She smiles and her hand runs along my cheek. A move she does when I’ve pleaded a good case. She did it right before agreeing to leave a few things at my house in a drawer. Or when I bought her a toothbrush to keep at my house.
Then she looks at the worn floorboards and the smile strips from her face and her hand leaves my skin. “I’m sorry, Colton, I can’t.” She shuts the ring box.
“What?” All the breath leaves my body.
“We’re happy, aren’t we? We don’t need rings and a legal piece of paper.”
“I do,” I say, anger growing inside me.
“Why?” she asks innocently, as if it’s an everyday question.
“Because I want us to build a life, and for me, that includes a wife. Not a girlfriend. Not a live-in roommate. Actually.” My eyes go wide. “I don’t even have a live-in roommate because you won’t move in with me.”
“I told you. It’s hard for me. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want something to happen to you.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me because you marry me. Why do you think just because I’m in your life and you’re happy, something bad is going to happen?”
She stares at her hands. “Can we please just go back to the way things have been? We’re happy. Why mess that up?”
“Because we can be happier. Because we can commit our futures to one another.”
“I am committed to you.”
I shake my head, the crease between my eyebrows deepening. “You’re not.”
“I am. You can’t say I’m not.” Her voice rises to match mine. “Not wanting a marriage says nothing about my commitment.”
“To me it does. I get that there are couples out there who don’t care about the piece of paper or shared names, and that’s great for them. They got what they wanted. But I want a wife. I want a Mrs. Stone. I want my kids and my wife to share the same name as me. I want to promise to the entire world that I will cherish you all the days of my life. I want us to sleep in the same bed every night.”
“We do sleep in the same bed every night.”
I shove the ring box in my pocket. “You have to be fucking kidding me. I gotta go.”
“Don’t leave.” She grabs my arm, but I go around her, climbing down the ladder.
I stop when I’m chest level with the floorboards. “Just so you know, when you want to blame someone for us not working out, look in the mirror, Juno. Look in the mirror.”
I climb the rest of the way down the ladder and walk around the side of the house.
Austin meets me on the other side of the garage with Easton strapped to his chest. He probably heard me.
“Hey, Colt,” he says, reaching for my arm. “Let’s just talk this out. Let me speak with her. She loves you. I know she does.”
I turn around and toss him the ring box before climbing into my truck. “Tell Juno she can get her stuff out of my house because I’ll be gone for the rest of the weekend.”
“No. Don’t go saying something like that because you’re angry.” Austin follows me. “Come on, you’re like a brother to me. Let me just give Easton to Holly and we can talk.”
“I can’t. I gotta get out of here.” I start the truck.
He backs away because of the loud noise. I see him soothing Easton and I feel bad, but I have to get as far as I can from Juno and any of the Baileys.
Thirty
Juno
I pull a picture off the string. It’s the one of my parents with Colton and me at my birthday when I turned thirteen, just weeks before they died. We didn’t have huge parties growing up, but we were all allowed to take one friend and go anywhere we wanted. I chose Colton and asked to go rafting. It’s a picture of us all right before we got on.
My arm is slung over Colton’s shoulders, my parents smiling with one hand on each of our shoulders. All of us in swimsuits with life preservers on.
I curl into a ball and hold the picture to my chest, crying because I desperately want to get over this fear. Doesn’t Colton know that? Why won’t he give me any more time?
“Juno Bailey!” Grandma Dori screams up to me from below. “I will not come up there, but you are getting your little tushy down here right now!”
I wipe my cheeks then peer down the hole, and sure enough, she’s standing at the bottom of the ladder, glaring at me. “I’m not changing my mind. He’s rushing me and I’m not ready.”
“He’s not rushing anything. The two of you have been friends since you were six. If anything, he’s going too slow. I told him not to accommodate you, that you had to face reality.”
“That’s nice grandma, tell him to push me to limits I’m not ready for.”
“Ugh.” She turns toward the house. “I’m going up, Austin, call the paramedics if I fall and record this… Juno gets nothing if I fall and die. She’s cut from my will for making me go up there.”
I throw my hands in the air. “Don’t come up, I’ll come down.”
“Too late now, missy. Make room for me.”
I blow out a breath and slide to the back of the treehouse to give her room.
She comes up, huffing and puffing and scolds me with her eyes.
“I told you I’d come down,” I grumble.
“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” She sits down and takes a few breaths. “You’ve always been my hardest one.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” I say.
“Oh, stop it with your dramatics.”
I hear someone else coming up the ladder. I assume it’s Austin, but rather than joining us, his hand slides two books across the floorboards.
“Are we sure this is still stable?” Grandma tests the weight where she’s sitting and picks up the books.
“I’m sorry, okay? I do love him, but he’s rushing me into moving in together and now marriage. We’ve only been together for, like, six months.” I pull my legs up to my chest and wrap my arms around them.
“This isn’t about you and Colton. This is about you and an irrational fear. You’d think I’d have it easy and all of you would be wounded in the same way after your parents died, but no, each of you are so different. You came out thinking that the more you need someone, the more likely they’ll be stripped away from you.”
“That’s not true,” I say.
She gives me her bored look. The one that says she’s the wise woman, listen to her. “Because you had Colton, I left you alone growing up. I didn’t pry too much because I naively thought you were open and honest with him about your struggles. That you told him your fears and worries. I see now I was wrong.” She points at me. “And you can put that in the books because I rarely admit when I’m wrong.”
I make a checkmark in the air.
She scowls. “It wasn’t until you came to my apartment all those months ago that I realized you were lost. That you didn’t have your head on your shoulders like I thought.”
“Is this supposed to be an uplifting conversation?”
“Let me get to my point.”