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Cassie found it all very funny. June did not.
“Are you drunk?” Cassie giggled.
“No! No. I mean-I didn’t-oh my god was I roofied?” June gripped Cassie’s arms.
“June, those stupid little drinks you kept downing! They’re alcoholic!”
“You’re joking.” June’s eyes widened.
“I swore I thought you knew! I would’ve said something!” Cassie laughed again and she leaned backwards as she did so, which sent her stumbling.
June tightened her grip on Cassie’s forearms and kept her upright. “I can’t drive us home.”
She felt crazy. Her head was all foggy. And it was hard to form words. Like she was exhausted but worse because she also felt wide awake. How could her brain be asleep and awake at the same time? That made no sense.
“Yeah no duh,” Cassie turned to stare at her reflection in the window. Clearly displeased with it, she pulled a stray curl down so it didn’t stand out on her head.
“What are we gonna do?”
Cassie rolled her eyes, fondly and a little dramatically. “Oh my god we’ll just call someone! It’s not a big deal, babe.”
“Oh. Oh right. Who should I call? My dad?” June pulled out her phone and almost immediately dropped it.
“Okay you want your dad to see you drunk?” Cassie put a hand on her hip, sort of lazily.
June considered this. She didn’t feel drunk. Just a little, buzzed. But she’d never been either before, so she realized she actually had no idea how bad it was. Maybe she was just a little slow. But maybe she was a completely different person, embarrassingly different.
“Right. Ezra is it.” June decided after a moment.
“What? No, that’s worse!” Cassie reached out blindly and gripped June’s wrist.
“Ezra’s worse than my dad?” June couldn’t follow this logic.
“Ezra’s never seen me drunk before! My little brother can’t see me drunk!” Cassie cried.
“He’s never seen me drunk either!” June countered. Both of their voices were raised, June realized after she finished speaking. Why were they talking so loudly?
“That’s different! You’re his best friend! I’m his older sister! It’s different!”
“You said that twice.”
“That’s because I really mean it!”
“Well, I don’t want to stand out here all night!” June huffed, starting to get annoyed. Somehow Cassie was even more stubborn after alcohol. But June supposed she shouldn’t really have been all that surprised at that.
“Juniper, this is what boyfriends are for. Call yours.”
June blinked. “Huh?”
“Your boyfriend?” Cassie narrowed her eyes.
June shook her head, the faintest movement, as she stared at Cassie blankly.
“Danny?”
June’s eyes widened, impossibly so and she made a face she was sure was almost identical to the iconic Wallace and Gromit grimace.
“Oh my god!” June exclaimed. “I forgot that-“ June bit her tongue, literally. She slammed her teeth into it to stop herself from finishing that sentence. Because she’d been about to say I forgot I lied and told you he was my boyfriend. “I forgot about Danny!” June corrected quickly.
At that Cassie cackled. “You forgot about your boyfriend?” Cassie put a hand on June’s face. “How drunk are you?”
“I-I don’t know,” June admitted. “I have no frame of reference. I-I don’t want to call Danny.” For some reason the thought of Danny seeing her like this was almost worse than her Dad seeing her like this. Besides, it was late. She didn’t want to bother him. She already did that enough. “Oh I know! I’ll call Vera!”
“Vera from that monster shop?” Cassie frowned.
“Yeah. She’s got mom energy. And she loves to take care of people. She’s really nice.”
“You can’t call her,” Cassie said, very seriously.
“Why not?” June cocked her head.
“You just can’t.” Cassie was suddenly very interested in the sidewalk.
“Cassie, I hate when you do this! You expect me to do things or drop things and you never tell me why.”
“Please, June! Please don’t call Vera.” Cassie jutted her bottom lip forward slightly. She placed her hands on June’s forearm. “I’m asking really nicely.”
June took in the sight. If June blinked she could’ve sworn she saw herself standing right where Cassie was. June couldn’t remember which one of them created this trick. She really couldn’t remember who taught who. The thing was, it worked on both of them.
And she wasn’t sure what was going on with her friend, but she had a suspicion it had something to do with whatever secret girlfriend she’d just broken up with.
“Fine. I’ll call Danny,” June sighed.
Cassie smiled gratefully before her face fell back into a neutral expression.
“Okay, hurry up and call him before I get another White Claw.” Cassie plopped down on the bench just outside the bar and turned to look at the door longingly.
“You’re gonna have another drink?” June searched through her contacts to find Danny’s phone number. His mobile, not his landline. His landline was already in her favorites in her contacts. But she supposed now she’d have to put his mobile on her favorites too. Even though she’d have to change and update it when he bought a new burner phone.
“It’s not a drink, it’s a White Claw. And now we have a ride so does it really matter?” Cassie lounged back and turned her attention back to June, but her movements were sort of sluggish.
“Man, what did this secret girlfriend do to you?” June muttered to herself before pressing call.
It rang three times before it suddenly stopped, but June was confused when all she heard was silence.
“H-hello?” June managed.
“Hey,” Danny greeted back. He sounded a little annoyed. Or maybe tired. June couldn’t tell actually. And she was already so bad at reading him, being intoxicated definitely wasn’t helping.
“Hey! Sorry to bother you but I kind of did something stupid and now I-woah. I feel like I sound weird. Do I sound weird? Or do I sound normal?” June opened her mouth experimentally a few times to see if she felt as weird as she was convinced she sounded. She heard Cassie laughing to her left.
“Where are you? I can barely hear you.” Danny asked.
“Oh! Do I need to be louder? I can be louder!” June yelled. “I’m at the-the-“ June faltered. She looked around and tried to remember where the heck this place was. Remembering things was hard right now.
“The bar that’s by your apartment!”
Danny was silent for a moment.
“You’re at a bar?”
“Yeah! With Cassie!” June screamed. “I was supposed to drive us back to the house but did you know that sometimes a drink tastes like juice but it actually has alcohol in it?”
There was another pause. June had to really focus to keep her attention on her conversation with Danny. His constant pauses and the blaring music from the bar weren’t helping. And now Cassie was singing along to the song that poured out of the open door and assaulted June’s ears.
June’s head was starting to hurt. And it felt like it had its own pulse.
“You are so lucky.”
“Huh?” June swallowed and suddenly realized she must have just fallen asleep standing up.
“You’re lucky that I’m at my mom’s right now.”
“Why?” June asked, very confused.
“So I can borrow her car to pick you guys up.” Danny explained, patiently.
“You’re picking us up?”
“That’s why you called, right?“ There was a hint of amusement in his tone. June could at least recognize that.
She nodded and then realized he couldn’t see it. “Um, yeah.”
She heard someone else say something in Spanish, and Danny responded, now sounding like he was a little ways away from the phone.
She pulled the phone away from her face to check the time. It was a quarter till midnight. Way later than June thought. But also sort of earlier than she expected at the same time. And it was Sunday wasn’t it? That meant he was at his mom’s. He’d just said that. He didn’t usually stay that late though.
“Is that your mom?” June blurted.
Danny said something else in Spanish before returning to the call. “Yeah-“
“Don’t tell her I’m drunk!” June cried.
Danny was silent again.
“That was really loud wasn’t it? Did she hear that?” June felt herself begin to panic. “Put her on the phone!”
“June-“
“Put Val on the phone!” She repeated, with greater emphasis.
“June-“
“Val, it just tasted like strawberries! I didn’t know it had alcohols in it!”
“June!”
June hiccuped. “Yeah?”
“Just hold on for a second okay? You said you’re with Cassie?”
June nodded again, and then again had to remember he couldn’t see that. “Yeah.”
Danny once again started going off in Spanish. She heard the jingling of keys, and then Val saying something else. She also thought she heard Talia but it was drowned out by the music. A new song started. And it caught her attention. She didn’t fight the distraction this time. She turned to Cassie.
“Is this Lizzo?”
“Yeah babe,” Cassie smiled at June with unbridled adoration.
“I think I like Lizzo.” June decided.
“Hell yeah you do!” Cassie exclaimed.
“Ahh stop cursing!” June covered her ears.
“Wuss,” Cassie rolled her eyes. “That’s not even a bad word. You wanna know what’s a bad word?”
“Stop it you!” She glared pointedly at her friend. Cassie just laughed.
And June frowned. Was someone calling her name? She turned around. She swore she kept hearing her name. She looked down at the phone in her hand.
“Oh my god! Danny! I forgot I called you!” “Yeah that’s what I figured. Stay there, okay? I’m on my way.”
June felt something weird in her stomach at that. Something about the fact that Danny would drop everything to come help her because she made a stupid mistake. It made her insides twist.
Oh wait. Maybe she was just nauseous. Yeah, she was definitely nauseous.
“Danny, are you still there?” June gripped the phone with both hands, as if that would somehow get her closer to him even though they were miles apart.
“Yeah,” He answered and she heard the beeping of a car that had just turned on.
“Thank you,” she said, quietly.
Danny didn’t say anything and that made June a little nervous. She shivered.
“Hey, is he still on the phone?” Cassie asked, despite the fact that June had literally just asked the same thing.
June nodded, finally at someone who could actually see it. Cassie stood up quickly, so quickly that it surprised June and she couldn’t stop Cassie in time from wrenching her phone out of her grasp.
“Bring your girlfriend a jacket,” Cassie demanded. “She thought it’d be a good idea to wear a crop top in the middle of September.”
“Cassie!” June huffed. She took her phone back. “Sorry, I’m sorry about that-sorry about her-I’m sorry that I-“
“Hey,” Danny interrupted her, gently. “Don’t-don’t be sorry.”
June was suddenly nauseous again.
“I’ll be right there.” He promised.
The call ended.
Cassie studied June for a moment and then raised an eyebrow.
“What?” June asked, self conscious.
“Nothing,” Cassie sat back down on the bench. “He’s what, fifteen minutes away?”
June nodded.
“I’m getting another White Claw,” Cassie stood back up, despite the fact that she’d literally just sat down. “You want one?”
June’s face felt hot. Her stomach churned. Her heart began to beat abnormally fast. Her head felt light. She was smiling.
“No, I don’t think I need one.” June mumbled. Cassie lingered, studying June once more for just a second before she strolled back inside.
June took her spot on the bench and waited. And if the smile plastered on her face was a little idiotic, if she twirled and twisted a strand of her hand like a schoolgirl, she wouldn’t read into it, she probably couldn’t have even if she wanted to. But Cassie, well Cassie already had.
Danny strolled up to the curb almost exactly fifteen minutes later. She and Cassie didn’t notice at first. They’d been too busy trying to figure out just how many drinks June had consumed. June was sure it had been three at most. Cassie swore it had been four.
They were arguing about it. It had started as a harmless disagreement, but both of them were ridiculously stubborn, and being inebriated only made that worse.
“I started singing Three is a Magic Number because I only had three!” June exclaimed.
“You sang Three is a Magic Number because you love School House Rock and you were drunk!” Cassie snapped back.
“I sing SchoolHouse Rock sober!”
Danny, who had put the car in park, got out and hesitantly made his way around the front of the vehicle as the girls argued.
And June and Cassie probably wouldn’t have noticed him, if June hadn’t shivered at a particularly chilly breeze. Cassie immediately closed her mouth, as she had been about to yell something, and she scooted closer to June to try and shield her from the wind. In doing so, she turned just enough to see Danny, lingering on the curb.
“Do you know how creepy that looks? With you just standing there watching us like that?” Cassie raised an eyebrow.
“Be nice, Cassie,” June warned. She pushed herself off the bench, and with her arms wrapped around herself she trotted over to Danny.
Danny stared at her, a little oddly, and June realized this was probably the first time Danny had seen her with heavy makeup on. Cassie had helped her get ready, and she had lots of sparkly eyeshadow, sparkly eyeliner, sparkly highlighter, sparkly lip gloss, really just a lot of sparkles.
“Cassie did my makeup,” June said, to try and explain why she looked the way she did, but instead her tone made it sound as though she was a kid showing their parent a drawing they made.
Danny didn’t respond to that, instead he drew his attention to her shivering and after a moment, held up a hoodie.
“Ah! Thank you!” June cried. She grabbed it from him and slipped it over her head. Or rather, she tried to. But she put her head through the wrong hole.
Of course, she didn’t realize that, so when she couldn’t get her neck through, she started pushing and tugging even harder. And when that proved to be unsuccessful she panicked.
Before she could start thrashing like a mad man, she felt large hands tug at the hoodie. And in a couple of seconds, her head was free, now through the correct hole.
She blinked up at Danny through her ridiculously large lashes. June liked wearing false eyelashes because if she tried hard enough she could always sort of see them in her vision and she thought that was fun. Her hair stuck out every which way, having been mangled by the fabric of the hoodie and if she had been sober she would have realized that she dispersed half of the sparkles on her face onto the inside of the garment.
Danny did realize this however, and he couldn’t hide his annoyance quick enough. June frowned when she saw his frown and her shoulders fell.
“I’m really sorry. I wanted to call Vera but Cassie wouldn’t let me. I know you go to your mom’s on Sundays. This should’ve been your family time.” June rambled as Cassie approached them.
Cassie eyed Danny, clearly not liking the fact that June was being so ridiculously apologetic. Danny tried to ignore her stare, but it was piercing.
“I’m-hey-I’m not upset,” Danny assured, nervously. “I just-glitter gets everywhere.”
He gestured to his hoodie. June didn’t understand what he was trying to say. But Cassie did.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Cassie commented before yanking open the door to the backseat, now temporarily placated.
Danny opened the passenger door for June. She mumbled a thanks as she stepped in. Danny closed the door after she sat down and walked back around to the driver’s side.
“He’s tall,” Cassie commented when it was just the two of them in the car. June didn’t say anything. When Danny buckled in, Cassie repeated her statement.
“Hey. You’re tall.”
Danny turned to glance at June, almost as if asking her how the heck he was supposed to respond to that, but June had her gaze fixed on the dashboard.
His eyes quickly darted to the rear view mirror, where he could see Cassie slouched in the backseat. Then, he shifted his focus back to the road in front of them.
“Yeah.” Was all he said.
They drove in silence for a little. But then Cassie started humming under her breath. June recognized it as the Lizzo song that had been playing earlier that night.
“June?”
Danny had said her name. Danny wanted her attention. She let out a shaky breath.
She had to work to make her head turn towards Danny. Why was simply turning her head such a difficult task?
Stopped at a red light, Danny examined her with a hint of worry. Her eyes were glazed over and not only was she abnormally still, but she was also abnormally quiet.
“You okay?” Danny whispered.
“I’m trying really hard not to throw up in your mom’s car right now.”
Danny grimaced. He reached behind him to pull something out of the pouch behind June’s seat, directly in front of Cassie. Cassie eyed him as he did so. Danny swallowed, but grabbed what he’d been hoping to find and handed it to June. It was a paper bag.
“You seem pretty prepared. What do you drive drunk girls around in your car a lot?” Cassie questioned.
“Talia gets carsick,” June said at the same time Danny snapped “My sister gets carsick.”
They both met each other’s eyes.
The light turned green.
Danny’s eyes very quickly darted away. June’s sank to the bag in her hands.
June unfolded the bag and held it out in front of her. Cassie started humming again.
Without meaning to, June turned her attention from the bag, to Danny. She took in the sight of him, driving with his knuckles tight around the steering wheel.
Cassie made him nervous. That’s the conclusion June had come too. She felt bad. She hadn’t meant for this to happen.
“It didn’t taste like alcohol,” June muttered more to herself than to anyone else.
“I know, babe,” Cassie said.
“I don’t feel that different. I don’t think I could’ve driven home but I-I don’t know I just feel tired. I’m not acting that different am I?” Not quite understanding why, she directed that question at Danny instead of Cassie. Cassie noticed this, so she didn’t answer, and instead waited for Danny to.
Danny hesitated. For what felt like the hundredth time, he glanced at June with an expression June thought might be concern, but it was hard for her to tell with his eyebrows pinched together like that.
“Yes. You are.” He answered.
“Am I annoying? And loud?” June bemoaned. She slid down the leather seat and let her chin dip against her chest.
“No,” Danny shook his head, his attention back on the road. “You’re quiet.”
He sounded upset, as though seeing June so quiet, so subdued, actually unnerved him.
Cassie, who had been leaning forward very intently watching their interaction, cocked her head at that and leaned back, deep in thought.
June was overcome by another wave of nausea that was so strong she was convinced she was going to puke. She shoved her face into the bag, but nothing happened.
She leaned her head back against head rest and closed her eyes.
June greatly welcomed Cassie’s humming as it gave her something else to focus on aside from the overwhelming desire to puke her guts out.
“When you’re carsick, it usually helps to look out the window,” Danny offered. June cracked an eye open to look at him.
“It helps Talia,” he shrugged.
June forced herself to take his word for it.
It did not help. She was hit with a wave of vertigo that very quickly overtook her.
She scrunched her eyes shut and smushed her forehead against the glass.
“June?” Danny prodded.
“Worse,” Was all she could manage.
“Sorry,” Danny said, sympathetically.
June kept her eyes tightly shut for the rest of the ride.
She briefly heard Cassie say something along the lines of “Turn here.”
“I know,” Danny muttered.
June felt the exact moment the car stopped. She swallowed thickly when something bubbled up in her throat.
“Is she asleep?” Cassie whispered.
“No,” Danny answered, taking the keys out of the ignition.
“And how do you know, lover boy?”
June heard Danny huff out a breath through his nose.
“Be nice, Cassie.” June slurred. She pried her eyelids open.
She saw Danny fail to hide a smirk at Cassie’s surprised face. Cassie saw it too. When Danny clocked Cassie’s eyes on him, his smile dropped. He quickly got out of the car.
June smiled back at Cassie, but she had already opened the door.
Before June reached her own handle, the door swung open.
She needed his help to get out and she didn’t even have to ask him. He held out his arm without a word, and June used it to keep herself upright.
And then, she didn’t let go. Her hand found his much larger one and she wrapped her palm around his.
Danny sucked in a breath and his hand tensed.
But June didn’t notice. All she could think about was her bed. And her toilet. She was trying to decide what to do first. Sleep or throw up. Or maybe she could do both at the same time. Wait, that was impossible.
“There’s a step here,” Danny warned as they reached the front door. The warning did nothing. She would have face planted if not for Danny. He only let go of her hand so he could wrap an arm around her waist to stop her from colliding with the ground.
“She trips over that sober,” Cassie chuckled.
Danny pulled her upright and the second she was back on her feet, he released his hold on her like she was on fire.
Thankfully, Cassie had turned around so she missed that little display.
June stumbled forward and it took Danny a second to realize she was trying to get to the couch. And although he was ridiculously overwhelmed and trying to figure out why his arm felt like it was going to fall off, he couldn’t watch her fumble around pathetically. He used his other arm to put a hand on her back and gently pushed her towards the sofa.
As soon as she was close enough, she belly flopped onto it.
Danny smiled. There was June he knew.
She moaned into the seat cushion. Danny hovered awkwardly over her, trying and failing to come up with something to do, someway to help.
Cassie appeared behind him.
“Don’t worry, lover boy,” she rolled her eyes. Danny had to stop himself from telling her to stop calling him that .
“This may be her first hangover, but it’s not mine. I’ll take care of her.” Cassie assured.
Danny forced himself to nod. “Okay. Uh, yeah okay.” He couldn’t tear his eyes away from June.
“I was wrong about you,” Cassie declared. Danny finally turned to look at her, but he said nothing. He didn’t really trust himself right now.
“June doesn’t do this. You know that right?”
“Drink? Yeah, I-I know she doesn’t drink.”
“No,” Cassie huffed. “This!” She gestured to him. “She doesn’t date! She doesn’t do romance! That’s not her thing. That was never her thing. So, I was real confused when she showed up one day with you. And honestly? I didn’t get it. The girl who went through all of high school without ever having so much as a crush! The girl who’s answer to ‘What celebrity would you risk it all for?’ is Kermit the Frog!”
Danny couldn’t stop himself from choking out a laugh. “Is that really her answer?”
“I remember thinking, what is so special about this grown adult coffee addict that made Juniper Jones fall for him? But I’ve never seen anyone make June blush the way you did tonight.”
Danny blinked. He didn’t remember-when had that happened?
“June does a lot for a lot of people. I think you know that. But not a lot of people realize just how much she likes to be cared for. I’m not even sure if she knows that. But you-“ Cassie paused, as if for dramatic effect. “You take care of her. And I guess that’s all that matters.”
Danny swallowed, unsure what to do with this extremely vulnerable information.
“But I swear to God,” Cassie took a step closer to him. She was a foot shorter than him, and in a bright pink dress but even so, he still found himself backing up. “If you ever hurt her-“
She let the threat hang in the air. She didn’t need to finish.
She stared at him for a second longer, and he had to fight every instinct in him that was telling him to look away. Somehow, he held his ground.
“Thanks for the ride.” Cassie said, casually as if she hadn’t just scared the crap out of him. “See you around.”
Danny turned to June one last time, but she was still facedown on the couch.
He sighed, buried his hands in his pockets, and very quickly made his way out the house.
He never saw that the second he closed the front door behind him, June sat up and gripped his hoodie, confused.
“What’s happening, babe? You about to puke? I can see it coming,” Cassie went to grab a trash bin. “Hold it for one second! I’ll be right there.”
“Smells like Danny,” June mumbled, with a silly little smile.
“Oh, you’ve got it bad,” Cassie sighed, amused and disgusted at the same time. “You straights and your hoodies.”