stomach sinking when it wasn’t Elle. She checked her watch again and rolled her eyes. She pulled out her phone and sent Elle a quick text, letting her know that if she wanted to talk, June would be outside waiting when she got off work.
After sending the text, June felt relieved. She was making steps toward reconciliation in one part of her life where she really wanted to find it. She had to explain—at least as much as she could—what had happened the other night. She had to share with Elle that it had nothing to do with her, or the dinner, or anything else. June had been unduly influenced by alcohol and a sleazy, lying, manipulative girlfriend. Biting her lip, she looked up once more to the doors of the Emergency Room, praying Elle would come out next. She didn’t know how much longer she could wait.
It didn’t take long, only a few minutes, before she saw Elle exit the hospital. Her green scrubs looked thin in the biting wind, and suddenly, June regretted asking Elle to meet her outside. Elle looked around briefly with her arms crossed over her chest before she caught sight of June a hundred feet away by the bench. She was too far away for June to make out the look on her face, but Elle doubled down against the wind and zipped up her black puffy winter jacket as she made her way toward June.
As soon as they were standing toe to toe, June lost her gumption. She’d spent most of the night convincing herself this was the right step to make, that she had to explain, and then as soon as Elle stood in front of her, she lost her voice and any of the speech she had preplanned.
“Hey,” June whispered as the wind whipped her hair around her face. “Did I catch you when you got off?”
“About there. I was just finishing up some charting.” Elle looked June over and didn’t wait a beat. “What happened the other night?”
Groaning, June rocked back on her heels. Elle wasn’t one to shoot the breeze, and frankly, neither was she. But she really did not want to have this conversation as much as she did truly want to have it. The warring parts of her mind and heart made it difficult for her to even stand there.
“Look, if you’re not going to explain, I’ll just go back inside and be done with it. I have better things to do than waste my time in the freezing cold out here.”
“No,” June whispered. She stepped forward and reached out her hand, grabbing Elle’s wrist before sliding her hand down to grip Elle’s fingers. She gave a light squeeze before stepping back. “You deserve an explanation.”
“So, what is it then?”
“This is hard for me, okay? I’m slow to answer because I don’t want to mess this up any more than I already have. I don’t want to say the wrong thing, and I want to be very clear in how I explain it. Please bear that in mind as I gather my thoughts.”
Elle scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You’ve had days to figure out what you’re going to say and to gather your thoughts,” she mimicked the last bit. “I’m tired of waiting.”
“There’s a lot going on you don’t know about.”
“Then fill me in.” Elle’s dark-brown eyes widened as she stepped forward and took June’s hand in her own again, her hard exterior softening a bit.
June bit her lip and extricated her hand. She shoved it into her pocket to keep it from being easily accessible. Every time Elle touched her, she lost her train of thought. When she lifted her gaze to meet Elle’s face, the soft look of compassion had her just about spilling everything out.
