Page 27 of Dumbstruck
“What kind?”
“USB-C. I already know you don’t have an iPhone.”
She rolls her eyes and reaches behind her side table. “Are you an Apple purist?”
Her teasing question eases some of the tension still lingering from last night, and I breathe more easily knowing she isn’t completely traumatized. “Me? No. But Dexter is, and he’s the one who buys everything for me. I suggested an Android once, and he broke into tears.”
Chuckling, she sits back up with a black cord in hand. She looks at it for a second and shudders before holding it out to me.
I frown. “What?”
“Nothing.” But then she grins. “Hank put something in the book he’s working on. Gabrielle almost gets strangled by a phone charger.”
Grimacing, I gingerly take the cord from her, like it might spring to life and try to end me. “That’s gruesome. Are we sure Bonnie’s safe with this guy?”
“Technically it was my idea to use the phone cord.”
“Ah, soyou’rethe gruesome one. Got it. Remind me not to get on your bad side. Or the author’s.”
Wrapping herself in a blanket, she follows me out of the bedroom looking adorable. More than ever, I want to wrap her back up in my arms and feel like I’m good for more than pretending to be someone I’m not. When I held her last night, I felt truly useful for the first time in a long time.
“I don’t think Hank has a bad side,” June says.
I snort a laugh. “The guy who writes murder stories?” Turning to look at her as I walk, I tilt my head and make a face of disbelief. “Not sure I believe you on that one. And for the record, he’s one of the few people in the world who don’t like me, which says more about him than it does about me.”
She whacks my arm with a hand that’s still gripping her blanket. “Hey, Hank is a good guy. It’s not his fault you were playing his character wrong.”
After handing off the charger to Richie, I press a hand over my heart and cluck my tongue. “June Harper, you wound me. I was following the script.”
“You didn’t think to read the book before you started filming the movie?”
I don’t want to lose June’s smile or her teasing, but that’s inevitable with what I’m about to say. If we’re to have a shot at something, I might as well be honest with her. “I would have if I wasn’t in Idaho right up until I had to fly out here to start shooting. My mom has been sick.”
Her smile falters. “Oh. Is she okay now?”
“I hope so, but it’s hard to say. She’s old. I’m the baby of five kids, remember?” Seventy-one isn’tthatold, but it’s up there.
“I think she still has a lot of time left,” Richie says, giving me a sympathetic smile.
June looks at him, tilting her head to the side. “You’ve met her?”
“Many times.”
“Richie has been with me a long time,” I say, counting back to when he first started working with me. “Eight years?” He nods to confirm. “He’s basically part of the family at this point, and my mom knits him a sweater every Christmas.”
The longing look June gives me is enough to make me weak in the knees. It’s like she has never heard of anything better than a woman making a sweater for her son’s bodyguard. “I love that,” she says softly. “I always wanted to learn how to knit, but my mom never had time for that kind of stuff, so she never taught me. To be honest, I never had the time either until I moved here. The curse of being a career woman, I suppose.”
I told her last night that I think she misses her old job. With the way her expression turns wistful and distant, I stand by my assessment. “I don’t see anything wrong with having a career,” I say. “Some women knit. Some women put people in jail.”
She laughs. “For the record, I was never the one prosecuting. I saved that for my ex.” My fingers curl into fists at the mention of him, something June notices. Pulling her lips between her teeth, she fights what I’m going to assume is laughter and says, “Is this Jealous Jonah coming out again?”
“I have no reason to envy your ex.” My growly tone would say otherwise, but whatever.
“So you’re feeling…protective?” She tilts her head as if confused by the idea.
Was she not here last night? “I feel absurdly protective over you,” I admit with a sigh. “It’s kind of awful, especially if you’re going to be courting danger.”
She snorts and adjusts her blanket more securely around her shoulders. “I’m not courting danger.”
