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JUNE
I clutchmy purse in my lap as we take the long drive home. I’m tense, ready for his touch, hoping he’ll reach out for me every time he moves his hand to the stick shift, and I’m starting to despise myself for it.
Cash doesn’t say anything as he drives. He doesn’t turn on the radio either but the words of the song we danced to are stuck in my head. His side profile is strong, the beard, the aquiline nose a little crooked, his blue eyes focused, lips parted. Lips that have touched me.
Lips I’ll let touch me again.
Cash parks the car outside his house. My mother’s place is dark next door.
Cash unclips his seatbelt and turns toward me. “How much have you had to drink, June?”
“Huh? A cocktail and a shot of tequila. What about you?”
He grunts and leans back against the door.
I take offense to the insinuation that I’m not in control of my faculties. I’m not the type of girl who gets sloppy and falls around drunk in bars. Those days are long gone, lost back in the years of working as a server and having too much fun.
“I don’t want,” he starts. “I’m not going to touch you unless you want to be touched.”
I want him to touch me so bad it hurts, but I keep up my defenses. Because what does it matter if he’s a good man, a gentleman, a person who won’t take advantage of me? He wanted someone else while I pined after him like a fool.
“June.”
I put up a hand. Maybe it is the alcohol talking, but I need him to hear this. “I don’t want to ruin anything,” I say, “and neither do you.”
“Right.”
“But you make it difficult for me when you look at me the way you do, when you talk to me the way you do. Hell, Cash, when you do anything, you make it real difficult.”
“I make it difficult.” He laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “What about you?”
“What about me?” I have shreds of dignity left after Braydon, and I try to collect them. I’m not going to ask him if he likes me like we’re in high school. I’m not going to ask him why he chose her instead of me. I’m not going to—
“Every second I spend with you makes it difficult for me to breathe.”
Damn him to hell. It’s like he’s writing lyrics to a song, and it makes the girl in me swoon and whimper.
“I don’t know what that means.”
Cash runs a hand over the back of his neck. “Come on, June. You know what it means. It means I want you. When I saw that guy with his arms around you,” He grinds his teeth. “I wanted to break his face. I wanted to make him regret it.”
His arm rests on the back of the seat, and his fingers are inches from my skin. “There are plenty of reasons not to do this,” he says. “But we’re adults, right? We can keep it as just physical. No need for emotional attachments.”
His phone trills, and he cusses under his breath.
“It could be Alex,” I say.
Cash grimaces and worms the phone out of his pocket. “Fuck.” He answers it. “Jesse?”
I let out a breath of relief. If it’s not Ganny, then Alex is fine and there’s nothing to worry about. I reach for the door handle.
“Fuck,” Cash grunts. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m on my way.” And then he hangs up and turns to me. “My dad—”
“Is he all right?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve got to get over there.”
“Of course,” I say. “Thanks for the ride home.”
