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

“I’m Bonham, by the way,” I told her quietly, having leaned down close to her cheek. To anyone else, it would look like I was whispering sweet things to my girl. Which was exactly how I wanted it to look.

“Jurnie Evans,” she whispered back.

For some reason, that name seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It wasn’t like Jurnie was a real common name, but damn. Nothing came to mind.

Jurnie ordered a grande iced mocha. When I pulled my card out to pay, she protested.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “You’re already doing me a huge favor.”

I shrugged. “What kind of boyfriend would I be if you bought your own coffee?”

She pinched her lips between her teeth as she fought back a smile.

We waited for them to call her name, though she’d told them it was Michelle. Weird, but I thought maybe she didn’t want her name called out for everyone, including her shadow over there, to hear it.

The weirdest part of this was that I’d told her my first name, also not common, and she could see me, yet she didn’t seem to recognize me and she hadn’t said a word about Pushing Daisies. Now, that wouldn’t have been unusual anywhere else—we weren’t Courting Chaos yet. But locally, people tended to recognize us. Even in Detroit. Even people who didn’t listen to our music tended to recognize the names. There’d been so many articles over the years in local papers about the family band. About us making our first record. All of it.

Her indifference was kind of refreshing if you ask me.

I led her over to a small two-person table across the café on the opposite side of where the guy was lingering. Eventually, he’d get the idea and fuck off.

“So what’s going on?” I took a drink of my now not-so-hot coffee.

“I was looking at some books and that guy can’t seem to take no for an answer.”

“How do you mean?” Anger boiled in the pit of my stomach. Men like that gave us all a bad name and while I might not have known Jurnie, I was pissed off for her.

“He asked for my number. I said no. He asked for my Snap, I said no. I told him I have a boyfriend and he didn’t believe me.” She finally glanced that way without looking like she was. “And not that I’m with you, he’s still there. Frustrating.”

“He’ll go away and I won’t leave until he does,” I assured her. She gave me the most grateful smile I’d ever been on the receiving end of. “That why you came up to me?”

“Yes.” She took a long drink from the straw and all I could focus on were her full lips and the suction she was using to get the coffee. Fuck. There was something wrong with me. She was in trouble and I shouldn’t have been thinking of her that way. “I’ve seen all these videos from guys who say that if you’re in danger or whatever come up to them and they’ll pretend to be your boyfriend or brother or whatever you need.” Those deep green eyes settled on me as she shrugged. “I decided to give it a try.”

“Well, I’m glad you picked me.” For so many reasons, but damn, I wanted her safe.

“Why do guys do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” That was the truth. I didn’t understand why other guys did most of the things they did. Fuck, I didn’t understand why I did most of the things I did.

“I mean, look at him.” She reached out quickly and put her hand on my arms. “I mean, don’t actually look at him, but he’s still there. Now he should think I’m with you and he’s still hanging around. I wouldn’t think it was because of me, I don’t have that big of an ego, but he keeps watching.” Her eyes widened suddenly. “And now he’s coming this way.”

Now it was my turn to make this thing look real. I pulled her hand into mine and lifted it so that both of our elbows were on the table, but our hands were intertwined in the air. Moving my fingers over her knuckles slowly, I noticed the slight hitch in her voice and the way she nibbled on her bottom lip. I raised an eyebrow as a smile twitched on my tips.

This was affecting her.

“Are you having dinner with your parents tonight?” I asked in a much louder voice. Not yelling, but not the private whispering we’d been doing.

“Yes. You can come,” she offered, catching on to what I was doing while this asshole floated around us.

“Nah, baby. You know your parents don’t like me.”

She snorted. “It’s the tattoos.” She ran the hand I wasn’t holding over my other arm. Her touching me softly made my dick semi-hard. “I mean, I love them, but you know my dad.”

I didn’t but wondered how much of this would be true.

She looked like a good girl, as my grandpa would’ve said. She wasn’t dressed trashy, not even semi-provocatively. There wasn’t even a hint of cleavage, sadly. Yet the way her clothes hugged her body was a fucking turn-on. She smiled and talked like she wasn’t trying to impress anyone and something about the way she carried herself made me believe she was good a person.

Still, she hadn’t mentioned Pushing Daisies at all. Though neither of us had talked about our jobs.

“What do you do?” I asked her once he was no longer within earshot.

“Like a job?” she asked. I nodded. “Oh, I’m in school.”

“Fuck,” I muttered as I fought the urge to pull my hand back. “Please tell me you mean college.”

Jurnie giggled and it was such a sweet sound. “Yes. College. I have a year left.”

“Thank fuck.” I still hadn’t let go of her hand and she hadn’t pulled it away. “Sorry. I had a moment of panic.”

“I get it. But yes. I’m in college. Oh,