Page 85 of Back for Seconds

“It is real, June. Just like this—it doesn’t have to be any more complicated than what we’re doing right now. We can just be…two friends who make a decision to be best friends. To put their friendship above every other friendship. To be reliable and honest.”

For some reason, it was this statement that broke loose the dam of emotion in my chest. I let out an almost animal cry as Joey pulled me to his chest, hushing and shushing me as I sobbed like a baby into his neck. June the crybaby. June the spoiled brat. She was back.

I let out all my tears, eventually scooting back on my metal chair, making some space between us.

“This is the best Christmas I’ve had in years,” I began, trying to control how hard I blubbered between each word, “because I’ve been myself. I decorated the way I wanted to decorate. I ate all the food I wanted to eat—every bite. I licked my fingers clean and went back for seconds. And I cried when I needed to cry, and I screamed because I felt like screaming. Because of you.” I sucked down a shaky breath. “I’m happy I got divorced. I never want what my parents had. Ever. My mom spent twenty-plus years trying to be the type of woman my father would love. And I…I followed right behind her. I’ve spent all these years trying so hard to be lovable.”

Snot and tears continued to run uninterrupted down my face. I was sure I looked horrible. “You make everything sound so easy, Joey. But what if you change your mind in two weeks? What if everything you think you feel was actually just…”

His eyebrows tented with wry anxiety, his dark eyes softening around the edges. “Christmas magic?”

“Isn’t that what this all feels like? Too good to be true?”

Joey pushed himself to his feet, scrubbing at his jaw. “Fuck, June.” His left eye was swelling, quickly darkening and closing shut. He kept his one good eye fixed on the floor between us. “Haven’t we suffered enough? Can’t we just let this happen?”

How could I explain this pain to someone who had never—would never—feel it? I could walk him through every detail of Brian’s affair—the easy lies that threaded their way into every piece of my life, that had me questioning if I knew myself or my husband at all; the silence; then, the bigger lies—the unquestionable untruths that I chose to ignore out of pure, heart-pounding fear. The little looks traded between my friends when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. The tiny concessions I’d made—from wall paint to my diet. I’d stopped getting tattooed and maybe even started to hate the ones I couldn’t undo. I’d stopped wearing my favorite lipstick—Stone by MAC—because maybe, just maybe, it was too much.

That was to say nothing of the obsession—the all-consuming cancer that was thinking about her. How she looked, how she smiled, how she smelled. Why her? This was a question I could answer, I swore it, if I just spent enough time.

Time. I’d given Brian so much of my time. Not my “prettiest years”—I didn’t believe in that bullshit. But every moment after our divorce papers were signed that I’d spent thinking about him? Crying over him? It’d been too much.

Sal was right. My mom was right.

This was my life, and it was very possible I was about to make the wrong decision. But I had to honor what I needed.

But I didn’t know exactly what that was. Not yet.

As I sat, handcuffed to a metal folding chair, my stomach twisted into a knot so very painful.

“Joey, I need some time,” I said. “And I want you to take time. I don’t want to binge on you. I don’t want to gorge myself, stuff myself full, a-and then wake up one day filled with regret. I want us to be sure that we make sense. Not just during Christmas. Not just in bed. I want to make sure…” I trailed off, hesitating, fear grabbing hold of me one last time. Snap out of it, June.

“That I really love…what we have?” His voice came out so soft and sweet—like crème patisserie, like chocolate mousse, like whipped cream. How did he know?

I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch his expression change when I nodded. “To make sure I really love what we have too.”

I fell forward, back into Joey’s arms. Of course, he caught me. That’s what guys like Joey do. He would have caught me whether he wanted to or not.

He held tight and close until his shoulder was soaked through with tears and Officer Burke was clearing his throat loudly from his doorway to his office.

We broke apart, and Joey gave me a thin smile, running his thumb back and forth over the curve of my cheek, strong fingers pressing firmly into me. He caught one last tear with his thumb, moisture threatening at the rim of his beautiful, dark bottom lashes.

“Goodbye, June,” he said quietly. “You can always text me.”

I nodded. Then I closed my eyes, so I didn’t have to watch him walk away.

Chapter 27 Joey

Mom was sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette when I pulled into the driveway. Our street was silent, everyone chased inside by the threat of snow and the promise of leftover Christmas dinner and new toys.

Bernie gave me a long, slow look over the top of her cat eyeglasses as I slowly scaled the front steps. “What the heck happened to you?”

“Welp.” I collapsed into a rocking chair beside her with a grunt, propping my legs up on the porch railing. “Caught a rogue left hook from her ex-husband.”

Mom gasped, momentarily pausing her rocking. “Did you hit him back?”

“No.” I snorted. “I just took a lot of pictures while they were all getting arrested.”

“Lord have mercy,” she muttered. “How’d that end?”