and then cold. One minute she seems into me, texting me she was jealous of the girls I’d bring around in high school, and the next, she’s running away like I’m coming at her with fangs bared.
“Don’t come in my house,” she says as I’m stepping through the front door.
She turns around again and tries to dart to her room, but I catch her arm. I spin her back to face me, but she zeros in on the floor. Apparently, it’s the most interesting floor in the world, because she won’t turn her attention from it. “Look at me, June.”
“No.”
“Why? I don’t get why you’re so jumpy around me.” I understand that there used to be bad blood between us, but that’s gone now, and I know it. We had a good time making donuts together yesterday. She smiled. We flirted. There’s a different reason she’s so hot and cold.
“Because you’re always showing up when I don’t want you to. Would it have killed you to give me even just a five-minute warning?” I’d apologize, but I don’t want to. I don’t regret showing up without calling.
“Surprise is the spice of life.”
She scoffs at my joke. “I disagree.” Now she’s shrinking—physically shrinking—under my gaze. Her shoulders are slumping in, and she’s crossing her arms and tucking her chin down. It’s so opposite from the strong June I know. “Will you let go of me, please?”
“Where are you going to go if I do?”
“I don’t know, Cabo?”
“June.”
She finally looks at me—or rather, let’s me look at her. She also puts her hands on my chest and shoves me. “I just want to go put my makeup on, okay? Quit being such a jerk all the time.”
“I’m being a jerk? By trying to get you to look in my eyes instead of the floor?”
“You can clearly tell I’m uncomfortable, and you’re pushing it! So yeah, that makes you a jerk.”
She stomps away, and I’m not too proud of it, but my eyes catch on her perfect butt for three full seconds before I go after her. Tiny pictures of Nick Lachey are printed all over her shorts, and he’s never looked so hot to me. “You don’t need makeup, June.”
A mirthless laugh escapes her. “Gosh, I hate lines like that. They’re so untrue. You heard it in a romance movie, so you’re repeating it.”
“Not true. Stop walking,” I say, but she doesn’t even slow a bit. I’m forced to jog to catch up with her as she races through her room toward her bathroom. And yep, you guessed it, I have to stop her from shutting yet another door in my face.
“Ughhh, Ryan, just go away. Please!”
“What’s gotten into you since yesterday? I thought we were getting along better.”
She puts her hands over her face and sounds way more frustrated with me than the situation warrants. “Ryan, I swear to Dolly Parton that if you do not get out of my bathroom right now, I will burn you with my curling iron.”
“That’s it.” And that’s the last thing I say before I scoop her up in my arms. She squeals as I carry her into the walk-in shower.
“What the freak are you doing?! Put me down!”
It’s cute that she’s trying to fight me. Actually, it makes me think I need to teach her some self-defense moves, because her attempt at wrestling out of my arms is just laughable. She’s a puppy, pawing at my shirt, and I just want to snuggle her.
I get us both in the shower and position us under the shower head, one hand on the nozzle. “Tell me why you’re really upset or else I blast us both with cold water.”
I don’t particularly want to douse myself in icy water, but I will if I have to. I have a feeling that everyone in June’s life lets her hide away, keep all her secrets pinned up inside her so she can hurt privately. Not me.
“You’ve lost your mind,” she says, but she’s not squirming anymore.
“Tell me, or we both get a shower.”
Her green eyes bounce up to mine, and I see her stubbornness lurking like a shield. She lifts her chin and wraps her arm more firmly around my neck like she’s settling in for battle. “Do it. I’m not afraid of a little cold water. And there’s nothing to tell. I’m just annoyed that you keep showing up as if I want you around!”
I gave her a chance. I really did.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the neighbors