Sick Tea
Dom was at the kitchen table when June came down. It was barely six. The sun was just starting to come in sideways over the sink.
She hadn't known he'd stayed over.
He had a cup of coffee in front of him that he wasn't drinking. His hair was still wet from the shower, and his face was flushed red across the cheekbones. When he looked up at her, his eyes were too bright.
"Morning," he said. His voice was rough.
"You sound terrible."
"Thanks."
June poured herself coffee and sat down across from him. Normally she talked at Dom from the second she saw him in the morning. Dogs she'd seen. Songs stuck in her head. Anything. This morning she just held her mug and didn't say a word.
Dom noticed. He always noticed.
"Nico says Rook's truck was parked in the fire lane at St. Brigid's yesterday," he said. "For about half an hour."
June kept her eyes on her coffee. "Was it?"
"June."
"Snowline business."
"He signed you."
It wasn't a question. Of course he already knew. In this town, Dom always knew everything about two hours before it happened.
"Yes," she said.
Dom turned his mug slowly on the table. "What'd it cost?"
It was the same thing Nadia had asked. The same exact words. June's throat went tight.
Don't tell Dom, Rook had said. Let him see it.
"Nothing," June said. "He just wanted Nadia's drive."
Dom looked at her for a long time. June made herself look back. She was a better liar than she used to be. Five years by herself had taught her that much. But this was Dom, and she wasn't sure it was good enough.
Then Dom coughed. It was a deep, ugly cough that bent him forward over the table. He put his fist against his mouth until it passed.
June was on her feet before she thought about it. She came around the table and put the back of her hand against his forehead, the way Aunt Pat always did.
He was burning up.
"Dom. You've got a fever."
"It's a cold."
"It's not a cold. You're on fire."
She turned her hand over and laid her palm flat against his cheek to be sure. His skin was hot and rough with stubble.
He'd turned in his chair to face her, and now she was standing right between his knees. She hadn't meant to stand there. It was just where she'd ended up.
Dom went very still.
Then his hand came up and closed around her wrist. He didn't pull her hand away. He just held it there against his face.
His eyes were closed. His hand was hot around her wrist. June could feel his pulse, fast from the fever, under her palm.
Neither of them moved.
June knew she should step back. She knew it the way you know a stove is hot. Every part of her that had been told no for five years was telling her to take her hand away right now.
She didn't.
"June," Dom said. He said it very quietly. His eyes were still closed.
That was all. Just her name. Like it was a question he didn't know how to finish.
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked. Then the third stair from the top creaked, the loud one.
Dom let go of her wrist.
June stepped back so fast she bumped into the table. Her coffee sloshed over the side of the mug. She grabbed a dish towel and started wiping it up, hard, like it was the most important thing in the world.
Aunt Pat came into the kitchen in her bathrobe and slippers. She stopped in the doorway.
She looked at June, wiping up coffee that was already gone. She looked at Dom, sitting very straight in his chair with his hands flat on the table. She didn't say anything for a second. Something went across her face and then went away.
"Well," Aunt Pat said. "You two are up early."
"Dom's sick," June said. "He's got a fever."
Aunt Pat came over and put the back of her hand on his forehead, exactly where June's had been. She made a clicking noise with her tongue.
"Dominic. You're burning up. Back to bed with you."
"Can't." Dom stood up and pushed his chair in. He didn't look at June. "Got a sit-down at the clubhouse at nine."
"Then cancel it."
"Well."
He picked up his keys and his leather jacket from the hook by the back door. On his way out, he stopped behind June's chair. For one second, June thought he was going to put his hand on her head, the way he always did.
He didn't. He walked out. A minute later, she heard his Softail start up in the driveway and roll away down the hill.
June stood at the counter with the wet dish towel in her hands. Her right palm still felt hot. She closed her fingers over it, like she could keep it that way.
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
It was the number from yesterday. She still hadn't saved it under a name.
Nine days. You own real boots, or do I need to buy you some?
June stared at the screen. Then she turned the phone face down on the counter, hard enough that the case clicked.
Aunt Pat was watching her. June could feel it on the side of her face.
"You're going to the hospital later?" Aunt Pat asked.
"After lunch."
"Mm-hm."
Aunt Pat didn't say anything else. She went to the pantry and started taking things down. A bag of apples. Cinnamon sticks. A jar of honey. A knob of fresh ginger.
June knew what that meant. Aunt Pat was making her sick tea.
June had hated ginger her whole life, and Aunt Pat had known it since June was five. That was why her sick tea always had so many apples and so much honey in it. So June would actually drink it.
June hadn't smelled it in five years. As the apples started to cook down and the cinnamon hit the hot pot, she realized she'd missed it.
She sat at the table and peeled apples while Aunt Pat cut the ginger. For a while, neither of them said anything. The radio on the windowsill played an old Patsy Cline song very low.
"Pop and I have been talking," Aunt Pat said. She didn't look up from the cutting board. "About Dom."
June's knife slowed down. "About what?"
"He's thirty, honey. He's running a whole chapter. It's time he settled down. Found himself a good old lady from a good club family." Aunt Pat scraped the ginger into the pot with the side of her knife. "We've got a few in mind."
June kept peeling. The apple skin came off in one long curl. She concentrated on not breaking it.
"That makes sense," she said.
"I thought you'd think so." Aunt Pat finally looked over at her. Her eyes were kind. They were also very careful. "You always did want what was best for him."
The curl of apple peel broke and fell into the bowl.
"Yeah," June said. "I always did."
By noon the whole kitchen smelled like apples and honey, with the sharp edge of ginger underneath. Aunt Pat poured the tea into a big steel thermos and screwed the lid on tight.
"Dom's been running a fever all week and he never wears a jacket on that bike." She held the thermos out. "You're going out anyway. Take this by his place on your way."
June took it. It was hot through the steel.
"He'll be at the firehouse by now?"
"Should be." Aunt Pat picked up the dish towel June had left on the counter and folded it, slowly, into a perfect square. She didn't look up from it.
"Honey," Aunt Pat said. "When you get there, knock first."
