“Thanks,” I muttered. I stretched out my leg, froze when it brushed up against his.

Jimmy Ray hooted out a laugh that pierced my skull. “You should see your face right now. You’d think this was the first time you’d ever been naked in my bed.”

I closed my eyes, forced my aching brain to remember. I got only bits and pieces, shimmery and vague. A hand under my legs, lifting me. The slam of a car door. My arm tangled in my bra strap and my laughter, loud and crazed. Jimmy Ray’s face moving closer, my hand curled around the back of his neck.

“I was drunk,” I said. My voice was thick and hoarse, my stomach caught somewhere in my throat.

“Yep,” Jimmy Ray said. “Wasted.” He nudged me with his knee. “Never seen you like that before.”

“And you never will again.” I pushed myself upright, one hand holding the sheet to my chest. I rested my forehead on my bent knees. Baby steps.

“You were definitely looking to get wrecked.” Jimmy Ray ran a finger down my back, bumping over my spine. I hated myself for not hating his touch. “Was it about Junie?” He asked the question so quietly, so sincerely, that I looked over my shoulder to see if he was screwing with me. But his face was solemn, his eyes steady on mine.

“Everything’s about Junie,” I told him. Saying her name sparked something, like a lit match that sputters in your fingers, not quite sure if it’s going to take. I pressed my fingers against my temples, not sure if I was willing the memory of last night to gel into something solid or hoping it would disappear into the shadowy corridors of my mind. “I saw my mama yesterday. She spent time with Junie. Did you know that?”

“Yeah. I saw ’em in the Bait & Tackle a time or two. They were two peas in a pod, always huddled together in the back corner.”

“Doing what?” I’d swung toward him too fast and had to put one hand down on the bed to steady myself, bile rising. “What were they talking about?”

“Hell, girl, I don’t know. Eavesdropping on them wasn’t top priority for me.” He paused, thinking. “I did hear Lynette telling Junie that she’d never finished junior high, that she wasn’t much for book learning. She was encouraging Junie to keep up with her studies, far as I could tell.” He shrugged. “Seemed harmless to me.”

I raised my eyebrows. “My mama is never harmless. You know that. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about seeing them together.”

“We haven’t exactly been on speaking terms these past few years,” he reminded me. “Hell, if I even tried to say hello, you hit me with the stink eye before I could get a word out. And as I recall, Land gave me a pretty stern talking-to after our last fight. Told me to mind my own business where you were concerned. Besides, far as I knew, it wasn’t a secret that Junie and your mama saw each other. They were kin, weren’t they?” Jimmy Ray reached behind him with one hand, pulled his pillow up a little and settled back down. “That’s what brought you into my place last night? You wanted to ride my ass about your mama and Junie knowing each other?” He sounded dubious, at best.