Page 68 of Kiss Me Like You Mean It (Oak Valley)

June leaned forward. “She did?”

Missy laughed. “Oh boy, did she. This boy followed her around for ages, and as he grew into a fine man, she worried he was all for show. She was scared to trust him, to jump. Do you know what changed?”

June shook her head.

“She woke up one morning and decided flying too close to the sun was better than living life on the ground. They were engaged two weeks later. Now,” she said, her face serious. “Believe you me, we weren’t laughing about it then. They were so young and barely knew one another, I was having a heart attack every day. It could’ve ended any number of ways.”

Her grandma stopped, sadness filling the air. “Even if it had ended any other way — they got divorced, they were still alive, whatever — it would’ve ended. And now isn’t that the trick? You get one life, June. One.”

June swallowed the lump in her throat.

“I—I don’t know how to be the person I want to be. I don’t want to be scared to jump.”

“Well, why are you scared? You scared of being rejected? Hurt? Abandoned?”

June looked away.

“Ah. I understand. But no one abandons. They choose a path, and sometimes that path is different than yours. Sometimes it’s abrupt, sometimes they’re assholes. But you’re on the path anyway, so what’s the point of stopping? We move forward, because we have no other choice. That’s what your mom did. And honey, that’s what you’ve done.”

Tears dripped from June’s eyes, the memories of the years following her parents death still fresh. She had been emptied, and she had still found someway to move forward.

And she loved her life. There was a time when she thought she never would, that the sickening ache in her stomach and the black veil over her heart would never dissipate. But they changed, they morphed, they made room for other things. She could feel them without needing to be wrapped up in them.

That was trick to surviving, and to thriving.

And June was tired of living life on the ground.

54

The grocery store was fairly empty, a blessing for Archer as he moved up and down every aisle. He hated grocery shopping to begin with, and having to deal with people who didn’t know how to push their carts or abandoned them in the middle of the aisles made it even worse.

Dragan had just left, on a mission to put everything he had into winning June back. Archer was no idiot — there was always a way to win someone back, so long as the spark was still there. Sometimes with was something out of your control, like time. But usually, every person had their weakness. The trick was figuring out what it was.

And self-improvement, of course. But that was something Dragan had to learn on his own.

Archer wandered down the bean aisle, eyeing the bags of dried beans for the ones he needed to make homemade refried beans. He bent down to pick up bag when low angry voices from the aisle over made him pause.

A man and a woman.

He was angry.

She was scared.

Archer’s body kicked into gear, ready to fight or flight at a moment’s notice. He closed his eyes, steadied his breathing, trying to hear if it was a domestic dispute worth getting involved in.

“Stop, you’re hurting me!” the woman hissed.

His eyes flew open and he quietly went to the edge of the aisle, pressing his body against the end cap.

“Why are you here? Why are you following me?” she whimpered.

The man’s voice was too soft to hear, but it was a growl that made Archer want to rip his throat out. He peered around the edge of shelf to see who he’d have to take down.

He got the man’s back, tall and broad. He was wearing a baseball cap, what hair he could see an unremarkable brown. Worn jeans. Work boots. Towering over someone, he couldn’t really make out behind the man’s much larger body.

Purple scrubs.

His heart leapt to his throat.

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