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“It is. This may surprise you, Ben, but you’re not the boss of me, and this is still my house. If you don’t like it, then you can just get the hell out!”
“I probably should because you’re working overtime to push me the fuck away,” I bark.
“I am not.”
“Bullshit.”
“You’re the one full of bullshit,Sheriff,” she yells back, and I want to bend her over the damn bannisters and fuck her. Maybe that’s what I should do, but I’m tired of this game. I’m not going to be the only one in this relationship fighting for us. Junie is going to have to do some of that if she wants to keep us.
“You want this back?” I ask her, my voice loaded with frustration and anger.
“Duh,” she mutters holding out her hand. I look at her face, those gorgeous blue eyes full of fire, but not the same kind that I’ve grown accustomed to.
“I can’t keep doing this, Junie,” I tell her, as my anger seeps away, but the frustration is still there. It’s just that now I’m letting my hurt show too.
“Ben?” she asks, and I don’t know, maybe she can sense the change. Maybe she sees the hurt I’m feeling. Who in the fuck knows anything when it comes to Junie?
“I can’t keep doing this,” I repeat. “You keep pushing me away. I’ve told you over and over that I’m here to stay and that I’ve got your back.”
“Ben—”
“The last two weeks you’ve changed. You’re not sleeping and when you do, you’re having nightmares. You won’t talk to me. You have to let me in, Junie. I can’t have your back. I can’t help if you don’t let me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replies, stubbornly.
She’s lying. We both know it, and she avoids my eyes as she says it, which is a dead giveaway for her.
“If that’s the way you want it, Junie, then maybe we have nothing to talk about with each other.” My frustration is just boiling over. I tighten up my grip on the fake rock, waiting for her to reply. My knuckles go white with their hold, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I crushed the damn thing to powder. Maybe if I did, it would make me feel better. When she doesn’t say a word, I give up and toss the damn fake rock as far as I can.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she gasps, as she stares in the direction the rock soared through the air. There’s a faint rustle of leaves on the mountainside, but it’s so far off that it would take a miracle to find the damn thing. That makes me feel a little better—not much, but it’s all I have.
“If you want to quit playing games and let me know what’s going on in that head of yours, Juniper. You know where to find me.”
“Ben…”
I stop for a breath, but when she looks down at her feet and doesn’t say anything else, I shake my head.
“Never figured you for a coward, Junie. Guess I was wrong.”
It’s a shitty thing to say, but if she wanted us, then she’d fight and that’s just how I feel about it. I stomp to my truck and when I get in and start it up, I don’t look back at her.
If I did, it’d probably hurt too much.
Junie
“Where’s Ben?” Luna asks, almost immediately. I knew the question was coming and that’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to come to Josh’s game tonight. I would have missed it, but that would have hurt Josh, and I don’t want to do that.
“I don’t know,” I reply with an honesty that hurts inside.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Luna probes.
“We broke up.” I breathe out the words and the breath is freaking painful.
“You broke up? But why!? Ben is crazy about you, and I know you care for him.”
“We just want different things,” I mumble, guilt hitting me hard.
“Bullshit,” Gavin says, and it’s a tone that I don’t think I’ve heard from my brother before. My gaze cuts over to him. He’s watching me, clearly unhappy, as evidenced by the censure on his face.
