Finding June (14 page)

“Stop doing that!” Hello there irrational June, it has been a while.

“Stop doing what?”

“Stop always getting in the last word. I hear you. I’m a mess who doesn’t know how to live her life! I get it. Stop trying to fix me!” All of the stress from the rush and the emotions I had no control over were bubbling over, and I was letting them all out on Reece. His green eyes scanned my face and his mouth was set in a thin line.

“You’re not a mess up. But, you are an idiot—”

Although I knew he wasn’t done with his statement, I was enraged and let out a small war cry. Everything I had been feeling this last month, at this moment, was too much. I took a few steps and pushed against his chest, letting out the pent up emotions running through me. I couldn’t help myself right now. Reece had the bad fortune of being on the receiving end of my more intense moments.

I was still trying to wail on Reece when he grabbed my wrists and held them to his chest as I struggled, anger radiating off me. “June! Jesus, calm the fuck down. Let me finish. You’re not a mess up. You’re a smart girl trying to figure out your life. But you’re an idiot because it is not true that nothing affects me. You affect me! Don’t you see, you silly damn girl? I am wholeheartedly affected by you!”

I suddenly stopped struggling in his arms. My eyes were wide and my mouth open, making me look like a scared animal lost in the forest. His grip on me became softer as his hands wrapped around mine. He started to move his thumb around in small circles and stared directly into my eyes, not letting go. He softly said again, “You affect me.”

I had yet to say a word, but instead crushed my lips to him. If I couldn’t yell I could sure as fuck kiss him. At first, it was only a hard meeting of lips, a rush of pent up tension finding release. But then it became more, just like I feared and hoped it would. He was caught off guard at first, but quickly sank into the kiss, opening my mouth while sneaking his tongue into mine. I took my hands away from his and put them through his waves of mahogany hair as our kiss continued. He wrapped his hands around my waist, leaning me back. The meeting of our mouths were frantic and heated as we discovered each other for the first time. The tension we had in the last month hit a point of combustion in this first kiss. It was full of passion, more passion than I had ever felt. I was falling farther into this rabbit hole that was Reece Day.

As I threw the last of my stuff in a bag, I heard a knock on the door. Jo had texted me ten minutes ago saying my ride would be here soon. Jo was actually on time, which for her was weird.

I opened the door to find Reece.

Again.

“I’m going to kill her.”

Reece walked past me and into my living room, completely ignoring my death threats.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Where is your stuff, I can grab it for you,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. He was wearing cargo pants with hiking boots and had a long-sleeved thermal shirt with a nice fitted black jacket on. Apparently, we were
not
going to talk about me attacking him yesterday with my mouth. I had left work so freaking embarrassed, I hid away in my apartment, watched
Rent
and drank two beers. With the emotional mess I was and the beers, I quickly passed out last night. I had a slight headache this morning, but I had popped a few ibuprofen and had some coffee. While my headache was gone, sadly my embarrassment was not.

“Where’s Jolene? I thought she was going to pick me up?”

“She asked me to drive you. She rode up with Bethany, Timmy, and one of his friends.”

Oh yes, Timmy the Bartender. Reece grabbed my bag and asked, “This is it?”

“Yep, I travel light.”

“Cool.”

I guess we weren’t going to talk about yesterday and I was more than okay with it, but unease settled over us, an unease we weren’t used to. I had fought hard for the friendship we had, not wanting to complicate things, but then I went and did a stupid thing like kiss him. A passionate kiss I had never experience with anyone else, but still a kiss. Friends don’t kiss without it becoming complicated.

Why had I kissed him? I was attracted to him, but there were a sea of hot guys out there. No, I knew there was more to it. Reece treated me differently. He never let my insecurities become an issue and didn’t let me wallow too much in them. He challenged my views and forced me to see things differently.

The slamming of the door took me out of my thoughts. I got into his beloved Eleanor and we were off into the mountains. This ride was different from the carefree one of Wednesday. I couldn’t shut off my mind; it was in overdrive. I couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday even though I was trying to keep a plain look on my face. I was known to wear my heart on my sleeve, and I didn’t want Reece to know what was running through my head. The road up to McCall was familiar, I had driven it many times and was able to get lost in the scenery, calming my head a bit.

“You can plug in your phone if you want to listen to music.” Reece handed me the auxiliary cord. I took my phone out of my purse and put on Third Eye Blind, a band that never got old. As “Motorcycle Drive By”
played through the speakers, Reece looked at me and said quietly, “No worries this weekend, June. Enjoy yourself. You don’t have to figure anything out right away.”

I guess I wasn’t as good at hiding my emotions as I thought.

So far the trip hadn’t gone at all like I had planned, but for me, that was nothing new. We had gotten to the cabin with little conversation between Reece and I. Dinner had been pleasant. It was the six of us, but Timmy and Bethany were trying to set Jolene up with Timmy’s friend, Frank, so it had been split up into a couple thing. Which of course left me and Reece paired up, only increasing the awkward haze that surrounded us.

There were two bedrooms and a loft with a bed in it. Everyone had shacked up, but I refused to share a bed with Reece, who was in the loft. I would be fine on the couch. Reece offered to give me the bed, but I stubbornly refused. It was late at night when everyone finally went to sleep. The rest drank a lot of beer and tequila shots. I had a few beers, but wasn’t going overboard; I wanted to enjoy my weekend rather than be hungover. Finally, I had the living room to myself. I changed into my pajamas and grabbed a blanket to sleep with.

It was quiet as I settled in with my cup of tea. The wind was blowing and I could hear the rustle of fallen leaves outside of the cabin. The fire was slowly burning through the logs that had been thrown on over an hour ago, a melody of reds and orange pulsing in the fireplace. There was a small light over the sink in the kitchen still on, giving a soft glow to the large room. I was starting to take in each moment I had to myself and was thankful for it. It gave me time to sort out my jumbled thoughts.

I grabbed the book I had brought, remembering how much I had loved to read. As I started to read the steamy romance, it didn’t take long for me to quickly drift off into a semi-sleep stage. I found myself in a dream, sensing someone behind me. I could hear water running, and in my dream I turned around to see Reece standing on a rock in the middle of a mystical lake with a waterfall flowing in the background. He was only wearing swim trunks, and the water droplets that were highlighted by the shining sun were placed ever so effectively on his chest, which by the looks of it, was a very nicely toned chest. He smiled his signature crooked half-smile, which irritated me and made my heart race at the same time. All I wanted to do was to jump into the lake and swim to him, close the distance as fast as I could, but instead I stood there frozen. He called to me, but all I did was stare. I saw him reach his hand up, and felt a pressure on my shoulder, only to refocus, finding myself on the couch with Reece’s face close by. The dreamy look he’d had in the dream was more concerned in real life.

I came to my senses to see Reece was right in front of me with a well-toned chest, which matched the one I had seen in the dream. With this realization, I freaked and flailed.

To my dismay, I freaked and flailed myself right off the couch, knocking off the—now cold—half cup of tea and spilling it all over the floor. As I hit the ground, I saw the tea mug flip and felt my head hit the coffee table. I was all grace at this point, and by grace I mean as graceful as an elephant. I’m pretty sure I had even made a noise that resembled one as well.

Reece tried to grab me as I freaked and flailed, only to end up landing on top of me. In my attempts to get myself out of this awkward situation, which was becoming increasingly more awkward every second I was under Reece, I tried to turn myself so I was on my back to get a better bearing of what was going on. I flipped and found myself only inches away from Reece. A raging fire of heat radiated between us, both of us breathing heavily. I gently put my hand on his chest, his heart beating feverishly. We laid there, breathless, and it became apparent that I couldn’t figure out if I was breathless because of the falling or the fact Reece was on top of me in a compromising position. After what seemed to be forever, but was probably only a few moments, he quickly pushed himself off of me and brought himself to a standing position. He offered his hand and I grabbed it, hauling myself out of the tight space between the couch and coffee table.

“I’m sorry. You were staring and—” he started to say.

At the same time, I said, “Sorry, that wasn’t my most—”

We both stopped. Yep, this was getting better by the second. My brain caught up with my mouth and I blurted out, “Wait, What? I was staring?”

Reece reached up and ran his hand through his messy hair. “Uh, well yeah, I figured you heard me in the kitchen and you looked up from the couch. You were staring, but didn’t seem quite awake.”

That’s because he was tempting me with his water-dripped, toned chest in a waterfall filled lake, yeah that would explain the staring, until I realized he was still here in the flesh without a shirt on. I felt the blush creep up my face as I quickly damned my white as white skin.

He continued on, “I couldn’t sleep. I came out here to grab some water, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No, no it’s okay. I drifted off.” And now, I was more than awake.

Seconds passed by without a sound before I decided I had to fix this situation. “If you can’t sleep, you can sit with me,” I offered.

He put on that damn attractive half-smile, using his easy ways to smooth over the last five minutes. “If you don’t mind. I don’t want to keep you up.”

“No, I don’t mind. Please, sit down,” I said in a bit of my server voice. I internally cringed and turned around to grab the mug I had dropped. I hated this. We were acting so formal instead of the easiness we usually had. I took the mug to the sink to see he had already grabbed a towel and was cleaning up the liquid. That was the thing about servers; if there was a spill we were lightning fast at grabbing what we needed to clean it up.

After we made sure everything was clean, we both sat down on the couch … on opposite ends, of course, putting as much distance between us as possible.

At this point, I knew what I needed to say. I knew this was the perfect opportunity to address whatever was going on between us. “Hey,” I started. Reece locked eyes with me, like he knew what was coming. I continued, “I’m sorry for this last month. You always seem to be around during my breakdowns and end up getting the brunt of my pent up frustrations. And I shouldn’t have kissed you yesterday when all I want is to be friends. It isn’t fair to you or to me.”