It was shrill. Clipped. Abrupt. Shocked. “June!”
She broke the kiss and stumbled back, losing her balance. She’d been
leaning forward, into Arabella and now she was pitching back. She landed
on the sand on her bottom, unhurt, but confused.
“Oh, my God, what were you just doing?” Summer was there. Summer,
with her eyes wide and a disgruntled look that was something close to
disgust on her face. Shock too, but the ugly expression overrode that.
Summer pointed at Arabella, who looked incredibly nervous and
embarrassed. “How could you have possibly forgotten that she’s the worst?
Just. The. Worst. Like, literally, there was no one who was worse than she
was.”
“That was a long time ago,” June groaned.
The kiss wasn’t premeditated. It just happened and the rightness of it
caught her completely off guard. She wasn’t about to explain any of that to
Summer at the moment. Not when she was in the thick of her righteous
indignation.
“Okay, I deserved that,” Arabella said quietly. She was staring up at
Summer the way someone stares up at the sky trying to figure out if one
hell of a storm is about to descend on them and unleash holy hell.
“No, that’s not fair,” June protested. “It was a long time ago. Summer,
come on.”
“No, I’m not coming on!” Summer hissed. “You come on! Have you two
been…all this time?”
“No!” June scrambled off the ground. “It just happened. There was
nothing going on before.” She couldn’t look at Arabella. “There isn’t
anything going on. We work together, and I’m not against work
relationships, but I’m the boss and that wouldn’t loo
k right.” She finally
dared to turn and look at Arabella, afraid she’d see the hurt she’d just
wrought unleashed on her face, but instead, Arabella was just sitting there,