Bonham (Pushing Daisies Book 3) by Heather Young-Nichols (read people like a book txt) 📕

another drink. “I think the hardest part to take is that I’m the brother who always did relationships. I didn’t hook up the way you did or even the other two. It was rare for me. Yet here I am fucking up the most important one I’ve ever had.”

“First, me and you is the most important relationship you’ve ever had,” he said. I flipped my middle finger at him and he snorted. Leave it to Van Zant to lighten things when I didn’t think they could be lightened. “But why do you say you’re fucking it up? Come on. I’ve got experience now. I might be able to help.” He nudged my foot with his.

“She came out during the meet and greet—”

“Let me guess… when the blonde with the huge tits was trying to make you get her pregnant right there in front of everyone.”

“Yup.” That was a disturbingly accurate description of how she’d behaved. “I pushed her off.”

“Eventually,” he added.

“What?”

“Eventually. She basically had you using her tits as a night mask before you moved away even a little. That’s not cool, man. Girls like ours aren’t going to be OK with that.”

“I know that,” I snapped. “I didn’t want to hurt that woman’s feelings and—”

“But you hurt Jurnie in the process. Was she pissed?”

Fuck. I had hurt Jurnie in the process. Even Van could see it. “I don’t know that I’d call her pissed. She was hurt. Said I made her feel insignificant.”

“Oh, that’s bad.”

Like I needed his commentary on that. “She also said she wasn’t sure she could do this. Watch women hang all over me. Worry about it when we were apart. You fucking know I don’t cheat and she should too.”

“How?” he asked, then he slowly poured more beer into his mouth.

“How what?”

“How should she know? You’ve been together, what? Two weeks? You might love her already, and don’t deny that you do because I fucking know you better than anyone, but it’s been a couple of weeks, for most of which, you were gone.”

“I know, but—”

“You can’t let women hang off you, Bonham,” he said, cutting me off. “You can’t. No matter what. How is she supposed to trust you if you let some woman paw you like property when she’s here? Imagine what she thinks is happening when she isn’t here.”

“Fuck.” I slammed my head against the back of the couch three times. When the fuck had Van become the wise one?

“You never let anyone that close to you but your girl and since I know you’re wondering where the fuck I came up with all of this, Ransom, Dixon, Booker, and Cross told me these things. It’s how they’re able to make their relationships work.”

“What are we talking about?” Daltrey was suddenly there with us but had clearly missed a lot of the conversation. Fucking perfect. I guess my mistakes were going to be trotted out for everyone to see.

“Bonham letting the big-tittied blonde to hang off of him.”

“Oh, yeah.” He slid onto the bench seat by the table. “She offered to blow me behind the buses.” We both waited for the other shoe to drop. “I didn’t take her up on it. Didn’t have time. We had to go.”

I shook my head. None of this was helping. Well… what Van had said was helping, but I doubted that Daltrey had anything to offer in this situation. He hadn’t been in a relationship on the road any more than I had been.

Their chatter fell away for a few minutes, giving me time to think. I had a lot of thinking to do, given that I’d told Jurnie I loved her. She’d said it first, but I was beginning to wonder if she even realized that she’d said it. It couldn’t have been an accident, though.

Thinking about the look on her face when she’d said she needed time crushed me and the more I pictured it, the more it was killing me.

This probably wasn’t what she’d meant when she’d said she needed time. It’d only been a couple of hours since I’d walked away from her in the parking lot. Still, I picked up the phone and chose her name from my contact list.

It rang and rang, but she didn’t answer.

“You’ve reached Jurnie’s phone and I’m not answering. There could be a million reasons why, but if you want me to call you back, leave me a message.”

After the beep, I waited a second before I took a deep breath. “Jurnie, I’m so fucking sorry for how that probably looked today. It meant nothing to me and I wish I could do it all over so you’d be here to see how much I care about your feelings and what you think. I fucking love you, Jurnie, and I know I probably said it at a bad time for you, but I needed you to know while you did your thinking.” I had to take a breath, but I knew I was running out of time before the recording would end. “I need you to know that I don’t want anyone else to be touching me and I sure as fuck don’t want to touch anyone else. Please… just call me so we can talk.”

Then I ended the call.

I had a faint hope she’d hear that and call me back right away, but unfortunately, I sat on that couch most of the night in silence until I just couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

29

Jurnie

Delaney had offered for me to hang out with her in the basement with her on Sunday. Lily was with her dad’s parents and this way, I wouldn’t see my parents much. One look at me and they’d know something was wrong.

Bonham had called me last night, but I’d fallen right asleep after crying for a few hours and missed the call. The only reason I hadn’t called him back was because I wasn’t ready to. I also looked terrible but that was beside the point. I’d told