I look at her.
She slips an arm around June’s waist. “It astonishes me that with a kick like that, the soccer coach wouldn’t take you on. His loss. You’reamazing.”
Now I’m not just looking.
Now I’mgaping.
Did she seriously just do that?
“He’s such a dick,” June says around a sniffle.
“If your plans to be a professional soccer player don’t pan out, we can still get you a job taking buildings down.”
“Mom.”
“What? Do you know how much work you just saved me trying to figure out how to get that thing safely pulled down? One kick andboom. Now it’s just a salvage job. I’ll even buy you a new ball until we can find the one lost in there.”
“Stop,” June whispers.
Maisey visibly squeezes June’s waist tighter. “Okay,” she says quietly. “So long as you know I’m not mad.”
“Dad would’ve yelled.”
“He’s the last thing I’d ever want to be.”
June’s eyes go wide as she looks at Maisey. And then she chokes on a laugh that turns into another sob. “I’m going home,” she whispers.
“Make sure you take the shortcut,” Maisey replies. “None of that weaving around all of these open plains to get back to the house. Never know what kind of questionable characters you could run into.”
“You are such a dork,” June mutters.
She doesn’t say a word to me. Or look at me, for that matter.
“I’m your dork,” Maisey says to her as she sets off for the house.
June spares me a glance then. “Don’t look at my mom wrong.”
“I’ll get my hammer if he does,” Maisey says cheerfully.
This time, June doesn’t respond at all, and soon, she’s out of earshot.
Maisey looks at me.
I make a point of looking at the barn like I don’t know she’s looking at me. “Glad no one was inside.”
“I was going to reinforce a few beams in there and set it up like a haunted house for Junie and her friends before we tear it down—reinforcement would’ve only been a temporary situation given how much snow apparently usually lands here—but I suppose having it fall wasn’tbad. That was some kick. She must’ve been really pissed to see you. You give a pop quiz this week that I didn’t hear about?”
“You’re avoiding me again.”
“The hot-water heater broke Monday morning, and the dishwasher I had scheduled to be delivered Tuesday to replace the one that went possessed showed up without any working sprayers, which you’dthinkthey would’ve checked before it left the warehouse, but didn’t, andyes, Mr.Deliveryman,the water was on and flowing into the dishwasher. Jesus, I hate men who don’t believe I know a thing about appliances. And then Charlotte called because the PTA’s fall fundraiser got dorked, so I helped her with that, and while I was at her house, I noticed a draft, and considering how cold it’s been getting at night, I couldn’t leave without finding where it was coming from. Heating bills suck when your house is drafty.”
“Maisey.”
“And did you know the tavern’s been doing patch jobs on their roof all summer while they wait for some contractor from Laramie to come up and finish it? Took us all of a day on Thursday to get the manpower to reshingle it once I drove down to town to get the shingles.”
“Maisey, if you don’t want—”
My words die on my tongue as she steps into my view. She doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t grab me by the face to make me look at her and to make sure I’m listening. The intensity in her blue eyes holds me captive without her even trying. “I want. I wantvery much. But I’mbusy, because I alsowantto belong here and IwantJunie to belong here, and Ineedto be able to explain this to her if we get caught, and Iwantto make sure I don’t have any regrets. Okay?”
