for June

12. The Fabled Truth

"You ass!"

Chad felt a fist land on his side, causing him to spring into a fetal position, which meant he could no longer fit on the sofa where he'd insisted on sleeping the night before, despite there being a perfectly good bed in the guest room that used to be Jo's. His mum had turned his room into a craft room, which always stung him a little.

He hit shoulder on the coffee table on his way down and heard his own wretched scream all before he'd opened his eyes.

He looked up, cocooned between the sofa and the table, nursing his shoulder. It was Jo, standing like an angry bull with her hands on her hips. "How could you?"

He sat up, leaning against the sofa. "Why are you yelling and assaulting me so early in the morning? Any assaulting has to wait until after coffee." He could see his sister's jaw clench and unclench. He smiled.

"First, dad's back in town and mum tells me you're okay with that? And then you tell her you're in love with some June girl, all the while you've had me believe you were still getting over Setal?"

Chad tried to protest. This was news to him. The whole being in love with June business, at least? "Hang on..."

"I'm not done!" Jo glared. "On top of all this, I have Setal calling me up asking what's the deal with the housemate of yours, who happens to be called June? What the hell, Chad. I thought you and I told each other everything before anyone else, but I'm the last one to know all this?"

Chad barely saw her take a breath in between all the words. She ended up drawing a lengthy one afterward, which sent him laughing. He reached an arm out to her and she hauled him up. "What?"

"Are you pregnant?" he asked, stretching out his stiff limbs. Perhaps the sofa hadn't been the best idea.

"What?"

"I had a dream you were."

"How is this related to anything I said?" Jo looked baffled.

"It's not, but I wanted to make sure this was truly you and not some hormone-charged woman."

Jo squared her shoulders for round two. "So who is June?"

"My flatmate." He headed for the kitchen where, to his surprise, their mum sat sipping her morning tea. "You let her assault me so you can find out who June is?"

She shrugged, cupping her teacup to her mouth. "Would you lower your voice? I have a splitting headache."

Chad fished out two ancient mugs from the cupboard where they had always sat for twenty-five years. These thick, ugly brown mugs from bygone eras "Didn't I give you a new set of China last Christmas?" he asked, looking at them in disgust.

Marjorie shrugged. "They were your grandmothers."

Jo slipped into the room behind Chad, intently scrawling the call log on Chad's phone. "I don't see a June here."

"Give me that!" He snatched his phone out of her hands.

"Why don't you have your roommate's number on your phone?"

"Flatmate."

"Whatever," Marjorie interjected. "Answer the damn question."

Chad chucked a filthy look at his mother. "Because," he started carefully, "she won't let me buy one, and she hasn't got one herself."

The two women narrowed their eyes at him. "Why would you need to buy her one?" they asked in unison. Chad hated when they did that.

He hadn't thought this through. He couldn't very well tell them the truth, and he wasn't going to. "She doesn't know which one to get and I'm the last person to tell her what's good out there."