Page 1 of Dancing With Doubt

1

Roxie

“June, oh, uh...” Roxie looked around the front porch of Lincoln’s home and tried to find somewhere to hide. There was nothing to lurch behind, so she stood there, clutching the panels of her dress together. “Hi.”

“Is it really you?” June stepped out of the house to pull Roxie into a hug, but Roxie found a place, at last, to take refuge at the bottom of the steps. June looked hurt, confused, as she began to speak again. “Where have you been all this time? I can’t believe it.”

With a swipe of her hands, Roxie managed to button up the dress she’d unbuttoned earlier. June didn’t need to see her boobs, even if Roxie had been proud to have those boobs since the day she’d bought them. “How are you, June? It’s been a while.”

Roxie’s thoughts ran through a dozen answers as June gaped at her, standing there like a fish gasping for air. Roxie had dressed in a manner to seduce Lincoln. He’d written that he needed her in the text message. She’d come to his place ready for seduction, dressed in an empire-waisted babydoll, the tiniest pair of panties she had, more strings than anything, and the garters and stockings she knew he loved. On top of it, she’d worn a black coat dress and some heels. Not exactly the attire she’d have chosen to meet her childhood friend in. She thought this kind of scene would only happen in fiction, a movie or something, but nope, the total humiliation of being met by the last person she expected to meet had really happened.

Roxie’s hair, newly dyed a dark purple and black, curled with a silky, glossy shine around her head. The hair, makeup, and outfit should have disguised her against anyone that didn’t know her, yet here June was, pulling her old name out of thin air as if she were still that blonde kid with no boobs, dressed in jeans and a hoodie, pining over June’s brother Liam. Instead, that girl now answered to Roxie and did a whole hell of a lot more than pine for Lincoln, June’s other brother.

“Holy fucking moly, I can’t believe this is happening,” Roxie muttered as she drew her hands up to her face and side-eyed June. Why hadn’t he warned her his sister would be here? “Uh, hi June. Um, can we go inside? Talk maybe?”

Her words came out short and sweet because she didn’t actually want to go in at all. She’d often wondered what had become of June and had even looked her up online to satisfy her curiosity, but she hadn’t wanted to answer the questions that would come from reconnecting with the girl who was now a fully-grown woman. And a doctor, according to her LinkedIn profile.

June bit her lip. Her brown eyes, a mirror of her half-Chinese mother’s, pinched with concern. She held her right hand out to Roxie and seemed to relax when the other woman took it. Roxie wasn’t so relaxed, she was more on guard than ever, but she knew she had to face this moment. June would not let her leave without an explanation.

They walked into the house, hand in hand for the first time since that long-ago day when Roxie’s life had changed completely. Roxie tried not to remember the last time she saw June, it only brought her pain, and focused instead on how nice it was to be around the one person who’d always made her feel whole.

“So, Lolly, how have you been?” June asked once they were in the kitchen and coffee was brewing. Her pale skin paled even more when Roxie winced. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, it’s just, well...” Roxie paused, trying to think of how to explain it, “I don’t really go by Chloe anymore. I’m Roxie now.”

“Oh.” June chirped, her eyes going wide. “I, uh, that’s an interesting name.”

“A stripper’s name you mean?” Roxie smiled, letting her friend off the hook. “Yeah, that’s kind of why I chose it.”

“Ah, I see.” June’s knitted eyebrows proved she didn’t quite see, not really.

“I’m an exotic dancer. Pole dancer, whatever you want to call it. I even teach classes and do charity events, so it’s not all bad.” Roxie’s eyebrows went up and she pulled her lips in to try to smother her laughter.

“Ohhhh!” June exclaimed in a loud rush, her left palm coming up to gently slap her forehead. “Damn, I can be so dense sometimes.”

“It’s okay. You probably weren’t expecting me to do that kind of dancing.” Roxie got up and prepared two mugs of coffee, asking over her shoulder if June still took hers the same way she had when they were teenagers.

“Yeah, I do. Not much has changed about me since I last saw you.” June shrugged and her cheeks turned bright pink.

“Nothing wrong with that. And you are a doctor now.” Roxie brought the white mugs over to the table before she sat down across from June at the table. “I’d say a lot has changed about you.”

June’s smile bloomed to life, her perfectly straight, pearly white teeth a testament to her dentist. “I’m in town for a medical conference for fertility doctors or I wouldn’t be here now. So, yeah, I guess a lot has changed.”

“The girl I used to know didn’t want to travel at all. You said you’d had enough of it over the years.” Roxie tried to keep the conversation off of herself and on June instead. She didn’t want to explain anything, not if she could help it. The conversation was inevitable, surely, but Roxie wanted to put it off as long as she could.

“Why did you disappear?” June asked when Roxie had expected her to explain why she didn’t mind traveling now. The unexpected turn made Roxie blink.

“There was the fire.” She answered hesitantly, her face scrunched in a frown. “It scared me and, well, I just wasn’t thinking straight, I guess.”

Her answer, accompanied with a shrug, didn’t seem to appease June at all. “You weren’t the kind to run away, Lol-I mean Roxie. And you know I’d have helped you do anything you needed me to.”

“I know, there was some trouble that nobody could help me with, though. Stuff to do with my parents and things I didn’t know about until after the fire.” Roxie sat back in her chair, trying to get away from June’s penetrating stare that was so like Lincoln’s, even if they did have different fathers. Roxie suspected that look was in their DNA.

“I still could have helped you.” June protested, frowning at Roxie with annoyance now, the confusion long gone. “I would have helped you hide bodies, or run away, or whatever it was you needed me to do. I worried about you for so long, I nearly made myself sick. Lincoln finally told me he knew where you were and that you were fine, just so I would eat again.”

Roxie’s heart squeezed at the way her friend had worried for her and she reached across the table to grab June’s hand. “I didn’t mean to worry you or ghost you, it’s just what happened. I had a lot on my plate then.”

“I wish Lincoln would have told me more. He never told me where you were, why you’d left, or anything like that, and after that one time, he didn’t speak about you again. I always wondered why but you know how he is, you can’t get answers out of him if he’s determined to keep his mouth shut.”