As if his warning had been prophetic, June's foot hit the wet spot on the tile floor. Her feet slipped out from under her, and suddenly Holt found himself moving without conscious thought, his arms reaching out to catch both June and the dangerous stack of plates before disaster could strike.
For a suspended moment, they were frozen in an awkward yet intimate dance, June's body pressed against his chest as his hands instinctively supported her weight and steadied the plates. The bit of appetizers balanced precariously between them, creating an absurd tableau that might have been purely comedic under different circumstances.
But there was nothing humorous about the way June felt in his arms, or the way her face had tilted up toward his in surprise, or the sudden electric awareness that seemed to crackle in the air between them like a live wire.
Their eyes met and held, and Holt felt the rest of the world fade into complete irrelevance. This was the woman he'd fallen in love with when they were both young enough to believe that love could overcome any obstacle. The woman he'd married in a small, intimate ceremony many years ago, surrounded by family and friends who had been certain they were meant to spend their lives together.
June's lips were slightly parted, her breathing quick and shallow, and Holt found himself leaning incrementally closer without making any conscious decision to do so. The plates balanced between them seemed like an insignificant barrier compared to the years, the hurt, and the fundamental misunderstandings that had kept them apart.
"Mom, I think the—" Willa's voice cut through the charged moment like a blade as she stepped back into the kitchen to retrieve something.
June and Holt sprang apart with such startled speed that the plates nearly went flying in their haste to put an appropriate distance between them.
"Watch out," June said breathlessly, her voice pitched slightly higher than normal as she gestured toward the floor tiles. "There's something wet on that section of the floor."
"Oh," Willa said. “It was probably Blaze dripping water from his mouth like he does after he is finished drinking.”
“I’ll get that cleaned up for you,” Holt offered, needing to do something with his hands that still tingled from holding June. “We don’t want anyone slipping on it.”
"If you don’t mind,” Willa said, her eyes filling with gratitude. “There’s a mop in the utility closet next to the pantry."
"You really don't have to," June started to object. “You’re a guest, and I’ve already put you to work cutting vegetables. I can do it.”
"It's absolutely not a problem," Holt assured her, grateful for any task that would give him something constructive to do with his hands besides think about how perfectly right June had felt in his arms.
As he retrieved the mop and began systematically cleaning the wet area on the floor, Holt found his mind wandering into genuinely dangerous territory. He couldn't help imagining what their life together might have looked like if circumstances had been different. If he and June had stayed married, if they'd had children together, if Willa and Rad were their children.
This kind of evening would probably be routine in that alternate timeline. Relaxed family barbecues where he and June worked seamlessly as a team to host their extended family and friends, where their adult children naturally sought advice and assistance from both parents, where the comfortable rhythms of shared responsibility were as natural and automatic as breathing.
The thought was at once appealing and deeply painful, offering a glimpse of the parallel life he'd abandoned when he chose career advancement over the hard work of maintaining marriage.
"Mom, can you help me grab some more snacks from the pantry?" Willa asked June. "We're running low out there, and there are six hungry teens that are drooling over the uncooked barbecue meat.”
“I’ll go get the rest of the dishes, and we can top up the snacks,” June told her and left the kitchen.
Once Holt was done with the floor and put away the mop. He washed his hands and walked toward Willa.
“I can help you with the snacks.”
"You really don't have to work during what's supposed to be a relaxing social evening," Willa said with obvious embarrassment as she began pulling various bags and containers from the neatly arranged shelves. "This is supposed to be fun for you, not anopportunity for me to put you to work in my kitchen like some kind of unpaid caterer."
"Nonsense," Holt replied firmly, taking several items from her hands to help carry the load. "Your mother and I go way back, so you're practically family as far as I'm concerned. I'm genuinely happy to help with whatever needs doing."
Willa's expression shifted to unmistakable curiosity as she reached for a large bag of chips on one of the higher shelves. "How do you know my?—"
"Willa!" Mina's voice called from the kitchen door with the kind of authoritative tone that suggested she had appointed herself the unofficial overseer of the evening's hosting duties. "Where are the dinner rolls? And we're running quite low on chips out here!"
Willa sighed deeply and rolled her eyes in the universal gesture of adult children dealing with well-meaning but demanding matriarchs who had taken charge of situations. "Coming!" Willa called back toward the patio, then smiled apologetically at Holt. "Thank you so much for all your help. I really, truly appreciate it."
She hurried out of the kitchen with an armload of snacks and supplies, leaving Holt standing alone near the pantry with her unfinished question echoing persistently in his mind.
The realization hit him with completely unexpected emotional force:June had systematically erased him from the story of her life after their divorce.Not just romantically, which would have been entirely understandable and appropriate, but completely and thoroughly. She'd never told Willa about her first marriage,never even mentioned that she'd been married to someone else before Trevor.
It was as if all those intense years they'd spent together, the dreams they'd shared and built and lost, the profound love that had once defined both of their lives, had simply never existed in the version of her personal history that she'd shared with her daughter.
The knowledge stung far more than Holt had expected it would. He'd understood intellectually that June had moved on after their divorce, that she'd built a successful and fulfilling life without him. But somehow he hadn't fully grasped that she'd accomplished this by completely removing all traces of his existence from her personal narrative.
Almost immediately, his own guilt crashed over him with equal emotional intensity.He'd done essentially the same thing, hadn't he?Rad knew that his father had been married before Lillian, but they'd never discussed the details in any meaningful way. Holt strongly doubted that his son even knew it had been June he’d been married to.
