“Oh, Mina, you never learn.” June sighed and then smiled at the memories that flooded her mind. “Your mother does love her ice cream.”
“Yes,” Holt said, picking up the page with the bracelet sketch and looking at it again. “But it doesn’t like her.”
June almost laughed at that, because it was such a ridiculous, familiar little truth. Mina could flirt her way through a room, reduce grown men to obedience with one arch look, and run half the family by pure force of personality, but give her too much dairy and she was felled like a tragic queen.
“If you don’t mind me taking the car.” Holt tore the page free, folded it once, slipped it into his pocket, and stood.
“Not at all.” June reached into her purse for the key fob and held it out. “I’ll walk over to the vet’s office. It isn’t far, and I wanted to stop at the flower shop anyway. I thought I’d take something bright and happy over to the new office.”
She stood as well, and Holt took the key from her hand, their fingers brushing briefly, making her stomach flutter and heart jolt ridiculously again.
June ignored the feelings.
They stood, and a few minutes later, they stepped out of the station together into the warm afternoon. The air smelled faintly of salt and sun-baked pavement, and somewhere down the block someone was playing music low from an open storefront. It was the kind of ordinary afternoon that should have invited ease.
Instead, June could feel the case pressing at the edges of everything.
“I just want to get my jacket from the car,” she told him as they reached the parking area.
Holt unlocked it with the fob before she had a chance to do anything and crossed around to the passenger side. By the time she reached him, he already had her jacket in hand.
“Thank you.” June glanced up at him.
He held it out to her, but when she took it, neither of them stepped back at once.
“Be careful,” Holt said.
His voice had changed. Not by much, but enough that she felt it.
She opened her mouth to answer, and before she could, he leaned in and kissed her.
It was not a reckless kiss, nor a long one. It was soft, warm, and so full of old memory that for one impossible suspended second, June forgot how to breathe.
It was not the kind of kiss people invented or reached for in a moment of heat.
It was the kind built over the years. A leaving-for-work kiss. A have-a-good-day kiss. A habit born of mornings, doorways, shared coffee, ordinary life, and belonging.
When he pulled back, Holt’s eyes widened as if he was as startled by what he’d just done as she was.
They stood there staring at each other.
June could hear the gulls. The hum of a passing car. The blood rushing in her ears.
“Holt,” she began, but nothing useful followed it.
He swallowed. “June, I…” Holt stopped and tried again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened there.”
Her lips still tingled. Her knees felt faintly unreliable as she forced them steady. She gathered what dignity she could and gave a little breath of laughter, hoping it did not sound as nervous as it felt.
“No. I understand.” June swallowed and nodded. He kept looking at her. “I think,” she said, finding steadier ground as she went, “it was muscle memory.”
Something moved in his face then. Surprise. Regret. Something warmer. Something older. Then he gave a short laugh of his own and nodded.
“That’s it,” Holt said. “Muscle memory. An old habit resurfacing from back when we were married.”
“Exactly,” June said, with another nervous laugh.
“I’m so sorry.” Holt ran a hand through his hair.
